CHAPTER ONE - Promised Future Led by Painful Past
Wave's fists clenched so tight his nails dug into his palms. He held his breath, listening to the frantic drum of his own heart against his ribs. Slowly, slowly, he twisted the doorknob and edged into the hallway. The moonlight was weak, but his eyes had already adjusted, his pupils swallowing every sliver of light.
Rain tapped a gentle rhythm against his windowpane. Wave loved nights like this. The rain's steady patter usually smoothed the tight knot of worry in his chest, the one he carried but could never name. But tonight, it wasn't working.
The wooden hallway was silent. Outside, in the forests that pressed close to their isolated home, the night creatures called to each other. Their chirps and rustles only made the silence inside the house feel deeper and colder.
"What about Wave? He...he deserves to know." His mother's voice, which was usually so steady, had a frayed edge he'd never heard. A tremor?
"We can't." His father's reply was flat and final. "We're sinners. He doesn't have to be. It's too much." Wave pressed his ear to the cool wood. His father's words were always like that, clean cuts, no wasted emotion. But his mother's voice now... that was wrong.
Run away. Go back to bed. The thought was a weak whisper. Another sound from the room, a choked cry? His feet were already moving, carrying him closer to the door before his mind could catch up.
He heard his mother's strained breathing, which forced out words. "...Fine. We'll have to get him ready. Sanctuary should've sent a Star from Constellation. What we have is too important for those old men to let go of. And they won't allow mistakes."
"The book and Wave himself will be his lifeline. Don't worry, Jenna. He'll be fine. Wave's our little knight after all." Wave still remembered the day he made a makeshift sword from the pile of wood, rushed into the living room and in front of his parents declared he was their Knight.
"....Haha. You're right. He's our 'pristine knight clad in black armour', isn't he?" He was fourteen now, too old for such games, but the memory still warmed him even as his chest tightened with dread.
Gurgle.
Grack.
Shirek.
Wave heard strange noises originating from the forest's dark cover. It was far too disorganised and noisy for those to be animals. The roars sounded as though nature made a mistake. It was eerily unfitting.
Before Wave could creep to the window to look, the wooden door flung open, pulling Wave to the ground. He looked up and beheld his parents, whose faces were masks of raw fear they tried to hide. He was about to apologise, but he was picked up by his dad's able hands.
His mother's hand clamped around his wrist, pulling him into a stumbling run. They hit the stairs, his father a shadow ahead of them. Every creak of the wooden steps under their frantic weight sounded like a scream in the silent house.
He stared as his parents tore through the room, pulling books from shelves, yanking open drawers, like frantic worker bees. "What's going on, Mum, Dad? What're you looking for?!"
He received their silence as they hurried through the house. Soon, his mother walked up to him, tears forming under her eyes. Her hazel eyes, usually so bright, were glassy with tears. In them, he saw his own terrified reflection, his figure, a trembling mess.
"Hey..dear…I…" Her voice cracked, and Wave felt her grip tighten over his hands. She covered her mouth, a sob tearing from her throat before she could choke it back. "What's going on, Mum? Are we leaving? What's happening?!?"
"Listen to me. You are good, Wave. Remember that. Whatever happens... whatever you hear about us... Don't let it make you hard. Don't spend your life looking back. Promise me. Just promise me you'll live."
What did that mean? What does she mean? The words swirled in his head, but he couldn't think under his panic. He could only stare at the tears that ran down her face. "Just promise me, okay?" She repeated, bringing him close for a hug. Wave buried his face in the soft fabric of her shoulder. He could smell her familiar scent of soap and herbs. Her hand moved in slow, steady circles on his back, a fragile anchor in the rising storm.
"Okay, Mum. I promise." Another burst of angry shrieks and wailing erupted from the forest, but this time, it was followed by a strange, creeping coldness that paralysed Wave's spine and body.
