The sounds of raging fire and the screams of dying innocents, woven together was a difficult thing to forget, even for those with the most hardened minds. It called upon a primal part of the human psyche. The part that inherited the progenitors' most ingrained fears passed down from generation to generation.
Jorin heard his mother's shriek louder than anything else. It rang deep in his ears, reverberating inside his skull. Even the sound of the raging flames could not drown out her cries. The unforgiving fire clung to her like greedy goblins, burning, scorching, turning her skin black, her flesh sizzled from the heat.
She spun around desperately, ripping at the beads around her neck as her body burned. She clenched the tiny balls in her hand and squeezed until they shattered. Something potent and powerful rippled from her hand, sweeping across the room to hit Jorin. Magic. It was more than he had ever seen her attempt to wield before. She was trying to fight the fire with her own powers. She lost. The flames spread quickly, engulfing her entire body. She screamed louder in outrage and pain but to no avail. The fire would not be denied.
Jorin's limbs were numb. He couldn't scream. He suffered his own horrors in silence. Pain, excruciating beyond anything he had ever felt before, it coursed from the center of his chest down to his gut and then all the way up again to his neck. It felt like his blood vessels carried magma instead of blood. Paralyzed, all he could do was shiver from the intense agony.
The acrid stench of his own mother's burning flesh and clothes wafted up his nose, mingling with the overpowering smell of everything else burning around him. Jorin could do nothing but watch. The flames spared no one. Except Jorin. It seemed content to simply consume him slowly from within. Ever an outcast. Around him formed a circle upon which the rest of the flames refused to encroach. Everywhere else, it knew no restraint.
Then there was the Entity.
It moved through the fire as though he was a mere observer in the audience, unaffected and apathetic to the woes around him. He wore a long dark cloak over his impossibly tall form. The clothing was so long it pooled on the ground, completely obscuring his feet. Tongues of flames licked at the edge of the material but it was never set alit by it. The fire reached for him with greedy fingers but were repelled with an angry force that lashed at it to stay back. The Entity moved almost leisurely through Jorin's burning home. The raging inferno didn't seem to bother him at all.
Its head swiveled from side to side. Jorin saw the vague outline of a beak but then its head continued to morph and undulate, as if it was uncertain which shape it wanted to take. The Entity turned in his direction and paused, observing briefly before he flowed toward him.
Another detail about the entity stood out to the young boy. The Entity did not have the gait of a bipedal creature even though it was clearly standing upright. Its shoulders did not sway with its movements. Its steps were too fluid. It crossed the space between them faster than its slow steps would have indicated. Jorin's mother ran in its direction and threw herself at its feet. It was a desperate action. A part of her mind registered what he was and she sought his help.
The Entity weaved around her with barely a pause. It did not even turn to look at her. Jorin should have cried out to him, begged him to save his mother. She was the only family he had ever known. He loved her. But his mind, like his body, was equally numb to it all.
"This is your doing," the Entity said, accusingly. Its voice was deep, but not in the way a man's voice was deep. It rung hollow, like it came from a gong. Its tone was dripping with hate and vitriol so palpable, it made the animalistic aspect of Jorin's mind recoil away from it in fear.
A beat passed and no response came from Jorin. The Entity studied him further, a vague suggestion of eyes appeared within its formless head. Its form was almost like a dream. Jorin could not comprehend it, could not seem to hold on to the memory of it. Even when he thought of the Entity, its form continued to shift in his mind.
"You spent nearly all of your soul to wrought this upon your home. Was it worth it?" The Entity waved his hand at the carnage. Jorin didn't know where the hand came from, there were no lines or slits in his midnight cloak. The limb was completely black, just like everything else about him. The fingers were odd. They were too long and possessed an extra joint each.
"So hateful."
Jorin felt his glare, even without being able to see the Entity's eyes. Jorin knew he wanted something. The town was burning. His mother was on fire, in total agony. They needed to be saved. He needed to do something. He needed to say something, get help. With that realization, something slid back into place within his broken mind.
"Oh?" For the first time, Jorin heard an emotion other than pure hate in his voice. "Curious," the entity noted dispassionately.
With some of his mental faculties returned, Jorin found that he could finally articulate words again.
"Help," he whispered, his voice hoarse and raw. He tried to point the Entity to his mother but when he looked at her, she was no longer moving.
"Help?" The entity echoed. He moved to glance at Jorin's mother and then back at him. "Why?"
He leaned in closer to stare at Jorin. Even now, the boy couldn't make out any of its feature beyond the undulating shadows that comprised his form. Jorin was confused. Helping was the right thing to do, wasn't it? People were suffering, why should he need a reason to help if he could?
"Ah." The Entity straightened. When it spoke again, its voice dripped with disdain. "I see, you vile creature, you expect charity."
Chaos raged all around the two of them but the Entity acted like they had all the time in the world. It didn't care. There was a great antipathy within the Entity. None of the destruction bothered it because it was largely disaffected by everything.
"You will get none from me," the Entity spat. "Your mother is dead anyway. Your home will be nothing but rubble by sunrise."
He looked down at Jorin again. "I was watching you. Few possess the capacity for destruction that you do and you did not disappoint me. I feel great glee knowing that I nudged you to become this. Yes. You will do nicely."
He reached down and seized Jorin by the collar of his shirt, lifting him up like a dirty wet rag. The Entity didn't want Jorin to touch him, he made no show of hiding it.
"Take one last look at your work. Engrave it in your mind. All of this destruction was done by your hand."
Being held like this, he could see the rest of the town as most of his home had collapsed around them. No! with his mind awakened, Jorin could finally begin to comprehend magnitude of what he had done. He gasped for breath but no air entered his lungs. The way the Entity held him, combined with his rapidly beating heart, made it impossible to breathe. Yet his body demanded what he could not give it. The sight kept him transfixed.
The ethereal blue glow of the fire reflected off his teary eyes. The Entity made him watch. Only moments ago, the village had been utterly quiet and calm as families settled in for the night. Now it was all gone forever. Taken by the blue flames.
"This is soul fire. Your soul fire. The flames can never be extinguished by ordinary means. You did this. Witness the manifestation of the hatred in your soul. Even your own mother was not spared."
There was nothing left of his mother but a burning, blackened mess with a vaguely humanoid form. Mom. He wanted to cry, wanted to scream, wanted to rage and pull at his hair. But no such relief came to him. He found himself sinking down a deep, dank well of sadness and despair.
"If you wished for a swift death, you will get none from me. I see darkness in you, Anjorin, son of Priestess Jireha. I will take what is left of your soul, your suffering will be long and excruciating. I will revel in it greatly as I reforge you."
There was something tickling his brain. Like a rat boring a hole through a cupboard, scratching and scraping away at the wood. Jorin wondered if the Entity was actually the grim reaper come to take him to hell.
"Dread Academy awaits you," the Entity intoned.