The Bonding

By Jalil

The shadows of the trees made the darkness seem solid and heavy around him as Sabin crept silently on, but despite the oppressive darkness Sabin wanted to leap and dance for joy. Tonight he would finally put a face with the voices that have spoken to him for so many years. He was going to be face to face with a creature from another world! His mother would have locked him inside for week in fear of his safety had she had even and inkling of an idea of what he was up to. Sabin, on the other hand, positively bubbled with excitement at the possibilities.
After walking a ways, he stopped suddenly. He couldn’t have said exactly why he stopped except that it felt right. Aside from the important bits he remembered from his dream, he was going purely on instinct and feeling. Recalling the memories of his dream he picked up a broken twig from the forest floor and then swept away the debris until he had a clear patch of dirt. On that be began to draw. What, he couldn’t say, except that he’d seen it vividly time after time in that dream where the voice had whispered to him. It seemed to be some kind of sigil, though, with its intricate lines twisting and curving into a spherical shape until after he had finished drawing an unbroken circle around the design, the lines quite resembled an almost featureless face with three pairs of eyes tangled into a knot-like design, giving the impression that the face was trapped or bound somehow. Sabin could’ve studied that drawing in the dirt for hours, but a glance at the luminescent moon peeking through the trees overhead told him his curiosity about the symbol would have to wait. The whispers had been clear about the importance of timing.

Careful of his drawing in the dirt, Sabin lowered himself to the ground and began the incantation. The words meant nothing to him particularly, but he found as he spoke them they reminded him of nothing more than the sound of the whispers that had guided him thus far. Now there just one final key to make it work. Desire. But that was easy enough; Sabin’s curiosity gave him more than enough of that. Still he fed his desire, his drive, his need to know what was beyond until he felt he must burst with it. From here the process was almost unconscious, coming naturally to him as he focused that desire on the symbol he had drawn. What happened next he couldn’t see with his eyes, but he could feel it. As if a dam had burst from him, the desire he so focused upon flooded forth into the symbol. Something wasn’t quite right, though. It felt like pouring a single cup of water into a bottomless pit. Wasn’t his desire enough? Hadn’t the voice told him that all he had to do once he spoke the incantation was want it to happen bad enough? He knew there had to be a way to fill that pit, that void. Something told him that if he couldn’t accomplish that, he couldn’t bring the creature to this world. He had to bridge that gap, but how?

Desperately he searched his mind, his feelings, his very being for something, anything he could feed into that gap between worlds, but what? Then he sensed it, a vibrant, energetic feeling within himself that he had passed over twice as if his mind didn’t want to consider it. Only now he realized, this he could tap into, even draw on. He could use it. A small voice cried in wordless caution to deter him, but he was so close. So close. He couldn’t quit now, not without trying. Bracing himself he stretched towards the warmth of the energy well he had found and plunged in. There was a brief moment where he felt like he wanted to laugh aloud and cry in joy and scream in sheer exhilaration all at once, but the pure life-filled joy quickly became a muted buzz and then nothing as he willed it to fill the void and finish what he had started. The night was barely cool and yet he felt a sudden shiver, as if someone had walked over his grave.

Again that voice of desperate warning sounded in his head, but Sabin was only focused on one thing: It was working!

No longer did he feel like he was trying to fill a bottomless pit, but instead that gap he could sense but not see was being bridged! Just a little more and…

A yawn cracked his jaw unexpectedly, and he felt so…cold. Wasn’t it warm out? He shifted his eyes upward, but his head felt like a heavy weight on his shoulders. Where was the moon? It had grown a lot darker than he remembered. Just a little more, though…

He felt like he couldn’t breathe, like something was compressing his chest. The darkness around him, he thought it suddenly felt heavy. His lungs felt like they were burning, but it was a distant thought. Was it even his thought at all? No, he had to concentrate.

Mother…she would be furious if she ever found out. Wait, was something moving? He thought he saw something, but everything seemed dim and gray. No wait, something was moving, rising up. Ironic, he thought, that it resembled that face in his drawing so, those three pairs of eyes rising, or was he falling? Yes, he was falling. Maybe if he just laid back and closed his eyes for a moment. He was so tired and his scalp tingled. At least he thought it did, but his head felt so stuffed with wool that he couldn’t be sure. If he could just sleep…just for a while…

Darkness closed in around him. Yes, he would sleep.

--

The anju rose from the ground, six eyes twisting to find its summoner. A wicked grin split its shadowy face emphasized by a jagged row of teeth. What a gullible young fool, so caught up in his curiosity that he sacrificed his own soul. Already the boy’s body was showing the strain of casting the spell that had been carefully planted in his dreams, the long mouse-brown locks seeming to be drained of their color leaving his hair starkly white. A good sign for the anju. If the body was going into shock then death would follow very soon. Oh yes, the poor fool was killing himself and he was too blinded by his heart’s desire to stop it. Just a moment more. It had been patient this long, and haste now could very well make it regret ever conceiving this idea.

Finally the boy slumped down into a heap. Those blue-grey eyes stared blankly up at the sky and the chest no longer rose and fell. Good, it was done, and now the anju could reap the benefits of its scheming. Finally it would have free reign on the world of mortals to feed on fear and flesh to its heart’s contentment. Eagerly it seeped into the body looking for the hole that would be left by the boy’s missing soul. There. It could feel the new sensations, senses so vivacious compared to its own such as smell, taste, and most of all touch. How it must be to always have such vivid sensations, and coupled with the anju’s own acute senses it thought it might be overwhelmed at first.

It continued to get a feel of the body, reveling in this new sense of aliveness, when a faint pulsing feel caught its attention, like the fading light of a dying dream. Curiosity drew it nearer until it felt like it could reach out and touch the dying light. It hadn’t even realized it was trying to touch it until a particularly strong pulse made it draw back in…fear. Yes, it certainly knew what fear was. Suddenly it wished nothing more than to be away from that guttering light. It wasn’t sure what would happen if that light, that warmth, regained its strength instead of dying out, but it didn’t want to find out. It tried to turn its attention away, hoped that by ignoring the pulse it would go away and leave the anju to its newfound freedom. Instead the next pulse brought such a strong feeling that stopped it cold.

Live!

It was impossible! Purely impossible! The boy was dead, it had watched him die! Watched this precious body grow cold as his life drained away.

Live!

The fear the anju had felt moments before exploded into terror. How could this be happening? It had been so careful, hadn’t it?

Live!

It could still escape. There would be another chance. It was immortal, infinitely patient. It could find another.

Live!

If only it could leave the body. Why could it not leave?! It forced itself to face the growing pulse that echoed through its own body now, and it knew.

Live!

It had chosen the boy because he had the ability, the desire. It could have laughed.

Live!

That very desire was going to trap it. Not free to indulge itself on mortals…

Live!

…but instead trapped, patching the very soul it thought destroyed. Trapped by a foolish mistake.

Live!

It could have laughed, had it known emotion. Had it known irony, it would have laughed until it wept from it.

Live!

Instead, as it felt the boy’s growing desire to live pulsing through it like blood through its veins, as it felt itself being anchored to its new body…no, its new prison… Instead, it howled in a wordless fury.

LIVE!