The Spark

by Taylor Gibson

  “I’m sorry, Sui,” said Larou in a soft apologetic tone, “We merely meant to give you and George the confidence to conquer teleportation. Bradel did ensure George that though he grew up without any friends, it didn’t mean that he was alone in the world. I honestly don’t understand why you’re getting so defensive all of a sudden.”

  The four of us stood on the road, wasting the time that we had to find the nilts’ den at the mountain’s base. Seeing that it was probably just a misreading in my foggy mind, I shook my head and continued down the road. The three shrugged their shoulders and followed behind me. We made our way to the base of the mountain in about a half an hour; I started to feel something dangerous enter my body. I was tormented by an itch to fight somebody with no purpose. I kept trying to grab my sword to swing it at Larou. The ability to fight this urge swirling in me like an eel was not an easy task. A few times I gripped the hilt, but thankfully, the practical bit of willpower left inside me restrained my urge to fight without reason.

  When we reached the bottom, Larou took the position of leader and directed us to an incline under the mountain. When we turned to enter it, there was a dark cave waiting for our entry around the corner, but it wasn’t a nilt den, according to what I had read in my books back home. They were considered as open dents in the bases of the mountains, not deep under and within the mountain. Before we entered the dark, slimy cave, Bradel asked us how we were faring thus far.

  “I need to know if either of you feel any different than you did before. If you do, that means that we will need to use a higher level cure.”

  As soon as the gnome said that I panicked, as I assumed we would have to move on to another location for this “higher level” cure. I had enough of traveling! I nearly grabbed my sword from off my back after I balled my fists and showed my teeth to an intimidated Bradel, who backed away with caution.

  “Whoa, hold on there, Sui!” Bradel said, putting his stubby hands up. “The nilts have all manner of cures that we can choose from! All I asked was how you feel right now so that we use the right cure. Please calm down. I know you’ve progressed because I can see it in you right now. You are delirious; progressing much more rapidly than George here. Calm down, Sui, I know you’re still in there.”

  I was beginning to lose consciousness with the outside world. Something within my soul was trying relentlessly to induce my inner anger. A spirit of evil was among me and I could feel that it was a familiar one. Asteroth was with us, and I learned straight away that he had a distinct connection with the jauish curse. After he took full control of my body, I blacked out and fell into another dimension, beyond time and space. To this day, I have forgotten my experiences in this odd place, but blurry images from this world still come to my head even today when I reminisce.

  I was unable to take control of my body. Asteroth would appear to be a cowardly demon if this was his way of attacking us. But nothing about him seemed predictable, especially considering the fact that he had separate forms. I wasn’t certain which one was taking over, but it didn’t matter; they were both the same entity, and members of Exitius. As I struggled to fight my way back into my own body, I was pushed deeper into the unknown, starting to drown in hopelessness. Though I had tried as much as I could to take back my body from Asteroth’s possession, he denied me and continued whatever he was saying or doing to George and the two old men in the physical realm.

  ***

  Everyone has demons within their souls, but sometimes these supernatural beings aren’t the same ones that we were born with. Sometimes a person can be possessed by more powerful demons that they were not meant to have; like a puppet master pulling the strings of their body, mind, and soul. Whether by curse, dark arts, or the rare case of direct victimization, demons strike like no creature known to exist.

  ~George Gibson Goodwill

  The jauish curse had presented the effects early with Sui. While I was feeling different than I had a few days ago, I certainly wasn’t as severely troubled as she was. She claimed to be Asteroth; demonic deity of destruction, false leadings, and answers to every question concerning the unknown realms. I couldn’t be sure if she was actually being possessed, even if she was shouting at us in foreign tongues. Perhaps she was suffering the curse’s wrath, but one thing was a hundred percent certain: Sui was becoming a ferocious monster, booted outside of her own mind by an abomination!

