Kage opened his eyes to find himself on his old bed. A diagonal stitching had sewn the grizzly visage of exploding heroes crying in victorious jubilation. Noteworthy of them all was Unity's gleaming smile punctuated by the crooked thumb raised along by accordance of a golden eagle cawing from his chest.
'Ah, what a brilliant suit.'
Kage could remember just as if it was yesterday he saw the man 'DEMON' float on by their patio. Bulging back muscles elevated the tons of concrete threatening to crack as an apartment complex was transported to safety. Yet, what is that among the muck? Something lay beneath that face of his. It sickened the boy as beneath the fleshy plaster that composed the hero's mask was a beast. A beast that brought even greater nightmares to the forefront.
He reached out with his hand making to tear away the man's vile face, besmirching it from this dream. Instead what he saw was a dark shadowy appendage. It bunched together to create four finger-like talons, three being for the center while the fourth in place as an elongated, sharp thumb. What perplexed him further was the material creating this dark mass that had overtaken his body. At a glance they seemed to be a solid structure that looped and winded around each other creating strong cords, but on closer inspection they wafted about with a light hiss of black steam billowing away in fine strips.
Floating the hand some more before what he recognized as his eyes did Kage realize another aspect. The strips may have been solid but bent around the gentlest breeze much like the strands to a jellyfish dragging behind in the ocean.
Kage withdrew his hand seeing that the covers had been torn to shreds but somehow he hadn't noticed. In this form he couldn't even feel the coldness from the wind. Or, was it just naturally this hot in winter?
'CLICK!'
The white light to the bathroom had abruptly come on illuminating a stretched path half hidden by the ajar door. It was a glow that stole sight. There was a quality of utter peace lying along that path which slit open Kage's eye. Beneath his own flesh he dared not seek within for another beast may be in wait.
He stepped on the path and found no weight to his movements. Each belabored drowning step that tore at his lungs was no more. The humming to his darkened pigment whistled away to the sticking place lost amongst this grand prospect. It felt… good. A pleasant warmth that reminded Kage of the briefest moment his mother held him to her bosom.
The slightest of pains that a mother bore for her son, any mother would do so. Yet, some had not. Another couldn't ever have been described as a mother but rather a skeletal figurine that played the role of an imposter. What if he took part in that pain? The slightest of pains to bring the forgotten comfort crawling back to him. An eternal kindness in this lovely coloration of the earth.
His hand reached out by itself floating inside the doorway. The shadowy claws melded down into fingertips of solidified white tar. It was an unfounded good Kage couldn't exactly describe. The smile in a mother's maternal actions had come close but did not meet the demand.
'Well… whatever it may be, it is relaxing and I am so very tired.'
'Perhaps a nap would help, just for a moment or two.'
But, what would it be that fell before his eyes but a plain black feather that when shined on its inside produced a bleached spectacle. Kage thought to himself as he had heard from Isaiah about such feathers.
He smiled to himself.
'Isaiah and his birds.' Once the boy had brought a book and the five of them took part in connecting the feathers to their respective animal. It was a Condor that produced this specific one. Such a mightily respectable specimen. The others had found its face a hideous culmination between a rooster and vulture. A sentiment not shared by Kage.
A squawk followed from beyond the door as a great Condor's shadow darkened Kage's body. Its talons could crush his skull while the wings stretched the width of the room. "Truly a magnificent creature," Kage surmised.
The hand still outstretched had seized the door's handle wishing to see this condor in its natural habitat. Kage wanted to gaze at its full figure and admire such craftsmanship. However, a thought had wormed its way to his mind.
"My mother never pressed me to her breast." She had not. What had made him think of such decrepit fallacies? Maybe a wish? Perhaps a blessing for comfort? Once he racked his brain he couldn't even remember his own mother's face. What came to mind instead was that of Lisa and behind her in the grimmest of blackness was a man whose spectacles glinted from the sun's rays.
His teeth garnished themselves at the memory. Kage forced his hand away by the other, returning them to their wispiness.
Veins bulging and sweat profusely flowing from his scalp Kage announced to the Condor, "This warmth is unneeded." Struggling to hold the hand from its origin he jumped back onto the bed which gave off a painful wail. "My time no longer belongs to myself, but is also that of others. Someone who finally listens. Someone who I am beginning to understand. A person who I can turn to when I don't know what to do. There's those to protect while those to save." A last second analysis of the shadow brought forth the true belief he had held back, "THERE'S A PARADISE TO BUILD!"
Kage brought his eyes to the Condor's stretched beak, "Even if I am to fail. I know they will push me onto my feet. I will place that faith in them as they do with me."
'BANG!'
The door slammed shut as the room became a garish vermillion. This light had come from outside as the sky loomed ever lower. Rancid smells of burning wood clogged the nostrils warranting a regurgitation of breakfast. In this convulsion of bodily function was an interruption as a cry from some child echoed across the street making its way, loudest, to Kage's window.
'CRASH!'
The window shattered, leaving bits of glass flying through the air, slicing through his body. On his bed lay a darkly lit bird with a jittering wing signaling its approach to death. Kage paced to its side holding the small animal in both his hands. Lowering his head to its mouth Kage attentively listened to breath but quickly heard it go out.
The bird had died.
