Childhood

The Hero spun, unwinding his muscles like thread off a spool, and in an instant the sword was at her throat. Another inch of movement and she would live no more, bleeding out of the neck like a lamb at the slaughter. His control was precise, however, and no such event occured. At the other end of his sword he found a little girl who couldn’t have been more than five or six years old. She looked at him fearlessly, her dark brown eyes sitting like tiny globes of mud in her head. Perfect, pale skin with rosy cheeks sported no smile, only a slight grimace on her face, like that of a disappointed mother. Her voice was sweet and sing-song, like a bird in the morning. Her tone, however, was less than sugary.

“Aren’t you a little old for this?”

Her words bounced around his ears, and then finally cascaded down his senses to the pit of his mind, where it sat, sank, and was absorbed. There was no danger from this child, so his sword came back. He put the point of it in the ground, and leaned on it, puncturing the surface a few inches before it settled and ceased to move. What was a kid doing in the middle of the Abyss? There was nothing down there. And —

“What are you talking about?” It was the only question he voiced. All others were lost for the moment, never to reach another’s ears.

“I said,” shot the girl, sounding incredibly impatient, “aren’t you a little old for this?”

This? Wondered the Hero to himself.

“A little to old for what?” He narrowed his eyes. He knew he was old — he was ageless, like everything else here. It wasn’t really possible for him to be too old for anything.

“This.” The girl was out of patience, as if the Hero was idiotic in not understanding the meaning behind her words. She waved her arm in a big circle, indicating that whatever she was talking about was around him. She was talking about the Abyss. But the Hero was still lacking clarity.

“What? The Abyss? How can I possibly be too old to come here and fight the Darkness?” He almost stopped himself before saying the name of the beast. It was sort of foolish to think that a little girl possibly understood what the word meant other than the thing that made her tremble at bedtime. He said it anyway, despite the vomit taste it left on his tongue.

The girl wrinkled her nose and laughed. It wasn’t the typical childish giggle. It was a mocking chortle that stung deep within the Hero. Something about this child was not normal, other than the fact that she appeared out of nowhere in the confines of the Abyss. The Hero felt a distinct, suffocating discomfort start to bubble in his stomach.

“You act like a child. You come in here and play these games. You think you’re fighting for something, but you’re just wandering around a never-ending nothingness and expect to save the world. You’re so naive.” The girl certainly was mocking him now. There was no more hiding it.

“What kind of gibberish are you spouting out of your mouth, girl? This isn’t a game, this is the defining Battle between Darkness and Light that I’ve been fighting for eternity.” Wasn’t it? The Hero had risked himself so many times in the middle of this purgatory to seek out and destroy the one who had caused him so much pain while others on the outside remained ignorant and complacent. This was his calling in life. Right?

“So you think. You come down here and put yourself into a story that you created yourself. Without you, this battle would never happen. You’re nothing more than a child with an imagination that has run wild, a dreamer of senseless dreams that will always end when you wake up.”

Wake up? He certainly didn’t feel like he was sleeping. All the scars on his body…they were far more than awakening pinches from his past. The adrenaline, the pain, the strife. It all felt very real to him.

“Dream? You think this is a dream?” The Hero accidentally let some of his anger slip through his words, and the girl reacted, staring him straight in the eyes now. She seemed to have an unwavering determination within her. “If it is mere nonsense, then you don’t exist either.”

“Of course. But at least I have come to terms with it. You march around as though the world will cry out for help to you, and reward you with glory when you come through for them. But you won’t. There isn’t anything more than what you experienced up there, up on the ‘surface’. All those people you criticized for being empty shells – they had the right idea. You’re just playing a game.”
Malice flowed from those words. It was as if she was inside the very spirit of the Hero and ripping it, piece by piece, from his mental structure. The pieces scattered around him, and he could see every one of them fall to the ground and dissolve. But he wouldn’t take this from some ignorant child. No stupid little girl would convince him that his life was meaningless. Such a small voice…just a whisper in the scheme of things. Nobody could break his resolve! How dare she!

The tip of the sword was out of the ground and in a familiar ready position in the Hero’s hands. One swift singular command from his muscles would bring this insolent child’s world crashing down on top of her for the last time.

The Hero said nothing, but the girl was not finished.

“Go ahead. Cut me down, child. And then you can go on living your ridiculous fantasy. Even if the Darkness did exist, don’t you think any real hero would have destroyed him by now? But no…you must search endlessly for him. And when you confront him, you can’t even finish the job. Not only are you an infant, but you can’t finish anything you start.”

He cracked. The blade came soaring down, humming a song of death as it split particles of air apart. Hate, anger, and violence poured from the heart of the Hero as the blade made contact with the neck of the girl who was so bold as to berate him. The Sword reveled in the combat.

And then, she was gone. Vanished. No blood, no scream, nothing. One moment there was a child standing before him, the next, there was nothing. It was not apparent to the Hero until he had finished his swing in full, a loud, rumbling battle cry echoing into eternity. When he did see, however, that he had indeed swung at nothing, the shock rippled through him like a lightning strike. There was a lot to understand about what had just happened, and he knew he understood nothing right now. Dejectedly dropping to one knee, he bowed his head and stared at the empty ground. A small piece of the puzzle, however, came to him at that very moment.

In the background, far in the distance, but close enough for him to recognize, came a deep-bellied laugh, dripping thick with evil.

He had failed in finding the Darkness. Darkness had found him instead.