Fate is an unusual companion but what is it exactly? Am I destined to suffer for eternity in this endless madness of this oh so cursed world?
Or am I meant for something bigger, something more entertaining, more interesting than just a quiet life on the land with nightmares and dreams of future and past eldritch horrors, massacres of man and monsters alike or possibly deaths of close ones?
Not often but once in a while is there a different kind of dream, a dream of past and present events.
I can't remember the first time when I was able to see, to hear, to witness it but one of the ones that stay till the day I die in my head is the passing hour of my once dear friend Svidrov.
It is as clear as the water of the Northwood Lake of the Klyeviyar region (the lake bordering my home village), with its silver glow in the morning hours, when the sun shined over the peaks of the misty mountains, down the hardwood forest, which gave our town its name, and the golden fields of crops and wheat.
You could see schools of fish glide through depths water when riding the early wind on a boat for fishing.
A tale the fisher told every summer evening.
It was on such an evening, late at night when I was deep asleep, cloaked in sweat that the dream came.
I hadn't seen him for at least a week then and when I caught a glimpse of him, I almost couldn't recognise him, he was down on flesh, yellow bubbles deep and wide over his body and face, even to the bone.
He suffered from the Yellownubs, often seen on children of our age.
Many say it's better to die of them than live on after having them.
Weak, easy splinting bones, muscles that grow not right and have no power, constantly pain everywhere, some even say that your skin will start to rot away.
He was short on breath, pain engraved on his face, his eyes full of fear but far from hopeless still lacking one important thing.
They were weak, low on energy, like his mother on his bed.
Gray hair, dark eyes full of tears and red from stress over and on him.
Desperate did she try to hold him on strength, to feed him in hope of a bright future.
Worthless in the end, she couldn't change what had to come
–his death.
One thing they'll never tell you is the coughing, when they tear their own lungs apart and spit it out like blooded poison.
Her light brown night dress went almost completely red, bits and chunks running down all over her.
It gives me the creeps till this day, when the remnant of life in his eyes faded away into oblivion and when I felt his gaze upon me like… like he saw me.
Like he saw me dreaming about his death.
It was like what 7 summers ago and I still find myself wet at night.
I'm 12 summers old now, authum will come soon and with it colder weather with longer nights and more dreams, more nightmares.
I hate it.
———
Face down arisen back to life from an eternal slumber in stone does he rise back to feet.
Olt bones, weak muscles and a shattered mind forming anew in the darkness of the night.
A violet light luminating through a hole in the ceiling –a strong full moon, neither disrupted nor disturbed by clouds nor plants.
And there where many of them, like being in the eye of a storm were they towering high til the sky.
Bones and stones all across the ground, cracks and holes all over the floor, a lot overtaken by the flora.
First crawling, walking, then falling like a toddler, getting more accustomed to his time decayed body; step by step getting stronger, getting better, getting further til the next fall.
Soon were his legs strong enough to carry him to the origin of his hunger, he felt it.
It was a bigger room, filled with masterly' bodies of marble, all holding their watch on a coffin of stone in the centre.
Walking by, like they weren't there in the dark, like they weren't shifting their oh so hate filled gaze from the grave upon him.
Walking step by step closer to the centre, step by step coming closer to the coffin, step by step walking through the darkness with a clear bright light in his mind…
"SO, YOU HAVE COME UPON US"
Silent whispers enlightend the tranquility of the room.
"SO, YOU HAVE RETURNED TO US"
Rising in volume awoken the voices.
"SO, WE WILL ONCE AGAIN CRAVE YOU BACK TO YOUR ONCE AND FUTURE RESTING PLACE"
Pulled away by a hand, flying through the room, landed in another hand of inhuman strength.
"SO, WE WElCOME YOU AMONG US ONCE AGAIN, WE WELCOME YOU OH GENERAL OF THE FORGOTTEN WAR, WE WELCOME YOU HUNTER OF THE NIGHT, WE WELCOME YOU OH OUR SO HIGH HONOURED LORD."
Grabbing the hand that held him, throwing it with all his might from his back on the one that ripped him from the coffin, free once again to fight his way out.
