I have within my possession a very strange seed. What I had to do to get it, is a tale I'd rather not relay at this time. Let's just say that it was difficult, and leave it at that. Getting back to the point. I have the aforementioned seed in my hand and I am walking into the barren land. Specifically, a wide cliff side that overlooks a forever expanding valley.
I squat down and scrape at the dirt with my bare hands, digging deeper and deeper, until I reach a sufficient depth. After which, I stand up, extend my hand and drop the seed inside, before filling the hole with a sweep of my foot. Immediately, the ground begins to quiver and shake, as it pulsates beneath my very feet.
I watch with rapt fascination as wooden tendrils erupt from the ground, clawing at the dirt as they fight to gain purchase, while pulling away at the soil. All at once, there's a tremendous rush of energy and the surge of a wooden pillar catapulting itself to the surface, revealing a massive, gnarled tree. Now, there is naught but to wait.
A full day and a half goes by, as I sit nearby, patiently waiting. Then, the tree sprouts more roots which dig at the earth all around its base. It glows and pulsates, as though it were a giant heart. Faster and faster it beats until it is near to exploding. But before that can happen, a single hand breaks through the surface, tearing away at the flesh.
It is a small hand and it is covered in gore. It's not long before another hand tears through the fleshy exterior and together they rend the flesh apart, as a small body steps forth onto the ground still covered in its afterbirth. It seems to be a little boy. He wipes the blood from his face and his eyes open wide.
He flashes his sight upon me and walks, as best as he is able, towards me as I raise my body to a standing position. He is clumsy, but able to catch himself every time he stumbles, while the gore slips from his body exposing a pale blue pigment to his skin. At last, he makes it to my feet and grabs hold of my robe, as he stares up into my face.
I say nothing. I do nothing. I simply stare at the boy, as I wait a little longer. Then I see it, little wings have sprouted from his back and are beating like mad, trying to dry themselves so they might be useful. I lower myself, take up his face in my hands, reach behind him and wrench the wings from his back.
For a moment, there is no motion, as his tiny mind tries to process what had just happened. But then the revelation hits him full and hard. He drops to the floor screaming, as his fists pound at the dirt over and over again. With each impact, I see his body grow slightly larger, until he becomes a full adult.
He stops screaming and slowly rises from the dirt and I follow suit, though I'm a head shorter than he. He stares down at me as he clenches his powerful fists. He looks me full in the face and screams with all his might. Blasting me with fury and anger. I can see each of his bright white teeth as he continues his screech.
I endure it all, as I know the matter is not yet finished. He continues to blare at me, as a power radiates from his very being, causing his eyes to glow and from the stumps on his back protrudes new, more powerful wings, comprised of intense energy. They are like the wings of a butterfly and they are much larger than his person.
The man blasts into the air, nearly pushing me to the ground. But I hold my place and endure the fierce wind blowing directly at me. I watch as he soars into the air, directly into a terrible thunderstorm which has just rolled in. I see him dash about the flying thunderbolts, narrowly avoiding each strike.
I hurry after him, careful of the obstacles the terrain presents and every stumble is a frustration that fuels my urgency. All the while, keeping an eye upon the flying figure that burns through the sky, as though a star blazing across the atmosphere. And though he is faster, I'm able to see exactly where he's going and I'm not that much slower.
It's a long arduous journey, but at last I come to the place where he returns to the Earth. It is at the top of a cluster of hills, which I'm forced to climb. When I make it to the top I am sweating profusely and beyond exhausted, but that all fades away as I take sight of the flying man down in the dirt, clawing away at the hard earth.
I rush forward and stop myself just outside of the growing hole. This is it! This is the moment I've been waiting for and I am not going to miss a single instant. I carefully watch as heaps of compounded chunks of ground go flying through air, allowing for further depths to be reached. He is like a dog digging out his most favored bone, such energy and enthusiasm he has.
I crane my neck to get a better view and that's when I see it. A soft, feminine face lying in the perfect stillness of death is slowly uncovered for my eyes to see. My heart nearly breaks as I observe her naked body being unearthed little by little. At last she is mostly unburied and I see the man caress her pretty face.
