[First Year of the Nightmare Spell]
The first year of the Nightmare Spell was nothing short of despair.
If there was peace, it was swallowed in the belly of savages.
It was bleak.
Ruined.
Chaotic.
But even before that, humanity had long tossed aside morale and sowed their own discord in the world.
At first, humans exchanged a dance of bombs and warfare. They clocked their buildings, gassed their cities. Will and pride laughed amongst the stocks as their adversity had no bounds, so much so as to neglect the innocent they've claimed to have fought for.
But in their own malevolence proving too much, nature felt inclined to join.
A violence of its own that was a force to be reckoned with.
For you can build and trample on castles, choke the soil in blood and martyr thousands and claim to be gods. But at the foot of the skies, at the thrones of mountains, you have no choice but to attach meaning to tragedy.
Much of the earth gave up and showed no mercy to its inhabitants. Oceans swelled and swallowed the coasts, lands with cracked open jaws consumed much of the valleys and mountains. Nuclear winters sullied the world in periods of darkness. And so, the skies continued to bleed its ashes.
Even by some miracle humanity found stability amidst this chaos, the universe had different plans for it.
The Nightmare Spell.
No prayer could save them from this inevitable event.
An arcane magic system, a forbidden creation, and a doomed future was fated to plague the world with an unforgiving game of survival.
But one must wonder, did humanity find solace in this mayhem?
***
[Tenth Year of the Nightmare Spell]
The number of Awakened had finally increased. Their Aspect abilities assisted them in fighting back the monsters who invaded their homelands. A combination of combat and utility powers were used and explored. A new understanding of this new magic given by the Spell had been studied, theorized, and adapted too.
The heavy darkness that filled their hearts at the beginning of it all was now starting to clear. Human civilizations slowly started to rise out of the forlorn ashes; militias regained their wits and strength to face the profaned beasts; the Spell wasn't only a threat but a challenge to their prowess.
But most of all, Immortal Flame's legacy had begun.
The first Awakened had become a Master.
He was the white knight.
The hero.
The symbol of humanity.
Like himself, the news spread like wildfire. The hope and glory of what humanity could achieve was presented around like some mythical fable.
Such hope spread throughout the world. Such faith on this newly Ascended warrior.
To the far south where the last remaining Icelandic structure remained, to the ends of the earth across vast oceans, to even the slums and hidden crevices deep within settlements, his ascendance was made known to all. The responsibility that he took upon his shoulders blinded humanity a future full of promise.
The possibility to conquer the world from the Nightmares altogether.
The Immortal Flame.
But then one early day, a boy was born.
In a home far from the renewed civilizations, a place squandered from the other Quadrants, a settlement that lorded their own laws for order, was a small family that had begun their new life.
Through all of these propagated tales of Immortal Flame, a boy cried when he entered the world. Yet his mother smiled. As well as his father and brother. A few years later, his sister would also be born and the smiles would cycle again.
But even so, the boy cried nonstop. Unaware of all these new joys and ambitions that sparked the hearts of many, his tears flowed out like a stream. He took his first painful breath into this strange world in contrast to his family's pleasantry smiles.
This new life.
This new promise of what was to come and what could be, all because of one man.
The Immortal Flame.
"For the glory of humanity," people chanted.
The boy's blue eyes glistened with tears, stinging from the glaring lights overhead and enclosed cold atmosphere. It was so shiny and illuminating above he thought it would rain down on him. Yet he could see dark blurry silhouettes towering at the ends of his vision. Their bodies loomed over him as if keeping a watchful eye on his existence.
Where their heads shined like halos, their faces were all but mere shadows.
Did he know them?
Were they danger?
No longer was he trapped in a cushioned womb, or weighed with a pressure on his chest, but instead he felt naked and bruised.
"....oh...Ho..p..e...What a lo.....vely....n..a.me..."
He heard strange words spoken from afar and felt foreign hands grasp hold of him.
A strange contact.
It felt raw and sore against his exposed skin.
Who were they? Why was he here? What was glory?
What was this world?
Why was he even born into it?
Ba bump...
Ba bump...
Ba bump...Ba bump...
Ah. A much more comforting familiarity.
The mother softly kissed the baby's fair hair and hugged him close to her breast. She leaned down and pressed her forehead against his as she looked into his eyes.
Her eyes...what color were they? They were but warm pools that stared into his. Whether it was a mother's secret knowledge or intuition, it seemed she could see his soul.
Her hot breath tingled his skin as she spoke.
"For the glory of humanity," the boy's mother whispered.
Poor boy.
Named after a burden he didn't know of.
Born to a world that seemed long forsaken by the gods.