War of the Avatars
I never believed the stories my grandfather would tell. As far as I was concerned they were nothing more than fables, legends at most. His favorite one was that of the avatars of light and darkness. The story always began the same way; he would always start with, “It is rumored as many men know that every thousand years there is a great battle. A battle between two mighty avatars, the avatar of light and the avatar of darkness; both of them where hopelessly in love, but you see their love was forbidden. Thousands of years ago they were but simple beings neither angel nor demon. Then one night the avatar of darkness at that time know by the name of Isaiah became so over powered by his greed and his thirst for power that he angered the gods. The gods thought for a long time on what to do about him, so they decided that there would be no greater punishment than for Isaiah to be killed by the very woman he loved. At that moment their fighting began, her only thought was to rid the world of his evil. At the time the avatar of light went by the name of Alexandra.
She loved Isaiah very much but hated what he had become. At the very moment when the gods decided Isaiah’s punishment for becoming such a wicked man, Isaiah and Alexandra where doomed to fight for all eternity. In many ways they became immortal but they could still die. As Alexandra’s (better known as the avatar of light) anger over Isaiah’s behavior grew stronger she decided to kill him, and rid the world of his evil ways. Thus began there never ending battle. For you see when Alexandra killed Isaiah he swore to return in a thousand years and take what was rightfully his. Since that day every thousand years the avatars of light and darkness have fought; the only way for one to win being to kill the other. Every time the angels poor from the heavens to fight alongside Alexandra to rid the world of Isaiah’s evil, and to bring peace and light to the world for another thousand years, and every time demons also rose from the earth below to fight by the side of Isaiah to rid the world of Alexandra’s light and bring darkness and destruction to the world for a thousand years. For it is said that the two still love each other and despise having to kill one another. It is also said by few men that there is but one way for their fighting to be over, and that is for Alexandra to bear a child, a child born of Isaiah.”
Every time my grandfather would tell me that story I’d tell him he was a crazy fool if he believed it to be true. That is until the day he was proven to be right. It was a typical morning in my life; I woke up and went about my morning chores. For you see I am but a sixteen year old girl and my father has strict rules on our morning chores being finished before we get breakfast. After the morning chores where finished and breakfast had been consumed I felt a sudden breeze run across my back. Yet when I looked around there was no sign of any breeze, for the trees were not dancing about as they often seem to do when a breeze goes through their great leaves. After a short time mother called for me saying, “Alex, will you be a dear and come in here to help me with the sewing, for there is much to be done." You see my family often refers to me as Alex because they find it to tedious to say Alexandra every time they need me. Yes I know I was named after the avatar of light by my grandfather’s request.
The day I finally believed the story grandfather told me I started noticing an unusual change in myself. I started feeling a deeper sense of needing justice for any victims of wrong doing. This was very out of character for me as I had never cared before about the affairs of others; to me if I was not affected it did not matter. Then suddenly I felt this overwhelming want to destroy a man I did not know. This scared me beyond all reasoning because I did not know this guy and he had done nothing wrong. Before I knew what was going on the sky started going dark in the middle of the day. When I went to look at the calendar I could clearly see there was no eclipse supposed to be happening that day. So with no way to explain the darkening of the sky I looked to father for support. The sky was darkening in such a way that it was almost like a tunnel, a tunnel that just kept growing longer. The light just kept fading, causing me to lose sight of any hope that it was only a dream.
Somewhere deep inside me I could feel the pain yet to come. Deep inside I knew that the stories grandfather had told me were true. For as it grew darker you could feel the tension in the air rising. Almost immediately you could tell the people of the world started dividing. They divided into two groups; those who wanted nothing more than for the evil to disappear and justice to raine true, and those who only wanted death and destruction. As fighting began to break out, you could hear the screams of a young girl in the distance, accompanied by the sound of a man’s laughter. Her screams where so shrill you could clearly hear them even from a long distance off. But the worst of all was his laughter, for his laugh was so evil, so cruel, and so loud you could tell he was laughing at her pain.
I looked around to see if anyone was going to help, for I was still frozen with fear. I noticed that no one was going to help; they instead were choosing to fight. That day or was it night, I could no longer tell, but it seemed as though an eternity had gone by; I suddenly sensed an overpowering feeling of evil coming off the man I earlier had wanted to destroy. Then out of nowhere the heavens opened up and angels began pouring down from above in the darkness and I suddenly felt a surge of confidence and justice. The next thing I knew the ground below started to open up as well and demons rose from the earth below.
At that moment I knew the stories were true, and that I was the avatar of light, at that moment I knew it was my job to destroy this man, this man who could only be the avatar of darkness. I knew that as scared as I was I would have to fight this hideous man, for he became a horribly hideous looking monster like creature, he had grown horns from the top of his head, his face became deformed, he grew at least five feet, and sprouted dark, horned wings. I on the other hand had become as I could hear my father describe, “An amazingly beautiful and heavenly looking creature.” For my hair had turned from black to a beautiful blonde, I had grown five feet, developed a heavenly glow such as that of a god, and had sprouted beautiful white, glowing wings.
At that I took to the sky lighting the way as I went, and he took off to, surrounded by the darkness. This was the beginning of the war I knew would last for a long time. The war lasted many years and life as it was known on earth soon ended. After some time when both I and the man were worn down from years of fighting, we paused and took notice of all the men both had lost, and the many human deaths. I looked upon the bodies of the fallen men with sorrow; he looked and laughed as he thought of all the bloodshed. At that moment I began to weep, and he took advantage of my despair; with my tears came my death and the end of that war. But even as I lay below him dying I swore on my return. All the time knowing the world would soon know what a thousand years of darkness could do to mankind.