He placed the bird on his dresser and oversaw its corpse. A shard of glass had slit its throat while another stabbed into its guts. It was killed near instantly, alas, another belief rang throughout Kage. It had suffered for years, a decrepit poison venomized the creature until all that remained were its sickly brittle bones which barely withstood the flap of its wings. One who sought the sky now lay dead in its shadow. The bird's wings were small just like its body but the pattern was quite beautiful to Kage. Although the blood now tainted such beauty the placement of its black beak and head which contrasted against its white belly and inner feathers bit into Kage's heart for some reason. Its eyes also shined with an innocence that bore strength.
It was undoubtedly a magpie.
Kage felt a great stillness as the room became something malformed and opposite from its core. Or perhaps its core was hidden all this time? The walls around him peeled away while a blue fire encased them rapidly approaching Kage.
He quickly dashed toward the bathroom only to find the door blocked. Glancing over his back the fire had taken hold of the room and a great tsunami was close to crashing over him. Squeezing his eyes shut he prayed for it to end. Within that prayer a laugh wheezed from crushed windpipes squeezing away the purpose.
When he opened his eyes he saw the fire had made the house crumble onto its foundation but did not affect him in the slightest. 'This form could be responsible for that.'
Yet, what was before him was equivalent to that of any Hell: tornados of a poker red swirled, eating up the world, reducing it to sand then glass. A fog blew in from the west coveting the destruction in a hazy rainbow that sprinkled about like droplets of water.
Rubbing his eyes, Kage forced himself forward desperately looking for a way out from this terror; however, all he discovered was a field of bodies lumped one over the other. Their eyes and tongues plucked away in the belly of a beast.
He climbed through the splinters of wood and brick that ravaged itself impeding his path. Over them he came across more bodies yet these had their intestines wrapped around their necks strangling the air from their visage. None could be spared from this cruel act. The one he stood closest to was that of a woman with silk white hair which had dirtied its strands by the ash floating amongst the haze. Her face once may have been pretty but now remained gauntly deformed as the life had been sucked away from her shriveled skin.
Kage's eyes were drawn to a mark on the woman's cheek. To him it resembled a hickey but it bore another emotion with it.
*DREAD*
'CREAK!'
The sound of a door rattled in Kage's mind.
'Has the Condor come back for me?'
He turned on the spot only to be teleported away from the ghastly sight of rotting bodies and to his home.
A dark blue moon hung overhead, having its wandering gaze focus on the scene for but a moment, illuminating the memory in distinction. Pockets of fire circled about the fallen wall with the neighbors all but silent as they ran for their lives. Their worried yells were made ghoulie, stretching and moaning at a consistently deep tone.
To him this was a sight replayed over and over. Something so familiar it had become familial in his heart. Tears from then would not come this time. He was still powerless to change the fate of his past.
So, when a soft groan reached Kage's ears he abandoned that truth and took off for the spot underneath the wall. His feet felt like they were swimming through mud, kicking up tufts of matter with each movement forward. Arms wrought out and clawed fingers pointing to hair belonging to a head plunged deep into the fiery wood. No further could he reach his hands as a might ceased his movement forcing him to fall flat on his stomach.
"Uggh." Moaned Kage as his transformed body experienced its first pain. He hacked out a cough which brought a purple phlegm into his hand quickly evaporating by the sun's light. A foot further and he would reach the unconscious Lisa. The Lisa untainted and unburdened by the curse of this world. Such thoughts created a glint to his black eyes and pooled toward the bottom releasing wet tears uninhibited by the absence of eyelids.
Then, a grand menace cast his silhouette over Kage and Lisa. Above him, all he could make out among the murk to the person were his mismatched glowing eyes. They were such a splendid color that not human memory nor mind could ascertain their creation. Jagged daggers for teeth poked from where the mouth must be as well as a shaggy mane of hair unkempt for what must be years. Appendages representing that of arms and legs cracked away from the torso, sinewy in their bulge.
Unity, a man that had plagued Kage's every dream and waking second of his life on this planet, was nothing compared to this THING. A THING that irradiated a power and fear capable of destroying a nation, possibly the world. Kage understood that this person had become more than just a human or Evolved for that matter. Whatever it was, it now stood before him hungrily glancing between his caged body to Lisa's.
But, all Kage could think at that very moment as the THING set its sights on Lisa was its aura filled with nothing but raw hate. A hate so vastly awe-inspiring Kage was certain it represented all the oppressed anger from the hundreds of millions suffering in this sinning realm. He saw inside this THING the sorrowful past and plotted path that led it to this moment.
'CRUNCH'
"AAAAAAAHH!"
The bursting yell did not snap Kage from his stupor. Even the raining blood from overhead could not punch his mind back to the forefront while the THING tore the arm from his sister.
In part, due to another thought having entered Kage's mind.
'How did it get this power? Would it be possible again?'
His sight finally realigned only to find the creature gone and his sister harmed once again. Kage was released from his shackles so hurried to her side grasping onto her shoulder with a hand and another at the open wound. He flipped her onto her side, shocked from his inner turmoil.
The ghostly stupefied expression plastered to Lisa's face knocked the wind from him. Next came the rest of the memory. A horrible shriek that would curdle the blood of anyone exited from her lips.
It happened again.
'It would continue to happen. Over and over. Unless I can find some way, somewhere to stop this nightmare.
Then, maybe I can finally sleep.'