I think you need to introduce yourself first before you learn my further story. My name is Mark Enz Talibal. Yes, the name is strange, but there is nothing special about it, my parents were also strange, only they could give their son such a name, and not just. After all, my father, Kazar Enz Talibal, is a former U.S. military man who fought in Afghanistan, where he met my future mother. She was a volunteer, and it was there, among the destroyed buildings and the chaos of war, that they found each other.
Unfortunately, their story ended tragically. I was only four years old after my father was tortured and then killed by the Taliban, but he left quite easily compared to my mother. She, fearing for my life, hid me in some collapsed building under the ruins. At the same time, my father tried to shoot back and let my mother and I leave, but she, a fool, didn't leave him.
She was raped in front of him before she broke off her life by biting off her tongue. Choking on her own blood, she left this cruel world. I miraculously managed to survive when the detachments of the U.S. troops, who later avenged my parents and saved me, approached.
It would be better to let me die.
The next 12 years were my own, generated by Hell: constant mockery of my appearance. Oh, yes, my appearance! But you probably thought: because I was a freak? On the contrary, I was pretty handsome by the standards of beauty of our world.
My hair, black as a crow's wing, quite long, because of it I was often confused with a girl. If you look at it from behind, and I'm thin, but that's not all.
Eyes. They are black, like two bottomless wells. They have neither light nor heat. Just emptiness. Most of the mockery was just from these eyes
If you look into the abyss for a long time, it will also start to look into you. I think that's how you can describe my eyes.
Sometimes it seems to me that I myself get lost in this blackness. That it absorbs not only the light, but also me.
Face. It seems hard, angular. It's like carved out of stone. No soft lines, no roundness. Just sharp corners and straight lines. My cheekbones protrude, emphasizing the general harshness of my appearance.
Above the eyebrow, I noticed that there was a scar, in the shape of two small crosses.
It seems to me something... artificial. It's like someone deliberately left this mark on me.
But that's not what you want to hear, is it? I'll start from the beginning. I was 14 years old when I started having strange dreams about a tall white figure who called me by name and called me somewhere. But it can be attributed simply to a strange dream, and that's it.
That's exactly what I tried to do. Write off everything on the game of my subconscious, traumatized by childhood memories and constant mockery. I tried to live an ordinary life, go to school, do homework, tried not to stand out. But in vain. Dreams became brighter, the figure became clearer, and the voice more and more persistent.
At first it was just a silhouette, blurred by a white shadow floating in a dark space. But over time, it took shape. Tall, slender, as if carved from ivory, without a single flaw.
And the face... I've never seen a face. Where there should have been features, only emptiness was yawning, but even in this emptiness there was a close, piercing attention.
Voice. He was unlike anything I've ever heard. Velvety, deep, like the whisper of the wind in the mountains, but at the same time filled with power and might. He was neither male nor female. He was... outranded. That voice always called me.
Mark, come. Mark, I'm waiting for you. Mark, your time has come.
And I was afraid. I was afraid of these dreams, I was afraid of this figure, I was afraid of this voice. I was afraid of what it might mean. I tried to run away from them, slapping my eyes, covering my ears, but nothing helped. The voice always came back like ebb and low tide, inevitable and inexorable.
On one of these days, after another nightmare, I, as always, woke up in a cold sweat. My heart was pounding like a bird caught in a cage, and the echo of my voice from a dream was ringing in my ears.
Mark, your time has come.
I got out of bed, went to the mirror and looked at my reflection. Black eyes that seemed even blacker, an angular face, a scar in the form of two crosses above the eyebrow - it was me.
And suddenly, at that moment, everything changed. In the reflection of my black eyes, a reflection of white light flashed, like a tiny spark. He flashed for a moment and immediately disappeared, but that was enough. I felt something inside me change, as if an invisible string stretched and ringed.
I looked at my hands and noticed that my fingers were shaking. When I tried to squeeze them into a fist, I felt some kind of force. Some other people's power.
Suddenly, I heard a whisper. Quiet, barely distinguishable, but persistent. He didn't come from outside, but from inside me.
Go to her.
At first I was scared.
Let's be honest, anyone would have sneed up at such a moment, but since I was a little "that", I listened to the voice.
The voice repeated more insistently:
Go to her. She's waiting for you.
I left the house without saying a word to my adoptive parents. I was drawn somewhere, to some indefinite place, by an unknown force. I went, not knowing where, but knowing that I had to go.
I didn't know who this "she" was, but I knew it was connected with that white figure from my dreams.