The sound
of running water rushed through Tori's consciousness as she strummed her
guitar, eyes closed as she reached into the depths of her soul to produce
each strong note. Outside the window of her small apartment building,
the rain pounded against the walls, demanding entrance through the thick
glass panes. Thunder rumbled in the distance like the roar of the
Sphinx, and lightning streaked across the night sky like the rough, fiery
tongue of a dragon. Tori continued her soulful song, acknowledging
the storm's command but never heeding its tacit words. The strokes
of her fingers on the strings were gradually growing more profound as painful
memories knocked on the door to her mind, pounding more and more heavily
as she fought the desire to explore them.
Hoping vainly
to drown out the rapping of her bloody past with the robust power of her
melody, Tori plucked skillfully at the tight wires. She remembered
the first time she held a guitar in her hands, so small, no more than three
years old. Tori had been gifted as a child, in many ways, and her
mother had always loved music. She would strum her guitar softly
and sing songs to Tori, and hoped that one day her daughter would learn
to play as well. Tori had learned, and learned quickly, from her
mother. Even now, thirteen years later, she remembered being fascinated
with the way such beautiful music could come from just a series of strings.
How proud she would be now, Tori thought. But her mother could never
see her play. She was dead. Tori winced, her song wavering
for a moment as she crossed that dreadful thought once more. She
was dead.
The agony
of it all came back to Tori. How could she sit and play the guitar
carelessly when the killer of her mother was still afoot? At least,
Tori thought, he was probably still afoot. Her own father had been
the culprit, but Tori would never know whether or not he was still alive.
There was no way she could know. He was a demon, an evil creature
from the darkest pits of hell. Tori knew. She had watched him
kill her mother, she had witnessed him laugh as his body transformed into
a thousand serpents, only to slither away like the snake that he was.
Tori's eyes burned as she remembered. She was only five years old
when she saw her own father murder her mother, she was only in the most
delicate and precious stage of life when she had heard his violent laughter
converge into a chorus of serpentine hissing. Even now she could
make little sense of what had happened. All she knew now was that
she was a half-breed, a demon and a human in one. She was the first
one, the only one--and all she could do was fight it.
At this
very moment, sitting cross-legged here in the dead of night, black clouds
spewing an intensifying rain outside, Tori fought it. Her father's
evil was inside her, his urge to kill ran through her blood just as her
mother's music did. Her strange dark powers came from him.
The plagues that haunted her every day, the blood rain, the demons possessing
herself and others, the floating objects that seemed to strike all those
she laid her eyes on--everything was the fault of her father. Her
half-demon blood boiled with rage at his mention or even mere thought.
Yet these things that happened to her, the things that came with being
a demon, even the murder of her mother--these were not necessarily the
worst things that Tori hated her father for. Oh, no. It was
the armor.
The armor.
It had destroyed all that Tori had ever been--her dreams, her hopes for
the future! No day went by in which she didn't wish the armor had
never been given to her. The mystical Armor of Thunderbolt was a
thing of legend, something that men had only dreamed about. To the
world it was an old legend, perhaps widely forgotten, but a wonder of holy
Light that could save the world from the omnipresent Dark. To Tori,
though, it brought about pain and destruction, only furthering the perpetual
cycle of evil she should have been striving to stop. It made her
realize how futile it all really is, how insignificant life can so often
be. It made her want to end it. Tori's bloodlust was magnified
tenfold when she wore the armor, and the insane hunger for battle lingered
even after the armor had left. All she had to do was simply call
it with an ancient phrase, and it would be there. There existed no
other way to explain it, it just suddenly was there. The sword would
be in her hand, and she would sever the head of a demon's form from its
body, or destroy it with a fatal bolt of divine lightning. The more
she fought, the more she wanted to fight, the more she wanted to kill.
And all of this, everything, her father's fault.
The rain
outside was slowing now after an unexpected burst of intensity. The
thunder rolled away gradually, and the light of the massive bolts of electricity
dimmed and faded out dramatically, as if ending a story without a conclusion.
Tori ended her song the same way--with a lingering note--dropping the guitar
and holding her head in her hands. Tears seared her eyes, and she
rose to place the guitar gently back into its black case. It was
past midnight now, and Tori decided that she had to sleep--all she could
do was hope that the incessant nightmares would stop, just for tonight.
The hiss of rain hitting the roof and windows gently died out and, just
before she drifted away from consciousness, Tori thought--but just for
a moment--that she could hear the soft music of a guitar lull her quietly
to sleep.
Author's Notes: You wouldn't believe how many different prologues and preludes to the whole Tori thing I have...I think I wrote out the real story only once, fic-style. I wrote this particular one for a statewide contest, which my much-hated writing teacher mandated. It had to be under 1,000 words when I entered it--this original version is 1,001 words long, by complete coincidence. It was rather forced, but I got myself some inspiration and it didn't turn out terribly. =) Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. ~Mistress Jakira
Claimer: Yes, claimer. I do believe I own every part of this story. *mwaha*