Episode I : A Candle In The Reek

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Part One

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Never had the dangers of twilight come so close to home, not in all the years of war that boy had witnessed. He had seconds to make a move and daylight seemed further and further away under the watchful eyes of the night. He stumbled away from his front door and collapsed. The hollow thud of his body was subtle and restrained. A crawlspace beneath his bed became his final safe haven as black shades began their invasion, surrounding every corner of his moth-eaten shack.

He did not draw his curtains for there were none to draw. Yet the frail candlelight that remained on his chair flickered, just as a single breath touches a slip of paper, and the hasty movements of the unseen darted towards his shuttered windows. At last, the light went out. Their creeping, yellow eyes stole the boy’s breath swifter than the sun had pierced the horizon upon its last dark descent down the crests of the mountaintops above. A bolt of lightning smacked the planet with purple tides that swallowed the Earth.

No other defense would be effective against the bloodhounds, sniffing the breaches of the floorboards, shrieking and snorting monstrously in their bloodthirsty craze. Their eyes were like lanterns, illuminating his basement as a lighthouse would on the cusp of a deep blue shoreline. Streams of light flashed through the fissures and cobwebs became tangled in the boy’s curly hair. Catching dust and foul things the rats had made under the covers of a moonless darkness, he backed himself into a corner, hugged his legs, and lie in wait. This would be the end.

Wood shavings and feathers fell through the cracks as beasts began to carve the cottage like wood whittlers. Their foot-long talons ripped his bed to shreds and tore his door off the hinges. Anything for a small taste of human flesh. It took a few seconds for their long ropes of drool to drip to the floor. The loam around him grew very damp indeed as gobs of spit accrued in mounds of slippery goo. It looked as though a flood was about to sweep the boy’s home down a roaring river and bash it against the rocks of some horrible and merciless rapids.

The stench of their carnivorous meals rose to the roof where the steam of three breaths clouded his vision further and enshrouded the shack in a grey mist. The boy shivered uncontrollably as they consumed every stale odor that drifted through the air and the frigid cold of each greedy inhale chilled his lungs. It didn’t take them long to discover his trapdoor. The boy whimpered and gasped for breath, abandoning his code of silence.

The onslaught of suffering was never-ending. One final act of desperation and his fight for survival would be over and he would finally find the peace he was looking for. He would finally escape the violence he was fleeing from, a hundred miles from where he’d began.

He let out a cry that was long and wailing like a lone wolf howling at the moon (though there was no moon to greet him that night) … but he was no longer acting out his fears, nor was he calling out to his brothers. He’d left them behind long ago …

It was a war cry, a scream of defiance that reverberated across the jungle. It was a gong in his throat that sent the evil creatures into a raging frenzy, tearing holes in the bark and the leaves that held the hut together. The building rocked from side to side as though it was trying to run away. Suddenly, the walls exploded, showering the ceiling with splinters of ebony and aspen. When the dust had settled, all that could be seen was a gaping rift in the hovel’s foundations and a pile of logs and rubble in its wake. Braying loudly throughout the dismal grove, the creatures retreated momentarily and, once again, melted into a sunless dusk, stealing the sounds of the evergreens and bamboo swaying in the breeze as they fled.

The stars and planets above were clear and colorful; they shimmered with an undying light that did not grow dim but grew brighter and brighter as nightfall deepened. For a moment, in his dazed and confused state (and all but matchwood left in his hands), the boy believed he had opened a window to another world, decorated with brilliant, emerald wreaths and golden garland and ornaments strewn across the sky. Yet, the beauty could not be acknowledged fully. It was a world of evil things and its peace was unsettling.

Rolling on his side, the boy fumbled around in the inky gloom for medical supplies. All that could be mustered was a broken ceramic jar with a single clump of cloth inside. What misfortune it must have been to discover that his tools of healing were marred by a slice to the hand. He was quick to stall the pain, as sharp as it was, and wrapped both his left hand and his forehead in linen (where the wooden shrapnel hit the hardest) with the precision of an embalmer from ancient Egypt. Still he clutched the last of his blood-stained cloth tightly in his hand. His fingers froze in place and his blood clotted like Burgundy wine beneath a frosty lake, a lake that would ice over as soon as winter had touched the land. “I hate bandanas,” he thought to himself in his own strange language. “What a way to die.”

From beneath his tattered orange t-shirt, he drew a silver-platter shield he had constructed: an elaborate tray duct-taped to a much sturdier steel plate … and riddled with bullet holes.

With strain but in haste, he tore a strip of his shirt from his left sleeve and threw it as far as he could towards the brush outdoors. It landed in a flowering bramble, gnarled but strong at the roots. Within seconds, the ground began to shake once more and the trampling of feet began to quicken in its pace. The stars went out. A coal-black shadow barricaded the entrance, no longer fooled by the tricks of man. The pack behind it snarled and salivated, training their eyes on the brambles where the scent of man-flesh was almost as strong as the open wound that permeated their nostrils. Their temptations could be cured temporarily … until the alpha was finished with its prey. It moved slowly now, with soft and attentive steps.

