Hey guys, this piece is inspired of a comic I saw on reddit about a fallen warrior, spared from death at the hands of a dark god. If anyone knows of the source, please let me know so I can credit the creator.
Hope you enjoy.
I was dead.
I knew that as soon as the sword pierced my chest, death was inevitable. One minute I was shouting, roaring with the intensity only a living, fighting elf can. The next moment, a blood-spattered dwarf rammed a blade deep into me. It drove all of the air out of my lungs. I could feel every inch of the steel scraping and ripping my flesh, every notch in the jagged blade tearing through my skin.
He butted me savagely with his armoured head before I could even think, the lip of the battered helmet smashed into my nose, breaking it instantly. The blood poured heavily and the pain was blinding… I remember that. My legs forgot how to stay standing and I fell as ljmp as a stone. I had been fighting, my spear had taken many that day, but it’s the ones you don’t see coming that hurt the most.
The dwarf yanked his blade free, making me scream again in agony. More of my blood sprayed out and I gagged and choked at the sight of it. He ran off, thirstily in search of more killing and I lay there as my life leaked away from me. I tried in vain to stop the flow, but the wound was too wide, too vast. It was when I started coughing, spattering my chain armour in chunks of scarlet I felt the terror seep into my bones.
I was deaf to everything else in the world at that point.
I couldn’t hear the screams of men dying.
I couldn’t hear their roars of rage and aggression.
I couldn’t hear the smashing and clanging of metal on metal.
I want to tell you it was calm, that in my last breaths the world became serene and tranquil. But that was not the case. I was terrified, I had the shock which comes with a terrible wound, the shock of seeing your own body torn and mutilated. I also had the impending dread of my life ending, of my book closing, of my fire fading. My heart was beating fast and erratic, as if it could sense the encroaching doom. I couldn’t remember what I had been fighting for, or who I had been fighting for…funny how little things like hate and strength mean in the end.
I tried to scream, cry and roar all at once, but I could only cough, as feeble as a kitten.
It was a horrible experience. Of what little I can remember, it was something I can never forget, but often try to.
It was in my last moments, when time slowed down. The battlefield became a snapshot of violence and destruction. All the fighters, from all of the different races were froze in their brutal dance, weapons all suspended in that moment.
Then my heart stopped beating.
The winds grew cold.
Frost began to creep over the battleground, with specs of ice forming all around the participants and the mud. My breath turned to mist as I breathed out, and no blood came out with it. I looked down at my chest. No blood was running. It had turned into a congealed sticky mess.
“What is this?” I asked myself in scared curiosity. I couldn’t fathom what was happening around me. Am I alive? Am I dead and in the afterverse? As I wondered and thought, a thick fog had wrapped around me, obscuring my view from everything else. It had appeared out of nowhere, almost instantly.
I realised once the fog had covered me, that there was no pain anymore. I couldn’t feel the searing or the crushing or the deep burn inside of my chest. It was all so surreal. I stood to my feet slowly, turning and twisting to try and see what was going on in the mist.
I could have been stood there for hours, or maybe it was minutes, I don’t really remember. The concept of time didn’t seem to appear in this place, wherever it was. I tried to walk out of the fog, but it was never ending.
Then, just when I had given up waiting for something to happen, I could hear the faintest sound. It was so quiet, that at first I thought I had imagined it, but after a few moments, I could hear it more and more clearly.
It was the chime of bells. First, it was only a few high pitched sounds that rang out, their notes clear and pure. I could sense something approaching with the rising of the tones. There was no way of me being able to tell how or why, but I could sense it. Like a mother might sense her injured child, or a surgeon, instinctively knowing where to cut a patient. As this… thing, got closer and closer to me, the bells rang louder, more and more different pitches joining into the melody.
What had started as a sweet, calming song quickly rose into a concatony of hellish sounds as all the different bells clanged, not caring that they were not tuned to each other. The loud jarring ring was making my soul itch, as if there were hundreds of insects crawling around every fibre of my being. I put my hands to my ears and sank to my knees screaming, begging the torturing sounds to silence.
