The Gathering

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Eight

     They formed a ring of burning hands, encircling the building like a human chain. They were all of the same height and size, dressed homogeneously in identical clothing and sported the same stains and hair cuts, short and close to the wood. It was their continuous and haunting chant that dug into her subconscious, for it was dry and emanated from deep within their throats. Although their eyes were open, they were blank and absent of eye balls. Blood tears ran down their young and plush faces, drenching their clothing with the obscene and contemporary. Within the walls, one group of persons attacked the other with savagery, bludgeoning and beating them to a bloody pulp. Then they turned against each other as a tall, robed figure walked among them casting a devastating spell after devastating spells. Suddenly the Mayor, a handsome and young man with much experience in his eyes and wisdom in his face, he attempted escape but was paralyzed. This denoted by the pain in his eyes. The massive figure then lashed out with a single, curved edge. The blade, hidden on its left hand, struck the human at his side abdomen. Blood exploded from the wound, which was a gapping hole in his side. The Mayor did not fall from the attack, but he felt the pain as his entrails began to slip from the void. The robed figure then delivered a single, massive blow to his head and he fell, hard. Bending over, the black robes reached out an armored hand and grabbed the Mayor by the hair and began to pull him away from the ongoing blood bath. The Mayor struggled, attempting to free himself from his attackers’ uncanny grip. However, this was futile and unsuccessful. He failed in his last effort, as he clung to the office entrance at the rear of the building. The children continued their chant as the dying laughed at each other's misfortune. From the dark room in the back, the Mayor screamed in agony as his tortured soul cried out for release. The haunting yell stirred her from her sleep and Carter quickly found herself lost within the comfort of her tent.

     She had returned to the village, arriving only hours ago and had decided to rest before a long day. The Coalition had not yet arrived on the scene, despite it being nearly a week that had past. She felt this concerning for they never let such things go un investigated. However, with the many wars, battles and situations on their plate, they could not afford to expend the resources to investigate such trivialities. She passes the next few hours reading over her notes and quietly fell back to sleep again with a light breeze dancing over her collapsible shelter.
     Morning came with a shudder under a cold wind. A light dusting of frost has gathered over the vegetation of the land, glowing under the early sun. She had placed her camp just outside the perimeter of the inner village, seeking further shelter under a giant oak tree. The buildings of the village remain untouched and undisturbed since her last visit. All though, she saw little of the area for it had been night. They were returning from a mission when their communications and navigation equipment simply ceased to function. They had little choice but to make an emergency landing, for repairs. It did not occur to them that at the time, jamming equipment was responsible. She quickly realized that as she searched the village for a radio to contact home base, that the area had been uncannily silent. Only one building carried a hint of activity, for the lights were down in all parts of the residential area. It was the smell that alerted her to the danger, that saline sent which hung over a battlefield after the blood of the dead soaked the dying ground. She gravitated over toward the building and quickly realized the eminence of the situation where she stepped into the warehouse sized edifice and saw the rapture within which corrupted the space.
     She now stood within the city center, marked by a small stone statue of a cavalier with a saber extended to the heavens. It is a facsimile of a pre Rift's statue, poorly sculpted. Nevertheless, it helps add a sense of decor and sophistication to the village, which is sorely lacking in most places she has visited. At least they had tried at being different. She quickly scans the area, hoping to find something out of the ordinary. However all that she sees are the many homes, shops, warehouses and a church, which largely occupy the town with a stale sense of ordinary. Suddenly, a weight berates her head -- warning bells. Her head riles under the image of darkness as she pieces together the sacrifice to the church. It was custom to many religions to sacrifice vegetable foods, animals and humans to deities for peace, fertility and luck.
     It did not take her long to reach the church grounds. There is nothing out of the ordinary of it in itself she notices as she passes through the front gates. The well-kept cobblestone walkway is old and offers an air of the mystic to the old building that is huge and majestic, yet hardly screamed ere to the overall appeal of the place. Her people’s faith is simple. They know their god and eat with her often. In fact, she lives among them and is eminently known as ‘Mother,’ for that is who she is - their mother.
     These people believe in blind faith as their god spoke to them though prophets, thirteen there were and they still wait for the fourteenth. They erected churches and created faiths around the teaching of the twelfth prophet, who died for the sins of man, crucified by the Romans under the urging of his own people. She enters through the front doors of the church, releasing the exterior light to ravage the interior of the vestibule. It then opens up into a massive hall, where twelve evenly spaced pillars run along the center. Two larger Pillars tower the altar, where behind stands the remains of the crucifix on which their messiah was executed. Kneeling before this cross is a robed priest who prays silently with his back turned to an empty parish.
     “Excuse me!” Her voice reverberates within the hollowness of the vaulted church. The priest, distracted and startled, exhales violently with a deep breath. He then straightens up and corrects the wrinkles in his robe. Rising he turns and returns her stare. His eyes are old and cataracts.
     He narrows in his sight, his grimace a mask of scorn, and offers a miscellaneous smile. “Hello there. You have finally come.”
     Struck by his words, she swallows deeply and takes a breath. “What do you mean?” At which he simply continues to smile sheepishly. “What can you tell me about of what happened?” She finally asks.
     “They came; the children did and surrounded the church.” He inhales deeply as mucous fills his lungs, causing them to rattle with the effort. He then swallows madly. “They danced around in a circle and sung ‘Ring around the rosy.’ Where did they learn such an awful song? Filled with tragedy and suffering.” His voice changes in intonation as he accentuates the many words. He speaks as if he were singing. “‘Pockets full of posies.’” He completes. “They could not enter as I prayed and He protected me. As they realized they could not penetrate the ward, they left for better parts -- unknown.” His madness elevates as he remembers the events. She did not interrupt. “However, they did not depart without leaving a gift. It remains and stirs only at night as it tries to bully its way in. It keeps me awake at night and only my prayers keep it away. I am tired . . . ” He concludes, his voice failing as he continues to look upon her, bleakly and without blinking. “I prayed for help and he has sent to me my savior. That is why you have come. Free me from my tormentor, so that I may sleep.” His lids fall deeply, yet he did not blink.
     “What happened?” She asks, as she takes a maternal stance, despite the man looking forty years her elder. She was easily sixty years older than he, yet looked in her late twenties.
     “Walk down Sutherbey’s Lane and you will find their park. They held rituals there, summoning the black arts to do their evil bidding. However, they could not control what came and it took over.” His voice falls low at mid sentence and climbs again at the conclusion. “But first, you must help me.” He pleads.
     “You say it’s beneath the church. Is there an entrance to this space?”
     “Yes.” He answers curtly and points in the direction of what she hopes to be where this door would be found. To the back there are three doors and he points to one. He says nothing more as she approaches the decaying door. The door creaks as she opens it, filling the room with its annoying sound. She walks into a long dark passage that adjoins three dark rooms to the church and a fourth door, farther down the hall, was closed. “That one.” He offers, anticipating her question as he remains under the cross.



