The Darkening

“As humanity rose and fell through the aeons of time, there stood one man who lived through it all. No, allow me to rephrase that, there stood an aspect of death that flowed parallel to humanity watching as we fumbled through life like children. Cheering along with our successes and condemning our failures, he became known as The Observer.

There are very few historical records revealing his earlier existence. But what we do know is that he became revered as a living god. An apathetic wanderer worshipped by a select few who listened when he eventually spoke and followed his way of life. The rest of them ignored his warnings, they did not heed the words of this ageless vagabond who had no impact on the world. They paid a heavy price for their ignorance when The Observer stopped watching from the outskirts, ceased in his aimless wandering and cast his shadow across the world bringing a devastating justice with his wrath”.

- The Rise & Fall of Greatness: Lecture by Danyal, High Monk of The Segar Monastery

They had hiked in some desolate places before, but this had to be the most barren and unforgiving place they had ever visited. The searing glare of the sun beating down on the scorched landscape punishing even the grains of sand that dare rest beneath its gaze. Not their ideal choice of a trip but they had received word that their god had been spotted here, unmoving for many moons.

And there he is, a haunting skeletal figure stood motionless in front of an unmarked gravestone cracked and weathered with the passing years. A tattered faded cloak barely covers his desiccated body with dry leathery skin pulled taut against his bones.

How long has he stood there? Weeks, months or maybe years. The concept of time has eluded him since he managed to escape death. ‘But she did not escape like I did’ he thinks.

His thoughts are encased in a whirlwind of distress as he ponders the biggest decision of his life.

Clutched tight in the bony embrace of his right hand is a broken and rusted watch. A memento from a time long past. A symbol of love given to him by the only person he can remember from so long ago, but, like everything else, the engraving had faded away into nothing.

‘She was taken too soon.’

He had sought to follow her, to do everything he could to bring her back from the land of the dead, or to remain there with her for eternity.

Plunging deep into the dark guarded mysteries of the occult he researched every known ritual, studied each twisted prophecy and analysed as many ancient practices as possible until he finally came across his answer.

A gateway, an unnatural crossing into the realms of death itself.

‘My hope was naïve.’

Summoning the portal took all of his strength. A faint purple light surrounded him, refracting off the beads of sweat that glistened on his forehead. A small portal no bigger than him flickered to life in front and he stepped through without hesitation. Confusion was soon followed by despair.

The howl of souls flooding into a vast void like beacons of light swarming all around only to be grasped at, torn and devoured by creatures so hideous that even a child's vivid imagination could not have conjured them up. The shock had stripped him of all motion, his mind blanking with fear as it struggled to process the mortifying scene.

His body jerked as a black ghostly claw wrapped around his ankle sending an intense pain through his leg as if shards of ice were piercing deep into him. His chest tightened as the muscles in his body begin to shrink and his skin starts to encase his bones.

A wave of panic had begun to set in. Realising his very life was being drained away he lashed out breaking free of the deathly grasp and lunged back through the portal which quickly closed behind him.

‘I never stood a chance of saving her.’

Seeing his now gaunt and sunken figure and feeling a sense of loss unlike one he had ever known, he retreated into cave systems where he waited for the inevitable end. The one that never arrived.

For hundreds of years, he occasionally visited the surface and watched from the distance as humanity rose to heights he never dreamed could have existed. Thriving civilisations formed out of nothing only to be crushed by another seeking to take its place. Casters of magic blossomed with new reigns. Tapping into the source of the world's life, they created spectacles that would dazzle the stars and unleashed scorches of devastation that tore through the hearts of the strongest creatures. Amid the beauty, chaos and destruction, the world around us suffered.

Now humanity is at a period of strained peace. Fortified castles and magical barricades encase their land ensuring the safety of those inside whilst the rest of the landscapes suffer in an encroaching decay. The wondrous beauty of this world is slowly diminishing with each passing day.

‘The beauty she loved. She would have hated to see the world this way, starved, almost barren and lifeless. If only they knew what was at the end of it, would they squander their home away then?’

These so-called evolved human species in their self-righteous ignorance will soon have destroyed all she had held in awe and this planet will become nothing but a dust-covered rock floating pointlessly in space.

‘I know what must be done.’

A choice he had been deliberating since he stood in front of that gravestone many moons ago.

A vague awareness washed over him. The sounds of deliberate movement in a camp nearby as people went about their daily lives. He had warned them not to come. Told them to stop following and leave him alone, but had they listened? The irony is that his own disciples would be the first alive to understand what it means to experience the horrors of the dead.

Stretching out his hand, his bones cracked and protested with use. Sand shook from his corpse-like body as he slowly kneels down placing the watch onto the grave. Fingers reach out into the ground, his eyes remain closed as he takes a deep breath and a glow of purple starts to envelop him.

Focusing harder than ever before, the purple light begins to solidify into a dark mass growing larger and larger and with every last ounce of strength, he tears open a portal as wide as possible like a canyon of darkness in the bright sky.

Slumping down next to the watch he looks up and stares with a blank deadness in his eyes as the creatures of the void begin to swarm through.

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