Sirius Chapter 1: Chapter 0: Meaning

Read chapter 1 of Sirius by Dealer on NovelPedia.

PROLOGUE Step. Step. Step. "I have to make it in time!" A woman runs through what remains of a city. Rubble is all that's left of every building that once stood here. The sound of her footsteps echoes, crashing against the silence; broken only by the explosions tearing through the city's heart. "Please, please..." She keeps running. Her clothes, half-torn, reveal the wounds carved into her skin. The noise of the fight slowly closes in, until it stops. Silence reclaims the city. Thousands of bodies line the streets. A putrid smell saturates the air. Blood stains her feet. She finally arrived, just not fast enough. "I'm sorry, child." An ethereal voice resonates. "I couldn't help you enough. Even after everything you did. After everything I put you through... a god with no power... pathetic." A towering figure stands before a pool of blood. The giant gazes downward, as if looking upon the body of a child. The woman halts at the top of a heap of bodies, taking in the scene. "Send me back!" A weak, ragged voice, carrying a single plea, fires up from the ground. "You know I can't" "I know! I know you can! Don't lie to me, Muhali!" The voice echoes through the empty city center, reaching the only other human there. "That voice!" she remembers. "Indeed, I can, but not now, and not like this. I don't have that kind of power. I can't send you back in full to a point so far in the past." The giant refuses the request again. "Besides, what could you possibly accomplish in this state?" "I don't need everything. I don't need my body, my soul, not even my memories!" "Without your memories, what would be left of you, child?!" he shot back. The words don't match Muhali's expression. Words that sound like disdain pour from a face heavy with grief. "I don't need to remember! I don't need the victories, the defeats..." Coff Coff In his final breaths, the man coughs up the blood lodged in his throat. "Not the pain or the sorrow either!" he continued. "I only need one thing." Muhali looked at the man's destroyed body on the ground. If it were anyone else in that state, they would not still be speaking. "Even if I do this, boy, what guarantee do you have? What guarantees that you'll find your way back, that you won't take the same path?" The god raises his voice, determined to refuse the dying man's last request. "Trust me... one last time." The voice falters. "FINE! You stubborn child, if that's what you want, so be it!" Muhali gestures; a small glow lifts from the man's body on the ground. "I can't do much for you using what's left of your life as collateral; you're already at the end of it. But at least this much I can do." "Thank you" And his voice stops. A long silence passes. Still looking down at him, the giant lets a sigh escape past the knot in his throat. "It is I who thanks you, child." "WAIT!" A woman's voice rises from behind a pile of bodies. The giant, on the verge of clapping his hands to grant the final wish, stops. "I have a request too!"