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kieranoruadhain · 7 years

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Awakening

Short story WIP, parts 1 through 3. Mature content warning.

prologue

For the first time, the nameless man woke up.

He felt his lungs filling and emptying. He felt his pulse, rapid and heavy behind a shallow chest. His fingertips brushed the stone slab where he lay and moved to his body, naked and slick with sweat. His eyes burned when he tried to open them. His ears were ringing and he strained to listen.

The world sounded muffled at first, as though someone was speaking to him through thick fabric. Shapes formed in his eyes, then color. White and grey and blue. A ceiling, walls, and windows. Then, he saw two faces, leaning over him. A woman and a man.

“Say something.” The female one spoke.

He recognized the words, but he couldn’t find his voice. Something felt strangled in his throat as he forced breath from his lungs. “Hnnnghh.”

“That’s a start. Try again.”

“Hhn… hello…”

“Good. So you understand me.”

He nodded.

“Welcome back, Kyrahn Oisin.”

He blinked the blurs from his vision and answered, “Mmmhname… my name…?”

“Yes. That’s your name.”

It struck Kyrahn in that moment that he was naked, and there was a woman hovering over him. His hands moved to cover himself and he averted his gaze from her.

“C…clothes…?”

“Yes, of course. Here you go, then…”

He felt fabric fall over his body. A blanket. It was silky smooth, thin, and blue. He noticed how it draped over a single leg and realized he was missing the other. His left leg was gone below the knee.

“Do you remember anything?”

Kyrahn stared blankly at the woman. As his vision became clearer, he could make out her figure. She had long, corkscrew locks of brown hair framing a severe face. She was lithe, muscular, wearing blue and gold robes. The man was younger, smooth-faced and rotund.

The woman spoke next. “My name is Janice Steele. I’m a healer with Northshire Abbey. We found you half-dead in the woods. Can you tell me if you remember what happened?”

Kyrahn still didn’t speak for a long time. He reached up to touch his own face. He had facial hair. It was short. And the hair on his head felt long and oily.

“I don’t remember anything.” He answered. “You told me my name is Kyrahn. I don’t know anything else. Do you know what happened to me?”

The woman smiled, but Kyrahn could tell it wasn’t a happy smile. He didn’t know why. “I don’t.”

Kyrahn fidgeted under his blanket, staring blankly.

“Do you know what Stormwind City is?” Asked Janice.

“It’s in Elwynn Forest, capital city for the human race.” Said Kyrahn.

“So you do remember something.” Janice said, a smile in her voice, but not on her face. “Where are we right now, do you know?”

“Azeroth. Eastern Kingdoms.” Kyrahn continued.

“So you remember basic geography. Good.” Janice mused. “Now. What about yourself do you remember? Where, exactly, were you born? Do you have any parents or siblings? Do you remember your job before you came here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Unfortunate.” Her tone was strange. Hollow. For some reason, her response made Kyrahn uncomfortable. “So while you have nothing to return to, as far as you’re concerned, you’re now a member of the Northshire Abbey priesthood. You are Kyrahn Oisin, born and raised in Stormwind City, and it is your life’s goal to become a healer.”

Kyrahn didn’t know what to say. He just nodded. Janice walked to a shelf and pulled down a few things. He saw a wooden stake in her hands. “Unfortunately, your left leg was badly infected and had to be amputated. We’ve had you fitted for a new one. Brandon, please, help him with his leg.”

The other man retrieved the prosthetic and brought it to him. “Here, I’ll show you how to put it on.” Khyran stuck his leg out, letting the other man attach it for him. Then, he was brought a change of clothes. “We will let you get dressed. When you’re ready, meet us outside.”

The two left Kyrahn alone with his empty thoughts. one

"He was talking in his sleep again."

Dinnerware clinked in the dining hall. Several apprentice priests in their white robes sat over their bowls of red bean soup, chattering about him as if he wasn't even sitting right across from them in obvious earshot. He might as well have been an unoccupied chair.

"What did he say this time." A gruff one with beady eyes said, bored.

