The World, All As It Should Be

 

PREMISE: The following story is a redone passage from a story I wrote a few years ago. It's a rather romanticized piece of literature, filled with many corny lines. However, the story's deep sense of emotion and dark undertones compelled me revise it and bring it back into an open view. The prior storyline is that a man meets a demon, falls in love with her, and becomes enveloped in her dark way of life. Eventually leaving him tainted with wings upon his shoulders (Sounds like the typical, dorky fantasy writing style I often visited back then). The Main character, Wesley, eventually comes to a point in time where he must confront his demon-wife Elaine over the issue of their child.  Elaine has run off with the child because she wants to raise it to become a demon. Wesley finds Elaine in a valley flourishing with wildlife, where she calmly awaits him. Knowing their fate, they commence to battle with Elaine always having the upper hand. Their fight eventually takes them into the skies, where the climax and conclusion of their fate is revealed...

 

…My minor shock left me with my guard down. Elaine yanked the sword from my grasp and effortlessly hurled it aside, leaving me watching my last defense fall before my eyes. If I wanted to live to see another day, I had to retrieve the weapon.

In one enormous flap of my wings I propelled myself towards the weapon that rapidly chased after the earth's surface. A sonic boom deafened my ears and left Elaine hovering in my wake. The world rushed past me in a rushing river of color and light. There was an instance where everything seemed peaceful, my existence was meant for this, an outstretched hand reaching for salvation. Before I knew it my hand was grasping for the blade. It was so close I could touch the tip of the hilt, but I was getting dangerously close to the ground. One last time I lunged at the sword. This time my hand clung to metal; the sword was firmly in my grasp. I wanted to marvel at my triumph, but my joy ended there. A pair of arms grabbed me from behind and clenched me tightly.

"Wesley!" Elaine cried. "Come away from this madness! Even now it is my desire to see your life spared. Now throw down your sword; it is useless to you now."

My mind softened to her words, but my fist clenched tighter to the blade, "Elaine, where is my daughter?"

Elaine ignored my question, and pleaded once more, "Leave! Please go… I am giving you a final chance. You can't win. Your life was meant for you to die here."

"Elaine! Listen to me! Where is my daughter, where is Estelle?"

"Do not speak her name!" Elaine growled. "She is mine, and mine alone!"

"There is just as much a part of me running through her veins as there is a part of you. She is the child of our mistake, the child of two opposing forces."

"Wesley, she is the product of a love I shared with you, but I can't allow her to be tainted by the ideals of your world. I don't want her growing up wasting her life away on the premise that life is one grand trophy."

"Tainted? Elaine, these curses I wear on my shoulders came when you gave me a taste of your world. How could you possibly believe that our daughter's life is better off dwindling on the edge of madness and power?"

"Let us agree to disagree," Elaine said firmly. "Estelle stays with me."

The thoughts of my daughter evoked a struggle to free myself from Elaine's firm grasp. I swung the sword around, trying to swing the blade behind me, but all attempts were useless. She could not be harmed.

There was then a sudden emotion. And to whom should that emotion belong to, but the image of a younger me long before I had been caught up in my obsession with the wealth and pleasures of this world. As if the turmoil that dwelled with me was but a memory, an eerie calmness came over me. I realized that where the ends met with Elaine and I, was in the very dirt from whence we came.

Softly I spoke my thoughts, "You are right that I will die here. And you are right that this is the place where I must die…"

"So you have chosen death…" Elaine spoke as if she understood… "So ends another chapter of my life, and from where it stops, a new saga begins."

I am beginning to realize that what seems brand new is actually the unveiling of something that has been there all along.

            A cool breeze flowed through the valley above which we hovered. The birds sang their songs, and the flowers soaked up yesterday's rain into their roots. Yes… the valley was all as it should be. I felt Elaine's vice on me loosen enough for her to embrace me in one final, desperate farewell. Forever in her arms, I took my sword in two hands and raised it high. Then with as much force as I could muster I drove the sword through her heart and mine.

Author's Note

Feel free to correct any error in grammar or punctuation. Please refrain from making suggestions in what you might believe would better drive the plot of the story. I would prefer to have the story stick to its original intended meaning. Lastly, feel free to ask questions if anything is too confusing or seems to lack the proper continuity of a finished work of literature. Thank you.

Reviews

[Damon Ross Cottrell]

It's a very nicely polished piece. I found no SPAG errors. I think the dialogue and action work nicely together. The passages of thought and emotion ran smoothly together.