A young boy surveys the crowd, which bickers and squabbles in a
raucous din. His bright purple eyes lack their usual lustre. In sorrow,
he tries to call out to the people he knew, but none payed him any
heed, his small voice paltry compared to the argument at hand.
”Armand, am I doing right?” he whispers under his breath.
A chill descends on the area surrounding the boy as the spirits of
the dead, generations of enlightened who came before him, begin to
could around him, invisible to the others, but very dear to the purple-
eyed boy. Their presence eases his anxiety, comforting him like a
warm embrace. ”Will they be alright?”
A raspy, deathly voice responds, heard only by the boy.
”Yes. They art but troubled souls, spurred into this antic disposition
by a crushing fear of the foul beings that walk among them.” The
boy nods, but his fears do not subside. ”What do I do?” he asks,
stifling tears of fear and sorrow. He has no need to hide his true
feelings from the spirits.
Ever since the death of Armand, he has been lost. The other
enlightened fear him and the chill that follows him wherever he
treads. “They’ll accept me when older” he had convinced himself.
“They just can’t see me as anything but a child.”
The constant roar of the crowd suddenly subsided and one voice
rang out in accusation. One of the foul beings, posing as a scared
villager like the others, pointed in the direction of the young boy.
”Armand can’t have been behind this plot. There must be another!”
cried the figure who had once been both a baker and a locksmith
before succumbing to an awful state of undeath, ”I can only believe
that it is one who has been fooling us this whole time. One we
would never suspect, the lad!.
The spirits swirled around him and the figure of Armand appeared. ”Tis the time for you to embrace fate and take action. When thou come of age you shall lead the villagers to the sacred path, but for that future to fulfilled, you must save them now. You, who hear the dead, must banish those who deny them.”
As the entire village stared him down, the young boy stepped
forward. The spirits retreated, returning inside him and inspiring him
to move forward. Doing the best to match the words that first
enlightened him, he recited: ”My name is PentaFlare. You may call
me Petros by all means. I have seen the light of truth and you can
too, but first, we must rid this village of those who follow the path
of darkness.”
The young boy lifted a stick from the ground and felt the power of
the spirits inside him course into it. ”Foul being. I know your true
nature! I will expose you and I will banish you from this village!”