Fall of Golaith

The demon is slain, and the mystery begins to unfold.

I skidded through the dirt as the steel projectile spun through the air.  The beam splintered the demon’s leg like buckshot through wood.  It didn’t react at first, its face splattered with disbelief.  The momentum, forced it into another step, and it fell forward comically.  Its payload snapped his arm with a cannon’s yelp, and pinned it to the ground.  As his head struck the ground, the force cracked it open like an egg with a glowing crystalline yolk staring at me.  Cringing at the various pains coursing through my being, I hauled myself to my feet.  I laughed.  I couldn’t resist.  I laughed and laughed like a hyena on weed.  I laughed until my sides burned, my lungs ached, and my vision began to fade.  When I had wiped the tears from my eyes, a horrible chill leapt up my spine.  Each broken piece, every splinter, every chunk, of that horrible demon was slowly moving.  I saw three pebble sized pieces slowly scooch together, and join together!  It wasn’t just healing, it was putting itself back together.

 

Most people would have panicked.  Most people would have run.  But I wasn’t most people.  Instead of taking control, the fear left me, its place taken by resolve.  There wasn’t a force on or off the planet that could make me give up.  I seized a chunk of rebar and thwacked at the mending beast dislodging parts of its head as fast as they could reattach.  I could feel the beast stirring, but I kept swinging.   Most of is head was gone by now, I could have stepped into it if I wanted to.  I kept swinging, knocking away more pieces of the demon’s skull.

 

My swings began to slow down.  Fatigue was eating away at me.  I knew I would collapse soon.  I was strangely at peace. I felt like I was looking Death in the face, and flipping him off.  I was kneeling now before the source of the golden glow by which I had been working.  There was something… different about that crystal.  It didn’t radiate evil like the rest of the beast.  It felt like it belonged.  As I looked upon it, I noticed that it was smaller… shorter.  I stopped swinging, watching it.  Slowly but surely, it was sinking into the demon’s flesh.  I couldn’t fathom why.  I wasn’t thinking too clearly then, what with the exhaustion.   I was about to fade into sleep when a voice rang through my skull like an alarm bell.  It was gruff, firm, and commanding.  It spoke only three words:  “BREAK THE CRYSTAL!”

 

It was sinking quickly now, as if it knew what I had just been told.  I didn’t know why, but I knew that the demon needed to protect it.  Every fiber of my being screamed in defiant protest as I stood.  I raised the narrow steel bar above my head,  With a guttural roar, and every ounce of my strength, I smashed that crystal into a thousand tiny pieces.  I was blinded by the light in one moment, and the next there was nothing.  No light, no demon.  It was gone.  I hit the ground like a ton of bricks,.  As I drifted off into the land of dreams, one thought flared in my conscious mind:  That voice had been Conan Mastiff’s.