At first, the desire in its brow was all that could be seen. The boy had no clue what was approaching him. He was only aware of his final prayers now as they circled through his mind.

Blinded by a panic that paralyzed his entire body, the boy went pale and was immobilized like a marble statue of a forgotten king, proud and honorable but boastful and remembered in stone as a king of fools. With the new moon’s blackest darkness in the air, the creatures before him, relying on fear and the insatiable hungers of the night, had only to extend one slimy finger towards him … and squeeze the trembling boy into jelly with their piercing razor claws. Their movements were heavy like the wind and, with each new step, the shack rumbled a bit and creaked. A great weight around their ankles kept the beasts off-balance as they swayed from side to the side and dragged their limp and lifeless legs across the pulverized straw bales that littered the ground. The pack began to gather around their host, ready to pounce on any leftovers. “Back you devils!”

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End of Part One

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Part Two

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Far away, under granite stones and fallen leaves,

in the punctured caves and cathedrals of a nameless graveyard,

where leeches and mosquitoes and scorpions

would curl up and sleep in their comforting woodland tunnels,

the clash of sterling silver could be heard.

“You wanna play?” the boy growled as he tensed his shoulders.

Hungrier than ever before, She was a queen of horror and unforgiving brutality. Face-to-face with the Reaper, the boy stared into the eyes of this creature; opaque and deathly white they seemed. Fathomless the thin, ashy slivers of its pupils stared back at him. So sharp and keen it saw that the boy believed he had been stabbed mortally. Her gaze cut like a knife in the dark as she raised her smoky trunk higher and higher in the air.

The harsh, blinding light Her lifeless eyes gave off revealed an iron crown that was smote upon her head and the spiny scales that ran down her back were full of battle scars and war wounds like some slithering, cold-blooded serpent had stumbled into a farmer’s garden. Her crown was solid white but soiled and stained with grime and dipped in the blood of innocent critters. Its two tall spikes towered above Her head like a set of ivory tusks and the parched red droplets that spilled down its sides matted Her ghostly hair.

Massive spears began to jut out from the sides of her snout.

Slowly.

Very … slowly … indeed.

She maintained Her pose and Her jaw sunk so low that Her clammy tongue dangled in front of Her lips and smacked the floor. The hideous monster bore Her fangs with pride, sucking in each and every breath that the boy could muster through Her flat, reptilian gills. They were nothing more than slits, tucked away beneath the ugly folds of Her sweaty leather undercoat. She was addicted to the warmth, just as a moth is addicted to flame. Her movements were unbearably foreboding and yet every shuffling step She took towards him remained languid and sluggish. Eagerly, however, She yipped and stood on Her hind legs.

Not even a rock could stand as still as Her in that moment, for it was in Her best interests to savor the unnatural dose of terror that pumped through the boy’s youthful veins, to relish the taste of it once the fear had entered his bones and marinated them. Her eyelids were closed now, Her body locked in a towering stance. Oh, how She desired to pick apart Her meaty treat.

The boy did not hesitate to draw his weapon any longer.

Enraged and animalistic, a single wild eye shot open like the Gates of Hell. Without warning, She struck with immense speed and precision.

Cracking like a whip, Her mighty hammer dropped harder than a bag of bricks and collided with the boy’s makeshift shield.

BANG!

He held Her weight and stood his ground, thrust backward by a tremendous force but not once did the boy lose his balance. His cork leather sandals sailed across the small stones and wooden teeth beneath him as they protruded from heaps of muddy soil and debris. They dug into his heels and kicked up a funnel of dust, clouding every corner of the now dilapidated chamber in a milky haze. Only the space between the two was unobstructed.

The beast was utterly stunned and bewildered. She took two steps back … then fell to all fours. As his shield rained orange sparks of steel upon their feet, the boy’s courage became unshakable.

“Have at me, you good-for-nothing sack of filth! Take one step closer to me and tonight will be your doom!”

Without a moment’s hesitation, the monster began to crawl towards him once more like a panther ready to pounce on Her quarry. The boy could not stop himself from wheezing as She infected the room with Her terrible stench. Nothing in the world would ever be enough to satisfy Her hungry tenacity. Her will was now bent upon that helpless little boy and him alone. She would not give up until this hunt was over.

“Aela! Listen to me! Stop this! Stop this at once! This isn’t you … you’re a sweet little girl, you wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Twice, She stood up and reared, shaken by his truths perhaps, but uncontained and ravenous She remained.

Nauseated, he held his nose as the burning bile in the back of his throat began to bubble and churn. It was the boy’s first disturbing glimpse at Her horned fingers, unsheathed by her front legs only. They were intolerably long and serrated, as if they had been worn by many years or spent on frozen dirt as She toiled away for hours and hours in the grasslands, digging up fresh animal corpses and pets from distant villages that had gone missing long ago, during the coldest winters of the last decade.

