7:10 PM
Lillian sat on the carpeted floor of her living room with six others in a large circle. "There is such a darkness coming." She packed a rosewood pipe with salvia. "I dreamt of something horrible in the days coming. When it comes, I don't know... time is so fluid, but I saw it, and I see."
Daniel in his tie dyed shirt and dancing Jerry Bears stared at Lillian from behind gold wire rimmed glasses. "These are hard times, Lillian. The Inquisition is declared war on us."
Lillian sat the pipe on the floor before her. "Daniel, don't I know it? I've been at odds with their order a long time now."
"They're not good people." Suheila, sitting to the left of Daniel, pulled her hair behind her ear. "I thought they were, trusted they were. They let me down. Cameron Dean let me down."
"They are an order of liars." Jeremy, to the right of Daniel, looked around the circle from person to person. Shasta, to the left of Suheila, nodded. To her left, next to his Lillian - his mother - Russell smirked.
"What we need is a sympathetic ear. Someone with real pull." Lillian retrieved the Pipe set, and touched the salvia in the bowl. It lit with a hot spark.
"David Walker would help us, were he not... previously indisposed." Russell looked over the others in the circle. "My mother can protect us from the outside threats. We need a circle."
"You are all young." Lillian took a deep, long drag from the pipe. She exhaled a blue-black cloud of smoke, speaking through it. "...but through me you can all be more. Alone, we can only handle so much, but collectively, we can work wonders and restore balance to Driftwood. Alone, we are nothing. Together, we are everything."
"I am with you." Suheila opened her hand, and Lillian leaned in and passed the pipe to her.
"Breathe deeply from the pipe, and pass it to the next who joins."
"I'm with you." Jeremy said as Suheila inhaled deeply from the pipe. She coughed out a large cloud of the potent sage, passing the pipe to Jeremy.
One at a time, each in the circle joined with the next in a pledge to Lillian's circle.
"Together we are Driftwood, it's true sons and daughters. Any to stand against us would be fools. Now join me in a vision. Let us see what great things Driftwood will bring us."
✟ ☧ ✟
Midnight
Simon's hands were red-brown under the pale light of Simon's lanterns, his fingers still stained with his mother's blood.
He shoveled the last pile of dirt over her grave in the woodlands nearest where once stood Nida, and Amir's home before it met its fate in flames.
Mother.
Mother. Not his mother. Not anymore. Not after discovering her with another man, using her body to obtain the opiates, and the needle. She passed before she realized what Simon did. The man with her was not so lucky, and if Simon was lucky, he could finish the deed when he got home.
Simon perked as a shrill scream echoed through the woods. The screaming was closer.
Simon gripped his shovel.
"Help! Help me!" She ran into Simon, the two toppling over the freshly filled grave.
Simon groaned. "Help. Help you?"
"He's coming!" She clawed at the dirt, the still soft, earthy clumps breaking on her grip.
"What? Who?"
The woman's face paled, her jaw slack as a weak guttural moan escaped her throat.
She pointed.
Simon turned, but the woods were quiet, dark, and the light patter of rain began to fall as thunder rumbled through the cloudy night sky.
"Miss, calm down. Just calm down. I can't help you unless you relax."
"No!"
He put his hand on his chest. "My name is Simon. I'm... well I guess I'm just sort of lost out here. I'm glad, actually, you found me."
"What? What are you talking - ? I need to run - we - need to run!"
"No, you need to calm down." Simon reached for her, and she flinched.
The woman, dressed in a green shirt, and a long green skirt struggled to her feet, and held open hands to the sky. She sucked in a deep breath, and screamed loud into the cloudy night sky. Simon felt something like a brief shock wave, and the clouds split in the sky with violent force spilling dull moonlight. Lightening flashed in the sky, striking nearby the two. The smell of ozone burned Simon's nose.
Between the propane fueled lantern light, and the waning gibbous moon, Simon saw bruising, and cuts over the woman's pretty, pretty face. She shook, and trembled, a faint red aura surrounding her. "Look!"
Simon Bellar looked back to see the impossible silhouette of an over large man in the dark of the woods where neither moonlight, nor lanterns lit. He saw the eyes, green, and wide open beneath something yellow-white covering the man's face.
Simon recovered his shovel, and held his ground. "Fine. Run. When this is done, I'll find you."
The woman hesitated. "You're a kid. Run, you moron!"
Bane narrowed his eyes at the boy with the strange weapon (it's called a shovel). The boy's hands were covered in dried blood, and he was standing between he, and his prey.
Bane charged forward.
Simon swung his shovel upward, and cracked Bane in the side of his head. The metal shovel made a loud metal echo as it connected. Bane stumbled backward.
"See? He's just a man, some freak giant in a mask." Simon rushed in and swung his shovel again.