Not that it mattered that his peers were talking about him. He never acknowledged their existence, either. He ate his stew silently.

"Oh, nothing I could make out. A lot of mumbling and snarling. Sounded almost like a dog, he did." Tanis always loved using him as a conversation starter. It was annoying sometimes.

"Wonder if he'll do tricks." A younger one, a blond, said. He picked up a bread roll from the table, laughing. "Oi, Kyrahn! Fetch!"

The bread roll bounced off the side of his head while he ate his stew patiently.

That got a few giggles from around the table.

"Now, now, Jackie. Some dogs ain't that smart. You gotta beat 'em to make 'em do what you want." Said the gruff one.

"No, no! Gotta try positive reinforcement first!" Tanis retorted, picking up a piece of ham out of his stew with his piggy fingers. "Here boy!"

The ham, tossed in his general direction, fell short and landed a few inches from his hand. Kyrahn still sat patiently.

"He won't do a thing. Boring little oaf." Tanis muttered.

"Dogs usually get boring when they're neutered, you know. It's only natural! Not his fault." Said the blond.

More giggles. Kyrahn's fingers tightened on his spoon. The bean stew was looking very red. He could almost see his reflection in it. He stopped eating.

"What are you going to do, Kyrahn? Go cry to Janice again?"

"Oh, come now. He doesn't have the balls for that."

The table erupted with laughter from the three other men. Kyrahn stood abruptly and walked away.

"Poor puppy has his feelings all hurt."

"Pansy."

"See ya, Ms. Kyrahn."

Ever since a rowdy bunkmate forcefully tugged a towel from his waist on his way back from the baths two weeks ago, Kyrahn found no escape from the teasing. Two weeks ago, he never fully cared that a piece of his body most other men proudly carried was gone.

Why was he castrated?

The unanswered question bothered him more than the most cruel of insults.

He laid awake, listening to the snoring of his peers in the dormitories. A full moon cast a bright, pale shaft of light through a single window. A whip-poor-will outside sang sonnets with a distant chuck-wills-widow. Normally the birds would have lulled him immediately, but tonight, he couldn't stop thinking about red bean stew and forgotten dreams.

He didn't remember falling asleep.

For him, it was reality. The taste of copper in his mouth was tangible. The smell of blood that hung in the hallways around him was so strong it stung his eyes.

There were shackles on his wrists and the chains were so heavy he couldn't stand. He was staring up ahead, at the ceiling and walls, because he was afraid to look down. He knew what would be at his feet and covering the floor.

"You can't face it, can you. Coward! Look down!" It was his own voice, somewhere outside his body. He was many things, but not a coward. He looked down.

A faceless dead child stared back at him.

The chains felt heavier with each passing second. Kyrahn struggled to breathe as his upper body was dragged down, down, down by his scrawny arms. The pool of red was inches from his nose.

The chains plunged him into the red pool. He writhed. He tried to scream but blood rushed into his mouth instead. He felt arms reaching down into the pool and he struggled wildly. More arms came and held him down. It was the vengeful dead, dragging him under, screaming his name.

His eyes snapped open. He was tangled up in his sheets on his bed, staring up at Tanis and Jackie's faces.

"I swear on the Light, if you wake us up screaming one more fucking time...!" Tanis gasped, his pudgy face red with anger. He didn't finish his threat.

"What the Fel is wrong with you, anyway?! Aren't you going to say anything for once?!" Jackie sputtered.

What was there to say? Kyrahn just stared back.

"You're insane. I thought Janice brought you here to fix you."

"Aye, he's fixed alright," said a gruff voice from a bed across the dark room.

Too annoyed to laugh, the other trainees left Kyrahn's bedside, muttering to themselves.

