Delias’s voice had given out., His screams were no longer audible, and his mouth crooked ajar in constant agony. That was the first day. The second day, the insects jumbled up in balls and hills, squirming as they ate, any concept or form of what they laid upon was gone. But by the start of the third day, all that was left on the platform were those creatures. Their heads were of a brighter red, and silver veins gave a pulsating glow on their exoskeleton as they laid still, and for three days they remained as such.
Malkovich’s eyes were red. He had not moved from that spot the entire time and seemingly had not blinked. More days came and went, and on the tenth day, the green-robed man appeared once more. He was older now. His head was full of white, and his flesh with wrinkles. He moved slowly, and his breath was labored.
“It begins,” he said plainly as he came to Malkovich’s side. His voice sounded old and frail but clearly retained a mystifying power. His eyes, though, were now completely like any human’s.
Suddenly, there was movement. One of the insects had stirred, then another, and another. More and more began to shift across the metal platform. After a quarter of an hour had gone, all of them had crowded together and formed themselves into a giant red-silver ball…and then that ball melted. The creatures dissolved in a small pool, becoming a pinkish liquid that aggregated to form into the shape of a human. The liquid solidified.
Like this, another day went by. By now the green-robed man’s skin was shedding. His eyes had completely greyed out, and a dark and soul-crushing energy emanated from him. He, too, did not remove his gaze from the platform.
The human-shaped solid cracked, and in a blink of an eye, fell away as it crumpled into pink and silver sand. At that point, Malkovich finally moved. Walking to the platform, he took a deep breath and blew, and the sand flew off to reveal a naked form. It was of a young man. He did not look older than seventeen and had long, curly black hair.
The green-robed man licked his lips. He walked forward, standing over the young man. He waited. An hour… two. Time flew, and the green-robed man frowned. His frown deepened as nothing continued to happen.
“Why? Why hasn’t it come?” growled. “I followed the procedure. The timeline of everything was perfect. It should have worked!”
He turned to face Malkovich, but Malkovich’s face was pale. It seemed he knew what this ordeal meant to the green-robed man; knew what cost it brought him, as well as what would happen should it fail.
“Could it be-” Malkovich began.
“What?! Say it, boy!”
Malkovich turned solemn. “Could it be that he’s dead?”
The green-robed man shuddered. He looked towards the naked body. He did not see it breathe or move, not even a twitch. But that was common. What mattered was if the life force in the body maintained a certain threshold. If it didn’t, the body would never wake, and any life force that was there, to begin with, would eventually waste away.
The green-robed man rushed closer to the platform. He quickly flicked his hand down and laid it on the naked body’s chest. He closed his eyes. The green-robed man’s hand twitched.
“No!” He was dismayed. There was still life force in the body, but it was infinitesimal. If the body did not obtain more, it would die, and he would not get what he wanted. But to provide the body with life force would come at a cost to his very own. Only, the green-robed man’s five-hundred-year mark was hours away. He did not have the life force to spend. Once he used five-hundred years of lifeforce, regardless of how powerful he was, the laws of the world would descend down upon him and turn him to dust. If he gave some of that life force away, he was not sure what would happen.
The green-robed man’s gaze shifted to Malkovich. Malkovich noticed and took a step back, a slight fear on his face. Even if he was willing, I can’t use his life force. It would be the same as him being the contract holder and I would still get nothing. There is only one option left. The green-robed man was hesitant, but his hesitation went away once he thought about it some more.
