Final Project - Here I Am

Loke's Tears

My name is Loke. That’s all, just Loke. It’s an odd name, no? Well, maybe I can help you understand… then again, probably not.

The sunset was beautiful this evening. The cloud-studded sky glowed a brilliant orange as tongues of flame licked the edge of the world. There was such a glorious beauty in that pure source of fire. It was wild and chaotic. No rules bound it, for none could hope to control the power of the flames. No one, no matter how special, had a chance.

I stared broodingly out over the vast ocean. The last rays of sun were disappearing now as the day drew to a close. Odd, less than a second ago it had appeared as though the world had been on fire. If I were a superstitious person, I might have believed that was an omen of my home’s problems. Unfortunately, I'm not - superstitious that is. Mentally, I shook myself and perched on a nearby rock. I might have been part of the problem though. But, I just couldn’t remember.

I sure seemed to forget a lot these days. Whole hours at a time would be missing, as though I hadn’t lived them at all. I had no idea what I had done or where I had been. It was the scariest feeling of my entire life, especially since each time I blanked, something had gone horribly wrong.

The old warehouse burning could have been an accident. The tannery collapsing the next week could have been coincidence. I could even accept Milton’s farmhouse sinking into a bog. I snorted. Yeah, right. I couldn’t accept that as mere happenstance. Who had ever heard of a house sinking into a bog that had not existed less than an hour before? The unexplainable, the mysterious, and the just plain weird all seemed to occur when I blanked out.

Tears burned in my eyes. These incidents couldn’t be my fault, could they? One hot tear spilled onto my face. A mere lack of memory did not make one guilty. The tear fell gracefully toward the water. The fire today couldn’t have been my fault either. With a soft plunk, the tear hit the ocean’s surface. I had been over at Kate’s and only a few minutes were missing from my memory. Ripples spread across the ocean, stilling its surface. No one could have run across town, set a house on fire and gotten back without someone noticing. The ocean was perfectly smooth now.

“It was not my fault!” I practically screamed the words.

“Loke,” whispered a chorus of unearthly voices.

“Here I am,” I whispered tentatively back, then fear overcame me and I demanded “Who are you? What do you want with me?”

“Loke, we would ask the same question of you…” The voices rang in unison, but echoed like a thousand different beings. “What do you want with us?”

I faltered. What on earth were they talking about?

An orange glow had started to form just beneath the surface of the still water. “You summoned us.” This time the voices came as softly as a zephyr to my ears. The orange glow was now moving upward to engulf me as well. It wriggled and then solidified into golden fish which swam through the air all around me.

“What are you?” I asked them.

The unified voices chorused, “We are the essence. We are the power. We are the elemental spirits of fire…And you have summoned us.” I stared off thoughtfully into the distance as they continued. “You thought that water’s reaction was mere coincidence?” That had been an extreme oddity, but by now I was used to it.

Now they spun around me, faster and faster.

“You belong to the fire, Loke. Awake!” The last command roared into my ears, deafening me.

I held my umbrella closer. Even though no one was on the rocky beach, I couldn’t shake the habit. Certainly not when there were clouds in the sky. If even one person saw me in the rain without protection, they would know. It would be impossible for anyone to miss the raindrops vaporizing as they touched my skin; just as my new, golden entourage was a dead giveaway. Not that it would matter much longer…, a voice inside me whispered.

My name is Loke. It means dragon: the destroyer of nations. And now, I am here.
~
Image: Umbrella Sky. Marta Dahlig. http://blackeri.deviantart.com/art/Umbrella-Sky-67965371