[HH] Donik Carak's Training
The Navve Districts were drowning themselves in revelry that night. A large platoon of Peons had come back from border duty on the South Canadian side of the Rio Grande and received their modest checks, which were destined to be splurged on drink and “company” for the next couple of weeks, until the mob was sent out again to whatever other border they needed to patrol. There were hundreds of platoons coming in and out of McConnell Island on a regular basis, so, the Navve was in a perpetual drunken haze.
Donik growled under his breath, unable to concentrate. There was a loud brawl escalating on ground-level, one that he could hear from his fifth floor apartment, about sixty feet above the cobblestone street. He stamped from his small secretary desk to his shutters, already clamped shut, took off his enormous woolen Cargo Cloak, and draped it over his window. Slight difference, the noise was merely muffled, but enough to concentrate.
Thicks.
With a renewed grimace, he transfixed his mind upon his prize, a pile of documents and roughly drawn topographical grid maps. These were recently discovered transcripts of Huljenfjell training tactics, along with the location in which they were believed to take place--all of which was garnered from a recent London-backed reconnaissance mission he was assigned to. Donik, beginning to lose himself in the process of research, genuinely smiled. Every piece of information he could get his hand on was gold--one step closer to complete understanding of the Bear Army. One step closer to their destruction.
This had been Donik’s life for the past two years since he was promoted to Specialist Peon. Incessant, obsessive, research--along with heavy physical training.
So he went for the next three hours: pouring over the documents multiple times, copying their contents into a large leather-bound notebook, making notes in the margins, tracing the maps, making notes in the margins, reading over everything again, making more notes in the margins, and so on.
After reviewing the cumulative reports for the eighth time, Donik’s subconscious jerked into gear--there was something wrong. Donik tore his gaze away from his work and quickly scanned the room. No one was coming up the hall or outside wall. There was no knocking, no creaks, no nothing. Everything was completely fine, which was odd, as Donik’s intuition usually proved to be quite acute.
Donik furrowed his brow, wondering about the new development, when the realization hit him. He couldn’t hear the fight outside. Usually, that just meant that someone died and the walkway would be a slightly pinker shade of gray the following day, but this was different. The ever-present murmur and ruckus that accompanied the Nave’s nighttime hours was gone.
His emerald eyes widened. He couldn’t hear anything.
Donik quickly rose from his desk to his window, shedding it of his cloak, and his Staff, used to keep the shutters locked, and stared in disbelief at the sight that greeted him, his heart leaping from his chest.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. An utter, indescribable, blackness that looked like it could swallow him up in its infinite maw.
Panic-stricken, but not paralyzed, Donik’s mind began cycling through all possibilities. Hallucinogens, “Wielder Hunters,” or a combination of the two seemed to be the most probable. He ate dinner six hours ago, and all the hallucinogenic drugs he knew of, every one in existence, took their full course within a couple of hours. So, the Hunters had to be it. But since when could the Hunters do something like this?
Immediately, his mind and body operating on auto-pilot, numb with disbelief, he went to his knees and attempted to pry loose a few floorboards, to see if he could contact the Lower Peon that lived below him, not daring to open his door, but found that underneath the boards was not the fourth floor, but the same infinite blackness he discovered outside the window.
A bead of sweat rolled down Donik’s considerable forehead, past his oblong nose, and into the blackness. He had no idea what was happening, and that scared him more than the infinite space staring back at him.
At the moment of Donik’s realization, a wispy voice, like a woman cooing to her child, entered his consciousness.
“Greetings, Donik Carak.”
Donik jumped to attention, his eyes bulging from their sockets--not even caring to look around the room for possible sources for the Voice. He spoke in a trembling, but surprisingly even-keeled tone.
“You’re the one who did all this, right?”
“That is correct.”
The Voice was sentient. Donik attempted to calm himself.
“Why?”
The Voice paused, as if to collect its thoughts, and then continued.
“You are necessary.”
Donik blinked, breathing heavily.
“What?”
“I have deemed you necessary.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I have deemed you necessary for the continued existence of this Dimension, Donik Carak.”
Donik breathed more heavily, ragged rasps shuddering through his body.
“You must go through your Door, Donik. There is something I wish for you to see.”
Donik closed his eyes, trying to marshal himself, and said, “Why should I?”
