#light&darkness

The Lord of Darkness was worried. Or rather, uneasy.

Since he faced that child with hair the color of the moon and eyes like two pools of blood, he could not stop feeling a strange sensation in his stomach. It was not hunger, it was something else, something that perhaps he had not felt in a long, long time.

"Do you think I was too cruel?" he asked the Moon, watching her illuminate the wasteland from above.

She did not answer, limiting herself to shining coldly.

Humans were fools, they did not know how to understand the true nature of things. They feared him, attributing to him the origin of all their evils, not wanting to see that evil sprang from their own hearts. They invented legends about monsters and heroes, when in reality it was all a farce to hide the true monsters that dwell among themselves. It's always much easier to blame others, so what was wrong with the Lord of Darkness deciding to play along and have some fun with them for a while? At least their torment gave some entertainment to his eternal existence.

He remembered that child. The little boy had believed the lies of his people and tried to defeat a force much more powerful than him. Maybe it was boredom, but the Lord of Darkness decided to fight back. He almost killed him.

Recalling the battle again increased that feeling of discomfort in the center of his gut. He was just a child, a voice in his head said, groping his way through a world he's always kept his eyes closed. Was this remorse? Was that child the cause of his discomfort? Was it guilt for, for a moment, having become the monster everyone already believes him to be?

He is just doing his job by bringing darkness. Darkness is also necessary for the healthy functioning of the world, for balance. It's not like he asked for this job, but he did it and he didn't dislike it. Being alone was simply part of the experience of being a creature of the shadows, and even then, he was never really alone: ​​he had the Moon and the stars, the cold breeze and the animals that, during the night, came out of their burrows and caves. Of course, it didn't compare to what it would be like to have a conversation between two people or feel the warmth of a hug...

"Going to take a look doesn't hurt anyone," he told himself.

He knew that the boy was still alive, because it was never his real intention to kill him, although after all this time, he could very well have died from his wounds. The uneasy feeling returned.

Sliding through the darkness, he began his journey towards the village. The streets were deserted. There were no cats on the roofs or rats in the sewers. The solid darkness kept every creature hidden until the sun returned in the morning.

The Lord of Darkness didn´t know how to find the boy, if he was still alive. He looked into some houses, slipping between the window frames and under the beds. Most people were already asleep. He searched the neighborhoods, looking for that strange child. After several unsuccessful hours, he began to lose hope in his task, wondering if it would not have been better to start searching in the cemetery. In any case, the darkness of the tombs and crypts was already a familiar sight to him, and the dead no longer feared him as they used to.

Before giving up, he decided to search in one last place, in the building in the center of the town. The corridors were wide and clean, lit by torches, which forced him to advance only through the darkest areas of the large house. As he passed in front of a door, he could hear voices talking on the other side, noticeable due to the stillness of the night. 

"We must kill the child."

A muffled cry answered.

The Lord of Darkness entered the room from which the noise came, through the keyhole, and could not help but become enraged when he saw the image before him: five men surrounded a child tied to a bed, and not just any child, it was the boy with moon hair and blood eyes.

"So this is how humans are," said the Lord of Darkness, distilling disdain.

The men flinched, immediately turning towards the silhouette that emerged like an apparition from the shadows. Their faces were masks of terror that were deformed by the movement of the candle flame, and the Dark Lord felt even more furious at the sight of them.

Cowards, he thought. They had not been afraid to send a lonely child to face a deity like him, and yet now, even within their own territory and backed by the brightness and heat of their torches, they stood frozen, unable to do or say anything.

Cowardly and pathetic.

"Stand back," the Lord of Darkness ordered. His voice from beyond the grave chilled the hearts of his opponents, who stepped aside as if an enchantment had pushed them. He approached the child. The boy stared at him with a single, huge, wet, frightened red eye, the other hidden under a patch of white cloth. His chest rose and fell frantically.

"Do not fear, I will not hurt you," said the Lord of Darkness, reaching out and untying the knots in the rope.

The boy tore off his gag and sat up in bed, supporting himself with his arms and breathing with some difficulty. He opened his mouth, but the words stuck in his throat. His shoulders trembled.

"Do not fear," the creature repeated in a deep, calm voice. “They won't hurt you anymore.”

"Y-You hurt me too," the boy said.

