The last man standing

For all of the tears the sky shed that day, it would not be enough for the tragedy taking place. The last group had reached the end of the chasm in time to hear the unholy name echo through the sky. Pitch black clouds formed out of thin air in a blink of an eye, driving the sun away in its insignificance. Silence dominated the land as if the very influence of existence bowed to the overlord, muting the faintest of the heartbeats of the demising. Time made itself absent, causing the wicked to freeze in place disregarding all of their will, and the living to be put on hold of their ephemeral fate. The vile atmosphere gave room for a devilish cackle coming from the Captain’s carrier, causing it to open on its own and from there, three voices spoke out loud.

“The son of man profaned our land!”, exclaimed a rasp voice

“The son of man slaughtered our kin!” continued a soft voice

“The son of man summoned our sovereign!”, finished a wheezy voice

An tremor disturbed at the moment the three voices completed their statements, lasting until the last tree was stripped out of its leaves. The sheer air pressure forced the standing beings to bend to their knees. Nikolai attempted to resist only to have his prosthetic leg disconnected from his body. The mass composed of the mutilated soldiers started to break apart in individuals.

“The son of man is allowed to parle”, said the voices in conjunction

“Ahrymah’N, I humbly plea for you. Answer to my prayer”, Nikolai spoke as he gazed upon the clouds

”The son of man barged with pleas!”, exclaimed the punctured head in Nikolai’s hand.

The fiendish voices resumed their choir of mockery, with an escalating loudness ending in such volume it would pierce the ears of their listeners, just to fade in sudden quietness when the second quake shook the land. Darkness had intensified, killing the very last rays of daylight. From within the rumble in the sky, a thunderous voice spoke.

“Whose insolence… opposes… me…”

“Forgive my indiscretion, mighty one, as I beseech you in the best of regards”, stated Nikolai as a quick rumble interrupted”, I’m Nikolai of the westkin, Captain of the human forces. In my veins runs the same blood as the ones that once fell your predecessor.

Immediately, a furious seism struck the land, causing the Captain to drop the skull he held so firmly. His carrier fell as well, allowing four demonic heads to escape into the water. They vibrated above the surface in an uncontrollable excitement while approaching their captor.

“The son of man inherited the sin! The son of man inherited the sin!”, the five heads shouted in jubilance.

“Your fallen subjects brought me here, where the boundaries meet. To fulfill my inherited destiny”, uttered Nikolai, unwavering. An extraordinary force pulled his head downwards, steering his look directly over the surface of the crimson water. An armored skeleton appeared where his reflection should be, surrounded by a horde of human faces, towering its body as they melted. It was a gaze onto the future he reserved to him, still insufficient to break his resolve. Nikolai mustered his strength to resist the pressure and raised his head, “My men and I took five of your leaders, and we ought to do more whenever our blades meet on opposite ends.”

“You… and… the carcasses… despoiling… my property…?”

“My command shaped them into distinguished warriors. For each our that fall, two will rise in their stead!”, the Captain proclaimed, just to be subject to an even greater power dragging him down. He pushed himself upwards in a struggle to earn back his posture. Quivering as he fought to face the sky – I beg you, mighty one, grant us the gift of undeath. Let me and my men serve as your kin”, upon finishing his sentence, the pressure subsided, causing his body to whiplash backwards. The heads cackled.

“Our sovereign will weight your words”, exclaimed the rasp voice

“Our sovereign will reflect upon your plea”, continued the soft voice

“Our sovereign will judge your worth”, finished the wheezy voice

As the last ghoul concluded, the five heads gathered around the Captain within the same distance. They rolled their frames to face the man and opened their mouths. The dense clouds from above were slowly drawn out of the sky by the ghouls, and right in their center a pillar of darkness engulfed the Captain. Light returned to the land during the trial and men were allowed to move once more as the unholy’s overwhelming presence weakened.

Soldiers from the fourth and fifth walked towards the assortment of bodies in aid of their injured, carrying them and their belongings along their way to the margin. All of them sat side-by-side, at dry side right by the edge of the water, with their back-carriers by their reach. Not a single word was spoken by these men, they only waited and prayed for their leader to succeed.

Only the scout remained by the exit of the chasm. He was physically spared from the slaughter as his fellow defenders piled over him during the attack, however, his mind locked him in place as it failed to understand the events unfolding before his eyes. The boy fell into a spiral of destructive emotions as he recalled the last three days of their expedition, culminating in confusion and anxiety as the pieces were put together. It started to make sense – the lack of caution with their route, the dismissive attitude towards the future, the indifferent approach towards their resources, the unusual choice of offerings. This was no accident, they had planned this for a long time. All of them knew, even his closest friend.

“Harriet! Harriet”, shouted the scout as he walked towards the soldiers

The girl rested in the water side, completely alone. Everyone could see the muscles of her torso contracting and expanding but no one dared to cross the border. Something deep inside his soul told him that aiding the girl would lead to catastrophic consequences beyond anything he could ever imagine and yet his heart refused to leave her.

“BOY!”, a howl from within the chasm called for the scout, “STOP!”

“Tenant…”

Mikael slowly emerged from the shadows, hunched forward to almost two thirds of his stature, stripped away from his gear. He dragged his wobbling body covered in black and red as fast as he could. His right hand, scrapped into living flesh, held the bottom of his left elbow, where his arm used to be.