He laid awake for the rest of the night. two

The first few weeks of his residence at Northshire Abbey had been a blur. First, he was assessed for his ability to wield the Light. His raw potential shocked the ranking priests, but it soon became clear that he was no healer. He was instructed to “heal” a wooden human dummy, and succeeded in blasting it with a spell so violent and blinding, it seared a hole right through the dummy’s chest. Despite how many times he was asked, and how hard he tried, he couldn’t do anything different. Janice said they’d keep working with him, and eventually he’d be able to do it. She reassured him, before squeezing his shoulder and leaving him to his fruitless endeavors. Despite his frustrations, he worked as hard as he could, to no avail. Two weeks later, however, he was told to attend a particular seminar. Janice seemed sure that he would learn something significant from it. He was dispirited, but attended, all the same. He had entered an auditorium filled with Brothers and Sisters, feeling immediately out of place. Even so, he focused his attention on the center of the room and waited for the professor to begin.

“The Holy Light is born of righteous thought and feeling,” Professor Heather explained as she hovered over a wounded soldier on a stone table. The trainees gathered around the table all did their best to focus, though Kyrahn could tell they were bored. This was a rather basic lecture- what was so new about it?

“This is why we pray daily, to center our minds and hearts on what is righteous and good.” The healer swept her hands up and down over the soldier’s body. Kyrahn grimaced as his gaze fell once more on the man’s bruises and bite wounds. They said gnolls got to him- he barely managed to hobble back to the Abbey.

The trainee priests fidgeted, nodding distractedly as they watched Heather the Healer work her glowing hands over the wounded soldier’s bruises.

“It is in righteousness that this man be healed, in the name of the Light. Evil struck him in the forests of Elwynn last night, but the holiness of the Light has seen that he be brought here to have these wrongs corrected. Without balance like this, Azeroth would descend into chaos. For everyone here, we have the unique mandate to restore that balance where it was once lost. All actions in this world must have their consequence.”

The light from her hands faded, then she looked up at her bored students. “…Of course, this isn’t new to any of you.”

“Yeah, uh… what’s the catch, professor?” Asked one of the female students. Kyrahn never noticed her until then- he spent most of his time segregated in the men’s dormitories when he wasn’t training.

Heather straightened from the sleeping, wounded patient and snapped her fingers. “Guards? Bring them in.”

The doors to the central chamber opened, and in walked three armored Stormwind guards, tugging heavy chains. A long string of gnolls entered behind them, their furs matted in blood and their desperate snarls echoing in the wide chamber. There must have been twenty of them. Among the usual male warriors, some of the gnolls were distinctly female. Some were greyed and grizzled with cataracts in their white eyes. Others seemed too young to be dangerous, with their frightened puppy eyes and whimpers.

Kyrahn’s heart sank when he saw them. He looked over at Heather, eyes wide.

“Today is not your usual healing lesson.” The professor continued. “Today, we will learn how to wield the Light to bring justice to the unrighteous.”

“You brought their women, elders and children.” Kyrahn blurted before anyone else could speak. Some of the students quirked their brows at him. Most of them never even heard him speak before. The ones that have knew he never said more than one word a day. Usually “yes” or “no” in response to questions, but never an entire sentence.

Heather smiled when he spoke up.

“This is some sort of test, right?” Jackie said where he stood near Kyrahn.

“We must focus our hearts on righteousness. Just as the Light can heal in righteousness, it can kill in righteousness. It can sear through flesh, cut through sinews, dig its way into organs. It can build up bodies or tear it away. It is up to you to determine what is righteous here.”

She waved her hand towards the chained and struggling gnolls.

“I’ve assigned each gnoll a number. Now, come here. Take a paper out of this bowl. The number you receive is the gnoll you are to deal with.” Heather proceeded to place a small bowl upon the edge of the stone table where the patient still lay sleeping.

Kyrahn felt a droplet of sweat on his brow. He looked up at the gnolls, now noticing the brands burned into their foreheads.

One by one, the students walked up to retrieve a folded paper from the bowl and opened them.

“Now, go and introduce yourself to your gnoll.”

The number “3” looked up at Kyrahn from the paper. He swallowed thickly, then walked up towards the line of chained gnolls with the rest of his peers. The gnolls thrashed in their chains as they watched the priests. Some of them snarled and drooled.

