Stillness.

My vision cleared to the moment my sleep was broken on Gat s.h.i.+em's fateful night. The last time I was sure Pesti was safe and well.

Unlike the last memory recalls, I was experiencing my memory revisit from an omniscient perspective. I was seeing without being, detached from a past that still pained my heart.

---[

Vague gurgling, coughing and other cries of bodily pain interrupted my sleep. I woke to pitch black night.

The noises became more obvious with dull thuds, angry curses, trampling boots, screaming, chanted curses and mechanical screeching.

Panic stirred my mind into action.

"No. He wasn't joking. Onii-san. He can't touch him. I can't."

I heard Pesti's voice mumbling somewhere nearby. I groped the futon next to me for Pesti and felt my heart about to jump out of my chest when I couldn't feel him.

"Pesti," I whispered and yelped when a hand covered my mouth.

"Quiet Onii-san." Pesti's whispered voice flowed into my ears.

I kissed a sigh of relief into his hand.

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"Onii-san, quickly dress. Something's wrong. We must go." Pesti quietly ordered with a nervy tone to this voice.

"Pesti?"

"Please Onii-san!" He insistently whispered.

He released my mouth and gripped my arm for me to follow his lead.

We gathered our tunics and dressed as we crawled our way to the far corner of our room.

A memory of a lecture with Bulldog surfaced to my mind...

]----

My memory skipped to the moment we entered the hunter's log cabin.

---[

We were ushered into the lights and found ourselves entering the comfy warmth of a hunter's log cabin.

"Let's warm ourselves Onii-san." Pesti soberly advised.

"Hey, Pesti. What is going on?" I asked, struggling to understand events that had transpired.

He shrugged his small shoulders and lowered his eyes to cabin's floorboards.

Bulldog guided us to a calming fire at the cabin's hearth with orders to rest on a fur rug before it.

"Bulldog. Death and War..." My voice trailed off with doubts of their escape burning on the tip of my tongue.

I dumped myself down on the rug, heaving with confusion and fear for Death and War.

No. They were our strong and smart older brothers. I had to believe it was their fate to survive and be with us soon.

"Famine, Pestilence, yah both get warm." Bulldog's voice quivered with pent up tears.

"Um, Bulldog, I don't understand." I faced his saggy, funny and kindly face.

His brown eyes showed a deep sadness mingled with anger. "Famine. Yah 'ave to be the one to understand."

He knelt down before me and gave me a hug. He whispered strange words that made my ears tingle with magic.

"Famine. One day yah need to make hard choices. Yah need to choose. Only yah. Sol's fate will be yah choice. This Shuso told me to say to yah on a night like tonight." He pulled away to flash me one of his rea.s.suring toothless smile. "Don't think yah can't rely on yah self. Find yah brothers. Yah must be together. People will be next to yah to help yah. Not all men are evil. Believe in the hearts' truth. Keep to the lessons I taught yah. Never forget to trust with yah heart."

My heart raced with fear. Why did it feel I wasn't going to see him again?

"Please Bulldog. Don't say these things."I sighed, struggling to hold back my tears.

Pesti's mouth opened with his own questions then closed without uttering anything.

"Yah brothers. Yah look out for each other. Especially yah Famine. Yah keep dem safe." His loving eyes glistened with tears towards Pesti. "Pestilence. Yah keep yah brothers' love for yah in yah heart. It will always save yah."

I wrapped my arms around Pesti and held him tight.

"Yah make me proud boys." Bulldog groaned, complaining about feeling his age as he slowly stood.

He left our sides to check on the other monks who were checking the locks of the windows and doors to make sure we were secure.

"It'll be okay Pesti," I said with fake bravado.

"You're a terrible liar, Onii-san." Pesti's voice trembled.

He rested his head to my chest and closed his eyes to hold in his tears. Our eyes drooped with sleep as our bodies thawed under the hearth's warmth.

"It'll be okay. When daylight comes, we'll find Death and War," I soothingly whispered, sighing at his slumbering face.

I hugged him tighter to keep him warm and closed my eyes. I was on the edge of a deep sleep when I felt Pesti's body tense; my eyes opened to his expression of terror towards the cabin's window.