  Through her mouth, the odd language flooded out, and she continued to threateningly approach us, causing us to back away in fear that she might slash us with her sword in flaming fury. Bradel, Larou, and I backed into the cave entrance, not fleeing from her, as turning our backs on her would be a dire mistake. As soon as she started speaking in her normal tongue again, there was not a doubt in my mind that Asteroth was in control of her body, possessing her to be violent and ridiculously vile.

  “If you fools think that I am giving Sui back to you, think again! Look into my eyes, George, haha! Can you see the major difference in what you know to be Sui’s eyes? These are my eyes!” The eyes of the demon filled her sockets with their cruel stare. They were white with the same exact shape as the brand in the middle, and just like the tattoo, it was solid black. “For I am the one who embodies the purpose of the jauish brand, and once I have fully led this soul to the eternal darkness, you shall be next, Goodwill!” The demon laughed, mockingly, “Tell me Larou, have you ever considered making a better living after your experience dealing with me? Other than the medical field, I mean, couldn’t you have stayed with that poor, poor wife of yours so she wouldn’t have been mangled and killed by that murderer?”

  Larou stomped in the direction of Sui, yelling, “Son of a bitch!” He made his way up to her and grabbed the possessed Sui by the neck of her metallic blouse, then hit her in the face with an opened palm. I knew that Sui herself couldn’t feel the slap to her cheek and that the demon was the one who would respond to any pain inflicted, so I didn’t try to stop him from continuing. He did it again and again until the demon pushed him off of her. When I was still living with my family in Shimbia, I had studied up on the nature of demons and exorcisms. A demon such as this one was like the neko curse I once had; the only eternal remedy was a sacred object or a defining moment. The remedy was just inside this cave, but I was afraid that if I went deeper inside, Asteroth would push Larou aside and attack me. Bradel seemed to be our only hope at this point since he was small enough to slip away unnoticed.

  “Hey, Bradel,” I whispered to the gnome as Larou continued to strike at Asteroth within Sui’s body with all his rage, “go in and find the cure at once! He won’t see you enter, I promise.”

  Bradel stood there for a moment and shook his head, replying, “Don’t make promises that you can’t keep, George, but I’ll go.”

  After Bradel ran deeper into the nilts’ den, I watched as Sui gradually changed her appearance into something grotesque. She appeared the same shape, but her skin tone was changing to a blood-red with black spots all around her body and her eyes blackened and sank deep within her skull. Larou had to back away as a shadowy figure emerged from out of her mouth and hissed like a serpent, but also growled like a wolf. It was Asteroth forming into his combined forms of crimson and ebony; one of the most hideous of creatures emerged before us in the growing darkness of the cave. We were pushed deeper into the den by the entity’s force. Over time, Asteroth had fully manifested. Sui returned to her own body, pale and worn from the traumatizing event. She lay unconscious several meters behind the demon and the mount he was riding. None of us could go to her since Asteroth was blocking the narrow path.

  He was a slender man with long, black and red hair, sharp claws on twelve lanky arms, and crimson eyes, riding on the back of a strange, wolf-like monster. In his top left hand, he held a small dragon that breathed black fire and hissed like a snake. Asteroth was the man on the mount, and the wielder of the serpent. Apparently, we had completely pissed him off. He raised
his top right hand and built up a ball of dark flame, he bit down on his three, black forked tongues, and prepared to cast a spell on us. Larou and I looked behind us, hoping that Bradel would arrive before the angered demon had the chance to slowly end our lives with torment and pain from the claws on his twelve appendages.

  Asteroth came for us with the ball of black energy and cackled with an increasing amount of madness. The dragon in the demon’s hand coughed up a pulsating ball of black energy, smaller than the one in Asteroth’s hand. It began to revolve around the larger one like a small moon orbiting a planet. We continued to back away from him, keeping sharp eyes on his ferocious canine mount, but Asteroth especially. He loomed over the black muddy ground with a low-pitch laughter slithering all throughout my skin. Ambient wind followed behind him and blew right into us, sending chills through our very bones. I looked behind me again and saw Bradel return with a small, white orb. It appeared to be made of glass, having a tall spiral of white flame that reached higher than the gnome himself. I knew right then and there, that the bright orb he was carrying was the cure we had come for.