Number 3 was perhaps the youngest gnoll Kyrahn had ever seen. It reminded him a little bit of a Labrador puppy he saw someone bring into the Abbey once. It had mottled brown-and-black fur framing huge, terrified eyes.

He swallowed, but his mouth was dry and his throat hurt with the effort. All the priests around him just stood and stared at their gnoll.

“All these creatures have a basic grasp of Common dialect. They are not unintelligent savages. They have their own culture and their own societies. However, these beasts continually harass Azeroth as well as their own kind. They do not live in harmony with themselves or the world. It is debatable if they are even capable of feeling love. Instinct, perhaps… but not love.” Heather spoke as she walked up and down behind the students, pacing slowly.

“This is the entirety of a small tribe that was once camped several miles north of here, in the woodlands along the sea. Their chieftain has already been slain, which threw them into disarray. Before his death, this tribe was responsible for kidnapping and killing ten Stormwind soldiers to our knowledge. If this tribe is allowed to live, it is likely they will assimilate into a different tribe, and continue their violent way of life. They are a threat to the safety of Elwynn.”

Heather stopped pacing when she was centered with the group, her arms folded behind her back.

“It is only just that they are slain before they can continue their lives of violence. Reach into that justice, and smite these creatures with the Light’s holy wrath.”

Kyrahn looked around, sweat now dripping down his forehead and long nose. Some of his peers were staring into the eyes of their gnolls with a fierceness in their faces, their breaths quickening in a rage as their hands began to glow.

Others stared at their gnolls uncertainly. The women, the elders, and certainly the babes.

Standing right next to him was the blond, Jackie, his gnoll a young female with a bulge in her belly. He looked about as uncomfortable as Kyrahn felt.

“Me no want die.” He heard a gnoll whimper.

“No die. No die. Take to human prisons. Chain forever. No die.” Another female cried.

“Aaygh, aaygh! No prison. Kill, kill instead.” One of the males growled. “Kill, now. Get done with."

Heather said absolutely nothing. Some of the students looked over their shoulders, as though waiting for further instruction, but Heather gave none.

Then, one of the students cried out in a rage, his hand shooting out into his gnoll, grasping it on the skull. The Light burned and seared into it and it howled. The room filled with the sickening scent of burning hair and flesh. In moments, all the flesh on the gnoll’s head and muzzle was seared off, its eyeballs falling from whitened sockets as it slumped in its chains.

The initiative he took seemed to encourage other students to attack their helpless gnolls. One by one, they began dropping like flies. Some of the gnolls whimpered and wailed as they watched their families die. All the men fell. Two elders were killed. Three women.

But there were a few priests still standing, staring at the remaining of the women, the children, and the elderly.

Kyrahn’s breaths were coming in quick, desperate gasps as he looked at his fellows in the room.

“Well, you heard Heather!” Growled the man who had first struck. “Kill all of them! These creatures will bring suffering to Elwynn!”

“But some of them haven’t even done anything…” Muttered a nearby woman. She must’ve only been in her teens. “I mean… look at her. She’s so old… she couldn’t hurt anyone…” The girl looked over at Gnoll 17, her grizzled white fur so long it fell in front of her silent face.

“I bet she hurt someone at some point in her miserable life.” The gruff man responded, walking up to his peer briskly. “Here, I’ll do it for you!”

“No-!”

But it was too late. A flash of light filled the room and the elderly gnoll fell.

The gruff priest-in-training was taking steps towards Jackie now. Number 4, the pregnant Gnoll, looked wildly towards the approaching menace. She struggled in her chains, moaning, “no… no…” Number 3 began wailing and reaching for the pregnant one, his grubby paws tugging at his chains as he blubbered.

“Hey, back off, Derick!” Jackie said, standing his ground as his peer approached, shouldering past the stunned and silent priests.

“Either you kill her or I’ll do it.”

“Stop it!” Jackie protested.

Derick raised a hand to strike, but he wasn’t aiming at the gnoll, nor was his hand glowing. He hit Jackie square in the face. “You’re all cowa—"

Derick stumbled backwards, a smoking mark on his face.

