5 Chapter 5: The Blessing of the Shadow (2/2)

Eventually, the pain faded to a dull roar, and though Luca wasn't sure what had happened, he had the distinct feeling that whatever had been broken in his back had already begun to mend back together. The thoughts of the creeping shadow banished momentarily as his mind cleared, and he began to notice a stabbing, searing sensation radiate up from his legs.

My legs? Thought Luca, the residual pain and fear temporarily banished by the thought that he could feel something from his legs. He couldn't see anything below his waist, but he could feel, and as he trailed his hands down his body, Luca realized he could feel the sensation of the pressure exerted by his fingers on his legs.

Alone in the dark, Luca smiled at himself at the thought and its implications. But the celebration was short-lived as he felt warm liquid sticky on his fingertips. For a moment, Luca believed he had managed to urinate on himself. An accident caused by the fall but dismissed it once he recognized the smell of iron. His pants were warm with blood, not piss. He was bleeding.

The burning sensation Luca had felt had originated from a jagged rock that had punctured his leg and was protruded out the other side like a rock spike. The magic that was working to restore feeling to his legs had become a curse as the nerves awoke. Progressively increasing the intensity of the pain, he felt.

Impaled upon the rock, Luca screamed and cried in pain. Alternating between screaming for help and sobbing in self-pity. Hours passed, maybe days, the desire for food and water he had felt before was all but replaced only by the constant pain he was in. Even as the consistent fear of the shadows that haunted the dark of the cave surrounding him lingered.

In all of his suffering, Luca begged for death. Asking for a release from the pain he was in and the suffering that his life had become. This was a reminder of his worst nightmare, the worst day of his life. Just like with the car, Luca was once again found himself trapped. Trapped, unable to remove himself from the rock his leg was impaled on.

Physically Luca was too weak to pull his body from it, and mentally he could not bring himself to try and force it. ”Why me?” He cried to the dark, but nothing answered as the dark shadows from before started to form around him, their presence disturbing the air and filling it with the pulse of malice.

Ultimately Luca stopped begging for someone to help him and starting to vow revenge. Revenge against the men who had taken him from the car and thrown him down into this hole. Revenge against the strange man, the elf known as Master Oeviss, who had condemned him to this Hell. Revenge against everyone who looked the other way instead of helping him. Luca vowed that if he should ever leave this place, he would never again be so weak. Never again would he be a victim.

Luca's thoughts filled with madness. An inner darkness had awoken within him that dulled the pain. His hate feeding on his suffering, numbing him to everything in a way that no anesthetic ever could. Eventually, he passed out in exhaustion. His cheeks caked with dust mixed with the tears he had shed. As he lay sleeping, the swirling shadows emerged again, collapsing on Luca's sleeping form. Whispering into his ear as he slept, feeding his mind thoughts of dark ambition and darker futures.

The dark entity in its hunger whispered, hunched over Luca's unconscious body as it spoke to him. ”If you seek this power, and should you find it? What will you do with it?”

From deep within his sleep, Luca responded, looking out into the void past the darkness into the future. His expression hardening into something sinister as he gazed upon that elsewhere, reflective of the dream that had been whispered to him. A vision of the flock of crows he had seen on the road. His eyes slowly opened in a trance, showing only furrows of crimson red and responded in a voice deeper than the boy should have been capable of producing. ”Power.”

The shadows laughed in contentment. A shadowy arm reaching out to the boy and stroked his face. ”Well, then little one. I, Amarath, the Immortal accept you. You have passed my trial. On my behalf, you will bring calamity upon the race of men and be the iron upon which they sharpen themselves. Then and only then may they come to escape Aeon's Blight.”