Prologue - Wake Up

Meet our protagonist, Rowan. They are a simple scholar living in a dystopian Victorian England... Until the world around them shifts, and changes their life forever...

Nineteenth-century scholar Rowan finds themselves thrust into an unimaginable world, plagued by famine, disease, and immense forces of evil. In order to release this land from its curse, they must travel across the treacherous lands of Eon and find the tomb of The First, an ancient and revered hero. They are faced with life or death decisions, deceit, death, and loss. But that is not all, and many secrets hide within Eon...

      

       “I am sorry.”

       That is all he wrote. No letter, no poem, just an empty apology addressed to no one. What was done that could elicit such a thing? Had he not shown up for a promenade with a mistress? Perhaps he simply misplaced the cork of some wine bottle and because of this, the wine went flat. But when are things ever so simple, so trivial?

       We found him down the brook, entangled in the rocks, his clothes soaked and a linen wrapped 'round his head, tied at the neck with a bit of twine and blood.

       No one thought he would do it. No one knew he wanted to. But we all knew why...

       He was a happy man, never caught without a smile or a good whim to share with the world. But that is how life seems to go. Nothing is innocent, nothing is sacred, not even life itself. It's like a book. A book with an ending unexpected by a reader; despite the tribulations and the trials the protagonist must face, there is no prize, no happy ending with a bride and a child and food to feed a city. Only the embrace of a dark, cold void. It's inevitable.

       The sky grows darker with each passing day, soon to be an inky black. Heavy clouds loom just above the steeples of the chantries. The citizens have taken to calling it The Change.

       A scarce many like to acknowledge the change, whilst most choose to ignore it. There are those who preach of the coming of the end, and those who refuse the change entirely. Though we all see it. We live it. It wakes us up and puts us to sleep, dawn and dusk, light and dark... It is our home, these days. I have even come to forget a past life, a one with sunlight and warmth, and flowers and laughter, for now it is a bleak existence.

       I have heard the conspirators in the alleys and atop their crates, preaching to an empty choir of death and the happening. It would indeed be helpful if I knew what meaning they shoved behind “the happening”. Perhaps this is the happening. Or perhaps they are simply spewing blasphemy and empty promises for the sake of doing just that. Lying.

       I know many men who have been paid to lie, to keep things hidden, just for a humble payment of silver. This would be no foreign concept to me. Lying for free, however, is unheard of.

       Strange sounds have began to occur in the late hours of the night. I hear them below my chamber window, and in the dark corners of the streets... Screeching and scratching and the howling of beasts. It is concerning to be sure but I ignore it to the best of my abilities. Though I fear I will not be able to for much longer. With the passing of each night the sounds grow louder... More intense. It's as if they are getting progressively closer. Closer to me.

       The happening is no lie. I can see this now. Ignorance is bliss, and I wish I could hold onto that innocence for eternity, but life does not work in that manner. His death should have been a sign, a warning, but I chose to look the other way.

       Though... This happening is not some story book revelation of man, when war ceases and those of a different creed can live together happily. Indeed, it is much darker, and much more real than any story could tell.

       Children are disappearing, women are vanishing, men are simply gone. The streets are barren now, dirty and silent. What used to be the hum of daily life is now but a quiet ghost of what was and what could have been. Even the conspirators no longer man their posts, they no longer holler into the crowds. There is no one left. No one but me, to be killed as the others have, or to be turned into some abomination with no moral to drive it. I would rather believe the first, but the howls make me doubt even myself.

       My head aches and my ears burn. The cries and screams draw ever near. So near that I can hear the twisted voices masked by them; chants and low hums, prayers to some obscure deity.

       I clasp my hands and pray, pray to whatever may be out there, whatever is listening. Make this end. If it requires my death, so be it. Anything to escape this living hell, the endless nights of yowls and pangs on the walls, the windows, rattling the shelves. Make it stop.

       Journals, tabloids, papers... They all speak of a better day, one I wish to return to. Unknowingly this life was draining me. It was killing me, day by day, night by night, destroying me. And so I ignore it, I do not give it the power to dominate. The howls do not falter but I ignore them, as well.

       It helps, it seems, or it in the least gives me a false sense of security. Either way I am finally content once again. I can continue my studies and my life before the darkness came, before that putrid air filled my lungs and tainted my mind. I can live once more. I can live until those howls break my windows and take me away, away somewhere cold and black as night. But until that day comes, I must continue on.

       “Rowan... Wake up.”

       That is all he said, before I slipped back into whatever held me so tightly, like a dreamless dream or a restless rest.

Author's Note

ANY comments are welcome!