IRON GOD | 1: Peripeteia

[3] Kolo: Waiting for You

Kolo ran like a shot deer through the icy downpour. She crashed through the undergrowth and trailed blood behind her. Her breath came in frantic gasps. Despite her terror, there was no pain. None at all.

She looked over her shoulder. No one was there, but every little rustle of the branches became a monster in her clouded mind. Kolo's foot caught on a tree root. She fell forward and caught herself against a dead tree. Her nails dug into the rotten bark. It sloughed away beneath her fingertips. She slid to the ground and streaked the decayed trunk with bright, frothy blood.

Kolo looked up. The sleet stung her face. The world seemed to spin. She could barely tell up from down. Still, she managed to shift so she sat with her back against the tree. That was better, she thought. As she sat there in the storm, soaked in freezing rain and warm blood, her mind slipped into a strange contentment.

She scolded the faint smile on her bloodstained lips. This was hell, it was agony. But how could it be when she couldn't feel any pain? None of it made sense. Nothing ever made sense.

Kolo raised a trembling hand and touched the wound under her left shoulder. Blood spilled between her clenched fingers. It drenched her coat. Her hand fell back to the ground. Her bloody fingers twitched. Out of nowhere, she remembered how her sabretooth monster's ribs had smashed so easily with her blow. She remembered the sensation of bone snapping beneath her knuckles. Crack, crack, crack...

It was funny, really. Her monster was so fragile that she could break him with one punch. Kolo hoped he was suffering somewhere, collapsed and incapacitated like she was. It only seemed right. She tried to imagine it. Her monster groveling like the pathetic wounded beast he was. It gave her a sick pleasure.

The world around her began to slip out of focus. Her muscles all relaxed. She tried to take another breath, but it was too difficult. Kolo clung to the memory of that punch to her monster's chest. She was strong. She was stronger than him. No one could take that away from her, no one, no one at all.

Kolo's thoughts descended into incoherent calamity. Her eyes rolled and fell shut. Darkness swallowed her in a wave.

Kolo sank like a stone dropped into black water. She heard breathing, but it wasn't her own. It was something immense. Its hot breath radiated down her back. She opened her eyes and saw its colossal teeth hanging over her. Was this death? Kolo wondered. This hungry thing?

Someone else snatched her right before the fangs clamped shut around her. The glowing hand was enormous, though still tiny in comparison to the thing that had almost eaten her. The hand lifted her up to a giant, piercing blue eye.

In a deep voice, it spoke. "I have been waiting for you, child."

Kolo held her hands up to her face. What was happening? Was this real? Any of it? She couldn't tell. Why would anyone, especially someone so colossal, be waiting for someone like her?

"My name is Vraelen. They call me the Iron God." He brought her closer to his eye. "The blade of my disciple sent you here. I have been waiting for you since I lost my heart."

"Lost your...heart?" Kolo couldn't understand anything that was going on. What was this experience? It was like no dream she had ever had.

The great eye glistened with tears. "You'll understand one day, dear. For now, if nothing else, know that the world needs someone to believe in. Someone apart from their powerless god. Now, Kolo, I lift you back up. May my disciples' dream be realized."