Everlasting Nothingness (Short Story)

I wrote this mid-last year. It is an extension to my poem titled 'Everlasting Nothingness'. Enjoy!

Everlasting Nothingness

“A welcoming house...

Now just ash and blood.

A loved ones embrace...

A memory in the wind.

A place to call home, a town or city...

Forever forgotten on a sweet tide of melancholy.

Yet here we stand, against the wisdom of ages...

War, hate, death.

Love, happiness, life.

Each an element of existing, melding together in mind, body and soul.

Are we doomed to forever repeat the mistakes of the past?

Or can humanity create its own, new path?

This brink we survive in; a precipice between wholeness and oblivion...

A world to make mistakes; but also chances to fix them.

Will we stay for long?

Or simply fall...

Into the sweet, Everlasting Nothingness....”

-Sherelle Bowron

A weathered warrior walks along a seemingly never ending path. He has travelled for many years now. He has seen many different sights. He has met many different people.

There have been times that the warrior wished for nothing more than the familiarity of a home long since left behind. For the smells and sights of a town long since burnt to the ground. There was nothing to return to though, so the warrior travelled on; praying to whatever deity that would listen that he could find a place like what was once his. A town of simple folk and kind words, of easy days on the farm, or even the labours at the wood cutters lodge.

It would never happen though.

While he had left his home behind, it seemed that time had left him behind as well. There was no longer a place that offered the simple ways of his village. Only the harsh business of the expanding Feudal kingdoms that warred and quarrelled for more land, wealth and women.

Even the smallest of settlements now paid homage to the closest Lord or Lady. Where he was from, there was only the village head. A healer who took only thanks as repayment. Now people feared attack from every corner and doors would open for no poor stranger. There were many flickering souls lining the streets; men, women and even children that could never pay their way and would slowly wither until there was nothing left but a pile of ashes and condemning tears that would scream to passers by in hopes of simply being remembered.

No one remembered though.

Through each place that he had travelled, the people had been different; many were fearful of an unknown face, and the inns and taverns would only welcome the coin in his pockets and never himself. Others were arrogant and would simply attempt to rob you blind as you slept.

The warrior had quickly learned to sleep with one eye open.

The kinder places would allow you to have an extra peace of green bread if it meant you would be gone quicker. The worst ones made you sleep on the cold cement for the price of a nobles room.

There was always a new place to go though. The warrior never lost faith.

For if he lost that, then he would have nothing.

It hadn't always been like this though. Once, there were people who would welcome the stragglers that made their way into town; they would offer a bed for a few coppers and fresh made meals and hot broth for maybe a silver at most.

Just like the people, the warrior himself hadn't always been like this either. Once he had been nothing more that a simple Farmer's son; working in the fields not for coin or wealth but for the twinkle of pride that would fall from his Father's eyes. Once he would wander around the town for no more reason than seeing if anyone had need of him in their daily tasks.

The first Feudal Lord had ripped that away.

Had taken him from his bed as he slept and, along with many others from his home, had swept them away along a tide of pain and dust as they trained to become more than simple farm boys and work men. They had been trained to fight.

To kill.

His brother's blood had been spilt. And his hand were too sullied by the calluses of wielding a blade to ever be able to heal him. His friends had fought beside and against him. His sister had never been seen again once the Lord's men caught her.

The war began and they all fought. They fought not to win, but to survive. They wanted to return home. They wanted to be themselves again and not the modelled clay and emptied husks that they had become.

Eventually they made through the fighting; wading through rivers of blood and marshes of rotting cadavers with only their hearts to light the way home. To find the peace they once had. To hold the happiness that had been so casually ripped away. Only to find ashes and blood awash with memories and regret once they arrived.

That had been the start...

The warrior had moved from town to town and watched as the once familiar land became barren and scarred, lush and green, and altogether far too foreign. The first few towns had been... pleasant, and looking back the warrior almost wished that he had decided to stay there. But the wounds had been too deep, the pain still gushing forward from the jagged and peeling scar in his heart.

So he had kept moving.

In his travels, the warrior had come to believe that a person could only be as good as they place they grew up in. Only as good as the walls that they themselves had to labour over. That a person could be just as equally bad as they place they reside in. He would see the brightest child slander his own kin like the rowdiest drunkard, and the slightest, petite woman hand herself happily to any man who asked it of her and offered her a single gold coin.

There had been the occasional kind soul, but they were often chained by the heaviest of poverties; often the ones that had also been forced from their homes of kind families, loving words, and warm embraces.

They were often just like him.

The wars of the greedy had not just changed the people, but the land in its entirety. It was a slow spreading poison that lived in the very hearts of the people and bore the tide of long lost hatred and denial.

Perhaps, the warrior had pondered once, one day the land can lynch this hateful seed and plant the happiness and peace that is so much craved for... So needed.

Even he knew that if this were to happen, it would be well beyond his time. It would be a slow healing, and maybe. Just maybe. It could be planted by the likes of even his blood stained hands.

The wandering came to an end as the warrior finally neared the end of the road at long last. It had taken years but he had given up seeking a place that would hold his happiness, and had instead build that place himself.

He would start small. Slowly nurturing the seed of happiness that he finally managed to whittle from the withered vine of the past. He would build not just a place for his own happiness, but for those that are like him.

He would wait with arms wide open.

“Papa!”...

And he would catch that fragile little gift that he would never allow to be tainted as he had been. He would give his one and only legacy the last of what was pure and untouched by what was around him. He would raise his son as he had been raised; to enjoy the simply things and to keep the demons of greed, envy, pride, and hatred far beyond the hills that surrounded them. He could only hope that his son and those that would eventually join him would continue to do so as well.

For who you are is where you were raised.

Only the mistakes of the past can be righted by changing the course of the future and breaking the cold stone walls that had been constructed by the hands of the cold-hearted...

Author's Note

Let me know what you think! :)