Paragon Awakening (The Tail of the Swallow)

Birth of the Ashes

His first sensation was anguish. A scorching heat devoured his skin, burrowed into his bones, and caused his marrow to hiss. Then it is cold. A niggling chill gnawed at the margins of the flames, snatching his breath and trying to drown him in obscurity. He gasped, struggling for air, his eyes opening to a world obscured by his tears and uncertain existence.

Above him, a vaulted ceiling stretched into the darkness, decorated with monstrous masks that looked down like voracious gods. The stench of burning incense and sweat hit him like a physical blow, mixed with the coppery taste of blood. His own blood, he realized, slicking his palms and matting his dark hair.

He attempted to force himself up, but his limbs failed him, limping and numb. His vision swirled with flashes of fire and flame, and words of uprising echoed in a cavernous mind. A metropolis on fire, its buildings striving for a ruptured sky, the air heavy with screams and the clang of steel. And a voice, his own voice, strained with anguish, "No! We will not become slaves!"

The recollections were violent and disjointed, tinged with the metallic tang of dread and the blazing coals of anger. He grasped his skull, hoping to hold the shards together and make sense of the confusion. But they vanished like smoke in the wind, leaving him with only a throbbing ache in his head and the sickening weight of knowing that something was horribly wrong.

A hard hand smacked his face, bringing him back into the present. Above him stood a hulking figure dressed in rags and mud, his face obscured by a grimace. "Awake, you whelp?" the guy said, a mockery of his predicament. "Then get yourself up before the priestesses arrive. Wasteborn doesn't get the luxury of a slow start." He hauled Samael to his feet, scratching the rough fabric of his tunic against his raw flesh.

The Birthing Pit, a huge mouth carved from the Citadel's bowels, was teeming with other newborns, mewling and shuddering in the faint lighting. Some born into the upper classes were wrapped in silks and cuddled by servants, their cries hushed by luxury. Others, like Samael, were wrapped in rags, their visage marred with the wasteborn insignia, a downward chevron scar engraved at the back of their palms.

A group of Priestesses descended, their faces concealed under intricate bronze masks representing Moloch, the devourer god's leering countenance. They moved with trained precision, scrutinizing the newborns, branding the wasteborn with burning irons, and murmuring blessings or curses based on their rank.

When they neared Samael, their whispers became an uproar. "His eyes! This one is marked by fire," one croaked, her voice scratchy as dry leaves. "A bad omen, High Priestess."

The High Priestess, her mask adorned with obsidian serpents, returned his stare. Her eyes, as icy and deep as a well in the desert, appeared to bore through him, looking for secrets concealed inside his soul. Her voice reverberating in the cavern, she proclaimed upon his amber eyes, "Bad omen is all I see for these wasteborn, blights upon this sacred place. Let the weavers spin his fate on their looms."

The High Priestess placed her hand on Samael's head, her touch cold against his hot flesh. "This abomination," she declared with authority, " will find its place in the Wastelands. Its dark future will remain a mystery I dare not unravel."

So, with a flick of her wrist and a wicked glitter in her eyes, Samael was sentenced. Condemned to a life of scavenging and service, an outcast marked not just by his caste but also by a legacy he barely understood.

Samael stumbled out of the Birthing Pit, into the oppressive glare of the midday sun. The towering walls of Mount Sinai, gilded with gold and etched with the symbols of Ashtoreth and Mot, loomed above him, casting a long, unforgiving shadow. In their shadow, he joined the ranks of the wasteborn, children of dust and ash, destined to sift through the refuse of the privileged and dream of a city they would never truly call home.

The memories flickered again, embers clinging to the edge of his oblivion. A fiery comet crashed from the heavens, a whispered promise of "Paragon," a codeword echoing in the darkness of his mind. He clutched the mark of the wasteborn, an indelible brand on his flesh, and wondered if it was a mark of shame or a secret map leading to a freedom he couldn't even imagine.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in hues of blood and ash, Samael, the newborn wasteborn, marched alongside the imposing walls of Mount Sinai. Its ancient gates creaked and groaned, protesting against the relentless onslaught of the wind. Samael advanced toward the forefront, the arid wind whipping at his ragged clothes, sending chills down his spine. The wastelands stretched before him, an infinite expanse of sand and dust, dotted with the massive remains of forgotten cities. This is now his domain, his prison, his cradle.

***

A group of wasteborn huddled around a sputtering fire, their eyes narrowed at the newcomer. They were older, hardened by years of scavenging and survival, their faces scarred with the harshness of their life. But in their eyes, Samael saw a flash of curiosity, a spark of rebellion he recognized from his own fragmentary recollections.

"New blood," one of them rasped, a boy with skin as cracked as the desert floor. "What's your name, whelp?"

Samael hesitated. His instincts told him that the Wastelands whispered secrets into names. He didn't know what he was yet, this husk branded by an unknown legacy. "Samael," he finally whispered, a name born of the fire etched on his flesh and the ashes of the city in his dreams.

A low chuckle rolled through the group. "Samael of the Ashes, huh? Fitting for a wasteborn."

They grudgingly accepted him into their circle rather than welcoming him warmly. And as days bled into weeks, then months into years, he rapidly learned their methods, including how to travel the hazardous dunes, sift for scraps from Mount Sinai's rubbish, and escape the carnivorous sandwolves who roamed the Wastelands. He discovered the rhythm of hunger, the pain of betrayal, and the passionate loyalty that grew like a desert flower in the dry landscape of their existence.

One night, huddled around the fire, an old woman, her face a map of weathered lines, spoke of El. The Ram Paragon, was a figure of hope and a beacon that once flickered against the oppressive darkness of Mount Sinai.

"He spoke of a code," she proclaimed, her voice like crushing leaves rustling in the wind. "A hidden key to break free from the chains of this endless cycle of suffering." The words ignited a spark within Samael. "A Paragon?" It resonated with the whispers in his dreams, the echo of a promise in the burning city. Could it be real? Could there be a way out of this desolate world, a way to rewrite the code that governed their lives?

He devoured the old woman's tales, each fragment of El's legacy chipping away at the walls of his ignorance. He discovered stories of rebellion, of sacrifice, of a lost paradise glimpsed before the world fractured. And he learned of the Architects, powerful beings who had created their world. A simulation that trapped humanity in an endless cycle of death and rebirth.

The knowledge filled him with a strange mix of fear and defiance. Fear of the immense power he might be dealing with, defiance against the Architects who had condemned humanity to this existence. He realized there was no other option, regardless of who would carry on El's legacy. The embers of El's rebellion stirred within him, fanned by the winds of hope and fueled by a burning desire for freedom.

He began to dream again, this time not of fire and devastation, but of a lush world bathed in sunlight, where laughter rang out and children played beneath an unending sky. It was the Paragon's vision, a promise whispered on the border of his dreams. But before we woke up from this dream, a woman's voice asked him, a sandstone from the Cipher of the Sultan.