“So you may complete your goals. You are not fit to save this Dimension as you are--a fact I believe you are aware of. What I will show you will enable you to do as such.”
Donik, his body trembling, ruminated over this as well as his mind could function. He was dealing with something supernatural, that was for sure, but it--she, perhaps--didn’t seem malevolent, but that couldn’t be counted on. Then again, if a deity wanted him dead, the deed would have been done by now. There was no discernible reason to wait.
It would be best to do what the Voice said.
Donik started toward his Cargo Cloak, but the Voice interrupted him.
“You will not need your weapons on the path--they will find their way to your destination by themselves.”
Donik nodded uncomprehendingly and coggled toward his door, wearing only his white cotton shirt and matching pants.
“Go through the door?” he stuttered.
“Yes.”
Donik slowly opened his door, little-by-little. He squinted his eyes--there was something out there, but he couldn’t make it out. A shred of confidence infused into his psyche, he opened the door and stepped into the Unknown.
His feet sank slightly, the dark floor rising up and around his bare toes. Donik panicked for a moment before distant familiarity struck him. The Unknown turned out to be cold, clammy, sand.
Donik called out, his throat caked in tension.
“Are you still there, Voice?”
“Yes.”
Good. The mystery being was still there and didn’t seem bent on homicide. That was a step in the right direction.
“You should watch to your right, Donik.”
Subserviently, Donik turned his head to the right, where a flickering torch light greeted him, revealing his current location to be a small cave with a large brown tent pitched in its center. Donik’s eyes bulged again in realization. There was a silhouette of a large bookshelf from within the tent; one that Donik had spent his early childhood going through over and over again while his Big Brother was out doing “gang business.” The torchlight originating from the right-hand tunnel grew in brightness until the person carrying the torch was revealed.
Donik’s jaw dropped. It was his Big Sister, Rasha, her long, beautiful, raven hair tied into her trademark ropes, but her eyes were red and puffy...
“She’s been crying?”
“Yes. You never knew of this; she has been searching for Erkek throughout the compound, trying to warn him that intelligence suggested that the rival gangs had teamed up in order to kill him and had decided to carry it out that day. She has been searching the caves, and has told everyone to look for him. During the search, she couldn’t find you either, and, at this moment, has realized the reality that the two of you went out into the city for something.”
Donik looked on while Big Sister, his first mother, fell to the ground and bawled--tears streaming down her face.
“Both of her Loves were going to die--you, her adoptive son, and Erkek, her destined lover. She is in complete, hopeless, despair.”
Donik swallowed hard.
“I’m guessing that I can’t interact with her, right?”
“No. These are merely shadows of the past.”
Donik nodded. His Sister cried louder, her body shuddering and convulsing with sobs--calling out his and Erkek’s names. He choked on his spit.
“Do I have to keep watching her like this?”
“No. We are finished here.”
The morose scene drifted away like grains of sand in the wind, revealing a new scene. Donik stood upon a hardwood floor, looking upon a scruffy black haired, olive skinned, boy with an odd looking nose, no older than eight, who was staring in amazement at all he saw--the purple drapes, the crystal chandler, the royal blue wallpaper, the majestic spiraling staircase, and everything else that radiated success and social status. After a few moments, the boy looked straight into Donik’s face and smiled which shocked him momentarily, but then realized the boy was looking through him. Donik turned and saw a middle-aged, lightly wrinkled, man with long, straight, white hair put in a long ponytail, and a long face that sported a perfect roman nose, smiling contentedly. Behind him was a woman, of the same age, state of wrinkling, and contentedness, with long auburn hair that reached to the small of her back. She was cradling a baby.
Donik stepped back to let the young boy gaze upon his new family, unhindered by his apparition.
The white haired man stepped forward, put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and said in his trademark slow and steady baritone, “Welcome home, son.” The boy leapt into the awaiting arms of his new father.
Donik clenched his fists ‘till his knuckles turned white, looking at the scene with feeble attempts of self restraint, his eyes glossy.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Because it is necessary.”
“Why is it necessary to show me these ‘shadows,’ as you put it?”
“Because I have deemed it so.”
Donik felt like he was going to be sick, but couldn’t pry his eyes away from the scene. The embrace between father and son lasted a few moments longer, then between the new mother and son, then…
Donik shot back to attention.
“What?”
