The Rising Sun: Episode 6

The Rising Sun

Clocks

BOOK ONE

J HAWK

Copyright
© 2014 J Hawk

EPISODE 6

The darkness was absolute.

And through it, Ion could hear the faintest
tingle of a strange, cold noise … it came as a mere echo, bouncing
within the walls, reaching his ears only just in time to fade back
to nothing. But it was the single most terrifying thing he knew he
would ever hear his entire life.

It felt like a creature’s breathing…

And it rose and fell rhythmically, so that
every pore of him strained in trying to hear it clearly.

Fighting the effect of the freeze shot, he
strained his throat and shouted, “Who’s there!”

For the meanest flicker of a heartbeat, he
thought he saw something through the darkness. Something flash for
the split second. But it was gone as soon as it had come, and it
left ion’s blood now thundering through his veins.

Qyro and Vestra were still out cold, lying
slumped by the wall feet across where he was. Ion’s widened eyes
flew about the place rapidly, trying to catch sight of the strange
entity.

“Show yourself, coward!”

And the cold breathing noise broke into a
ripple of what was, without a doubt … laughter.

And as the creature’s icy laughter died out,
something far more terrifying happened.

“Show myself?” came a voice through the
darkness, a voice that seemed to leave a stab of chill in the air
with every word it spoke. A terrible, dementing voice. “you want me
… to show myself, do you?”

Another cackle of laughter burst forth
through the voice, and it sounded like a rain of icy daggers
stabbing at the world around it. “Very well, boy. You asked.”

And out of the darkness, a smoky figure
swirled to life, a figure Ion had seen before.

Frost the demon looked just every bit
terrifying as he remembered him in Mantra’s flashback. But now,
facing him in live form, the terror had shrieked well off limits.
Ion’s heart had clutched his chest as he stared into the demon’s
icy blue eyes. His entire form seemed to have been made of a pale
blue smoke like substance, hardened to give him a partly solid
appearance. Seeming to be part solid, part smoke, his face amidst
the fumes of blue swirling around him.

He drew in a swift, long inhale, and his pale
blue features re formed into a cold smile.

“I sense great pain ahead for you.” His smoky
form slowly glided over the smooth ground, and with every feet
shrinking between them. “That’s the reason I’m here right now.
Because if you see my face … then you’re in hell.”

And without warning, the demon held up both
hands.

And suddenly, the world had dissolved.

It was all happening again…

Ion was five years old again … Marion and
Selia were crying as he and Eol were dragged off by the
authorities…

And then, commander Rox was bearing down on
him with an insane smile…

And then there was pain. Pain like no other.
Millennial pain. He was being tortured … driven insane with cruel
experiments subjected on him.

And then, he was standing before the graves
of his parents, feeling his vision blur with tears…

The vigilante’s body rolled over and Ion saw
his brother’s face … Eol’s face.

“NOOO!!!”

Ion awoke back in reality. The paralysed
effect of the freeze shot had vaporised: the pain he had re lived
had surged through him like an electric current, and he was now
crouching on all fours, his breath thundering.

“No, you say?” laughed a terrifying voice,
and frost stepped closer to where he lay, his hands outstretched
towards him. “But the fun’s just begun!”

And Ion vaguely felt the scream rip his
throat as the world around him faded once more…

“
You’re not my brother…” the dying words
of his brother seemed to rebound within Ion’s head.

“
No…” he pleaded, holding Eol within his
hands.

“
You’re not Ion…”

And his brother’s eyes rolled upwards and
were still.

A scream of eternal agony filled the air
around, as he threw his head back and shrieked.

He was back in the dark hall with the smoky
figure of the demon standing over him, his face blazing with brutal
glee.

Ion felt his boy hit the cold floor, his robe
soaked with sweat. He lay there in a crumpled heap, trembling in
the cold.

Everything seemed to have weakened within
him.The demon was sucking the light out of his being, forcing him
to face the darkest corners of his soul.

He couldn’t … he couldn’t face it … he
couldn’t face the horrors nesting within his mind.

The smoke from the demon’s horrid form had
now swirled around him and enclosed him. The demon’s face was seen
painted over the smoke, a cold smile on his lips, his icy blue eyes
gleaming.

“Relish the pain, Ion … because
pain
is where you belong.”

And the world faded again. And now Ion was
staring at the poster, unable to face the truth, of what he had
become…

Ion was reliving it. The worst, possible
memory.

The poster … The creature in the poster,
seeing it for the first time with newly opened eyes. And the pain
scorched his soul whole…

Ion’s eyes flew open in the real world, as he
shook uncontrollably on the frigid ground beneath. The swirling,
pale blue smoke raced around him in a speeding ring, and through
it, he could see the outline of the demon.

Ion felt his lungs squeeze as everything
gushed back. The guilt. The regret. And lastly, the
fear
.
Fear of the past.

