The End of Before

Storm clouds billowed from the twilight horizon, blotting out stars in their march across the sky. Brief crackles of lighting lit the night as rain sent ripples among the heaving waters of the Starlit Sea. Waves spilled in deep blues across jagged black stones; the water coated a crimson stained figure splayed upon the shore. His limbs were twisted in unnatural and painful ways among scattered bits of timber. Wounds and rain distorted his features and dampened his already soaked and tattered clothing. The man remained unmoving through the chaos of the storm. Then like a miracle, he gasped for air. Coughing up blood, his lungs strained to reach for a breath. Lying there, he clung to the scraps of what little life remained in him. And it a moment of utter turmoil, the stranger made a simple choice. He whispered a single word between coughs like a desperate prayer. 

"Help"

The winds whisked away his plea and placed it in the hands of a heavenly messenger. As fate or heaven would have it, this nameless stranger was not alone. A woman of sorts stood near a lighthouse on the very same shore. She glowed with a faint light like a long forgotten angel. She heard no sound from the half-dead stranger, nor had she seen where he came from. Yet by sheer luck or divine urging, the woman’s attention turned from the turmoil above the sea and her gaze fell on the broken stranger. Compassion filled her heart, like that of a mother for her child. The fate of many lives began to change as the woman hurried to the stranger. Unbeknownst to him, the woman carried him from the shore and brought him into the lighthouse. As the door shut behind them, the world shook from a guttural roar of a beast who lost its prey. Yet inside the unacquainted strangers were safe from both creature and storm.

Inside the lighthouse the woman hurried off, leaving the man beside a fireplace. The heat began to dry the stranger, leaving the remains of his clothing fused to his skin in a dark red mess. The man drifted into sleep from exhaustion and from massive loss of blood that by every account should have killed him. By some twist of fate or divine will, the stranger remained alive. When he awoke the woman had returned. She held in her hands a swelled and crooked arm; It was his arm. An expression of deep concern etched itself on her face. She noticed his gaze and her eyes saddened.

“Sorry about the pain,” she said. Before he could respond or even understand what was to happen, the woman snapped his wrist and elbow simultaneously back into place. A wave of bone shattering pain knocked him from consciousness. And with that the stranger faded into a dream in which he stood alone on a stretch of smooth sand white as silk. Large boulders gleamed like marble against a pink hued sky. The horizon glowed with gold and orange light of a perpetual sunset. The light was not harsh light for constellations of stars glimmered clearly in the heavens along with the setting sun. Crystal water lapped the shore in rhythm and it’s waves remained vacant of any color while they reflected the starlight. A soft melody drifted along a gentle breeze to the stranger’s ear. There were no words to the song, and yet faces and places appeared in the stranger’s imagination. Stories of heroes and adventures filled his mind as awe found its way into his heart. He closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of salty air. This was an odd place, but it was indeed peaceful. 

He opened his eyes to find that he remained beside the fireplace. The embers of which glowed dimly among heaps of ashes. Slowly he sat up, finding the wall close enough to lean against without much effort. Shifting his head, he saw the lighthouse’s southern stained glass window depicting a crashing wave. Lightning flashed and he caught a glimpse of the beauty in the blues of the glass. His gaze then landed on a white door with a very intricate silver handle, again in the shape of a crashing wave. The practicality of such is questionable, but the design was nothing short of perfection. 

The sound of footsteps dragged him away from his appreciation of the room and a figure appeared before him. The woman had returned carrying logs for the fire. In the dim light, her skin illuminated her with calm warm light. As she tended to the fire, a soft song escaped into the silence. It was a simple humming of a tune long forgotten and she hardly noticed that she had hummed at all. The fire began to radiate heat that warmed the stranger to his core and a sigh of relief left his lungs. Now satisfied with her work, the woman turned her attention to the stranger.

“Awake again, I see,” She said. Thanks to the light from the fire, the stranger was able to take notice of the woman’s appearance. Her dark hair was braided back in a simple yet elegant way. Though it might be improper to bring attention to, wrinkles of ages past were sketched at the edges of her emerald eyes marking her as one who had seen many long years. Her face looked young, but remained composed like that of royalty. She wore a simple white dress that reached her ankles and her feet lacked any footwear. The stranger noticed that the woman stood while he sat and thus strained himself in an attempt to get to his feet. Pain unthinkable forced the stranger to remain seated in defeat. 

“You are very injured, dear stranger. Rest and the bones will heal.” she said before kneeling beside him. She held out her hand and the stranger tilted his head in confusion before noticing the blood stained bandage around his arm. He shifted his arm as if to grant permission and the woman swiftly removed the bandage with careful precision.

“Where am I?” the stranger said. His voice hoarse from lack of use. She gave no answer as she examined the gash in his arm. She retrieved a cloth and a bowl of water and began to clean the wound with evident expertise. “Who are you? What is this place?”

A moment passed in silence before the woman responded. 

“This is the Lighthouse of the Dark Brink and I am it’s keeper.” She said. Silence filled the room again as the stranger waited for more of an explanation. His anticipation and patience had no result. With the wound clean, the woman began to bandage the arm with a new cloth.

“What may I call you?” His words caused the woman to pause her work for an instant. 

“I have no name or if I did, it has long been forgotten,” She said before tossing the old bandage into the fire. The flames licked at the cloth scorching the red stains into ashes. The woman turned to leave the room without any more of an answer. Then she stopped, turned, and focused on the stranger. “Who are you, storm born? And how is it that you arrived in this place?”  

The stranger thought long and hard, but no answer came to him. The scattered planks on the shore outside would have suggested a shipwreck, but from where had he sailed? 

“I was on a journey,” He slumped forward realizing that he knew nothing of where he was from, where he was going, nor of who he was. Tears began to fall from the stranger’s eyes and the woman’s heart was moved by compassion again. “I know not who I am,” his voice was hardly even a whisper. “I can’t remember my name, nor what I look like.”

The stranger’s weeping sent waves of pain through his body forcing more tears to fall. If ever a man had the right to cry, it was at the loss of everything he had once known. The quiet of the room shattered with the troubled sobs of the stranger. The woman gently embraced him like a mother would for a hurting child. Unseen by him, the woman lost tears of her own at seeing him in such a state. And thus the briefly acquainted strangers cried together while the storm outside grew ever more violent.