Chapter-XXXIV

Bren Dearth had once been Brenneth Carlsso. She had bright carrot-red hair and big blue eyes. Brenneth Carlsso was bright with love and happiness. Brenneth Carlsso knew no loss, she knew no pain and she lived with her head in the clouds. Brenneth Carlsso didn't walk through life, she skipped. Brenneth lived every day to the fullest. She didn't know darkness and everyone hoped she never would. That small village was her whole world and she knew nothing else. Brenneth Carlsso didn't know to appreciate life and the light. When Brenneth Carlsso became Bren Dearth, she never saw the light again.

The day Brenneth Carlsso became Bren Dearth, the sky darkened. Thunder resounded across the valley where her little village was nestled. Brenneth did not know of the destiny that hung over her head. The future set in stone, the magic that roiled in her, hidden, waiting. When the woman in black swirled into existence on Brenneth's doorstep, her parents were readying the fields for the impending storm. The woman was pale-skinned with charcoal eyes that glittered with intent and evil. This was when Brenneth felt the power under her skin. Thrumming, moving, power. Pure electricity and energy. It writhed under her skin, threatening to break out and obliterate. It was a living thing that had been asleep for so long, but now it would wake. Brenneth did not understand how she knew what the magic was. She didn't how she knew it was magic. Her head hurt at the sheer pressure of it inside her. Everything hurt and Brenneth was scared. She had never felt terror this absolute and this extreme. Every nerve in her body was alive and she could feel everything. Darkness tinged her vision, giving everything a skewed, monstrous quality. The torrents of rain changed to drops of black sludge that looked suspiciously like flesh and blood. Trees that were bright green and full became barren husks with branches that reached towards the skies like claws, the trunk pale and looking like bleached bones. Whorls and knots in the trunk bulging and undulating, as though something is trapped inside. The ground was black dirt and ash hung in the air, which smelled acrid and imitated rotten eggs. Things moved in the shadows, with slimy skin and spikes for eyes with blood dripping from their razor-sharp teeth and pink maws coated with poison.

The woman smiled, feral and wide, baring rotten teeth with black gums. Her hands were raised and blood dripped from her fingertips. Brenneth did not know where the blood came from. Only that she might not survive whatever was happening and wishing she had stayed in bed today. The blood spread down the woman's forearms and dripped to the ground from her elbows. The bloody rivulets formed strange patterns in eldritch languages that had no place in this realm. Brenneth shuddered as the woman reached for her. For some reason, she couldn't move. She couldn't run to the safety of her pallet and blanket. Her feet were stuck fast to the ground ever since the woman arrived. Her feet longed to run but her brain wouldn't allow them. The beast wouldn't loosen its grip and she could feel herself spiralling faster into an abyss that she didn't want to fall into. She was holding on by her fingertips and they were slipping.

"Purple prose will not get you through this, little girl." The woman rasped. Her voice was hauntingly lovely. Unexpected. "I will have you, changed and scarred you will be. You will survive, but at what cost?" The woman whispered. Her voice echoed in Brenneth's head and made her want to claw out her ears. The sound was like multiple voices speaking at once.

"I don't understand, why me?" Brenneth questions, her breath stuttering in her chest as the woman disintegrated and formed again behind her.

"Why not you, little girl?" The woman's tattered clothes rustled as she twisted in front of Brenneth. "Naive little girl, you don't even realise the power you have been given. You do not even appreciate the gift you have. The life that you can now live to the fullest."

Brenneth was confused. Nothing this woman said made sense. What gift was this? A gift that threatened to burst out and hungered. It roared and clawed at her insides until she felt ravaged with pain and energy. Her insides burned and all she wanted was for it to stop.

"Ungrateful little wretch," The woman hissed. "I will not make this easy for you."

Pain lanced through her body, her very soul, as The woman rested a hand against her forehead. Blood dripped into Brenneth's eyes and horrors, unimaginable horrors, flashed across her eyes. Her feet left the ground and she thrashed mid-air. Screams ravaged her windpipe and blood, so much blood, dripped down her face. Cuts randomly opened across her skin, dripping black liquid that burned her skin. Blisters formed across her body and immediately healed, all this time her screams continued. Brenneth's sky blue eyes blackened to charcoal, her pupils dilating. Her hair turned to wine-red tresses, drenched with blood. Monsters and horrors, creatures of a realm so dark roamed freely across ghastly plains of ash and decay. Then it stopped. The world stopped, the pain stopped. The woman was gone, the sky was blue again, the horrors vanished and her feet were touching the ground.

That day when her parents returned home, they were too wrapped up in the storm and its effects on the crops to notice Brenneth. Power and electricity surged at her fingertips and burned her eyes. Her limbs were suddenly longer and sleeker. Her hair was smooth, thick locks that fell down her back in perfect waves. Her lashes were long and curled and her eyes. Her eyes were shadows and devilry. Every flaw vanished from her body. Every move was grace and poise.

Weeks passed and the changes that came over Brenneth were written off as age and adulthood, except she never aged. She was still the same. Boys were enchanted with her. Girls were envious and the elders of the village knew that something had changed. But how could these simple minds every comprehend the magic and energy that Brenneth held?

Months passed and Brenneth's parents welcomed a child into the world. The baby was pink-faced and sweet. A little girl that had the bluest eyes anyone had ever seen and downy hair that curled at the edges. This baby was happy and bubbly. She was Brenneth from before.

One day, the storm in Brenneth raged harder than before. The power was too much, the magic too encompassing. Brenneth fell to the ground and waves of electricity emanated from her fingertips. Her childhood home burnt to ash and her baby-sister along with it.

The parents, grief-stricken and frozen in horror at the sight of their burnt home, incinerated baby and broken daughter.

That day was Brenneth Carlsso's last day. The villagers bound her to a weighted block and drowned her in the river. Brenneth died in the eddying currents of the river and Bren was born from the murky waters. See, when Bren was confronted with her powers and the door was opened; she was induced with immortality. She couldn't be killed by ordinary means because she wasn't ordinary. She was an Immortal. One of the seven beings that were blessed- or is it cursed- with power that was vast and dark and madness in itself.

Bren Dearth never went back to that village. She never again thought of that young girl whose life had been torn apart and then put back together. She embraced her power because it had saved her but she also avoided it because it was what caused her to be in that position. She vowed to never return to that village ever again because that is where she had been broken and that was where she had become the monster that she was.