  “Damn you Asteroth!” Bradel yelled, realizing that Asteroth was blockading the entire cave so that Sui was unreachable. After the gnome shouted those three words, Asteroth raised his fist, covered in the throbbing wad of darkness, and prepared to smash it on our heads with one blow. In a split second my entire life flashed before my eyes; the life I thought I had been kept away from.

  Just before Asteroth had the chance to kill us with the dark energy, an unlikely hero emerged from the darkness of the cave behind us. Leaping between the demon and our stiffened poses of trepidation was a rat-like nilt carrying a jagged spear and wearing a hooded cloak with several pieces of jewelry adorning his body that symbolized his noble rank in the den. He used his spear to strike Asteroth’s mount directly in the head, completely throwing the demon off balance. Ultimately Asteroth himself vanished with his serpent, leaving only the corpse of the winged wolf before us with soulless white eyes staring at us and its green tongue hanging out. The nilt nodded, proud of his kill.

  For a moment I thought it was done, and so too did Bradel and Larou. But all of our pleasant thoughts of a victory were soon silenced when the nilt gave out a shrill screech and grabbed his throat, appearing to be strangled by an invisible force. Asteroth began possessing the nilt just as he had possessed Sui. Only this time he wanted to finish us quickly rather than dragging out fear before our last breaths, but we weren’t about to let that happen so easily.

  Bradel still held the orb next to me, not even daring to pass it just yet because of the possibility that the demon would shatter it once I caught it. The beast that the nilt had slain reanimated itself. Asteroth, within the nilt’s body, leaped on the wolf’s back and rode it. The winged monster went after Bradel with its immense jaws stretched far apart. Larou and I did everything we could to defend him, taking some of the beast’s scratches and blocking whatever massive lunges it brought upon us. As we continued to defend against the dreadful hellhound, Asteroth used the nilt’s rather muscular build to throw stabs at us with his mighty spear, but he missed every chance he had to turn Larou, Bradel, and I into a shish kabob. Annoyed with his repeated failures, the demon spoke through the nilt’s raspy vocal cords and began to taunt me like a child.

  “George, why don’t you just go to your parents where you belong? I have the power to twist your mind just as someone else had done before! I may just cause Sui to completely forget who you are, or worse! I can even make her believe that you tried to kill her; that you had been enemies for your entire lives! I am the demon of madness, George! Forget what you’ve read in books!”

  The large amount of disgust I had for this thing spread through my body like wildfire! With all my efforts to hold back my fury now in vein, I lunged forward at Asteroth’s pet and stuck my iron daggers straight into the top of its head. Without a drop of blood spilling from the skull, Asteroth’s mount vanished. The nilt was freed of the demon’s grip, but the atmosphere still held the burning stench of evil that swirled like a haze of smoke forming from nowhere. It flowed through my nostrils and took over my body. I could see everything that was going on around me though I no longer had control over my body. Asteroth was giving me the chance to see myself kill everyone in sight. Not able to withstand the power of the mighty demon, I prepared myself for the worst to come. Shedding a tear, I raised my daggers and heard the loudest deep cackling that my ears had ever met.

  Below me was Bradel, trying his best to run and give Sui the cure, now that the wolf-like beast and Asteroth’s physical form had vanished. I felt my arms being controlled like a pawn on the border between life and death, constantly forcing me to stab at the defenseless gnome. Thankfully, the mage that brought us here was strong enough to hold back my amplified strength with a magicked shield that shocked me with lightning every time I was forced to touch it. I wasn’t able to feel any physical pain with my body, but in my head there was an unbearable amount of chaos.