And then, when I thought the bells could get no louder, they stopped abruptly.
I took my shaking hands from my head and looked upwards, fearing what I was about to see. In my mind, I was asking myself a thousand questions. What is this place? Am I at the gates? Will I be judged? When will this nightmare end?
Standing tall in front of me was a large hooded figure, with a small chain of human skulls hanging from his waist. In one long skeletal hand, he held a long, ash black pole with a dull, old lantern swaying from the end. His other bony hand was open and hanging down from his shoulder. His long cloak was torn and ragged, and covering him completely from head to toe.
“Are you Oronus, the gatekeeper? Am I dead?” I managed to mumble with my shaking voice.
The ominous figure stood still, giving no indication he had heard. After a few seconds, he raised his hand up to the sky, outstretching the bones one at a time in a fluid rippling motion. Suddenly, a crow cawed loudly, seemingly from nowhere making me jump and flinch from the sudden, harsh noise, breaking the uneasy silence of the fog. It landed onto his hand, flapping and fluttering its wings as it descended. It looked at him with his beady eyes and cawed again.
Before I had a chance to ask any more questions, a voice resonated from the cloaked man.
“I AM ORONUS. YOU ARE DEAD. MORTAL.” He spoke, in a deep echoing voice. It sounded cold and sharp, like the sound of ice cracking and crunching. It was as if the voice was everywhere and nowhere. A spike of terror shot through me as he uttered those words. Those few simple words that rendered me helpless as a babe.
“Have you come to take me to the Underverse?” I managed to splutter. The crow cawed again before he answered.
“YOU, LIKE SO MANY OTHERS, ARE BOUND FOR THE GATES. THERE, YOU WILL BE JUDGED. YOUR FATE IS THE UNDERVERSE.”
“Have mercy Oronus…I am good…” I pleaded, sinking to my knees with my hands outstretched feebly.
“I HAVE NO MERCY. I HAVE A PROPOSITION.”
“Proposition? I don’t understand…”
“ETERNAL LIFE.” He boomed, waving his hand, making the crow vanish in a burst of feathers, which then dispersed into black smoke, curling and swirling around the fog. Once the thick smoke had faded, a jet black helmet was in his outstretched fingers. The helmet was of simple design, with only a thin eye slit and three vents at the mouth. The openings all glowed a soft menacing blue, pulsating very gently.
“FOR ETERNAL SERVICE.” As he finished his sentence, a deep bell chimed once in the distance, echoing through the mist.
I did not stop to think about what it was he was offering. I didn’t think about which fate was worse, the eternal service of the gatekeeper or the eternal damnation in the underverse. At that moment I only had one coherent thought which stood out amongst the chaos of my mind.
I don’t want to die.
“What would you have me do?” I asked shakily.
Oronus cocked his head to the side ever so slightly.
“ALL THAT I DEMAND. ETERNAL LIFE. ETERNAL SERVITUDE.” He started again, moving the helm closer to me with his bone fingers. I could have been stood there hours as I tried to choose the lesser of two evils. What a horrible twist of fate that had become on me. I prayed silently to a god that I knew wasn’t listening, but I prayed anyway. I repented for my misgivings and sins. I begged for forgiveness, but heard no answer.
I realised this was my choice to make, although I had never been good with choices.
I sighed heavily with my head hung low as I reached for the helmet. As soon as my blood-stained fingers brushed against the metal, it turned to dust and started to flow onto my face. It hurt, but not a physical pain. A pain through my spirit.
When all the dust had transferred onto me, Oronus put his arm down and regarded me for a while, watching me writhe in silent agony. Once the pain had faded, I began to see things differently. The colours that I saw became washed out into black, white and grey. The sounds I could hear were muted, as if I was underwater. I looked up, the horror gone from my body. Only the clear feelings of purpose remained.
“ARISE. MY SERVANT.”
The bells began to chime again.
“ARISE. ATTACUS.”
Teller of Some Tales 