The Awakening of the Gods (Forgotten Ones)

by M. H. Hawkins

  Reliving the moment, Fenrir now had a carefree grin smeared across his face and a twinkle in his eye, and he almost forgot where he was, almost feeling like he was really back there, back then with his father. Then he remembered and shook his head from side to side, shaking himself back to reality.

  Unfortunately bad memories often latch onto the good ones, following them into our thoughts and hearts, and that was what happened. And Fenrir grew more solemn with each spoken piece of his story. Good stories with sad endings, he thought. And though he hid it well, the pain was growing inside him. And the end of this story was a sad one, one that he didn’t want to remember, definitely not now, not at this moment. It—the story, the end of Fenrir’s stories—was one filled with fire and death and killing. It was an ending that ended with his father dying and Fenrir falling into a long slumber. It was a story he would not tell, not now and maybe never.

  Instead he smiled and patted Ramus’s hand again. Then he turned to Mea and squeezed her hand as well. He snorted then said, “I believe that that is enough storytelling, for now anyways. My father always said that it was not good to reminisce about the dead for too long. He’d say, ‘Never whisper too recklessly—to the wind, to men, to beasts, to the wolves, or even to the gods themselves, especially the dead ones. Because, even though they remain hidden beneath the dark veil of the final death, an errant whisper is enough to stir a slumbering ear, even those that are shaded in the death. And the old gods are cruel… especially the dead ones.’”

  A chill filled the room, but Fenrir flung back his head, roared with laughter, and slapped his armored thigh. “They are just stories, my children. Only stories.” It was a lie that he almost believed himself; it was a lie that he wanted to belief. “Aye, my apologies. Time is short, and I am wasting yours with wasted stories. Little lion, while your whispers were certainly not reckless, you have stirred my ear nonetheless. Now let us get back to what you came here for.”

  Mea patted his giant shoulder—twice the size of her hand—and nodded. She stepped away from the throne and back in front of it—to the appropriate place to address the wolf-god. Mea watched as Fenrir’s six anointed wolves moved back into their original placement—three on each side, slightly behind Fenrir’s throne—and waited for the wolf-god to address her again.

  Fenrir sighed and said, “So, little lion, what is it that you want? A favor, I am assuming.”

  Mea nodded low and respectfully. “Yes, a favor. Time. Seven days… to stop it (the Cleansing) More, if you’ll allow it.”

  Fenrir growled, and he could already feel the judgmental stares gravitating to him, on him. Waiting patiently was not in a wolf’s nature, and it was certainly not a small favor to ask of him. Killing an innocent, sparing a life; these requests were more reasonable, easier sells. But waiting… waiting—after the wolves had just risen, just woke up and fed, and were newly energized—was not an easy sell. If Fenrir agreed it would be taken as a sign of weakness. If he didn’t, his pack would most likely attack Mea, and she would end up killing a good number of them—more if she realized her true power—before he could stop her.

  As Fenrir pondered his potential answer, Mea saw the indecisiveness on his face. He’s waffling, she realized. “For old time’s sake,” she said grinning, hoping to lighten the mood.

  Fenrir scratched his beard and thought. “The world, it has grown very warm. I miss the cold. The world was much colder in the past.”

  “And you’re welcome for that,” Mea snapped back with a grin, still hoping to sway his decision. Either way, it was the truth. After the great flood, Mea had, in fact, caused the Ice Age. While she hadn’t specifically done it for Fenrir, she was glad that that depressing era of her life was over and hoped that she could now use it to her benefit.

  Fenrir continued thinking out loud. “We have slept for many years, most of us through the great flood as well as the rise of the mortals.”

  “And you didn’t miss much,” Mea quipped. “It was rather uneventful.” Still attempting to be lighthearted, the look in Fenrir’s eyes indicated that she was pressing too hard. She decided to back off and let him decide.

  She tried to back off. “C’mon,” Mea huffed. “It’s seven days, a week. Fenrir, we’ve already lost so much. Give me a chance… Please.”