“Tenant!”, the boy shouted as the man approached him

“I’m fine… I… I will be fine…”

“But Harriet! We got to.”

“NO!”, Mikael interrupted, “Believe boy, she will be fine. As long as we wait.”

“Wait…?”, the scout inquired as his focus returned to the present time, being taken by anger, “…for what? To become like them?! The things that hunt us?!”, the boy glared directly at the Tenant’s eyes as the fury dominated his mind

“Boy…”, the man replied, shrinking as he curled

“Is that what we were fighting for?! Since when?!”

“It’s the only way…”

“LIAR! I heard them! Talking to Nikolai! BACK AT THE CAMP!”, the strident words of the boy broke the frigid silence and still, no one bat an eye.

“You don’t understand…”, Mikael replied as his voice faded, “We are doing this for all of us, including you.”

“No…”, the boy replied, deliberately shaking his head in disapproval, “You’re not.”

“We had to. Our brothers, we have to protect them. They can’t keep dying.”

“What…?”

“We’re siding with the strong, the ones that live”, Mikael spoke with a creepy smile.

The boy became static in disbelief once he heard the inconceivable statement of his superior, unable to comprehend what kind of twisted logic could result in such conclusion. All of them were willing to surrender their humanity in exchange of an eternal life of servitude, to mindlessly slay their own people whenever their master requested them to.

“Boy…”, said Mikael with shuddering eyes, as he moved his hand over the scout’s shoulder

“Don’t!”, the boy deflected his Tenant’s touch, “I never wanted this…”

“…”, the man stared at the ground, muttering in an inaudible volume. He raised his head to meet the boy’s eyes and continued to talk in quietude, “Run, before it ends. As far as you can. Before it’s too late”, he continued, crumbling in silent tears as his body fell to the his knees.

In no time, the trial was completed. The pillar of darkness arose to the skies, overshadowing the briefly restored radiance of the evening. Thunders announced the upcoming words of the mighty.

“You… carry… my… flesh…?”

“We…”, Nikolai grunted as he regained his senses, “We have… gathered it… to settle our compromise. As we were told to.”

“Eat… my… flesh…”, commanded the overlord, “Eat… my… flesh…”, the five heads repeated with their master, “Eat… my… flesh…”, the scattered wicked echoed along, “Eat, my, flesh. Eat, my, flesh. Eat, My, flesh. Eat, My, Flesh. Eat, MY, Flesh. EaT, MY, FlesH. EAt, My, FLEsh. EAt, MY, FLesH. EAT, My, FLESh. EaT, MY, FLESH. EAT, MY, FLESH. EAT, MY, FLESH. EAT, MY, FLESH…”

The will of the mighty was the only thing they heard in the next minutes. Nikolai and Harriet were the first ones to comply, their hearts at peace, assured that the overlord would accept them after this act of communion. The Captain rose to his knees and grabbed the punctured head out of the water. He fiercely bit the ghoul’s cheek, stretching the tissue until it was ripped out of its face. The fiend stopped the chant and franticly laughed while the Captain eagerly devoured it. Harriet leaned sideways and reached for the wicked’s body. She removed her executor's shoulder pad and ferociously chomped the meat of its collar bones. Little by little, the remaining soldiers reached for the flesh inside their carriers and ate it. Mikael was the last one to adhere. He persisted on his knees with his back against the chasm, only yielding once he could no longer hear the footsteps distancing from behind.

During the defection, the wicked remained collected. None of them paid attention to the boy, and the few that moved during his travel were heading to the marshlands. He was the only animated being that opposed the flow. He hiked through the top of the chasm, towards the largest rock formations in the nearest range. Over time, his emotions came to ease and he began questioning his decision. His unit was his family, his only connection in the rotten world of the unliving. He wanted to believe his brothers felt the same, that they expected him to join them, to share a brand new future in their afterlife. Was there even a point in staying loyal to humanity if his kin persisted in his opposition? If that was true, he had to consider, to give them the benefit of the doubt.

A single instant, that’s how long that idea lasted in the young’s man mind, as he looked back to gaze upon the mayhem. Never once had he been exposed to such an unsightly view, surpassing every single depiction of hell. The creatures that were once his kind had deranged into abominations, crawling like lesser beings as their bodies were grated by the ground, driven by an insatiable desire to devour the rotten meat of the unliving. Their mangled bodies intertwined with the dead as they climbed and piled on top of them, while feasting on their flesh. All of them, men and wicked, cackled in delight as they tore and were torn, to be consumed indiscriminately. The blood of the beings that were once men had long tinted the waters red, now the color permeated to the dead leaves that floated atop. Only one figure resisted against the indulgences, the husk of a man that was once a dear friend.

The scout walked without any stop or detour, searching for the boundary in the soil that was free of the influence of the darkness. As he approached the line, the boy stopped and stared at it for a moment. He approached the edge of the crevice and looked towards its bottom, where light could not touch. The young man fetched the flesh out of his carrier and grasped in a fist so firmly it could smash it apart. He raised his arm perpendicularly and set his hand free, letting the flesh to sink into the abyss. No matter how much the boy wanted to, he could not cry. His friends, his dreams, his duty, all of them were swallowed by the darkness that filled the barren.

The boy took a step towards the light and left. There was nothing left for him in these lands. It was time to go home.