babiel

Abiel stared out at the mass of shouting people in front of him. Not that he could do much to respond to them, flanked on both sides by large men that held his arms in a grip he knew was leaving a bruise. As if it was necessary. His wrists were bound behind his back, and he would have to get off the wooden platform and around the seething, furious humans below. He tried looking upwards to escape the fire in the crowd's eyes, but was only met by a loop of rope. His death.

Downwards at the floor it was.

How had he gotten into this mess?

The answer was more simple than he ever wanted to admit. A fisherman's young daughter went missing a few days ago. They found her, or what was left of her anyway, scattered in pieces at the outskirts of town. It was a terrible crime, for sure. But they found something else at the scene. Someone fleeing, claims of horns and a tail. And for them, that was good enough.

Maybe, deep down, they knew it couldn't have been this skinny thief kid who would do something so awful. But to them, it was an act of evil that only a devil would be capable of. They wanted to see someone hang, and for that any devil would do.

Even if there was something to say, some way to defend himself, they wouldn't hear it. Finally, he closed his eyes. All that there was left to do was to try to put himself somewhere happier before the end came.

/"Mum, mum, look!"

He pinched the match out, staring at the serenely-flickering candle flame underneath him. He did it, he lit it all by himself this time! His hand wrapped around the smooth wax, gently lifting it, carrying it through the home delicately, nearly tip-toed, as he didn't want to extinguish his hard work.

She was already on her way when she heard him and met him halfway. It's been so long since he's seen her, but he remembers, the way her eyes widened in surprised, her smile, her voice, warm as the fire burning away in the hearth.

"Oh?" She says, "What do you have there?"

"I did it! I lit the candle!" He says, lifting it up towards her face. Even in his memories he felt the hot wax on his fingers, but the swell of pride overtook it. "All by myself!"

"Oh! You did! What a good boy!" She reached around, past the candle to stroke his hair carefully. He didn't even hear her chide him about using matches in the house. It didn't matter when he can feel the touch, not a raised hand chasing him away, but love.

"It's like you, mum!"

"Oh...? What do you mean?"

"It's like your name. Candl... Candlea..."

"...Oh! It is! Candelaria!"

The both of them laughed, but his faded, seeing the flame flicker as his movement threatened to snuff it out.

"Mum... I don't want it to go out yet."

"Don't worry... Here, we'll just put this in the lantern outside."

"Okay!"

Time seemed to stop at that moment. He and his mother, cast in the light of his little candle in their tiny, loving home. He breathed in, everything smelling of wood smoke and sea salt, of melting wax and of her.

If he never opened his eyes, he could just stay in this moment forever. Yes. That was the way./

"Stop this!"

"...mum...?"

"Stop this now!"

It was only the second shout that proved the voice to exist outside the haze of memory, powerful and sending him back into horrible, cold reality.


Eventually, though, this voice would come to have its own place in his life, and it began by saving his life.