The Lord of Darkness felt guilt solidify inside his chest. It was just a little human boy, why did his words make him feel so bad?

"I'm sorry."

He thought of doing something as a show of goodwill. He extended his hand.

"I'll take you home."

The boy looked at the black hand in front of him, before lowering his gaze. When he spoke, his tone was melancholic and hurt.

"I don't have a home to go to."

The Lord of Darkness knew then, and knew that his decision would have great consequences.

"What is your name?"

The boy pressed his lips together, but then raised his face, looking him straight in the eyes.

"Ichkat."

A fitting name, the creature thought. It means "Cotton." Cotton seems soft and defenseless, but whoever tries to obtain it by force can end up hurt.

“Come, I'll get you out of here.”

After a while, Ichkat took the Lord of Darkness' hand with some hesitation, but made no attempt to get out of bed.

"Get up," the man said, a little more sternly.

"I can't." Fresh tears began to fall from the boy's eyes and sobs took over his voice. "My legs... I can't move my legs..."

The Lord of Darkness pulled back the sheet that covered half of the boy's body and saw: beneath his shorts two pale limbs peeked out, crisscrossed by scars and bruises that had not yet healed. Seeing them made him feel miserable and wretched, a damned monster. It had been centuries since he felt so unhappy and guilty. He had been living in the darkness for too long, and facing his own mistakes, the consequences of his actions, was something he discovered hurt. A lot.

In your eagerness to punish the wicked, you have harmed an innocent, said a voice in his head.

"Damn it."

Without stopping to think about it any longer, he picked up the child and carried him in his arms and sank into the shadows like someone diving into a lake. He emerged into the village's main square. Ishkat stifled a scream, holding on tightly to the front of the man's robe. He trembled like a newborn child. So fragile and ignorant.

"Are you afraid of the dark?" the creature asked.

"Y-yes," Ishkat replied.

The Lord of Darkness closed his eyes. Suddenly a diamond-white light bathed their bodies. Houses and buildings appeared from the shadows as if by magic, while above their heads, a giant white sphere watched them tenderly.

Ishkat's eyes and mouth were wide open, absorbed in the miracle.

"Why... W-why does the sun look so different?" 

“That is the Moon,” the Lord of Darkness answered him. “From now on, the people of the village will be able to see her again at night.”

Suddenly, footsteps and shouts were heard, doors and windows opening. Groups of people began to appear in the streets, their faces raised to the sky. Some were crying, others were laughing, others still seemed scared. It was not until after the initial surprise that many began to notice their presence, in the middle of the square.

"It is the Tajtzin Kunyua!”

"But how? Shouldn't he be dead?"

"The prophecy failed, how could this happen?"

"You are wrong," said the Lord of Darkness. "The prophecy is wrong."

Murmurs spread, as did distrust and nervousness. The Lord of Darkness knew that those people still feared him, they feared the darkness. He could not stop the night and he could not give them false promises either; But maybe... maybe he could convince them and put a real end to all this trouble.

"You have believed in the wrong prophecy all this time," he explained, before reciting: "A child will be born with the gift of the Sun, capable of killing the King of Darkness, the Tajtzin Kunyua, and returning light to the people. That has been the story that you´ve heard for years, but it is nothing more than a vile lie, a fallacy! The darkness will never go away completely, but it is in the darkness where the light shines brightest. You have recovered your moon because I have recovered mine.”

With these words he hugged Ishkat in his arms, feeling the warmth of his small body and the rhythmic beat of his heart.

Sounds of surprise arose among those present. And before anyone could say anything, the Lord of Darkness and the child in his arms disappeared.

~

"Why did you tell them that?" Ishkat asked, as they advanced through the wasteland. The village was now far far away.

"I had to create a good excuse or they would continue inventing prophecies," he answered honestly. "And I don't want to feel guilty anymore."

His fight against the humans had come to an end. Tormenting them no longer gave him pleasure. 

They continued walking, moving away from what was once Ishkat's only known home, into the unknown. The Moon and the stars seemed to guide them, under a sky that flashed as if it had thousands of precious stones embedded in it. Ishkat had never seen anything so beautiful, he never believed that something so beautiful could only exist in the dark.

"I'm sleepy," he said, with a tired voice.

"Rest," the man answered. "May the shadows shelter you, give you sweet dreams and fill your body with energy. Sleep well. Tomorrow will be a new day."