Nine

     A direction and a sent trail always simplified the tracking of people. It removes the guesswork and the hassles, as he goes through the motions of anticipating the other’s moves. He knows a few things for certain, they are Juicers, they have rune weapons and they are heading back into the Federation of Magic. He is not welcomed in this place, not after his last visit. Three years has passed since those days and he is sure that Lord Dunscon still has a grudge. ‘Well, fuck him.’ He tells himself, as he plays the events through his head. As to throw that into the megalomaniacal moron’s face, he runs the expanse of land, only stopping to eat or beat off all those who dare stand in his way. The magic zone holds many wonders and often the Ley Line Storms wreaked havoc on his senses. Migraines are their worst during these periods of purging. Again, he always feels alive and invigorated by these mystical veins of blue energy. He cannot just get too close. However, how does one keep his distance in a zone saturate, even super saturated by them? What he cannot kill, he avoids and he did not avoid much. A week will pass before he would reach any place of importance. He is prepared for the worst and hoped for it.

     Night fell quickly, as the autumn drew to a close. He stopped being able to experience the shift in weather after his transformation. To him, it was a great lost. The person he was had totally changed and he could never go back. Yet, the world had changed with him and in time he saw it as adaptation. To be able to feel the subtle changes in atmospheric temperature and pressure, the slight touches of a woman or the tug of the gentle breeze through his hair was being able to live. He has not felt alive in a very long time. His bitterness remains, after four hundred years.
     A light, acrid smell begins to fill his nostrils. He does not know if the fire, fr
     om which it emanated from, was close or far. However, he can track it to its origin. Closing in on the location, the smell grows more offensive. Suddenly, he hears the sound of children passively singing in the trees. He cautiously walks into the area to meet the oncoming gaze of mutant children, who sit around a crippled fire, eating a thick paste from earth-worn bowls. These are not the singing children. They sit silently as they eat. The progenitors of the voices remain hidden from him within the choked trees. These children are grotesque and putrid, with gnarled bodies and skewed faces, resembling a part mongoloid and part wart hog. Deano has seen many ugly sights in his life, yet these children take the prize and he moves on, uninterrupted. The small encampment is a prelude to a village, primarily composed of derelict, wooden homes. Most are unsanitary and condemned and people appear to live in them all the same. The women of the species were all outside, tending to some kind of pot, which carried the vitriolic paste, the children were found eating. The village smelt of both disease and fecal matter. He is almost afraid to breathe, as he keeps his breath short and of an even pace. The women look at him as he walks by, as though he was the stranger, the ugly one. He notices their motions, as they appear drawn in a collective, communal thought. He did not see this as strange, for collective thought was a normal and expected evolution for many species. Humans are simply too low on the evolutionary scale to see such advancements. Still, their strength in psychic phenomena was rapidly increasing and this shows a positive change.
     Suddenly a familiar smell racks him with intrigue. Out of five houses, four have women standing outside, preparing their meals. However, house number five has no one outside. He tracks the sent to the home and smiles at his luck. The door carried the reek of familiarity that is unmistakable, for it was a tainted human sent and many. For some reason, his prey found a niche to sojourn in for some unexplained reason. This was their second mistake. Their first was to piss in his garden. They will come to understand the gravity of such a mistake. He enters without corrupting the door any further by simply phasing through its solidity -- one of the many tricks his sisters taught him, when they should not have.
     The place is in ruin, both from age and abandonment. The occupants did nothing to clean up after themselves, as they left what ever it was where they last set it down. Cockroaches and rats infest the place along with weapons, armors and miscellaneous electrical equipment. If at all anything, they were well equipped and had rich backers, for their weapons and equipment are all state of the art. Yet, he did not concern himself of that right now. He did not need weapons and armor. His natural talents and wit were sufficient enough to get him out of any bind. And again, he rarely bit off more than he could chew -- to the exception of the Mechanoids.