Deep within Her, there was a low rumble, some wizard’s curse that caged Her soul for good, and, for a moment, it seemed as though the creature’s lips curled back at the edges, mutating into a disgusting and hateful sneer.

Powerful, unyielding, and possessed by the will of another She’d become. She was but a shell of Her former self … a pawn for a more dastardly demon, hawk-eyed and hidden in the brush.

Her blood ran cold.

Her pity was lost.

“I don’t understand! How could you betray me like this? Why would any of you want to betray me? I thought you were on my side! Please! Don’t do this to me. Aela!”

His cries were answered only by a zephyr, quiet and tranquil like the bees and the butterflies that pollinated his beautiful flower blossoms in the spring. Always on time, they’d land just outside of his windows, and, very softly, they waited for the boy just as he waited for them, carefully tilling his garden in great anticipation of their arrival. And, once more, he would wait for the seasons of aliveness to come and greet him.

. . .

The boy winced and shrunk back, turning his attention towards the battered shield in his right hand as it continued to swing limply from side to side. His arm was instantly bruised by the impact of Her trunk and his shield was nothing more than a dented trash can lid. Not for the life of him could he let go of it, for his hand was so tense that the boy believed he was passing on from this world and unraveling the horrors of rigor mortis.

To his despair, and quite suddenly, the boy realized that Her spikes had completely impaled his last line of defense. Fawning Her floppy ears, he crashed to his hands and knees like the beast Herself, desperate to settle this mess and walk away unharmed. Hoarse and guttural after an evening of trailing the boy, She groaned and grunted back at him, mockingly delighted by the pitiful ant who would not give in to her demands, the ant who sat before Her and begged for his life, the ant who dared to challenge The Queen. She held the boy’s worthless scrap of metal aloft for all to see and for all to behold Her glory, if only to solidify Her superiority for an instant and to solidify the wickedness of the boy’s defeat.

In a state of sheer misery, his sobbing fits flooded the tiles beneath him as he fell back on his rear and watched his drowning tears spread amidst the cracks. He saw the silver sparks from his shield kindling in the shredded blades of straw around him. He saw the shavings form rich embers that glistered alluringly in the shadows. He saw the embers vanish into wispy memories, smoldering out in the ashes and battling for the faintest crumbs of light … until the very end. Doom fell upon them and fire would not dance upon his river of sorrows ever again. The winding tributaries that guided his tears came to a halt.

The perturbing light of Her menacing eyes was the only light that prevailed, and once they’d caught the boy’s attention again, Her spikes retracted inwardly and his platter struck the ground. Its deafening clatter echoed far and wide, stirring many unsavory (and unnatural) barbarians from their heavy and restless states of slumber. Distant villagers would check their front doors, wondering who it was that knocked at such a late hour.

BANG!

Once more, She persisted.

Once more, She insisted he give up this fight … now that all hope was lost.

Thus, Her trunk rose higher than before, flung around the boy, and caught him in Her impenetrable lasso. She strangled him around the waist, bewitching him with her crippling, white eyes and teasing him with her infected teeth. She crushed his body quickly like a bug being flossed between a tiger’s teeth … or a flea being squashed by the weight of a man’s finger. The ends of her spikes hooked into his skin and refused to let go as they sunk into his flesh beneath his ribcage. Four … giant … claws.

The pressures increased rather steadily and, thus, the creature was much more snake-like than the boy initially supposed. His circulation was being cut off all at once around all of his limbs and extremities and his torso was all that remained for the “boa” to snack on. He could not move as he was stung once more by Her undead glare and was paralyzed at last, lost in her net of evil intentions … yet totally bare and naked to the gruesome, indescribable pain of her venomous bite.

BANG!

At last, the boy wondered: was it the sound of his bones being shattered? For he did not wish to see it. Had he been split in two like sandwich bread and eaten alive? For he no longer felt the talons of that monster in his gut, only a numbness in its place.

He didn’t feel much of anything, anywhere in his body, nor the blood coursing through his veins. He was weightless and floating in an ocean for a countless number of years, wrapped in a single millisecond of time. He was swept up like a balloon drifting away from the highest crags on Earth, into a windless land. The glittering stars he’d seen through the rift became his blanket as they circled around him like a gathering of old friends and held him in comforting arms.

They distorted his sight as they encompassed his field of view entirely, showering him with golden stardust as he entered this void. And, in the end, the mysteries of this world became clearer and clearer to him as their importance fell by the wayside into the infinite abyss that stood beside him like colorful bulbs on a Christmas tree … not that he had ever known the joy of such a holiday. They were organized to perfection by some unknowable symbol of glee and everlasting freedom.

“How could it be … so simple?”

One timeless inhale later and he had disappeared entirely … until his senses returned and an ear began to wiggle. Unmistakably, there was a shuffle in the bushes ahead.

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END OF PART Two

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