Missing the target by a narrow gap, as wide as a hair, as masterfully precise was the dodge, as chaotic splashed the first in a thousand pieces on the sarcophagus of rock.
One after another came at by to fly high and wide to crash on the rooms side or each other.
Swap swap, splish splash got the floor like a net wet.
One after another crumbled to piles of cold, lifeless stone and the moving parts in the room reduced by every second, tick tack tick tack ti...
Til there were only two standing, two made by pain, two made by loss, two made of stone, as heated the battle, as cold the pause.
Both standing side by side like looking in a mirror, both gazing down.
"YOU HAVE FALLEN, THEN AND NOW, SO WE WILL RETURN YOU NOW TO YOUR RIGHTEOUS PLACE, NOW AND IN THE FUTURE –OLD FRIEND", said the one that threw him.
He in his wounded state, looking down on the ground, on all four like a dog in front of its master.
Blood seeking through his clothes, holes and gaps in the leather and metal of his amor, all torn apart to rigs and rags.
Plitsh platsh, drop after drop fell more blood on the low lighted grey stone.
Piling up to a puddle, wider and wider... drop by drop fell from face to ground.
"YOU WON'T BREAK WHAT WE CREATED TOGETHER", they grabbed the stone poles of the old spears that impaled their old friend as they spoke these word.
"18", one number, one word that it spoke as if it came from hell itself, full of spite and hatred, full loathe for the once was.
"SO YOU TALK NOW, SO YOU REMEMBER NOW, SO YOU SEE NOW WHY WE WILL TAKE YOU BACK TO YOUR PLACE".
"NO, 18 were the number of men under me, 18 men that followed my word til deaths door and beyond.
No 19 were the number of leeches that bite my back.
19 souls that will feel my revenge!"
–"And the 18 will I reap this night."
Twisting his body, braking the weapon he was impaled on, one through his sinister shoulder, the came out of his dexter lung.
Grabbing the brocken parts, pulling them out and ramming them both into the same.
Stone on stone, one might think that the weapon parts would brake apart but that was not what happened.
They went in, not just the tip but the whole til the holding fist smashed against the stature.
"17, one more this night, one more guard of the abiss".
"BLOOD, YOU STOLE THEIR SOUL OVER THEIR BLOOD, WELL EVEN IF YOU LEAVE THIS OH SO CURSED TOUMP, YOU WILL NEVER GET HIM, NOT WITH YOUR FACE, NOT WITH YOUR MISERABLE WEAK POWER, YOU WILL NEVER..."
Dashing from the broken, rained a wall of fist on the last one.
Fist against stone, stains of blood covering cracks, hands as bloody as the freshly painted room, pushing the target further and further away.
A fast kick against the left leg brocken the balance, a follow up hit with the right fist on the chest send the marble body flying on the sarcophagi.
Braking it open revealing a spear, if you could call it that.
The head, massive, as big as a thigh, a crossgourd with a precious cristall-like white parts at each of the two ends.
A pole as long as a adult and and a pommel as heavy as multiple hammers.
Reinforced with metal on the sides, not usable for any mortal men, not intended to be used against any mortal men.
Forced in place by a rusty sword, covered partly still in stone, nailing him to the ground and sitting and fighting to get back up to feet.
Wet steps coming closer in the dark, looking down opon him like he wasn't there.
"YOU FOUND YOUR TRESSURE, WHAT WILL YOU DO NOW, TAKE MY SOUL AS WELL?"
"Yes", walking to his side, stopping before the sarcophagi, "but not like you wish to be".
Twisting its head up did the ruined remains of the once masterfully crafted see its once friend and now enemy how the mighty weapon got out of its grave.
"What are you looking for, are you scared, do you still have fear in your heart, in your bones?
Or do you just want a eulogy for giving a good fight?
Maybe a vacant one would suit you right here, right now but I don't think so."
Towering infornt like a unstoppable weapon of war and holding the spear tight in his right did he look his foe from head to toe and whistled in a low tune with a savage smile from ear to ear "this is your morgue, not mine but still I think your face should see some new places."