Ichkat survived, but most nights he wondered if it might have been better if he had died.

It took almost three days before they could pull his body out of the rubble of the hill. He was dehydrated and squalid, and looked like a gutted fruit that had fallen from a very high branch. The wound in his eye had become infected and they had to remove it completely. His legs were shattered, with broken bones sticking out of his skin like the spines of a cactus.

The next few days passed in a kind of trance, in which the boy went back and forth between the world of the awake and the sleeping. Sometimes he believed that the memories that were drawn like chalk figures in his brain were nothing more than the products of a feverish nightmare. He dreamed that he would wake up triumphant, knowing that the day in which he would fulfill the mission for which he had been born had arrived; But when he actually woke up, the reality was worse than any dream or curse he had ever imagined, and he only wished he could go back to sleep and never wake up again.

The first day he was conscious was the worst of all. He was horrified when he discovered that his field of vision had been reduced by half. A patch of soft cloth covered his left eye, or rather, where his left eye had been. The skin of his eyelid was now sunken, like rainwater taking over a hole left by erosion in the ground. The first time he looked in the mirror he almost vomited.

His legs were covered with cuts and scars that were still red. The veins and arteries stood out like paths drawn with crayon on his skin. They no longer looked straight as before, as if when putting them back together the doctors had not fitted all the pieces together properly and had to squeeze them together to form a kind of crooked and useless leg. He could not feel anything from the hip down, as if his body had been split in two, even if it was whole.

No, never whole. Never again.

The pain was constant. He spent hours lying in bed, without appetite and without spirit. Some people from the village came to see him, but their visits were short, as if they only wanted to check the veracity of a legend.

"The Lord of Darkness is very strong, it is a miracle that the child came out alive.”

"Maybe... Maybe he was not the Chosen One after all.”

"Was the prophecy wrong? What will become of us then?”

The word spread like fire in a forest, destructive. The whole village was upset. The Leaders said nothing, hermits in their daily tasks. When the sun set and Ichkat was left alone in his room, he cried. Being in the middle of the darkness made him remember the fateful outcome of his battle and he couldn't sleep without a light on next to him, for fear that the darkness would swallow him up. He still felt the sharpness of the obsidian cutting into his face and the oppressive weight of the mountain on his body. He still felt the dust accumulating in his lungs and the taste of blood on his palate.

During the day he desperately sought the protection of the sun, even when its burning embrace caused sores on his pale skin and hurt his delicate eyes. It didn't matter, any pain was better than returning to the darkness.

Life in the Communal House became even more boring than before. Ichkat spent his time rolling around in his wooden wheelchair from the patio to his room and from his room to the patio. His only entertainment was looking for figures in the clouds or trying to identify birds just by the sound of their songs. "That one is a grackle, that one is a chiltota," he would say.

The Leaders did not lend him books to read, which they kept in locked cabinets, and he never had toys to entertain himself with like the other children, nor balls or tops to play with. He only had swords and knives, which he trained with until he was tired, cutting off his fingers and hands until he learned to be familiar with the blade.

There always had to be someone on hand at the House who could help him wash, go to the bathroom, and bring him food. Usually, these people would just do their assigned tasks and then leave, leaving him alone, without a hint of interest in asking the boy how he was, if he wanted to talk about something or simply if he would like some company.

They had also forbidden him to go out into the village. The Leaders said it was because they "didn't want to cause him more stress with the bustle of the people," but Ichkat knew they were lying. He knew they didn't let him go out because no one wanted to see him, to see what the "Chosen One" of the village had become.

As the days went by, and then the weeks, he began to get used to taking care of himself in his new physical state. It was not an easy task, but he was achieving it, with effort. It was inside, in his heart, where the wounds were still open and pulsating.

On that occasion, settled in his wheelchair in the backyard of the Community House, intending to receive the last rays of sunlight, Ichkat saw a rabbit. The little animal came hopping out from between some bushes, moving its pink nose in a comical way. It was a cotton-white rabbit and its eyes were like a pair of passion fruit teeth. Ichkat reached out and picked up the animal when it got close enough. It was small and warm. It moved restlessly in the boy's hands, but after sniffing them for a while, it seemed to calm down.

