Darkness Surrounding - Prologue
Title: Darkness Surrounding
Author: pimprevster
Rating: PG
Summary: A plague has befallen the city. One jagged scar torn across Arin's back marks him for death. Ten attacks, ten lines, and he will never be seen again. The strange part is that the assaulting darkness seems all too human.
Disclaimer: Not real. Never happened, I don't know or own anything here.
Notes: Constructive criticism makes me very happy.
There was a light on at the end of the street, faintly flickering. Swaying back and forth, back and forth, ever so slowly. Not a streetlamp. All the streetlamps had gone out. The dull yellow glow at the end of the road was the only light on in the neighborhood, and not even an outline of its carrier was visible in the darkness.
It was pulling him in. He moved toward the light, yearning to know of it, to uncover some sort of secret upon finding it. He wanted to hold the lantern in his hands and look down the length of pavement he walked across now in the viewpoint of its previous owner. He was mesmerized.
“Erebus,” he muttered, marking a cross on his chest. “If that is you, I pray you do not place your curse unto me. I seek your light in curiosity. Pure curiosity, as I am pure.” His words were audible only to himself and whatever may have lurked in the shadows. It was too late to back away. He could not have torn his eyes from the light if he tried. “Bless me.”
There came a cold breeze, like a ghostly breath, and the light extinguished. The man stumbled in a pitch black abyss. Desperate pale fingers clawed for a lantern that was not there; had never been there. It had been so close, though, so close...
“Erebus!” he cried out, losing balance with a final searching swipe. He fell to his knees and clamped two trembling hands together in prayer. Eyelids fell shut in fear. “Lord of Darkness... Spare me. Pure curiosity, I swear it on my own soul.”
“Your soul has already given itself to me, priest...” The voice that answered was multitudinous, omnipresent. The priest felt a ghostly hand upon his jaw and wet trail across his cheek. “I am no lord. I am darkness.”
The priest’s body shook so hard that he fell completely upon the pavement, his face in his arms. The concrete had broken and transformed into a shifting nebula of hands and faces pulling him down into the earth, cloaked in the scent of blood. Though instigated by the spell of fear that darkness was so fond of casting, this horrendous apparition was only in the priest’s mind.
A cold hand penetrated his exposed back and reached seemingly into his core, into his emotions and his memories and into all the things that make one a thinking, feeling human being. Into his mind and body, taking over his senses, so that for one brief moment nothing existed but black. Not even himself. Then he gasped for breath and realized he was still living.
“I like the taste of your soul.”
The priest cried out as the darkness overcame him once again. In his last moments of consciousness, he felt at home in its weightless, caressing embrace.
Author: pimprevster
Rating: PG
Summary: A plague has befallen the city. One jagged scar torn across Arin's back marks him for death. Ten attacks, ten lines, and he will never be seen again. The strange part is that the assaulting darkness seems all too human.
Disclaimer: Not real. Never happened, I don't know or own anything here.
Notes: Constructive criticism makes me very happy.
There was a light on at the end of the street, faintly flickering. Swaying back and forth, back and forth, ever so slowly. Not a streetlamp. All the streetlamps had gone out. The dull yellow glow at the end of the road was the only light on in the neighborhood, and not even an outline of its carrier was visible in the darkness.
It was pulling him in. He moved toward the light, yearning to know of it, to uncover some sort of secret upon finding it. He wanted to hold the lantern in his hands and look down the length of pavement he walked across now in the viewpoint of its previous owner. He was mesmerized.
“Erebus,” he muttered, marking a cross on his chest. “If that is you, I pray you do not place your curse unto me. I seek your light in curiosity. Pure curiosity, as I am pure.” His words were audible only to himself and whatever may have lurked in the shadows. It was too late to back away. He could not have torn his eyes from the light if he tried. “Bless me.”
There came a cold breeze, like a ghostly breath, and the light extinguished. The man stumbled in a pitch black abyss. Desperate pale fingers clawed for a lantern that was not there; had never been there. It had been so close, though, so close...
“Erebus!” he cried out, losing balance with a final searching swipe. He fell to his knees and clamped two trembling hands together in prayer. Eyelids fell shut in fear. “Lord of Darkness... Spare me. Pure curiosity, I swear it on my own soul.”
“Your soul has already given itself to me, priest...” The voice that answered was multitudinous, omnipresent. The priest felt a ghostly hand upon his jaw and wet trail across his cheek. “I am no lord. I am darkness.”
The priest’s body shook so hard that he fell completely upon the pavement, his face in his arms. The concrete had broken and transformed into a shifting nebula of hands and faces pulling him down into the earth, cloaked in the scent of blood. Though instigated by the spell of fear that darkness was so fond of casting, this horrendous apparition was only in the priest’s mind.
A cold hand penetrated his exposed back and reached seemingly into his core, into his emotions and his memories and into all the things that make one a thinking, feeling human being. Into his mind and body, taking over his senses, so that for one brief moment nothing existed but black. Not even himself. Then he gasped for breath and realized he was still living.
“I like the taste of your soul.”
The priest cried out as the darkness overcame him once again. In his last moments of consciousness, he felt at home in its weightless, caressing embrace.