How Gods Bleed

by Shane Porteous

  Before he spoke again the red light flashed in his eyes once more, “Then one night we were visited by an unwelcome guest….” Cada Varl could feel his hands tremble slightly as he feared just who this guest might have been. “I remember in the days prior to this visitor, that I could hear the sounds of battle in the wind, though I could not see it with my eyes.” The figure looked away for a moment of weakness before he looked back to the Immortal and said, “The sounds I heard were the battle of Marga!”

  Upon hearing these words Cada Varl could feel something cold and unwelcome fall across the breath of his soul. The battle of Marga was the battle that had cost him his humanity and was the cause of what the world had become.

  “I remember my mother and I were gathering wood for the fire, as I said before the winters were harsh in that small hut of ours….” The figure paused; he had to stop in order to get control of the anger within him. Through teeth so clenched his gums almost bleed he said, “Then you appeared in the distance, staggering aimlessly….” As he said these words a black tear identical to the one that had fallen from the eyes of Cada Varl fell onto the cold ground. He took a sharp breath before he bellowed, “My mother tried to help you!” His words were so strong that they seemed to make the whole chamber shudder at how powerful his emotions had become. “It did not matter that your eyes were red, or that you were covered in blood or that you were a Gatavoi soldier. For all that had happened to my mother, for all the darkness she had witnessed never had she lost her desire to help those in need….” Cada Varl did not take his eyes off of the eyes of the figure but he noticed how heavily the figure was clenching his fists together.

  “You attacked her like some feral animal and all she was doing was trying to help you….” His voice now had become so consumed with emotions that his words were difficult to hear but Cada Varl understood them all too well. “You placed your hands around her throat and took the life from her….” Another tear fell as he said, “I was a mere child, there was no way that I could have stopped you but that didn’t prevent me from trying….I was simply too weak to pull you off of her so I bit into your arm as hard as I could…I am glad to see that my bite left a scar on your arm….” Cada Varl didn’t bother to look at the black scars upon his arms, it would change nothing knowing which one the figure had given him. “I bit down so hard that I took a chunk of your flesh….” The figure then rose a finger to the strange cut upon his face. “You did this to me when you ripped me off of you, digging your nails into my skin like claws, causing me to swallow your flesh. You hit me so hard that I was knocked unconscious, do you know what was the first thing I saw when I awoke….”

  Cada Varl did know the answer but he could not bring himself to say it as his eyes filled with shame.

  “The lifeless face of my mother!” The figure snarled out. “You killed her!” the figure bellowed in a tone that only Cada Varl could understand. “As the curse of your flesh consumed me the first thing I remembered was how to cry, as I sat there over the body of my mother tears of black poured from my eyes…no matter how hard I shook her I could not bring her back from death….” The figure fell silent once again this time for a long period Cada Varl had no desire to force him to continue as he was consumed by dark thoughts of his own.