Erios

Erios

 

I was standing on my feet. What a strange feeling… I kept losing my balance. I did not understand anything from what I was seeing, feeling or doing. Something touched my head. Suddenly, a flow of information knocked into my mind. Then, I understood, I knew everything about life and death. On my bald head I had a leaf.

I looked at my hands, my skin was green like the fresh grass that grows in the spring; it was even a bit transparent. I could see my veins very clear, too clear. Something black was pumping through them.  I was naked and standing in the middle of the woods. In front of me two giant trees were rising like a king and a queen. The space between them was like a gate. Their roots were dancing together, making the ground move slowly.

I walked forward, trying to pass between them, but I couldn`t. There was something like a glass wall. I gently touched it, when some waves appeared and I got pushed back.

“Hello, child!” a serious, but kind voice said.

“Happy birthday, my dear!” another one, more feminine.

Two shades appeared in the space between the trees, it looked like a mirror now.

“Hello…” was all I could say. I had a feeling that told me to stay calm.

  “You are Kennis. We are your parents and our spirits live in this forest. You were just born, from the heart of the forest, from our love, from our magic” said the shadow that seemed to be my father.

“Why can`t I see you?”

“We are not from Earth. This mirror, where you can see our shadows, is a portal to our world, but it is broken, and the only way we can be present here is through this forest. Our shadows will disappear soon because we do not have enough magic to communicate like this, but we will always be with you, in every tree, every flower and every blade of grass from this forest. Our world must be saved and all the answers you need will be found in the Great Book of Erios. The book is hidden on Earth and you have to find…”

And with that everything disappeared as if it was a dream. I was completely lost. How was I supposed to find this book? It’s hidden on Earth, really?

Inside me, I felt like this place was not my home, even if I knew how it works. So, I started to walk. I just followed my gut. I was sure I had to find something at some point.

The forest was incredible. It was like a palace, painted in different shades of green, with some light blue spots on the ceiling. Some fine, sparkling lines were warming my skin, being part of the imperial decor.

 

As I was walking and admiring, I reached into a glade, where a fortress was expecting me. It seemed abandoned. I tried to push the gate, but it seemed petrified. The fence was way too high and smooth to climb. So, I focused on the gate. I wanted really bad to explore what was behind it. I put my hands in the middle of the gate and I concentrated and pushed with all my senses. I felt how the liquid from my veins was pumping and I saw some little yellow dots through it. I closed my eyes and I screamed. The gate cracked and then it was just dust. I was shocked. I felt the power inside me, an unbelievable power.

I started to move and instead of a rose garden I found some graves. Rotten, wooden crosses everywhere and a path that lead you to the castle, or what remained from it. At the entrance of the castle two dead guards were lying like a welcome mat. I touched one of them and he was still warm. The look on their faces expressed something greater than fear. The color from their eyes was faded. In that moment I got afraid. Afraid of myself. I grabbed one of them and I took his clothes, being careful to cover him with the jacket which was on the other one. I took a bow and all the arrows.  

So, the place was not really abandoned. If there were guards, something valuable must have been hidden there. My first steps confirmed that the place did not respect the values that this world had. It was not even a castle, but more of a chapel. I did not know what kind of faith was that, but who believed in it loved to sacrifice humans. Candles, bones, bodies, paintings and a scent of incense were decorating the place. The paintings were similar to those in every church or chapel, but the characters were different, no one was human. Just shadows. No one seemed to be there anymore. I took the blood-red stairs, the only lurid color there. On every step little defiant candles seemed to whisper some incantations.

The stairs were too many just for one more floor. The upstairs room was like an attic, but more majestic, and with an angel in the middle. It was a human angel, a girl, very beautiful, with long, curly, fair hair, peaceful eyes and milky skin. She was hanged by her wings to the ceiling. Her wings were not made from feathers, but from the skin on her back. The angel seemed dead, but she was holding a book. I could see on the black cover written in dirty gold: ERIOS.

My first instinct was to grab the book. Terrible mistake. An abominable sound came from the angel, that I had just woken up. My ears were bleeding and I was not capable of rising from the floor. I looked at her, she was in pain.

I couldn`t find my power. Seeing and hearing this made me weak, made me cry for the first time in my life. I put my hands on my ears and I started to say that I was sorry for the girl and for all the souls that were trapped there. I said it like those words were my last words and I really believed in them.

Slowly, the scream faded, but I could still hear it in the background. I rose from the floor, feeling very weak. I didn`t take the book. I climbed one of the pylons and I let the angel on the floor. She was colder than ice, but her chest was moving rapidly, even if I could not feel her pulse. I gently touched her soft hair, I tried to comfort her and I kept saying that I was sorry. I think that was a kind of praying. She started to calm down and from the corner of her mouth some black liquid dripped on the floor. It looked like my blood. It started to move, and before I was able to do something it was gone through the cracks of the floor.

After that she looked at me with her real eyes and said “Thank you” letting the book drop in my lap. I put the book aside and I covered her with one of the curtains because she was naked.

Then, I got out in the cemetery-garden and I sat on a bench looking at the book. Was this a success? From what I had known it didn’t feel like one. I started to read.

 

ERIOS was the world that I came from. A world of demons that cannot have a physical shape, so they usually use trees, in order to have a look at Earth. This book was stolen from our world by a real angel that gave up his power, trying to stop us from visiting Earth. We love to feed on human souls that`s why the angel took the book, to warn them. Everything I saw in this place was done by my kind, powerful demons being able to influence or poses people to serve them and when they fight back they get killed or transformed in angels, like my friend upstairs. I fed myself with two souls without knowing, that`s why I felt so powerful after destroying the gate. When I felt empathy, I was weak, but the prayers did not have an effect on me because I believed in them. So, I also sent a demon back in our world, said the book. The prayers can keep us in our world, or send us back for a time.

The legend from the book said that I am the chosen one, that there would be a time when two demons would be so powerful together that they would give life to someone with a physical shape. Someone who would take most of their power. That being the one that must open the gates from Erios to Earth.  The book had all the incantations to fix the portal. I could do it anytime.

I did not feel like home here and if I did not respect what the book predicted I would never feel, and probably my parents would never try to find me, because there is no such power.

I closed my eyes, I did not know for how long. Then, I started digging a hole, took a candle from inside and burned the book. I could hear the forest screaming at me, but I knew I did not want to invade another world; I wanted my own world, my home.

I started to bury all the bodies from inside. The angel was the last one, and for her I chose a place under a tree. I burned all the wooden crosses. I started to design my home.