Luther : The hero who burned the world

CHAPTER 21.5: ASH IN OUR MOUTH

...

The Boy in the Ash

I don't remember what he said to me.

I only remember his eyes.

I remember the way he looked at me as he passed... the great golden veins on his arms, his coat torn, his hands clenched into something like fury, or pain, or maybe nothing at all. I remember thinking he didn't look like a man.

He looked like a storm.

And when sir asked... too loud, too curious... if I was afraid, of what's to come, little didn't I know... I will end up like this..

He just walked on.

And later, when the ash fell, I wished he had answered... I wished he would come save the day again... maybe just maybe... My hero.

But now..

Because now he knew the truth.

Gods don't answer you when you're nothing.

...

The streets are darker now. Even in daylight.

They say it's the smoke from the sectors he burned.

They say it's the blood still drying in the cracks of the stones.

I don't know what's worse... how much I miss the sunlight, or how I can't sleep at night anymore...

I used to play marbles in the alleys. Now I just sit here, knees pulled up to my chest, and watch the crowd moving past like a river I can't climb into. These adults feet kick up dust that tastes like salt on my tongue. Their banners whip against the sky and their voices chant words I don't understand.

"Kill that thing."

"We are not safe."

"Let him burn for what he's done."

Dad used to tell me not to listen to mobs. "Mobs," he'd say, "are just scared people pretending not to be scared."

I think about that every time I hear someone yell Luther's name like a curse.

And then I think even more about how Dad isn't here anymore... with us... when will he get home... I asked myself.

...

Mom keeps on telling me his on an important mission. Tasked to guard outside edens walls and battle big bad guys ans save the day like luther.

But...

I watched him die.

No one knows I saw.

When the chaos started, he told me to stay inside the shop, under the counter, no matter what. He locked the door and told me to keep my head down. Said he'd come back for me once things quieted down.

But it never got quiet.

I peeked out when I shouldn't have. The glass was already broken, smoke curling through the cracks, and I could see the street.

People running. People screaming.... a monster killing...

And it was him.

Luther.

He was… something else that day.. I don't know what. He didn't look human. His whole body glowed like molten gold, veins lighting up like they were about to burst. His black wings spread out arching like a fallen angel. The soldiers kept shooting at him, but he didn't fall. The ground split under his feet. The air bent around him.

And then I saw my Dad.

He was standing in the street, trying to pull a neighbor out from under some rubble. He didn't even see Luther until it was too late.

One of those golden molten feathers ripped right through them both.

The neighbor was just gone. Nothing left but ash. My father… he fell. And didn't move again. Eyes turned white in a instant.

I didn't scream.

I just… stayed quiet. Just like he told me.

Even when the soldiers came and started dragging more bodies away.

Even when they dragged Luther away, too, in chains.

...

The next day, the riots started.

The banners came out. The shouting got louder. Everyone said it was the Observers' fault. Everyone said it was Luther's fault. Everyone said everything but the truth: nobody knew what the fuck was happening.

But people needed someone to blame....

That's what mobs do isn't . Pretend they're not scared.

The soldiers lined up on the street corners. The Choir started moving among the crowd... you could tell who they were if you looked close enough. The masks. The way they whispered into people's ears as they passed. The way they painted those black symbols on the walls when no one was looking.

One of them stopped in front of me.

Bent down.

Pulled their mask just far enough down so I could see they were smiling.

"You hate them, don't you?" they said.

I didn't answer.

"Of course you do," they said. "You're smarter than the rest of them. You know it's all a lie."

Then they pressed something into my hand... a strip of black cloth.

"When the time comes," they said, "wrap this around your arm. So we know you're one of us."

And they melted back into the crowd before I could say anything.

I shoved the cloth into my pocket.

It's still there.

I don't no why I kept it... yet it felt right.

...

That night, I dream about Dad.

In the dream, he's not dead. He's still standing there in the street, holding out his hand to me. His face is ash-streaked but calm.

And behind him, Luther looms, golden and enormous, his veins blazing like a sun.

And they both say the same thing at the same time.

"It's your choice."

When I wake up, my face is wet.

...

The next day, the chants are louder and louder. The crowd is bigger than before. Mom told to stay inside as she be out for a while... I didn't..

I follow them down the avenue, past the Spire, past the broken shops, past where they dragged the bodies.

One of the soldiers shoves me back when I get too close.

But I kept watching.

Greed is on the steps, shouting at us. His voice is huge, booming over the square. He calls us cowards. Says we don't deserve their protection. Says we'd all be dead without him.

He calls us bastards.

Calls us ungrateful.

Calls us weak.

And for the first time… I feel something hot and sharp in my chest.

Like maybe he's right... Do we deserve to live anyway at this point. What's the point.

But then one of the others... Genna, I think... knocks him down. Just like that. And the crowd cheers.

And I realize: he's just as scared as the rest of us... seemed human then what I usually saw.

...

That night, I didn't come home... the boy who lives three doors down doesn't come home. Mom screamed at the soldiers, but they just walk away.

No one talks about it.

The banners keep waving.

...

On the third day, the fires start.

The soldiers don't even bother putting them out anymore.

Someone starts handing out knives.

Someone else whispers that the Cradle is gone.

That Luther escaped.

That the gods are weaker than they let on.

That all it takes is one more push.

And the black cloth in my pocket feels heavier even more then yesterday.

...

I sneak away from the crowd.

Up a flight of stairs to the roof of one of the old buildings.

The ashstorm whips around me, stinging my eyes.

From here, I can see everything.

The Spire glimmering faintly against the dark. The soldiers forming lines. The mob surging against them. The banners snapping in the wind. The sigils glowing faintly on the walls. The masked Choir members moving through the smoke like ghosts.

I sat on the edge, my legs dangling over nothing.

And I think about his eyes.

Luther's.

That day he when he came to me in the street.

They weren't kind.

They weren't cruel.

They just… were.

And for some reason, that hurts more than anything else... if maybe he is understood but at the same time his the reason I don't want to go home anymore...

Am afraid.

...

Sometimes I wonder if this is what being human feels like.

Watching heroes play their games.

And choking on their ash.

...

I take the black cloth out of my pocket.

I hold it up.

It flaps in the wind, just like the banners.

And I whisper to myself, just loud enough to hear:

"We prayed for gods... to be saved. And yet here we are living in a predestined grave."

"Have your'll truly foresaken us."

Then I tie it around my arm.

And when I climb back down into the street, no one even notices.

I disappear into the crowd.... and went up forward.

With the people commanding the riot.

Accompanied with chants that rises around me like thunder.

"Let the gods bleed. Let the knife carve. Let the ashes speak. FOR We weep no longer for a savior but salvation. "

...

The ash falls heavier.

And I don't plan to look back.

...

END OF CHAPTER 21.5: ASH IN OUR MOUTHS