  Fenrir scratched his beard and continued mulling it over. Seven days? Seven days of hunting. Sacrificing seven days of feeding. Seven days of food. No, it would not be an easy sell.

  The calmness from Fenrir’s stories seemed to have worn off, and Darius was back to his old ways. “Absolutely not!” he shouted, interrupting the discussion. “No. No, you will notyou’re your seven day. We will not delay what we have been waiting for, for so long. The culling is at hand, and we have risen, and we need to feed. And if you stand in our way…”

  Fenrir waved his hand to silence Darius, and his brothers restrained him.

  “Please,” Mea said to Fenrir. “I’ll owe you one, a kindness.”

  Darius shouted again, his words filled with rage, and Mea’s hand brushed back her white satin cloak, and then she slid it over the hilt of her sword. Mea moved her hand away from it, a gesture of good will and trying to keep the peace. “Fenrir, I need an answer. Please.” Before this gets out of hand.

  Darius tried to push forward and shouted again, even angrier this time. And Fenrir responded. “Enough!” he shouted, slamming his fist down on the stone armrest of his throne again. “Seven days. You will have your seven days, little lion. No more. Use them wisely.”

  With sincerity, Mea thanked him, bowed, then made her way back down the stone steps. Disappearing into the corridor from which she came, with a flash of light she was gone. The last thing she heard was a rumble of loud, angry voices.

  CH 6: Good Girls Gone Bad

  Somewhere in hell, deep within the stone tower, Lilly walked towards the edge of the black hole carved through the center of it. Her sun-kissed skin lied beneath a strapless black gown while her arms dangled lightly and carefree at her sides. Yet as she stepped out of the shadows and under the red light shining down from the crimson sky hanging over the tower’s open roof, her dress melted into a black body suit that had the look of glossy black latex, and her left arm vanished into nothingness.

  The sounds of hammered stone and clanging metal rang out from behind and all around her, and her banshees streamed past and around her like white jet-streams from wingtips of subsonic jets. And just when the army of banshees seemed to be dissipating, Lilly’s skin prickled with goosebumps, and more drifted out of black glossy covered skin, growing into thin streaks of white smoke.

  Floor by floor, the stone tower imprisoned a seemingly endless number of monsters. And all of them were released when Lilly took over ownership of the tower. Unlike the motley matchings of demons that occupied hell, the inhabitants of the stone tower were better put together. Some took the form of pitch-black wolves the size of bears. Others had long, wide wings covered in scales and grumbled like the dragons that were often seen in the movies. Still, despite the few exceptions, most—almost all of them in fact—remained relatively small and were roughly the size of most humans. Despite their tortured souls devolving into creatures with more fangs and more feral in nature, most of the stone tower’s prisoners were human once, at least at one moment in time, and despite their appearances and their new savage nature, most seemed to keep at least a hint of humanity, and size, of their previous existences. Unfortunately, that hint of humanity was mostly the bad stuff—hunger, anger, violence, obsession, greed, etc.

  Some were not humans at all; some were gods, previously gods. Once gods, now monsters. Envious and curious of the mortals, they had taken the flesh and became mortal, like Mea had. Unfortunately the emotional turmoil and confusion that comes with mortality took its toll on the gods, and the longer they stayed trapped within mortal-flesh and amongst the mortals, their insanity grew and washed away whatever divinity lied within the gods. Unable to forget their mistakes, process their emot
ions, or escape their endless nightmares (which were filled with the lives of mortals), the whispers of: what if? what have I done? and what should I have done? consumed them. And, like those of us tormented by the never-ending battles with our inner demons, the one-time gods endured a similar strife.

  And right now, they had company. Lilly’s banshees were streaming around her and through the tower—and around and through every cell, corridor, and floor that it held.

  The experiences of the gods were not identical to our own, and for them, as they grew older and accumulated life experience, their transformation was substantially different. Fighting against their own foreign humanity and internal turmoil, they slowly but surely became monsters, in the most literal sense. Then they became the things of myths.