  As Asteroth recklessly slashed at the shield without any success of getting past the steadfast mage, a large roar echoed through my brain, mixing the sting of electricity and the harshness of sound to a horrid peak. When Larou lowered his shield and I found myself running towards Sui, my soul screamed, but there was no sound at all. I could only feel the vibrations of my voice flow throughout my entire body. My scream ended when I noticed that Sui was standing up with a smirk on her face directed towards the demon, through my eyes. I could feel Asteroth’s dismay of his upcoming defeat pulsate from within the core of my brain.

  “Noooooooooo!” Asteroth shouted, using my vocal cords and hurting my ears from the inner vibrations. Sui turned her head and continued to stare at Asteroth from the side with a growing smirk and a shrug of her shoulders. She then said in return, knowing everything was going to be alright, “Yes.”

  Taking her sword out of the strap behind her, she swiped it in my direction, startling the hell out of me with every stroke aimed at my belly! Asteroth possessed me, but if she cut me in half, that wouldn’t stop the demon, it would stop me! What is she thinking: I kept asking myself in panic, watching her play with my life! Asteroth had no better host to have influence over other than myself, but since he believed that Sui was going to slice me in two, the demon shot out from my body and made its way out of the cave as a haze of screaming and wailing black fog. At long last, the nightmare was over.

  “You’ve defeated me, but you still have yet to recall where I have come from, Sui.”

  At first Sui was calm as I sat in the mud, gazing up at her beauty. Our strings had been cut; we had full control over our own bodies once again, and it felt invigorating. But moments later a shift in the atmosphere picked up in the cave. It became heated with the growth of Sui’s wrath, which showed itself in her scowl as she looked around. I had to recover from that awful experience, so I spent much of that time on my knees, panting like a worked up dog. I looked up at Sui and could tell that she wanted to use the mage shout back at the demon, but I saw that she didn’t want to perform it in front of the two men and the nilt. The mage shout is a powerful voice that mages can achieve by channeling their magick energies and unleashing it through their vocal cords to produce an ear-popping shout. Nevertheless, she could not control her anger toward Asteroth’s teasing words. At the top of her lungs, she let out all her loathing toward Asteroth like a thunderstorm and a burning palace.

  “Go back to hell, Asteroth! We’re not intimidated by your foul words! We know what we’ve lived through! You’ll never poison me or my family with your retched filth again! I cast you out demon! I cast you away from us forever!”

  After the long echo of her pulsating voice lingered through the cave’s narrow hallway, the nilt who had aided us carefully took the cure from Bradel and placed it on my chest. A sudden jolt of electricity shot through my entire body, causing a sheet of white to flash over my eyes and gradually fade over ti
me. Taking a deep breath, after recovering my sight, I looked down at my right arm and saw that my flesh was cleansed of the black brand that had tainted me. Sui was next to have the cure, and her relieved reaction was no different from mine. Neither of us stained by jauish despair anymore; Sui and I were certainly not going to be damned into a bleak netherworld of nonexistence as we would have been if Bradel hadn’t shown up in the jungles to aid us.

  Not nearly a minute after Sui had calmed down, did a mysterious voice speak from out of thin air. No apparitions or presences could be found, but a strange elderly man’s voice brought comfort and guidance as disembodied whispers echoed through my ears as well as Sui’s.

  “Whisper, whisper, whisper” it repeated, “whisper, whisper. Whispers of your lives falsely told. Now that you’ve met Asteroth and endured the jauish curse, you should now vaguely know. Ask the wizard with the green beard, and he shall reveal the past you’ve truly experienced. Every detail will be answered, I promise.”

  The voice was unknown to me, and based on the confused expression I shared with Sui, I knew we weren’t connected to whoever was speaking to us. Or were we? The past wasn’t within our reach, even still, so it could have been a telepath we once knew that was reaching out to us, trying to aid in our great quest to find Äbaka. Apparently, he had the key to restoring our memories.