The Darkest Day

Running from something, someone, or himself? A young man, with a fuzzy background, finds himself in a strange moment of existence... will he stop the evil that beckons?

I finally made it. After three protracted hours of running and thrashing through the wicked vegetation that grew about these icebound plains, I managed to make it back to my crudely fabricated shack. I knew it had to be done... I knew this was the only way to stop It! Quickly, I ripped through the pages of my father's journal in sight of those words. The words that even the darkest cynic couldn't mutter. I flipped and turned, ripped and tore, tugged and yanked every page.. until I found it.

It required the small sacrifice of a child's blood. So I turned to my tarnished locket that hang 'round my neck, and insufficiently, I pried it open. My younger brother's lock of hair, which I took the moment of his death, tenuously fell blood stained to the center of the journal. It was then I visualized that the darkest days had finally come to an end, that all havoc and destruction brought to us by Him... was over. I briskly studied the confines of the journal one last time. It was beautiful. I took my right palm and gently lifted it atop the stale, yet damp pages, and pressed the lock of hair further inward. A surge of energy left the wording and journeyed through my arm. Excruciating. I slowly closed my eyes wishing another moment not wasted, and I began to recite the words of the page... but it was too late.

The wolves had been quieted, and the blood of the innocent had cropped up through the snow. The screams of the past had haunted the air and tainted my ears. I could hear them; my mother, my father, and my brother. Their voices whispered loudly in my mind. My brother's laugh after a hard days work in the fields, when we would deviously crawl up to the hay loft and wrestle, and I would always let him win. My mother calling us in for supper; boy did she make a delicious meal. My father ranting about another dubious invention gone wrong, how he could never get the lens just quite right, or the measurements to exact precision... but that was okay, because I was always there to help him fix it. I missed them.

Suddenly, my voice had been hushed down and the snow had stopped falling. I reached for my father's rustic sword, but couldn't quite reach; I knocked it to the floor. My body had been weary of running, and my wounds had been reopened from movement. I knew I wasn't going to make it any longer. I fell to a knee, and soon the floor as my breath had gone cold and the air had become ever still. I traversed my hand atop the desk, clutching the journal with what strength I had left, and pushed for the coals of the fire I had left burning before my departure earlier today. If this wasn't the savior of the world, then surely it would be the destruction in His hands. I cannot let him have it.

The sound of silence had fallen completely, and after a pause in time, the door busted from its hinges. I could feel the presence of a greater evil unknown. I shifted my body toward the welcoming warmth of the fireplace and away from the thin sheets of cold coming from behind. I felt the heavy movement drawing closer, but could not hear any footsteps, just feel each bone-crushing lift and press as if my soul had been stomped on. Soon, a shadow hang lingering over my helpless corpse, and a rush of fear soon took my conscience. I dropped the journal into the blistering coals and watched as it lit and withered away. The feel of fear grew stronger and I felt a firm grasp on my shoulder. That was when I saw it. The face of the one who has never been revealed, the face of the one who took the world at the cost of it's own blood. The one who killed my family and took away everything I have ever known and loved. I saw the face of death... and have accepted it.

Author's Note

I wrote this some months ago on the community forums of an MMORPG called Zezenia Online, so the setting is related to that of the game's, many and inhabitable, lands. I'm also rather new at this whole...community...thing, but I come here hoping for some positive feedback and constructive criticism. I can only improve. :)