"We gotta move quickly. There's not much time! What about the support from Sanctuary?" His father walked out of the house darkness with a medical box on him. "I got the box. We need to move quickly, Jenna!"
Wave stared as his father dropped the box, his hands moving with frantic precision. Two sharp clicks echoed as he fastened the locks. On the box's lid was an intricate emblem: a blue flower intertwined with angular, unfamiliar runes.
His father took out a blueish, silvery, glowing liquid encapsulated in a bottle. With expertise and efficiency, he drew the liquid into the syringe and took his arm.
"My son. My brave son. I really wish we had more time to explain, but I'm sorry for thrusting you into the world without us. I hope you forgive this useless father of yours." His father's fingers pressed against the inside of his elbow, searching for a vein.
He cupped Wave's cheek, his hand with callouses ingrained with the memories of the life he had. "When you wake up, just keep on running. If you do, someone will definitely come to save you. This is the best I can do for you. And as your father, I want you to live freely and happily, okay?"
"Dad? What's that?!" Wave thrashed, but his mother wrapped both arms around him from behind, pinning his own arms to his sides. Her hug, usually his safest place, was now a prison of trembling sobs. "Shhh, my brave knight, shhh," she whispered into his hair, the words hot and wet with tears.
The tip of the silver forged syringe gleamed under the moon's soft light. Wave turned his panicked eyes to his mother. Through her tears, she held his gaze and gave a single, firm nod. It was the same look she gave him when medicine tasted foul but was necessary. The same look that drains the fight out of him.
A sharp, cold sting pierced the skin of his arm. He gasped. It wasn't like a scrape or a cut. This was a deep and invasive cold. He felt the needle-thin metal sliding into his very core.
The liquid burned. Not like fire…fire hurts all at once. The burnt mark from his younger days made it clear. This was colder. Sharper. It spread through Wave's veins like shards of ice, racing faster than his heartbeat could follow.
His fingers twitched, trying to grasp onto the tilted world. The walls of the house stretched, bending like they were being pulled apart by a force he couldn't discern.
"He's ready…" Wave heard his mother's whispers under her hot breath, but her sounds came late. He could see her mouth move, but it took more than a second before he could hear what she said.
Her voice stretched thin and distant, a sound that tore at something deep in his chest. Wave tried to breathe, but the air felt heavy, thick, refusing to enter his lungs. His lips trembled as panic seized his body whole.
The rain froze mid-fall. Droplets hung in the air, trembling but unmoving. The roaring from the forest dulled into a low, chilling pitch veiled by the darkness. Their steps vibrated through the earth, like something breathing far beneath the Earth.
Something inside him shifted. Cold seeped deeper, settling into his bones. His vision fractured…as blue lines flickered across his sight, and travelled along his veins…faint and fleeting, like reflections off shattered glass.
He felt his father's hands, the hands that had been with him longer than he could remember. They were steady and strong…like some sort of pillar for Wave who drifted silently from the world.
"Run," James whispered, his voice cutting through the haze. "No matter what you see… run." Wave tried to speak, but his tongue wouldn't move. His father's smile didn't reach his eyes. It was a goodbye. A final, crumbling wall between Wave and his world, which would soon vanish. The understanding hit him, colder than the serum did.
"Sleep, son. When you wake up,...by then, everything would've changed. But I know you'll find your way and you'll stand strong. Because you're our son. Our beloved child, we love dearly." His father's calloused hands slid over Wave's eyes, drawing his eyelids shut.
A beautiful smile formed on his face as he smoothened Wave's hair one last time, "Thank you for loving us…"
He was cut out by the huge roars that shocked the forest, as birds flew out of their cover, the trees swirling as other animals became alerted to the new visitor. James, Wave's father, picked up his son and placed him outside the house.
The world was tunnelling to a pinprick. The last things to reach him were sounds, warped and distant: the deafening blast of his mother's gun, his father's roar of anger, but of defiance and beneath it all, the wet, hungry tearing of a world coming to an end.