  Imprisoned within the stone tower for an untold number of years, this is what they were waiting for, the Cleansing, a way to wash away the pain and hit the reset button. The Cleansing meant a release, a reprieve from their pain, and whether it was through wreaking havoc or in death itself, the Cleansing meant freedom. And it was at hand. It seemed to have lit a spark within the creatures, and their monstrous growls had been growing wilder and more insistent as each day passed, and they came closer to the time of the Cleansing. Their howls echoed through the tower, over its stone bricks, and through the darkness of it. The beasts, the creatures, the once-gods could feel it coming. They could feel it in their bones, and their excitement and ferocity grew with each approaching day. Like roses blooming in spring, the Cleansing seemed to have resurrected the seed of life within them all and shaken them awake from their docile imprisonment.

  And with Lilly’s takeover of the stone tower and the mechanical rumbling of the prison cells opening, the once-gods-now-monsters waited in the anticipation, and as the clanging of iron bars grew louder and nearer, freedom was a heartbeat away. They could feel it. They could touch it. And as the orchestra of chiming, clanging prison bars sang out, it sounded like freedom.

  When the iron bars that imprisoned them finally slid aside and disappeared into their cells’ stone walls that framed their cells, freedom became an open door, and the gangly creatures felt something very human—hope, happiness, freedom.

  Suspicious at first, the creatures crept towards the open downs of their cells, the ones that led into the long corridors of the stone tower. Every creature—the pale, vampire-like ones; the eight-foot tall beasts that were covered in oily, gray fur; the horned ones with spiked tails that could only hiss; the scaly ones that flew, slithered, or ran on all fours; the snake-like ones that had two heads and shark-like teeth; the monsters that looked like men and spoke like them and fed on them; and every other sort of creature that you could ever imagine rose and stepped out of their cells, smiling at the promise of freedom.

  Those feelings and that promise were quickly snuffed out. Instead of freedom, they were immediately greeted by swarms of hollowed eyes and streams of smoke that flung them back into the prison cells they were just freed from.

  Then the banshees had them. Monsters or not, they were finished. Lilly’s banshees were like scavenging hyenas, and as soon as the gates opened, they swarmed them, dove in, and a hurricane of white smoke was rushing around the beasts, slamming back into their cells, and beating them against each of the cell’s other two stone walls and its stone ceiling. Then after a little more tussling, they devoured the monsters’ souls, and it was done.

  Whatever they were before—gods, humans, or monsters, now they weren’t. Now they weren’t very much of anything, not anymore. Now they were food. And as the wolves found nourishment by devouring the abominations, Lilly’s banshees found theirs by feasting on the inhabitants of the stone tower. They sank their eerie, ghostly fangs into the fantastical creatures and drank deeply. The creatures drained and deflated until they were no realer than their own fading legends.

  The imprisoned monsters’ sacrifice wasn’t in vain nor was it wasted, and as the creatures shrank, shriveled, and dissolved into nothingness, the banshees plumped up just as quickly. The banshees’ hair thickened and became healthier. Their ghostly, pale skin darkened to a more acceptable, cream-colored shade. Their claws became sharpened, shrank, then molded themselves into something that resembled human fingers, something more corporeal, realer. The banshees felt like they were waking up from a dream. In a way, they were. Lying dormant with Lilly, the Queen of Sorrows, through the ages—some longer than others, there was a tortured soul lying in the heart of each and every banshee. And oh how they’ve had to wait; wait to be released, to get their revenge, to seek retribution. But they were close now, so close, and each drop of blood they drank brought the banshees back to the world that hurt them. They became flesh, became something realer, less-empty than they felt, less ghostly.

  From the sound of it, they weren’t finished either. Shrieks and thumping sounds continued echoed out of the cells and through the dark corridors of stone. Further within the tunnels, the archaic torches that lit the pathway flickered wildly and danced around to the sounds of monsters killing monsters. And just as a strange, as the cold gusts of wind came swooping in and through the dull, darkened corridors and fanned the flames of the torches that lined their walls; the songs and screams of the dying monsters also came to a close. The thrashing and thumping sounds faded and were replaced by faint gasping ones that seemed to hush the arriving darkness. Then magically enough, the rows of archaic torches lit up again—the flames brighter and wilder than before.