Fear of
himself
…

And suddenly, everything had dissolved
again. And now, through the endless blackness, Ion heard a howl of
laughter … a laughter that had tortured his being for two years now
… And the creature with the glowing red eyes and the pale skin was
standing before him, the creature from the poster. The thing that
Ion had been outrunning forever now … and he had now caught up with
him. His past had caught up with him.

“
No,” Ion felt himself sink to his knees
in the endless chasm, his hands clutching his head. “You’re gone …
I’m no longer you …”

“
I am forever a part of you,” said the
creature, bending forward, his lips pulled back in a terrible leer.
“And you, forever a part of
me.”

“Make it stop…” he moaned, as he tossed about
the floor, all the pain he had ever felt in his life seizing him
whole.

Frost stood before him amidst the swirling
fumes, relishing the agony that he caused to gush up in the boy …
connecting with, and re awakening the demons of his own soul.

As he tapped into the boy’s mind, stirring
the pain harbouring inside of it, frost felt a savage glee like
nothing. One no other victim of his torture had ever presented him
with…

I like you, boy.
he thought
ruthlessly, as Ion thrashed on the floor before him, amidst the
swirling fumes.
There is more darkness within you than most
others I’ve tortured, and the shadows of your mind draw me…

He battered at Ion with a vicious
relentlessness, causing him to cover his face and toss about on the
floor. This was the reason frost existed. To kill. And slowly. This
was what he did best. He forced his victims to drown in the dark
sides of their own selves, and watched them die slowly.
Painfully.

The fumes from his own form spun around the
entire place rapidly, drenching it in a pale blue haze.

Two other unconscious Nyon lay in the room.
But Frost had little interest in them: he could sense the outlines
of their beings and knew that they had very less pain to offer him.
The real feast was the red haired boy lying before him now … Frost
relished every drop of the agony he caused in him. Soon, he would
be scoured of life completely … And when frost was done with him,
the other two would join him as well. The first three casualties of
his volcanic wrath, pent up across eight thousand years of
waiting…

“What do you think you’re doing?” came an
unfazed voice from behind him.

Jolted, frost spun around.

Amidst the swirling smoke, he could see that
the double doors to the hall had been thrown open behind him. And
standing there calmly was Mantra.

Frost tilted his head slightly, letting a few
seconds pass.

Mantra … the same Mantra he had known eight
thousand years back. The one who had been responsible for their
fall eight thousand years back.

Frost allowed his features to gleam in a
smile. The savage thrill that he was now feeling burned
stronger.

“I’m slaughtering,” he said, gesturing to
Ion, who stirred feebly on the ground before him. “As I slaughtered
thousands
…” His smile pulling longer mildly, he turned back
and raised his hands slowly. “And as I shall now slaughter
you
.”

As he prepared to burst a torrent of ice onto
the short man before him, the space between the two of them was
suddenly lit in a dazzling orange flare. The force of it knocked
frost off his feet, sending him flying across and smashing into the
opposite wall. As he bounced off the wall and righted himself, his
eyes widened.

“There will be only one
slaughter,
”
said Nano, his fiery outline dispelling the gloom and chill that
had immersed the inside of the large hall. “And it will be
you.”

Mantra slowly sidled up by the side of the
leader of the watchmen. And as the pale blue smoke slowly faded,
leaving clarity to flow through again, frost’s gaze wandered out
the door behind where Mantra and Nano stood…

And spread outside, were a thousand
distasteful, familiar figures.

“Watchmen.” Frost hissed, feeling his fists
tighten.

He looked at Mantra and said, “Mark my words,
this isn’t over.” He glanced down at Ion. “Don’t worry, we’ll meet
again, Ion.”

And with that, he exploded into a cloud of
pale blue smoke, fleeing for his life.

Dusk was falling over the sky, which was
turning mild red. The sun lay half sunken beneath the horizon, a
crimson glow upon the sky around it. Mantra stood watching from
inside the building where the tablet had been. The breathtaking awe
of the scene slipped right past his mind, which was in the grip of
worries … or one particular worry. Which outweighed any other he
had experienced his whole life.

The Xeni have the crystal.

But that wasn’t all. Far from it.

And … Valicros, the most powerful
tablet.
Mantra had, in his eight thousand years, never felt a
crushing hopelessness as he was feeling now. But he wrestled his
mind off it, knowing that if there was ever a time that desperately
needed them to keep their mind steeled, it was now…

Outside, spread over the large city, stood
the army of watchmen, all of them calmly waiting for their next
course of action. Which would go on to be their most crucial course
of action.

He turned and walked back to the inside of
the large hall. Nano and Dantox were both inside with their arms
folded. Vestra and Qyro had awoken, and were sitting with their
backs against the walls across the place. A look of dull
helplessness had settled over both their faces.

And by the side of the double door in front,
lying in a small heap, was Ion. His eyelids fluttered as he stirred
feebly, slowly waking from his semi conscious state. Mantra felt a
stab of pity for what he was well aware the boy had just faced…

Frost, like all demons, had the capacity to
inflict torture like no other on his victims … mental torture. And
this was the deadliest mode of torture, which left no visible
marks.