Kohath

He touched the stone, and a light passed through him just as electricity cackled within him. Through its glow, he saw the past, present, and all the futures. He saw what could be in its many different forms. He understood how little he actually understood. The hair on his back prickled, the hairs inside his nostrils singed by the power that was coursing through him. He felt as if his eyes were burning, as if the ground was opening up below him to swallow him, as if the rock his index finger was on was rushing to absorb him. It grumbled angrily as it realized it could not, and proceeded to try to burn his mind.

I TOOK YOUR FATHER.

The walls shook, he could feel thunder laughing. Electricity still coursed through his body. He saw nothing but the stone. The veins were pulsing with light, with energy. Shadows began to move on it.

I WILL HAVE YOU.

In the shadows, he could make out faces. Everything rushed into him, or he rushed into the stone. And he saw. Images. Flashbacks. He saw his father, an orderly at a hospital. He knew it was his father. A father he had never seen. He could feel the first of the tears in his eyes, his heart gasping for breath. For more. His soul filled with longing. He reached out but could not touch the man. His fingers went through. An orderly filled with hope and longing, and a desire to make the world better than he had found it. A man who had left behind a woman, whom he did not know was pregnant. Who would go to visit her. But too late. She would be gone. He would be told she had died. She had not. He saw his father. Flashbacks, images. His father was in the room where he was right now. In front of the stone. It seemed younger. He did not know why. It felt ancient still. Unterrified, his father reached out a few fingers to touch the stone, and he collapsed in a heap.

HE COULD NOT SURVIVE, the voice sounded resigned now. Tired.

His father was now running along the perimeter of the building, stark naked, orderlies after him. His father was subdued. His father was in a town, warning the residents. They did not listen. They thought he was mad. His father was mad. His father was not mad. They came and took him. They tied him up, locked him in a room, waited for him. 

There was another man, dressed in black, tall, intelligent eyes. Waiting. Watching. He understood what the man could give. He waited. He was rewarded. No one else understood. But that was the whole point. Bring them here. Make them mad. Either they would not survive. None of them had. Or they would tell him what he wanted to know. This man might. He watched, and he recorded, and he noted. He was almost there. They were at the endgame now.