  Though it wasn’t meant for the prisoners held within the stone tower for ages past, freedom had come nonetheless, and Lilly’s army of banshees came alive, ready to rejoin the world of the living… sort of.

  One-by-one and all together, the banshees stepped out of the open prison cells and into the stone hallway. Barefooted, they were all wiping their lips with the backs of their hands as they admired and adjusted to their new bodies.

  Lilly’s banshees, they were all beautiful, eerie, and nearly identical. Almost too thin, they were all knees and elbows, and their skin was as pale as milk. Though flat and lifeless, their hair was the nearly the same pale color of their skin. Still, as pale as it was, their hair somehow managed to shimmer like the silvery-white manes of the well-kept old and elderly. The banshees were all clad in the same clothing, black spaghetti-strapped dresses; the bottoms of them were shredded into shimmering black that fluttered and slapped against the backs of their pale calves.

  The banshees finished wiping their mouths, and they all looked down at their bare feet, wiggled their toes, and smiled. We’re alive, again. They all looked left and right at each another and smiled again; they stepped forward and formed two single-file lines and started marching down the stone corridor, all heading to the same place, the center of the stone tower. Still glancing at each other as they marched, they shared silent nods and bashful smiles. All looking alike, at the moment they were also having the same exact thought: at least we’re not ghostly clouds of smoke anymore. Thank the gods.

  Lilly remained near the center of the stone tower and at the edge of the black hole that was drilled through its center. And now she was standing at the edge of the one of the stone floor and glancing into abyss, where the great Leviathan was once imprisoned. With a look of confusion painted across her face and her forehead scrunched up, she quit looking and shook her head. Blackwell fought and died, for this, she thought, some stone, a big black hole, and some monsters—all wrapped up in one big, boring tower. So disappointing. Then she looked up—out of opened top of the stone tower and into the crimson sky above it. In flashes of black, it seemed to darken before her eyes. Ravens, reapers, she knew.

  “It’s a shame,” she said to no one in particular. “I would’ve thought that he’d put up more of a fight.” She huffed. “So disappointing.” Lilly examined the fingernails on her right hand, the only one she had left. At a glimpse, her nails looked like scorpion stingers, but after she buffed them against her chest and examined them again, they were suddenly a set of fresh
ly manicured fingernails that were painted in glossy, blood-red nail polish. “Waiting so long for something so weak,” she huffed. “Such a waste of time. It almost wasn’t even worth killing him… Vincent Blackwell, the Dark One…” What an idiot. Then she puffed out a coat of steam against her fingernails and buffed them on the chest of her glossy black bodysuit.

  Just then Lilly heard something rattling behind her. Her tail. It slinked out from behind her and curled around her waist and dangled in front of her face, wanting to play. Also looking like a scale-covered scorpion tail, its scales ruffled and rattled, and it playfully jabbed at Lilly’s face, playfully missing on purpose. “Stop it,” she said, wagging her finger at it. “Stop it right now. No, no playing.” And her tail rattled sadly then slinked back to where it came from.

  Lilly shook her head and huffed. “Maybe later. Okay?” Her tail rattled behind her—a quiet, slow, submissive rattle. Lilly moved on to scratching at her empty shoulder socket, where her left arm was once attached. As she scratched at her stump, she noticed the red ribbon on her right wrist. “Huh.” Examining it, the red ribbon shimmered like finely sewn silk—just like it always did, but she noticed something odd about it. It was short, shorter than usual. Then it wasn’t. The red ribbon lengthened on its own and slithered up and around her arm, over her shoulders, then elegantly wrapped itself around her neck—like a long red scarf that slightly dangled across her chest. She smiled and admired it. “Much better.”