*
Malkovich stood by the side. The green-robed man was his master. He had stood side by side that man for a decade. He learned from him and grew more powerful with him, but that was not why he stuck with the man. Malkovich’s aim was something far more precious than the knowledge the green-robed man had given him. And that was fire. This was not an ordinary fire any person could make. It was legacy fire. Such a fire, if tended to, could grow within the body and significantly increase one’s chance to obtain ascension. Malkovich desperately wanted this. He had somehow found out that the green-robed man obtained this fire. The fire was too precious for anyone else to know of, else more powerful competitors would just kill the green-robed man and take it. So Malkovich waited. He became an assistant, a pupil, and learned dutifully. He knew it took twenty years to tend to the legacy fire. When the green-robed man obtained the fire, he had only fifteen years of his entire five-hundred years of longevity. Malkovich believed that all he had to do was wait patiently, and when the old man died, it would all be his. But then suddenly, he watched in shock as the old man, placed his palm on the body on top of the platform and blue legacy fire burst forth from his hands.
He’s attempting to convert the legacy fire to life force and give it to him! “NO!” Malkovich roared. He pounced to stop the old man. He had formed a contract with the green-robed man as a pupil, one bound by heaven, so he could not kill him, but that did not mean Malkovich could not shove him away and let him die on his own. That way, the fire would not be given off.
Boom! A soundless roar shook Malkovich’s core. He stopped, and fell to his knees. The will of the fire placed pressure on him, lowering his head to the ground. Blood fell from his nose.
*
Within darkness, Delias floated. He felt nothing, heard nothing. He floated within the black void for what seemed like an eternity. It was then that the blackness began to break away. Beneath him, a blue and white flame erupted, shrouding and soundlessly cackling all around him. It was like he was in a gigantic sphere, flames all around him, hundreds of meters out. That was the first thing he could see. There was no heat coming from the flames. There was no coldness. There was no sound, only a flickering brightness.
Delias slowly turned around. Everywhere was blue and white. He roamed and roamed until he realized the amount of space within the sphere became smaller. It was slowly converging in on him. Delias remained where he was. He had no feelings about the fire. He felt no fear or excitement, seemingly numb to this world. But there was something unmistakable about the flame that bothered him. It was like an itch under his skin, but of the mind. It felt like he had forgotten something, and racked his head to remember. What was bothering him?
He had no knowledge of his past. He had no presence or thought towards his future. All he knew was that he existed and there was a fire inching closer. When the flames were only a meter away, the sphere suddenly shrunk. It was so quick, that it startled Delias. And that startlement was the first feeling he had. His body shook, and as the flames touched his skin, they burned him, consuming his ethereal flesh. He screamed. His body felt hot. His chest felt a timeless pressure.
Boom! Something within his body echoed, and that sound rang again. The booming continued. Over and over, and as the blue flame seemed to consume him, and as it seemed that Delias’s lungs were filled, he breathed.
Delias had taken a breath. A breath for the first time, and he had breathed in fire.
He woke.
*
Delias propped himself up. He felt hot. He looked over to see a hunched over, old man. He looked at the man in confusion, but it wasn’t until he sniffed mint, and saw the fresh green robe did he remember who the man was.
“It’s you!” Delias gasped, his lungs filling up with the room’s cold air. He hacked and coughed, but took the time to look to the old man standing over him.
The man’s face was pale and skewed. Delias looked past the man over to the figure kneeling low on the ground, blood dripping from his nose eyes.
The old man just looked at Delias. That look was ancient and filled with death. Delias’s throat clenched. He could not speak; that pressure amplified. Just as he thought his body could take no more, a suction sound came from the left. The suction sound grew louder and louder, but the air remained still. Nothing moved. ‘Pop!’ Delias shivered. He felt cold and empty as if he lost something, something important and dear to him.
Within the room, the air distorted, and a vertical orange-red spread in the air, its surface perpendicular to the ground. It was almost like…a portal!
The green-robed man’s gaze moved from Delias to the portal. Blocks of stone broke from the floor of the room and reshaped above on top of the portal. An engraving spread across and etched in the stone.
On it was a face. It was Delias.
The green-robed man looked upon the engraving and smiled. He walked towards it. His walk was slow and timeless. And as he gradually arrived before the portal, his smile turned into a laugh. He laughed and laughed, and tears came down his cheeks.
The green-robed man took one more glance at Delias, his eyes shining, and hopped in.