I fly into a rage. "Don't you touch her!" I scream as I bound into the hole and throw his body back, before melting into the cold embrace that cannot be returned. "I'm so sorry. I should have been there! I should have done something!"
I pull upon her torso and her earthen tomb releases her to me. I hold her close, burying my face in her shoulder, as I ignore the touch of her icy skin. I look at her closed eyes as I remember the sparkling, deep green irises, that were so full of life. And the smile, that wonderful, beautiful, radiant smile, which warmed my heart just to see it.
But now look at her, naked, covered in dirt, a lifeless corpse. Nothing like my bubbly, energetic daughter. The very spark that gave my life purpose, but I knew what I was getting into. I just wasn't prepared for actually seeing it. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can prepare you for witnessing your child dead and buried, especially not when your mind drums up the worst circumstances for their final moments.
Suddenly, I am thrust backward, my body squarely impacting the wall of the newly formed depression. It takes the wind from me and I am forced to sit helplessly as I fight with my lungs to take in air. I cannot even call out, as the man crawls forward and puts his hand upon her face. He gently lifts her chin and places his lips upon hers.
This is the final insult and I can endure no more. I will not have that man touch her again. I will- A surge of energy transfers from him into her and she sits bolt upright. Her eyes have taken on that same, strange, blue energy and she grows large wings of her own. They are wide as they take in every detail that can be ascertained.
She looks to her killer with naught but a kind of tender fear, is the best I can describe. He takes her hand and helps her the rest of the way out of the packed dirt. They are like two lost, little children, as painful an analogy as it is to apply to him.
Together, these new beings, not quite human but still so close they could be mistaken for such, take to the sky, and soar into the clouds, leaving the rest of the world behind. I observe, as best as I am able, while they fly further and further away. A distance that grows like the hole in my heart.
All the while, I am left behind, helpless to do anything about it. My only recourse at this time is to try and piece together the sequence of events that had led to this moment. Who knows, there may just yet be a detail that has slipped my notice and prove to be exactly the key to his undoing.
I had tracked down my daughter's kidnapper and subsequent murderer. But at that time I still held out hope that she was alive. It took a considerable amount of time and resources, but I was able to track down the maniac who had stolen my child away. A slippery fellow, he never stayed anywhere for very long.
I confronted him in a dark alleyway and cut off all means of escape before enacting my attack, but he had other plans. We fought back and forth, he being so much younger than I was shocked that I was able to hold my own. But then, he had no idea he was struggling with an arcane wizard who can enhance his physical attributes beyond that of normal men.
He was down and breathing hard. The knife in his hand as clean as when the fight had begun. He knew himself beaten. In a final act of desperation he turned the knife upon himself and cut his own throat, forever sealing away the information I so desired. Or so he thought. He laughed himself into the grave even as he struggled with the blood filling his lungs.
Being well versed in the arcane arts I knew exactly what to do. Before the final breath had exhaled I drove my hand into his dying body, beneath the ribcage, and plucked his still beating heart from out of his chest. I then closed it inside a glass globe where it froze in place as though time had stopped.
I handed over the body to the local magistrate who had been searching for him all this time in regard to a string of kidnappings before returning to my laboratory. I then used my considerable knowledge and talent to fashion the vital organ into the seed that I had planted to become the tree that gave birth to the man.
Unfortunately, it had all been for naught. My precious angel had been dead the whole while and now she had left me for a second time, to live out her new life with the man who had ended hers. I cannot even begin to understand what has taken place or what it all means. I can't help but feel as though this is the beginning of something momentous.
As a man of words, I should be excited by the turn of events, but I simply cannot divorce the importance of what transpired with the desecration of my one and only child's grave. Tears start to stream down my face, which are immediately followed by rain drops on my head. I scramble out of the burgeoning mud and back onto solid ground. I have a long walk ahead of me, back to my lab where I will devise a new strategy.