6. Inane Syncretism
Stretched out under a stunted bush that could hardly trace fine lines of shadows with the morning sun, I decided that the Genesis to my disaster didn't matter much to me. The more memories of "the Hittite" that I unearthed, the more I convinced myself that Benjamin was that character. I guess that, if he wouldn't identify himself as such, it was because that part of the story wasn't all that significant, not even to him.
Anyway, there were memories of many years of living out in the desert like an animal, stalking unlucky nomads, and of great passionate relationships with men and women, of falling in love head over heels with either one, which always ended up in tragedy whenever his thirst would win again over his loneliness. It was by coincidence (as it is wont to happen) that the Hittite, in a fit of passion, decided to bite and let himself be bitten, and to share his blood with a beauty of kohl eyes. The horror of the transformation shocked the Hittite so much, that a moment later he tore the body of the unlucky woman in tiny pieces. But the solitude is stronger than anything, and very few years went by before he tried to share the blood again. Of the first experiments, none survived the pain of the transformation, or the heat of the sun, or the vengeance of the warriors, since they would find ways to destroy themselves when they lost their sanity. Sometimes, though, their end came through the disgust and boredom of the Hittite. By whim he would create them, and by whim he would destroy his "progeny", without rhyme or reason.
Of the memories of those years, the only thing that caught my attention was the lecture of the eventual discoveries of bizarre abilities and skills given to him by his fusion with the spirit. The Hittite, being the only one of his kind on the Earth, discovered the first mysteries by happy accident.
For example, when he learned that he could transport his body faster than his reflexes allowed for, letting the spirit move him.
This one time, in order to escape a mob of fishermen that had cornered him riverside on the Iteru, with his back to a shack and facing two dozen hoes and harpoons, the Hittite imagined himself standing on the other side of the river. Before he could even figure out what was happening, there he was, standing on the other bank.
Astonished, he used his unnaturally sharp sight to look upon the river bank he had just vacated, and was able to distinguish the fisherman, all of them howling in consternation and looking after their friends who had been ran over by the Hittite when he escaped like a shooting star. The shack had crumbled to the ground, and several of the fishermen had broken arms or legs after the impact with the Hittite's body, that crossed from one river bank to the other, over sixteen hundred feet, in a flash.
Back then, the Hittite's body was still fragile, and adventures like that one caused him an immense pain. The air itself turned into a razor, and any dust mote impacting on his skin would raise welts when he propelled his body to impossible speeds with the spirit that lived in his dead blood. However, day after day he could actually notice that his body was hardening a bit at a time, layer after layer.
There were other skills that were even stranger, like causing objects to move without touching them, or listening to whispers of the sweaty thoughts of people, or even rising in the air, like a feather caught in a draft. These disconcerting powers were a side effect of the fusion of the Hittite's soul with the unclean spirit that had fastened to his body. The formerly limitless spirit was a conduit towards a dimension that exists on the flip side of the physical world, and that created those secret links with everything material. They seemed like sorcery.
But, of all these magical powers, the most interesting one for me was when the Hittite would order the spirit to withdraw suddenly from the blood of another monster like himself. The spirit, by abandoning the hemoglobin at once, caused extreme heat, and the body would incinerate in a sudden bonfire. Since he discovered that power, the Hittite started making monsters left and right, so that he could practice his new powers against them.
That was the beginning of The Wars, which have lasted over six thousand years already.
Stretched out under a stunted bush that could hardly trace fine lines of shadows with the morning sun, I decided that the Genesis to my disaster didn't matter much to me. The more memories of "the Hittite" that I unearthed, the more I convinced myself that Benjamin was that character. I guess that, if he wouldn't identify himself as such, it was because that part of the story wasn't all that significant, not even to him.
Anyway, there were memories of many years of living out in the desert like an animal, stalking unlucky nomads, and of great passionate relationships with men and women, of falling in love head over heels with either one, which always ended up in tragedy whenever his thirst would win again over his loneliness. It was by coincidence (as it is wont to happen) that the Hittite, in a fit of passion, decided to bite and let himself be bitten, and to share his blood with a beauty of kohl eyes. The horror of the transformation shocked the Hittite so much, that a moment later he tore the body of the unlucky woman in tiny pieces. But the solitude is stronger than anything, and very few years went by before he tried to share the blood again. Of the first experiments, none survived the pain of the transformation, or the heat of the sun, or the vengeance of the warriors, since they would find ways to destroy themselves when they lost their sanity. Sometimes, though, their end came through the disgust and boredom of the Hittite. By whim he would create them, and by whim he would destroy his "progeny", without rhyme or reason.
Of the memories of those years, the only thing that caught my attention was the lecture of the eventual discoveries of bizarre abilities and skills given to him by his fusion with the spirit. The Hittite, being the only one of his kind on the Earth, discovered the first mysteries by happy accident.
For example, when he learned that he could transport his body faster than his reflexes allowed for, letting the spirit move him.
This one time, in order to escape a mob of fishermen that had cornered him riverside on the Iteru, with his back to a shack and facing two dozen hoes and harpoons, the Hittite imagined himself standing on the other side of the river. Before he could even figure out what was happening, there he was, standing on the other bank.
Astonished, he used his unnaturally sharp sight to look upon the river bank he had just vacated, and was able to distinguish the fisherman, all of them howling in consternation and looking after their friends who had been ran over by the Hittite when he escaped like a shooting star. The shack had crumbled to the ground, and several of the fishermen had broken arms or legs after the impact with the Hittite's body, that crossed from one river bank to the other, over sixteen hundred feet, in a flash.
Back then, the Hittite's body was still fragile, and adventures like that one caused him an immense pain. The air itself turned into a razor, and any dust mote impacting on his skin would raise welts when he propelled his body to impossible speeds with the spirit that lived in his dead blood. However, day after day he could actually notice that his body was hardening a bit at a time, layer after layer.
There were other skills that were even stranger, like causing objects to move without touching them, or listening to whispers of the sweaty thoughts of people, or even rising in the air, like a feather caught in a draft. These disconcerting powers were a side effect of the fusion of the Hittite's soul with the unclean spirit that had fastened to his body. The formerly limitless spirit was a conduit towards a dimension that exists on the flip side of the physical world, and that created those secret links with everything material. They seemed like sorcery.
But, of all these magical powers, the most interesting one for me was when the Hittite would order the spirit to withdraw suddenly from the blood of another monster like himself. The spirit, by abandoning the hemoglobin at once, caused extreme heat, and the body would incinerate in a sudden bonfire. Since he discovered that power, the Hittite started making monsters left and right, so that he could practice his new powers against them.
That was the beginning of The Wars, which have lasted over six thousand years already.
To Be Continued…
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