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Ten

     Most times the dream was the same. However, this is a change. He thinks, perhaps due to the substitution in environment. But when one is asleep, they do not tend to question these things. He is in combat. Somehow, the arena fights carried the theme for the setting. He fights the many challengers offered in such an event. Yet, he is starting to run out of worthy competitors. And again, he never gets tired of the rush from when a skull pops between his fingers. Blood smears his hands, splashing onto his chest and neck. The crimson fluid burst into flames as it hits the atmosphere. The minor pain is worth it. Smiling, he looks around for another and finds only cowards as they search for a way out at the peripheral of the arena wall. He launches a bellowing laugh as he tears a leg muscle from his last victim and squeezes it in his palm, like one of those stress balls. His fist becomes a blazing inferno, quelling any pain in his joints. People in the crowd are not amused; as they watch him count the remaining ‘will bee’s’ as they cry like newborn babies. Most arena matches were battles of skill, wits and showmanship. However, he is a butcher as he thrives off the screams of pain of his opponents as he systematically crushes every fiber of their being. And he revels in it. It was noted that it was the first time that anyone has witnessed beings leaving the arena during a match. These are unprecedented times and he loves every minute of it.

     “Send out the lambs. Maybe the slaves will prove a far greater challenge then these pussies.” The last word he spits, launching the tender muscle at one of the Gladiators. He tears at his eyes as flames burn them. “Ah, screw this shit.” He adds, as he searches for the arena’s main gates. They remain closed, for no one is to leave while an opponent still stood. He looks gravely upon the Gate Master with hunger still in his eyes. The creature trembles from the stare yet does not move. Suddenly, shifting behind him as it draws nearer. Even as a Juicer he was sensitive to movements around him. He had never known real power until this . . . Gift, was blessed upon him. All though, it has its down side. His combat senses are easily a hundred times superior to any Juicer. Yet, at what cost? He blindly delivers a backward crescent kick, clipping his opponent in the chest. The deity pulses from the bludgeon and bounces' three or four times before coming to rest. His chest plate, cavitated from the blow, sports an imprint of a size 21. However, he did not see the second of the two attackers. The Gladiator chances a punch and strikes him squarely in the jaw. His head snaps from the blast and recoils with him carrying a sly smile on his lips. ‘Nice one,’ he says to himself, as he wipes the blood from the corner of his mouth. He bit his tongue in the process. His opponent, stunned by his luck, simply watches in dismay as the man absorbs his most devastating attempt in his professional life. Regardless, his luck was about to change, which he could see in the eyes. Two football-sized fists plunge into the creature’s shoulders, feeling them crumble as weight bears down on the diminutive man. The poor SOB’s knees fail as his eyes sink inward at the pain. He then pushes the creature away and catches his extended right arm. With a savage jolt, he pulls him back and the arm separates from its socket with a clear, loud pop. More blood to paint the floor as the opponent falls to the ground, riling in pain at the absence of his limb. The monster then commences to beat the poor, defeated creature with his bloody stump as he begs for mercy. Yet, this is a word in a foreign language upon the deafened ears of his aggressor. Suddenly a sharp pain to his left shoulder as it tears upward then twists. The pain, almost life like, stirs him from his sleep where the image of blue fades with the dream. Left with the taste of betrayal in his mouth and scorn on his eyes, he stares blankly at the dark wall ahead of him.