The father, mother, son, and child moved about the house as if they were light, both in speed and appearance. Images briefly flashed before Donik’s consciousness: the man giving his son a long stick, the two of them training with it, the baby becoming a toddler, the boy reading a large red tome in his room, the four of them eating at the dinner table, meeting with lavishly dressed guests, packing large suitcases, coming back with scars, more training--the boy was much taller and his arms were quite long--more flashes of daily life…
The flashes continued and covered eleven more years, all in mere moments. By the end of it, the baby was a brown haired pre-teen and the young boy was an intimidating boy on the cusp of manhood.
Then, it ended. Donik was sprawled on the townhouse’s lavish rosewood floor, his mind a mere puddle from the influx of memories and images.
His prepubescent and teenage years had been played back to him and the Voice in their entirety
About half an hour later, Donik managed to stand on his shaky legs and examine his surroundings. He was still in the Carak Townhouse, but the door before him was ajar. It was snowing outside--the fallen flakes reflected the moonlight from overhead.
Donik--the proud, unfeeling, cold, mercenary, Donik Aiden Carak--fell to his knees and wept bitterly.
“Why must you show me this day?”
“Because it is necessary.”
Donik looked to the ceiling and swore.
“Damn you and your necessities! I won‘t go out that door!”
“It is necessary, Donik Carak. You have forgotten why you chose your path and have become inordinately self absorbed. You no longer fight for the cause of you father, but to avenge him. If you continue this path, you will fail.”
Donik grit his teeth, tears leaving red canyons on his cheeks.
“Why are you showing me these things?”
“To remind you why you fight.”
There was silence for a few moments, Donik laying prone on the floor.
“Go outside, Donik. This is the last image.”
Donik slowly rose in submission, reminded that he was dealing with a celestial being. He plodded out of the doorway through the thick layer of snow that had accumulated there, into the streets of London. He knew where he was headed--there was only one place that the Voice could be directing him to.
He turned left and walked barefoot in the snow, down three blocks, left for two, up again for another four blocks, past the Parliament Building, then right one block, and you’re there. The most infamous street in recent modern history. Donik entered the street reluctantly. Slowly. With many a reservation.
He peeked from around the corner. There was no blood. No bodies flung about. No Wielder Hunters. No Father and Mother slain in the middle of the street. Rather, there were hundreds of children standing there, all pointing at Donik--and smiling.
Donik’s eyes bulged and his jaw hung slack from his face.
“What?”
“These are the Children you saved from death in the months after the Collecting began, Donik. They owe their lives to you because of your efforts.”
Donik stared at the mob of smiling children, seemingly paralyzed in shock. Then, to his surprise and amazement, a small girl, only up to Donik’s knees, went up to him and--
“She’s holding my hand.”
The girl cocked her head to one side and rose an eyebrow in confusion while shaking Donik’s enormous hand from side to side.
“I decided to let these little ones become more than you average Shadow.”
“You’re saying--”
“Yes. They can touch you.”
Donik stood still while the little girl looked up to the sky, nodded, then joined the other children, who had now positioned themselves so that they filled that section of road entirely, save for a small strip in-between them.
Where the human-walled lane ended, a door spontaneously appeared. His apartment door, actually--standing where his dead parents should have been.
“Open the door, Donik.”
Donik walked slowly down the lane, surrounded by laughing, smiling, children--hugging him, trying to hold his hand. After a few minutes, a smiling Donik Carak made it to his apartment door, turned the knob, and left the snow-laden street of his past--closing the door behind him.
Donik turned and walked forward, his feet upon what felt like stone, but he couldn't tell, nor did he care, as he was fixated upon what seemed to be the sun itself. There was an enormous glowing yellow ball sitting atop an equally impressive white marble pedestal.
It spoke.
“You can’t fight for the sake of corpses, Donik, as you will lose all hope. But for these behind you? Yes. You will fight and kill--all for their sake.”
Then, the ball expanded and expanded until it filled the entire room--Donik included. And it all ended.
When Donik awoke, he was wearing his Cloak, filled with all of his supplies, his Staff in his left hand--lain upon a thickly carpeted floor. He quickly stood up, right hand on his temple, and scanned the area.
He was in a hallway. A very long hallway.
OOC -- 2621 words.
08-26-2008, 07:16 PM
