Malum Sol Vol. I Ep. I: Birth

“Perhaps my past deserves its own closure.”

Solomon spoke through a sigh, pushing the blue linen curtain aside with his fingers. The same lake set within Sheolai’s dense woodlands was still there. The same jagged mountain face rose in a crescent around the cabin he had built for his wife and newborn son. The same horizon framed by trees and stone that stretched on until it connected with aquamarine skies. The same sky he had watched his fledgling family depart when their cruiser broke beyond the atmosphere only three days prior. Greenish blue bled into brilliant crimson and gold as the sun descended beyond the edge of the vista. Though the sight had once captivated the three of them for hours, it now appeared to Solomon as nothing more than some natural occurrence. The familiar was now foreign, while nothing about it had changed at all.

“Retribution for the total sum of my sins…” He spoke coldly, in a matter of fact manner detached from any inflection or tone. The words hummed like a hollow drum and his breath was hardly enough to fog a pinpoint on the glass. “…and an end to squandered beginnings.”

In the insignificance of the rapidly fading haze, he watched his life begin to unfold and awaited whatever fate may come.

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Thirty-six years ago, on the Ometri home world of Cha’zen, Solomon entered the world like we all presumably do: naked and covered in some combination of fluids. Unlike most, however, he did so in complete silence. His eyes were closed, his breath steady, and his face adorned a smile that carried profound peace into the once chaotic, profanity riddled, delivery room. Tranquility took hold, as if Bellona had not nearly ripped Sorin’s hand clean off his wrist while simultaneously blaming him for the most excruciating pain of her life. Instead, the two gazed upon their newborn son, cheek muscles throbbing from shakily optimistic smiles.

“Is…”, Sorin began before choking back the lump in his throat, “Is he alright?” His eyes never left the small, sleeping boy cradled in the curagist’s arms. His hand now cutting the circulation from his wife’s fingertips. Bellona wearily brought her free hand to the twined grasp.

“Shh,” she stated plainly, still out of breath. “He’s ok, Sorin. Trust me. Just let the curagist do her job.”

Curageon Udaya inspected the child head-to-toe. The pulse was healthy and his breathing kept its rhythm, no physical or spiritual sign of complication. Seeing all was well, she looked for the birthmark signifying which Ometri ancestry’s blessing he was bestowed. Nurses came and gently toweled away the remaining blood and placenta, scanning for the usual scar-textured design raised somewhere on the flesh. Thumbing away a smear along Solomon’s left forearm, a nurse was quick to notice the unmistakable sigil of Nexus, the same ancestral blessing of Sorin.

After the Lineage was proclaimed, the baby’s eyes slid open. They drifted about in some odd fusion of listless and intent focus, almost like the infant was carefully observing an unseen phantom floating beyond all conceivable perception. Slowly, the serenity of his expression contorted into shock. Then horror. Then, finally, anger. He erupted in a flailing fit of cries, roiling feverously in the curagist’s arms as she struggled to keep him contained. He screamed to the point his voice grated, bringing with it a stark, spiritual reverberation of Ahng’sha. Pure, unbridled power shook the room for what seemed like a full minute before subsiding.

“Well,” Curageon Udaya spoke over the boy’s wails, “I can honestly say, in twenty-two years of practice, I’ve never experienced something like that.” She forced a laugh to drown out any confusion or fear in her tone, while simultaneously handing a squirming baby over as carefully as she could.

Bellona cradled him as the medical team finished up their tasks and left to give the family their privacy. Solomon’s tantrum slowed as his mother hummed a tune she would sing to him while he was still in utero. She rocked him in her arms and placed a kiss on the soft, crimson fuzz budding from his scalp. It put him out like a light. Sorin could only watch with a slacked jaw, astounded by the power of a new mother. His face twisted to hold back tears that broke free anyway and he wrapped an arm around them, head resting on Bellona’s as it soaked a spot in her hair.

“He’s so strong, Bell…”, Sorin said in a whisper, “…stronger than I could have ever imagined.” Tears escaped his golden-yellow eyes. “And a Nexus…” He traced the outer circle of Solomon’s divine birthmark, letting the tip of his thumb feel the inner diamond arranged with other simple lines and orbs. It was the spitting of image of Sorin’s pre-Revelation, before the brand-like tattoo manifested in its place. The sign of an active Genesis gene and an Awakened Ometri. He shifted focus to his own mark. The way the shapes were arranged they looked as if the sigil itself was some crude rendering of a solar system collapsing into a solid black hole in the center of the circle. A reminder of his ancestry. “It won’t end with me, after all.”

“I kept telling you it wouldn’t,” Bellona replied, holding her tremulous husband, “I knew he’d be Nexus.”

“Oh really?”, he replied through incredulous chuckles. “And how is that, exactly?”

“He tested my patience,” she chirped, “Just like his father.”

If only the two parents knew how right they were. The child was indeed strong and had only begun to try them.

Title Card designed and created by Andrea Thompson