Ichkat had always been a lonely boy. He never had a chance to have friends, because he grew up isolated. Things that come with "being the Chosen One." He had never had a pet or played with other kids. Now he felt more alone than ever.

"You will return to your normal life, it is all a matter of time," people told him. But how could he return to his normal life if his normal life was to spend his days training for the big day, for his big battle? In fifteen years he had done nothing but prepare for when he would finally face the Lord of Darkness and save his people.

And he had failed.

And in this state, defeating him was impossible.

Suddenly he felt like he wanted to protect that rabbit. Maybe the little animal had escaped from some garden or a farm, where it could have ended up as lunch for a person or a coyote. The boy decided that he would take care of it and protect it from that moment on.

The Leaders, seeing him, did not agree.

“You cannot be distracted by such things.”

“Why not?! I can't even train now as I am.”

Ichkat couldn't help but feel angry, raising his voice.

One of the Leaders slapped him.

“You obey us. You should be thankful that you made it out alive when the Lord of Darkness could have easily killed you. It just shows how weak you are.”

"Well, I wish I was dead," the boy replied, one hand caressing his swollen cheek and the other hugging his abdomen.

The Leaders exchanged glances with each other, their lips pressed into a thin line at the bottom of their stern faces.

"No," they said, taking the rabbit by the ears, while the animal screamed and kicked in terror, unable to free itself.

Ichkat screamed and cried. He didn't care if his behavior was nothing more than a childish tantrum. Without his legs, he couldn't try to go after them and save the little animal, so his act of rebellion was limited to hitting the mattress with his fists and throwing the pillows on the floor. He almost accidentally blew out the candle that he always kept lit next to his bed. No one answered his calls, and he had to shut up when his throat got tired of pleading.

The next few hours passed with agonizing slowness, as the day distilled into the realm of shadows. A woman brought him a plate of dinner around seven. The boy bit into the soft meat, chewed it a few times, then spat it out.

It was rabbit.

Ichkat slept on an empty stomach.

Next

Today was the big day. Ichkat could feel it in his bones, in the core of his consciousness: Today would be the day he would save his people.

Ichkat was always a special child. The Leaders said he was born with the “Gift of Light,” which was why his hair was white as the morning light, his skin was pale as the color of clouds, and his eyes were two shining rubies.

“The Chosen One who will save us has been born, as the prophecy says!”

Ichkat never knew his parents. The Leaders said that a hero like him should be raised by the best warriors and wisest scholars of the community. He didn’t need parents or a family.

“You were born to save us.”

“Save you from what?”

“From Darkness.”

The Leaders told him the stories: Every time the sun set below the horizon, darkness fell over the village. This is when the rule of Tajtzin Kunyua, the Lord of Darkness, began. With his giant cloak he covered the brightness of the moon and stars. With his icy hands he made the bodies of the helpless shiver. He made the sighted go blind and clouded the judgment of the clever. He forced people to seek refuge inside their homes, in constant fear of not closing a door or window properly, and thus allowing darkness to enter their dwellings and suffocate them.

"But there is salvation! One day a child will be born blessed with the light of day. He will be the antithesis of darkness itself. He will face the Lord of Darkness and kill him, freeing us all from his reign of terror.”

That child was Ishkat.

Ichkat had always dreamed of this day, the day when he would finally fulfill his destiny. It took many years of exhaustive training under the sunlight that irritated his eyes and burned his skin, resting only until his muscles tore or his body succumbed to complete exhaustion, to prepare himself.

And now that he had turned fifteen, just as the prophecy said, he was ready to face his enemy.

He unsheathed his sword and held it firmly in his hands.

"Come out of your hiding place, Lord of Darkness!" the boy exclaimed. "I have come to challenge you to a duel."

The wasteland remained silent and empty. A pair of crows answered his call, cawing from the zigzagging branch of an old, dead tree. The sun was about to disappear on the horizon behind him, and in front of him a wall of darkness began to rise like smoke.

“Come out now, damn it!” Ichkat shouted. He tried to express the nervousness that began to eat away at his insides as fury.

A deep, spectral laugh echoed from somewhere in the celestial vault, where the shadows were densest.

“Did those cowards send a child to solve their problems?”

Suddenly a man materialized. His black skin gave off small sparkles, as if he were made of granite. A long, inky tunic delicately wrapped his body. A cascade of pitch-colored hair fell from his head, and on his severe face there were abysmal eyes.

