DDS Arrivals - SerphVarna

Serph//Varna
~~~
Not Nirvana
~~~

Serph awoke dazed.

He was laying face down in a pile of hot dust, the intense heat of the
naked sun beating down on his back.  Everything around him was baked
brown like dried mud and caked in the same heavy dust that now filled
his nose and eyes.  Serph shook it out of his silver hair as he rose
to his knees.

This was not Nirvana, he was certain.  He knew what Nirvana looked like.

He'd never told anyone the vision he had of Nirvana.  All the Karma
Temple had shared with them was the promise of 'paradise' in all its
ambiguity, but from the start he'd had an image of what this magical
location was like.

It was a seashore; cerulean blue above and white sand below.  He could
hear the waves and gulls even now, and recalled the feeling of
friendship and belonging that lived there.   The sun was a pure,
shining white disk in the sky.

But the angry sun hanging above him now was heartless and black.
Serph shielded his eyes from it's light and got to his feet.  When he
looked up again he was face to face with the death scream of a stone
man.  The Embryon stepped back, but realized quickly the creature was
fake.  It's expression was shockingly lifelike and left him uneasy.
He sidestepped the statue and moved into the street.

A gust of singeing wind kicked clouds of dirt from the high windows of
the broken buildings, the time weakened walls creaked dangerously all
around.  He moved into a shadow cast by the setting sun, his eyes
still coping with the bright light.

Serph had no idea where he was.  It wasn't Nirvana and it wasn't the
Junkyard, perhaps the white light that had separated him from his
friends had dropped him somewhere in between.  Perhaps he was in
limbo, stuck between heavenly paradise and a rainy Hell.  This was the
real purgatory, being the only living creature in a land without
mercy, finding emotions only to be left in despair.  It was damning,
but he couldn't let it crush him.  There was more here to find, and
hope he would be proven wrong.

The burnt orange around him was slowly fading to red as night came on,
the statues standing thick in the street taking on goulish shades of
dark brown like skinless burn victims frozen on the sidewalks.  Serph
moved between them, noticing their individuality and sense of
identity.  Their random placement suggested an organic element; it
wasn't long before the thought occurred that they were once alive.
Stranger things had happened to the people he cared about than turning
to stone.

He came across the sculpture of a woman shielding an infant and was convinced.

"Demon!"

Serph turned on his heel to find a robed figure staring at him from a
shadowed joint in the exposed skeleton of a building, his silhouette
fluttering in the breeze.  The Asura reached for his pistol but found
it missing, lost, he assumed, in the freefall between worlds.  The
figure let out a strange hiss under his breath.

"Don't deny it, pig.  You are demon.  Demon!"

Serph frowned and stood his ground, staring down the stranger.  The
muscles in his legs were tight as he stood poised for action, the
hissing stranger coughed a raspy laugh from what sounded like paper
lungs.  Serph realized his stance was protecting the mother and child.

"I don't know what you're doing here, gray soldier."  The figure said,
its cape billowing.  "But night is coming, and the city of gods
empties its monsters into the streets at night.  You'll be food for
them in an hour.  Are you prepared to fight?"

Serph's frown deepened.

"Are you ready to die?"

He clenched a fist, his tag ring digging into his hand.

The figure moved fluidly down the side of the building, purpling light
revealing lizard like undulations  beneath its cloak.  Serph thought
he saw a tail flick out behind and set his strategy.  This was no man.
Serph's Water Crown began to glow ice blue.

The figure hissed another laugh.  "Yes."  He reached the ground and
rose to full height in a patch of bloody sun.  His cape left the
ground like a tattered brown ghost as an elongated, scaley body
unfolded nine feet into the air.  "Yes!  Change, Demon!  No mangod
shall devour you!  You dine with me tonight!"

The lizard demon's claw tore the cape from his face revealing a jagged
split jaw and a halo of thirty eyes.  Serph gasped and braced as the
lizard struck with viper speed.  The Embryon stepped backward, his
foot crushing the chest of the mother into the child.  Icey fractures
like circuits spread across his face.

He felt the hunger welling inside him, his body rewriting itself into
a new form.  His cells and codes exploded in size and structure as
blades sliced the air and Varna appeared in his stead.  The Lizard
hissed happily, but his joy was cut short.  Varna, with a crown made
of bone and arms loaded with muscle driven swords, was a king among
demons.  Before the marauder could utter another word, his torso was
split from his legs.  Blood spewed in sprays as the two halves fell.
Varna grabbed the head and retracted his blade, wrapping the sharpened
edge around the skinny neck like a bear trap ready for the slightest
touch to spring.

"M-Monster!"  The half lizard wailed.  "What manner of creature is this!?"

Varna bared his fangs and growled.  His other claw drove deep into the
exposed guts underneath.  The lizard screamed and clawed the arm
holding his head suspended.  The sun finally dipped beyond the arches
of a distant glass dome.  The still air suddenly went dead around them
and Varna dropped his victim to listen to the space.

A bang.  An echoing clack.  A long sustained grate...

"It comes!!!"  The dying lizard howled in madness below.  "It comes!
The Wave from the gods!  The hunt!  The feasting!!!!"

The sound of hundreds of marching feet shook dust from the sills of
the glassless windows above them.  The bruise colored sky faded from
deep-green  to scab-brown above them.  The footsteps became less
uniform, punctuated with sighs and growls.  Varna understood what was
happening, he was in a world of demons and twilight marked the hunt.
He grabbed his half lizard and its cloak, ducking into a darkened
shop.  Transformed back to human form, he took a bloody bite of his
kill and settled in for a long night.  It was best to stay out of
sight in the face of so many attackers, the darkness of this old house
would shield him for now, and the cloak would mask his unique
appearance during the day.  This mad demon would provide him strength
for the journey.  In the morning he would move to the streets again,
searching this world for answers the Junkyard did not provide, and for
his comrades.

Sera promised she'd find him when his purgatory went white.  His last
bleached out memory of his former life was her smiling face weeping as
they were pulled apart.  He hoped she was alright, and that space was
the only thing that separated the two of them in this living Hell.
She was a part of his vision of Nirvana.  Paradise couldn't exist
without her.

In the distance demons and humans charged their way underground.  On
the roof above Serph's shelter, a black cat with one silver ear curled
up for a night without sleep.  It waited there with its tail
twitching, watching over him through the night.