Bane caught it in his oversize gloved hand, and pulled it from Simon Bellar. Simon fell forward with the force of Bane's pull, taking a mouthful of dirt as he landed. Bane gripped the shovel, and spun it around, the metal point of the tool pointed at Simon.
Bane threw the shovel like a spear, and Simon rolled to the side, the shovel lodging itself to the handle in the ground where Simon was only a moment before.
Simon spit out dirt, pushing the fresh earth from his mouth with his tongue. "Men like you are why men like me are forced to act. My father was like you. Now he's fertilizer."
Simon rose up to his feet, standing between Bane and the woman. "Lady, run."
"You're an idiot, kid." The woman ran.
Bane lunged at Simon, capturing him by the sides of his arms, and threw him at the woman. Simon flew through the air, flailing in the empty space, and collided with the woman as she ran.
She fell with Simon's weight pinning her to the ground.
"Get off me!"
Simon fought to keep his consciousness. He was able to take his father, and granted this freak was, well, a freak, bullies were weak. They had weakness. Simon shook off the dizziness, and rose up off the woman, shaking with a welcome rush off adrenaline.
Bane charged him. Simon charged Bane. The woman behind Simon tried to stand, and bellowed out in pain. She stared down at her leg, the bone protruding from her shin.
Simon and Bane ran into one another. Simon crashed against Bane, who grasped him in his arms, and squeezed him. Simon craned his neck and bit into Bane's shoulder, through the thick leather duster, to no avail. Bane pulled him away, and tossed Simon back onto the ground. He drew his long dagger, as Simon rose back onto his feet.
"I'm not afraid of you." Simon broke into a full charge. Bane sidestepped him, and caught him by his face.
"You will be."
Simon felt a brief searing pain and toppled onto the earthen ground, back onto his mother's grave. His face stung as he rolled out of the dirt.
Unconsciousness was threatening to take him again. The woman's terrified screams echoed in his ears. He shook his head, and forced his vision to focus, eyes painful, crusted in dirt and pine needles..
He saw the giant holding something to the sky, the pale, dull light of the moon shining visibly through its largest holes.
It was his face.
Simon collapsed back onto the dirt, unblinking eyes brimming with blood, and dirt, the red tinted muddy tears spilling black under the weak light of moon, and lanterns, over the bare muscle where once was his face.
Simon's sight grew dim, and deep inside he was thankful as the world became a black tunnel of echoes; her screams became wet gurgling chokes, and then blissful silence.
He felt cold rain sting in fat drops over the raw flesh and muscle as the clouds as the clouds closed back over the moon.
Then darkness consumed him, and his last thoughts were how this was all the woman's fault; it was always the woman's fault.
✟ ☧ ✟
2:00AM
Bane winced beneath his mask, and pulled the cleaver out of the back of his skull with little effort, turning on his attacker.
A smooth faced boy. He could have been anywhere between sixteen and twenty-six at a glance.
"...dead before you hit the floor." Bane swiped at him with the cleaver, and the youth dodged.
Bane swung it again, and this time the youth side stepped it, and pushed a hand out, and a spiral of energy thrust out at the giant, dissipating on his chest.
Bane brushed his chest off with a pistol, and holstered his weapons. He looked down at the light scorching on his kevlar vest, and looked back up at the boy, tilting his head.
The youth stepped back a step. "You killed my family."
"...in the way." Bane's voice echoed in the room, crept out from the walls, the bloodied berber carpet, the door behind the youth.
He stared past Bane at the blood spattered family photo on the wall behind the giant.
The photograph of Scott, and Isabella Henley stared out from the picture forever in their perpetual smiles, holding the infant him in their arms. "The world is changing, and you're not changing with it. Whatever you are - whatever you think you are - it's not enough."
(A man. He is only a mortal man.)
Bane lunged, his leather duster cracking in the air behind him like a whip. The youth ducked, and rolled between his legs.
Bane slid over the gore on the carpet, colliding with the couch.
There was a sharp pain between Bane's shoulders.
"You have no idea what's coming." The youth backed away. "You won't be able to stand up to all of us. We are Driftwood."
Shows what you know. Bane reached, and struggled, finding purchase with the grip of the blade lodged in his back.
He drew the blade out, and rolled onto his side.
Bane pushed himself onto his feet to find the boy standing at a window, holding a black faceted crystal between thumb and forefinger.
Black glass.
Of course.
"A tiny piece of crystal, no more than a trinket, really... but the knowledge, the wisdom, the power. We are a collective, monster... and you are alone."
The youth turned and threw himself through the window, the glass shattering around him.
Bane coughed out a mouthful of blood into the back of his bone mask, and forced himself to rush to the window. The youth was gone, three stories down, and long run off.
He wasn't just a youth.
He was part of the Black Glass, and the black glass he. The boy had a master, and that master was the target.
The sole target of his wrath.
Take out the head, and the body would die.