I turned my head to see what he was looking at, but he yanked my head back so our eyes were on each other.

"What is it?" My voice trembled.

Pesti answered with a tighter embrace.

"Famine," he whispered my name.

High pitched shrieking smashed through the cabin's window and brought an onslaught of snowy winds and near-blinding blue flashes inside.

]---

Bone splintering pain broke me out of my memory revisit. I heard my own voice cry out from the pain. My vision went dark, so I was seeing black.

"The four Hana would bud in the Age of Apocalypse; one each not of each other, from the four corners of the world." A deep voice reverberated around my consciousness. It felt keenly familiar yet not of Sol.

I became aware of myself as the pain eased into a floating sensation. I opened my eyes and frowned. Grey s.p.a.ce surrounded me. I glanced to my feet and saw a ma.s.sive image of a lotus flower in full bloom on dark, formless, waters that was as infinite as s.p.a.ce of a Chiorntex.

"Pesti!" My heart picked up with hope.

I sprinted; my feet skimming across the surface of the water.

"Pesti!" I called out again, feeling desperate to hear his voice, to see him.

My heart raced with hope at the silhouette of a man walking towards me.

"No." A deep voice resonated in my eardrums.

My hope faded when I saw his image clearly. He was not Pesti.

"WHERE'S MY BROTHER!?" I shouted, but I knew the answer.

The black figure walked closer. I could see his robes that covered his body from his neck to just below his knees, revealing his st.u.r.dy legs in black leather rider pants. His face was hidden beneath a hood, covering his head. His feet were clad in heavy black metal boots that clinked across the solid ground he walked on from the small star-wheel spurs jutting out from his heels.

He raised his black metal gauntlet hands to me. I felt a dark energy wrap around my being to weigh down my thoughts.

"Wh-Where?"

I felt my heart in turmoil when he stopped a few meters from me, across the center of the lotus flower.

"The unbreakable moon pillars will become breakable by the fire of ages." His prophetic voice continued to wrap the Zaldizko prophecy around my consciousness.

"Pesti." I huffed, lowering my eyes to the dark formless ground.

He walked closer until I felt his presence keenly; a feeling of nothingness. No breath of life nor warmth.

"The golden sickle will drive the Hana apart." His voice overwhelmed my mind.

"Famine."

I felt my life rush through my vision and move my heart with a million emotions at once, reverting to the beginning of when I was aware of myself at Gat s.h.i.+em.

"Better?"

I frowned and faced him. His countenance was black and formless like the ground. Yet he had a sense of being that felt solid and familiar.

"What are you?" I gasped, feeling my self will return to me.

"We are the Black Rider." He answered.

"Where is my brother?"

"The golden sickle will drive the Hana apart." He deflected my answer.

I sighed.

"Why are you here?"

"Three seals are broken. The Zaldizko Prophecy will become a truth." He continued to answer without expression or care of his words.

"Seals?"

"We are the Zaldizko. We come to the Age of Apocalypse. Sol balances itself on a choice. When the seals break, Sol must face its final fate."

"Sol's final fate?"

"See. They watch. They know too. They have seen what we have seen."

My vision warped into a scene of the Stasis Theatre. I saw the audience of knights seeing what I was seeing.

"Solkind will choose. We will choose. We Judicators will ensure Solkind knows the consequence of Death, War, Famine and Pestilence."

The Black Rider stepped closer and placed a gauntlet hand on my head.

"We are. We will be. The Zaldizko is ready to ride."

I felt myself moving through the Chiorntex's s.p.a.ce without moving, seeing the blackness that was nothingness. After a moment of unfeeling, I realized it wasn't s.p.a.ce of an infinite universe I was sensing, but the s.p.a.ce of a human heart. I felt unbalanced. swaying on a point of being one way or another.

Understanding came upon me.

"Solkind faces many paths to the choices. The first comes in the form of a weak heart. Tread well, Solkind."

My heart felt like breaking as the Black Rider stepped away to retreat to the shadows.

The grey s.p.a.ce swam out of focus. I lost my sense of self again.