Eterna: Prologue

A story of a boy who makes a choice that changes his very soul. Eterna will leave you questioning.

The night was shrouded in the darkness of a new moon. Screams filled the air as lives were snuffed out like candle flames. The night grew darker with the loss of lives as waves hit and flooded the tormented city, Avudim. The city would fall this night and be washed away from memory as its inhabitants died before the onslaught of the torrent of water that continued to drown the city in its icy clutches. One soul stood at the center of the city. His eyes captured the suffering of his friends and neighbors. Tears fell as he warred with a broken heart and miserable soul that could not cope with the sorrow that tore the air asunder like lightning. His pain was too great for him to control and a scream tore itself from the depths of his soul. The sound of such raw emotion opened the heavens above as they cried for a soul whose innocence was shattered that night. The boy whose life was ending in the flood that was taking the city and ending the atrocities that flooded those streets was forever changed.

Aldion fell to his knees in a final prayer, a prayer not to safe his own life, but to spare the life in a city that he saw such beauty in. Spare those people who smiled at him each day and showed him the wonders of the city he called home. Aldion couldn’t understand why they were condemned to be lost forever. He did not understand that people had broken covenants that had stood for millennia.

People fled their homes as the waters washed through the streets. Children cried, their tears bathing the faces of those they loved and lost. They sat in desolation, giving up on life and accepting fate. Others ran for their lives ignoring the pleas of help from those they had known since childhood. Fear gripped them all and drove them to pure instinct, crushing the compassion they held.

Among the chaos, a woman walked calmly towards Aldion. She was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. Her hair fell in silken cascades down her back and glistened in the moonlight. Her skin was pale with a hint of the sun’s kiss and her eyes were a rich brown that seemed to draw a person into the warmth of love. She walked with a light grace that spoke of compassion and humility born by the strength of her integrity. She stopped before Aldion and spoke in a gentle tone, inviting him over to the bench that stood below the eyes of a statue. The statue itself was of a figure that stood proud, as if basking in the life it had and honoring its blessings and hardships. Its eyes spoke of an iron will that combined with the set of its lips to illustrate a feeling that this statue was a servant to something greater than itself and through its actions, it honored that greater force and its own life.

Aldion loved the statue greatly and it had a profound influence. He sat with the mysterious woman as the water started to flood the city center. He looked at it as it roared forth, only to turn into a gentle swelling that reached his ankles.

"Who are you?" Aldion said softly. He turned towards the woman whose eyes seemed to speak such kindnesses there. He saw something else though as he asked the question. He later learned that it was the balance to that kindness she held.

"I am one who honors something greater than myself like the statue behind us." She said lovingly. "I am here to witness the consequences of the ones in this town and to watch it perish."

Aldion spoke in a heartbroken voice: "Why?! Why can you not help them?!"

"When someone makes choices, they must accept the consequences of those choices." She said as she gazed into his eyes.

"My grandma told me that once." He said.

"Your grandmother was a wise woman then." Said the woman.

"Am I allowed to ask for your name?" Aldion said quietly.

"You may call me Ashynna little one." She said.

"Ashynna, I want to save them and accept the consequences myself. Why must everyone pay the consequences?" Aldion whispered.

"Do you understand what it is you are asking child?" Ashynna spoke in a mystified voice.

"I’m asking to save those who do not deserve this. They should not have to pay for consequences that are not their own." Aldion said with humility. "Maybe I don’t understand it fully, but I do know that my life cannot end in this way. Let me do what I can to help them. Please." He said resolutely.

"Ok my child." Ashynna said sadly. "I hope you can bear your choice and find the strength in it before it consumes you.

Ashynna placed her hand on the boy’s cheek as she was engulfed in a blinding white light that engulfed the entire city. Spots of black marked the souls whose choices had condemned the city and its citizens. It was those souls that would live in the unending darkness of the city they destroyed, forever bound in the icy grip of the waters that consumed them. Aldion cried out as his soul was torn from his body.

"Little one, you must face death like every other in the city, but you will know life again and you will know everything you have ever known or learned. You will have the burden of knowledge like no other. Welcome child to the fate of Eterna."

With those words, Aldion felt the embrace of death. As it held him, He felt Ashynna near him and the city, he knew, was washed away forever. Before he sank into oblivion, she pulled him into life.

"Your faith and spirit have brought you among us. Still, you have much to learn child before you are Eternal." Ashynna said mystically. "On your twelfth birthday you will have an Awakening. You will come to know many things and be capable of even more."

"May He help me." Aldion said wearily.

"Yes, child. You have a hard road before you." Ashynna said as she faded away.
----------------------
"Arthur, he is so beautiful!" Marilyn said as she held her newly born.

"My son, my handsome son." Arthur said proudly.

They stood in the room of their hospital with their son as he cried. Marilyn held him close as her heart swelled with the love of her son.

"I will name him Aldion Christopher Evans." She said quietly.

"Aldion? That is a strange name honey." Arthur said questioningly.

"Yes my dear, but it fits him perfectly." She said as she gazed down at the child in her arms.

"My little boy, my Aldion." Marilyn whispered to the sleeping child.