Anyways, enjoy the writing piece and have yourself a lovely day! See you Wednesday for more!
The Warlock VIII by Mackinley Clevinger, July 31, 2016
Nothing was okay. A maelstrom of infernal energies that boiled my veins as they ripped me apart from within; a whirlpool of despair into which I would sink, its cloying, freezing waters draining all life from my body; a desolate plane of absolute darkness where existence finds no meaning for an eternity; all would be found more welcome than the nightmare I faced.
I couldn’t move. It always started this way, frozen in fear as I waited. A circle of light barely extending beyond my bare foot, ending in a swirling storm of thick black smoke that surrounded me, however, was new. The raging winds of shifting smoke was an assault on my senses, deafening and buffeting me non-stop as a vague figure came into view beyond the dark screen, seen in flashes of clarity as it approached.
I wanted to move, to act; to run or reach for power that had been as close to me as my own beating heart, but I could only stand within the darkness and tremble, fear gripping me by my frozen throat at each flashing reveal of the figure nearing me. It was masked, but I knew who the shape belonged to.
The storm broke around him, letting him in, pace unwavering. His knee caught me in the eye, sending me tumbling to the ground. I wasn’t frozen any longer, but the incoherent bellow of rage kept me against the floor with my face down, quivering as I wished for it all to be over but knowing it had only just begun.
The scythe clattered against the ground, boots stomping against the now-wooden floor in familiar percussive echoes before rough hands, hands “worked to the goddamn bone’’ lifted me by the back of my shirt and flung me across the floor, cut and bruised skin collecting splinters from the rough wood before I came to a crashing halt against the wall.
Dazed and confused, forgetting the fear that held me down, I rose. The window into an old life and an older home was blocked by the storm that raged around me, its howling sounds replanting the seed of terror as I took off, running blindly and bouncing off of rough, wooden furniture that towered above me in my clueless sprint towards anything besides him.
Hands caught me, carefully swinging me from the ground and clutching me close against her breast as she hurriedly walked, her head outside of the storm that surrounded me but her touch gentle and soft. She put me down and swung a door open, where it led unknown to me as gentle hands pushed me inside, locking me within “until you’re done playing these games.”
Even through the howling smoke around me, I saw the darkness encompassing me, made worse by the thin strip of light that only reminded me of the world I was locked away from, absorbing the barest traces of heat and leaving me shivering and alone. I fell, legs drawn to my chest as I shook uncontrollably and watched for the brief, shining moments when a glimpse of light reached me through the storm that beat upon my shaking form every instant of every second.
The door cracked open, slamming shut a few seconds later as footsteps padded towards me in the dark. I curled up against the cold and dark, shying away as a hesitant hand gently rubbed my back and pulled me close into an embrace. Warmth filled me as I huddled against the kind body and whispered to it, my heart open and its secrets divulged, as “you can tell me anything.”
As the last breath of air left my lips, I was shoved away into the deepest corner of the cold and the dark, head knocking against stone as the words gently whispered were shouted and screamed through the widening door, one figure fleeing and yelling as another silently passed through. Voices of astonishment and rage swept through the door before it shut, striking a fear into me that pulsed through my veins, a desperation to run and never stop, to get as far away from everything as I could.
But the door was shut. I tucked myself into the corner, heart thumping against my chest to challenge the roar of the storm as it parted to admit a shifting body, the image shifting between a fair-faced young man with a cruel smile on his lips and a deformed monstrosity, a beast of human flesh that rose far above the young man, a “freak. You’re a freak.”
Blows rained down upon me, sometimes the bare hands and feet of a youth and other times the heavy strikes of a gloved hand beating down upon me. He drew me from the corner and threw me through the darkness, nails ripping at my face and body to deform and tear it apart before delivering a final kick that set fire to my chest, stalking away and leaving me in fear of what would come next.
The cuts and bruises fixed themselves, the ribs healed, and I stood. The maelstrom of smoke and sound died down as I rose higher, the scenery around me changing from the darkened room to a town alight in flames and filled with unending screams. I was dressed in a robe, the hood pulled over my head as power surged through me and the fear vanished without a trace.
This was me; not the shriveled up, scared thing that lay in the dirt and whimpered. I looked around at the burning and the bodies, at the twisted creatures that followed my every command and made my reign supreme. This power, this absolute strength; this is what I truly was, what I would become again, what I would always be. No one would dare stand against the strength I wielded.
I was a god among fools. Nothing could stop… nothing could… A sound broke through the mental façade of overwhelming strength. It was confusion and fear, absolute terror and panic, a screech that reminded you that people were only fragile things and that everyone broke just as easily as the next, no matter how badly you wanted to have never…
I dropped to my knees as a body appeared before me, nothing more than a child cast aside by life before his time. He lay limply in the dirt, face down and arms twisted beneath him awkwardly. Everything inside of me fell apart, a perfect silence hanging over me as the world disappeared, the boy and I all that existed.
“I’m sorry.”
A thousand splintering ribs wouldn’t match the pain as my chest lurched, tears springing into my stinging eyes and a sob wracking my body. The robes were gone, replaced by the clothing torn apart from the fight. I was me again, the revived fuckwit who was dying inside as I scrambled along the ground towards the body, mind filled with revile for what I’d done.
“I’m so sorry.”
One person. All the atrocities, all the pain and suffering I’d caused, every town and every soul I destroyed, nothing compared to the regret nestled deep within me of this one mistake, brought to stark attention every time I dreamed and was brought here. All the power I’d used to destroy and wreak havoc, power enough to destroy the world, and it couldn’t do the one thing I’d wanted.
The tears fell, flowing down my face and neck to fall upon the crumpled body in front of me as my mind relived the moment again and again, inescapable as it played out a thousand times all around me over and over again, picture perfect and every sound, every scream remembered perfectly.
The body jerked, muscles tightening for a split second before returning to rest. I smeared a hand across my wet face, picking myself up and staring at the boy.
“No.”
An arm worked its way free from underneath his chest, veins pressing hard against the black skin as they slowly expanded in a network of purple cracks all along his body.
“Not again. Don’t do this!”
The head lifted, a discolored patch on its face from where it had rested against the ground, lifeless. His eyes were empty, mouth slack as it came to a jerky, halted stand in front of me. He – It… He was waiting for me to finish what I’d started.
My body acted without my permission, raising an arm towards the empty vessel in front of me and sending power streaming into it, lighting up its eyes as a mind began to control it.
“Please… Don’t do this. It’s not… It’s not him. It can’t be him.”
The last of the power streamed from my fingers into the boy, and he looked up at me, eyes widening as he remembered.
“I’m so – “
The boy turned and fled, disappearing from view as I collapsed to my knees and watched. Again.
“Lucas! Come back! I’m sorry! I didn’t… I never wanted to… Just… please. Just come back.”
My voice was hoarse, choked by tears and torn from screaming after Lucas. The storm that had settled around me rose up again, encapsulating me in the screaming darkness as I collapsed to the ground. I felt my body change, heard the voices all around me screaming and accusing me as I shrunk and felt my mind slipping again, forgetting what had happened and where I’d come from.
The voices became silent and all I could see and hear was the storm that raged around me as I slowly regained my feet, watching through the fog as a figure slowly approached, disappearing from view as the smoke thickened before suddenly appearing much nearer again. The fog was new; it wasn’t normally…
Moments before he tore through the fog, it shaped itself into the number nine, exploding into drifting mist as his massive frame drove a knee into my eye and sent me tumbling to the ground.