Kyrahn lowered his hand. He hardly realized what he had done until moments later. He had struck a classmate with the Light.

And he didn’t stop there.

He struck again. And again. Each searing slash of light hurtling towards Derick, hitting him in his body, his face, beating him down.

When the others realized what was going on, they started to shout. “S-stop! Stop him!”

“No. Don’t stop him.” Ordered Heather in a loud voice. “This is a lesson on justice, after all.”

Kyrahn stopped attacking Derick when he realized the other priest was raising his hands in surrender, but he couldn’t speak, for he was spitting at blood. Kyrahn didn’t give the man at his feet another look, instead, he turned to the chained Gnolls and grabbed at the iron rings.

They began to melt in his hands, pooling in a shiny silver on the floor.

“Go, get out of here!” He told the gnolls.

The female gathered the child up in her arms and ran. The guards started to stop them, but Heather raised her hand in a signal to stay.

The gnolls didn’t look back as they left.

three

Neither Kyrahn or Derick were penalized for their actions that morning. Both of them received very good marks.

Kyrahn sat in the hospital wing next to Jackie and his broken nose. He was pinching it with his thumb and forefinger over a silk cloth while they waited for a more experienced healer to look at it. The healers were currently busy patching Derick up- Kyrahn was trying not to think about it.

“You’ve got balls, after all.” Jackie said.

Kyrahn fidgeted.

“…You didn’t have to stand up for me like that, you know.” Jackie murmured, his voice decidedly nasal.

Kyrahn shrugged.

“But we’ve- I’ve… I’ve been a real jerk to you.”

Kyrahn didn’t say anything.

“You know…” Jackie said with a weak chuckle. “This whole time I thought the only words you knew were ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Why don’t you ever talk? You’re fooling us all with all your acting stupid and stuff…”

Kyrahn opened his mouth, then shut it and shrugged. A silence fell over the hospital wing.

“Where did you come from, anyway?” Jackie asked quietly. “I mean, most of us are here because our parents sent us, or we got drafted, or we just genuinely want to study the Light. I mean, personally, I came here because my parents are assholes and I wanted to live somewhere else, you know? But you…” He hesitated, looking over at Kyrahn’s sunken features. “Janice brought you here out of nowhere, wouldn’t tell anyone where you came from or why you were half dead when you were dragged in.”

When Kyrahn didn’t reply, Jackie kept talking.

“She disappears a lot, sometimes for weeks. Always studying from weird books when she thinks no one’s looking. Don’t think we haven’t noticed. Most of the guys think you were some kind of unusual patient of hers, like… some of the others she brought back from her long trips into nowhere.”

Kyrahn looked over at Jackie, one of his eyebrows raising.

“The general consensus around the Abbey is that she fixes them. She finds people who are hurt, uh, in the heads. And she fixes them and sends them away. I guess she hasn’t fixed you yet?”

Kyrahn shook his head. “She just told me to stay here and be a priest, so I did. She hasn’t talked to me about my memory loss much.” Jackie frowned. “So it is memory loss, then?” Kyrahn nodded.

“Damn. I’m sorry to hear that.” Jackie breathed, leaning back in his seat. “Man, what I wouldn’t give to lose some of my own memories…”

Kyrahn looked down. “It isn’t pleasant.” He replied. “Sometimes I still have dreams, but they don’t make any sense.”

“Yeah, you talk in your sleep all the bloody time."

Kyrahn frowned. “…I keep having the same dream.” He began carefully. He didn’t follow up with an explanation. This was more than he had spoken to anyone in this Abbey since the day he woke up, and he wasn’t sure if he felt like talking more.

“What’s it about?” Pressed Jackie.

Kyrahn didn’t respond for a while. The sounds of the healers working behind the closed door in the waiting room were all they could hear. Five minutes passed before Kyrahn finally spoke again. “I’m angry about what happened with those gnolls.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“The world is very black and white to me.” Kyrahn said. “But what happened back there. It felt evil to me, but to many of the others, they thought what they were doing was right. And both of us could use the Light through that. I thought the Light only worked in righteousness, but I felt that Derick was being very unrighteous.”