Ichkat felt his legs begin to tremble, but he swallowed and adjusted his position.

"I am not a child, I am the Chosen One, and today I will destroy you so that my people can live in peace.”

The creature laughed again. His laughter was compared to the cawing of crows.

“You are very brave and very stupid, little one. No one can defeat me.”

The man spread his arms and his cloak seemed to form the wings of a bat. The sun's rays finished disappearing, absorbed by the earth, and in its place only a dark gray sky remained. Everything beyond the wasteland disappeared, and the moon above them created a circle of light, delimiting the battle scene.

"Go home," said the Lord of Darkness, in a mocking voice. "Go before a wild beast appears and devours you."

The boy did not move. His eyebrows contracted further towards the center of his forehead. Everyone in the village had faith in him. If he failed, he would not be able to look them in the face, knowing that he had allowed a monstrous being like this to continue to run loose and torment them.

“No,” he said, solid as a mountain.

The Lord of Darkness looked disappointed. He held out his hand. The earth turned black and bubbling, and a huge obsidian sword rose from it.

“If you want to die so badly, then I will not hold back.”

In the blink of an eye, the creature disappeared and reappeared just inches from Ichkat. He barely managed to jump back to avoid his enemy’s attack. He backed away, taking a deep breath and preparing for combat. This is what he had trained for. This is what he had been born for.

He gripped the hilt of his sword tightly and ran. He leapt, aiming for his enemy's head, but the man blocked the blow with his blade, causing sparks to fly. The constant clink of the clashing swords created a dissonant music, mixed with the occasional cawing of the crows and Ichkat's heavy breathing. The Lord of Darkness was fast and strong, each blow so powerful that it made Ichkat's teeth shake. Soon his arms felt too heavy to hold his own weapon, and his legs felt too weak to bear their own weight.

In a clumsy movement he stumbled and could not dodge the attack. The obsidian blade made a cut over his left eye.

Ichkat screamed. A river of blood slid down half of his face. He was half blind, and the pain caused his general vision to blur with tears, barely making out the space in front of him.

He heard the laughter again.

"Go, boy. Your life is in my hands, and if you do not want to lose it, I advise you to accept my mercy and leave.”

Ichkat compressed the panic that overwhelmed him and buried it deep in his heart. Suddenly he felt the fabric of the Lord of Darkness' robe brush against his arm and a voice whispered in his ear.

"You are not a Chosen One.”

Those words fueled the fire of his courage, and with a cry, Ichkat drove his sword into the middle of his enemy's chest. It seemed that time stood still. The boy inhaled and exhaled, tasting only blood and soot. The creature stumbled, with the hilt protruding from his heart.

"I did it!" Ichkat thought, but his relief was short-lived. The Lord of Darkness stood up and ripped the weapon from his body with the ease of removing the seed from a fruit. His black eyes suddenly looked like two hungry wells. He threw himself at Ichkat, grabbed him by the neck and lifted him up. His long, cold fingers dug into the boy's throat, blocking the passage of precious oxygen. Ichkat kicked in the air, but his strength was quickly fading, robbing him of consciousness and breath. If he didn't do something, he was going to die. He was going to die...

In a last desperate attempt, he pulled the knife from his belt and threw it forward. If he had still had both eyes, it was very likely that he would have hit his target at that distance, but since that was not the case, he missed by several centimeters. The weapon bounced off the ground and lay motionless and useless.

"Let this serve as an example for the people of your village," the sinister man muttered. "So that they will never believe that they can kill me again."

And with those words, he threw Ichkat up the hill. The boy's body flew like a ropeless kite until he crashed against the wall of earth and rock. The material cracked and the hill collapsed with the simplicity of a mound of sand. Ichkat was buried under the enormous stones. Something colossal and heavy crushed his legs.

The boy could barely breathe. In his mouth there was only the bitter taste of his blood and the saltiness of the tears that fell down his cheeks. He could not move his body and total darkness swallowed him, leaving him blind and paralyzed.

Buried as he was, it was only a matter of time before he found out what would kill him first: his wounds, suffocation, hunger or fear. He just hoped it would be quick.

His mission had failed, and therefore, he deserved to die.

Ichkat wished to die.

Unfortunately for him, that wish would not be granted.

Next