Thursday, June 9, 2005

Prologue: Tears of Fire

He wept. Tears of hot anger, pooling at his knees as he cursed the gods above that did this to him. Tears of pure, molten blasphemy that mingled with the falling, tainted tears of the heavens. His screams of rage, the cries of a torn soul, echoing deafly against the backdrop of the staccato rainfall impacts. It wasn't death that did this to him. Not death as morality, as society sees it. It was the death of hope. Betrayal, by the gods, by his friends. Or perhaps it had all been a lie. His tears, unseen against the onslaught of the gently falling rains, flowed from eyes that now narrowed, eyes that now bore the trademark of the inner demon called Vengeance. But it hadn't always been so... --------------------------- "MATTHEW! HURRY UP!! GET YOUR LAZY ASS OUTTA BED AND DO THE DAMN DISHES!!!" A groan accompanied the ever-present screams of Jack Talbain. His eldest son, Matthew, shook the last vestiges of sleep from his eyes. He sat up, forgetting, as he did every morning, that he slept on the bottom bunk of a half-unused bunk-bed. A round of brutal swearing, enough to make sailors blush, ensued as he nursed the top of his head. Another round of swearing ensued as his movements disturbed the bandages on his bruises. He sighed as he finally settled into a semi-painless state of being. That being wrapped in his quilt on the floor of his bedroom. He straightened, stood, and yawned, carefully removing the baggy jeans and boxers around his hips as he stepped into the shower down the hall. Ignoring the sting of the hot water permeating his bandages, ignoring the stabs of agony the water forced through him as it sluiced over his wounds, he focused on cleaning himself to the best of his ability. Opening his black eyes, however, he could no longer ignore any of it. The red blood tingeing the water pink was too much, even for him. His dry heaves ceased after five minutes, and he climbed from the shower, his hair hanging limp and black against his forehead. The tint of pink in the suds that tenaciously clung to his hair evident, he gave an angry shake of his head and bent to cleaning the shower of the blood still in evidence. An hour later, Matthew Kitsen Talbain sat down to breakfast, ignoring rather expertly the yells of his father. His tight blue jeans, plain gray t-shirt, and blue-jean jacket covered enough of his body to hide the new bandages already turning bloody. He cried inwardly, hating his life and all that was in it. He stood up and hastily cleaned the dishes before his father had another excuse to yell and scream. At him. As he finished the task, he grabbed his housekey and left the apartment, grabbing a bagel on the way ou and ignoring the waking-sounds of his older sister, the twenty-two year old June, and his younger siblings, the fourteen year old Lynn and the nine year old Henri. Matthew, seventeen himself, rushed down the street to the bus stop, chewing his bagel hastily and paying the fare when the bus came. He smiled as his stop neared. He thanked the conductor, exited the bus, entered the NetCafe, ordered a calming cherry Italian soda, and logged onto his stations instant messenger. Matthew's hobbies during the summer were admittedly few. Mostly, he read books and exercised. occasionally, he would play video games with his three best friends: Mark, 18; Chris, 16, and Val, 17. Otherwise, he wrote and dreamed. Until the night he met HER. He'd been online in the cafe, searching for a book on his favorite HotStop website, when he decided he could just look for the book elsewhere. He was about to log off when he, out of the blue, checked the city map and cross-referenced it with a search for "Helltiger". A single hit, a news article expanding on the city wondering when the Helltiger would "grace" Pool Hall, a famous city bar, with his presence. Matt smiled, idling tracing the striped scar on his cheek that had earned him that pitfighting tag. The search had taken up his time beyond his original intentions. As he turned to log off, he realized he was still on the HotStop forum site. He almost clicked the little "x" when her message came in. FireflySprite12: Umm...hi. And he replied. ------------------------ Admittedly, it hadn't been the smartest thing to do, accepting that message and opening the way for his walls to fall. But with her gone, it didn't matter anymore what the past said. It only mattered what his eyes would say. What those narrowed slits would say once he found his target. Jack would pay. Jack, Nicole, everyone would pay. Everyone responsible for taking her from him... His hand clenched, brushing against his father's discarded Shogun .45 special. A cruel, hard edge formed along the ethereal blade of his eyes. And still the tears of his white-hot fury fell, mingling with the remorse of the heavens as his soul cried out for her, his body and heart aching for hers, even as his mind began to form his unyielding revenge. Still, through the rage, the shame, and the cold, the tears fell. ---------------------------- ---------------------------- So whatcha think? Something I'm writing up in my spare time. Thought you guys might like to see the preview. One chapter at a time, though.

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