“Scary, isn’t it.” Murmured Jackie. “Yeah, I… I’m bothered by it too. It seems like if we believe we’re justified in what we’re doing, we can use the Light. Doesn’t matter if it’s really justice or not.”

Kyrahn nodded wearily before slowly beginning to speak. “I can’t stop thinking about it. What if they all deserved to die? What if that female and her pups would grow up to kill someone because I let them go?”

“I dunno, Ky.” Jackie paused. “You mind if I call you Ky?”

Kyrahn shrugged, staring off at the wall. A disturbing series of thoughts crept into his mind. What if he had just enabled further murder by saving those helpless creatures? And he had attacked a student to save them, too.

He looked down at his palms. Unscathed, pale flesh looked back at him, but he couldn’t help but to imagine them covered in blood. Red, dark, dripping ceaselessly to the ground. A sudden thought pierced through his consciousness like a spear. The dead in the red hall.

You know what justice should be? You should be dead.

Kyrahn flinched as though struck. Justice for what? What did he do? Why did he keep having that dream? And why did this… overwhelming feeling of shame wash over him? He felt as though he had gotten away with something he should not have done, but he did not know why.

A pang of self-hatred needled into his heart. He must have been shaking, because Jackie spoke to him then.

“You ok?” Jackie asked him.

At that moment, one of the healers opened the hospital door, and a rather disgruntled Derick stumbled out. He gave Kyrahn a rude gesture before stomping his way down the hall.

“Next!” A healer spoke, and Jackie was gone.

The teasing stopped, but Jackie couldn’t be bothered to speak to him in public. Kyrahn supposed it was because he was afraid of losing status with his friends. He didn’t blame him for that.

Besides, poking fun at him was bound to get old eventually. Kyrahn relished the silence that followed, and he was back to being treated as he was after he had woken up and assimilated into their society: completely ignored.

At least, that’s what he thought, until the whispering started.

Occasionally, as he was making his way between classes and prayer sessions, he would hear some of his peers murmuring in the halls. This normally wouldn’t be of importance to him if he didn’t hear something that sounded distinctly like his name among their hushed voices as he passed. They always grew silent when they saw him.

Sometimes, he would intentionally hide behind a corner to hear if passer-bys were talking about him. More often than not, he was just wasting his time. He’d hear gossip about this girl or that, some reports about murlocs or brigands, or general how’s-the-weather talk he had come to loathe about social types.

But some days, he would get lucky.

He heard several voices, mostly women, talking as they made their way back from the dining hall.

“I heard that Janice has the power to erase memories.”

“Really? I didn’t think the Light could do something like that.”

“It can’t! But I hear some terrible things about shadow-magics. You think she might be dabbling in dark arts!?”

“That’s possible. She’s pretty creepy and weird.”

“Anyway, I heard she did it to Kyrahn.”

“Wot, the eunuch?”

“Yeah! I heard he was some kind of trial run for her. An experiment.”

“That explains how strange he is. Poor guy must have his head all empty and blank.”

“But get this. Get this. I heard she did it because he’s some kind of criminal. Some of the boys say he talks in his sleep, says some rather alarming things.”

“Like what?”

“Like… things that sound like ‘are you dead’ and ‘did I kill you?’ Usually stuff about something or someone being dead. It’s like he’s fixated on it, or something.”

“He must have not had his memories wiped, after all.”

“How do you guys even know if any of this is true? I don’t see anyone asking him what he thinks."

The voices came louder as they neared the hall where Kyrahn was standing, listening. He stood until he could not wait any longer before he quickly walked away, hopefully in time for them to turn the corner and see no one there.

When he was safely out of sight, a flurry of emotions welled up inside him. He felt confused, betrayed, and disturbed. Was Janice really the reason he had memory loss, or were these just the theories of bored gossipers? Did he really talk about death in his sleep?

Was he some kind of killer?

#wip #prose #creative writing #wowau

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