The sight of Ciaphas' unconscious body was an eye-opening experience and not one I was ready for. Mudlark was beaming with wicked glee. Without a word, he made a strange gesture with his tongue, and the wind picked up, blowing away any cloud cover, as I struggled to break free of his grip.
The ground beneath my feet began to rock violently, and I ended up on the ground, face-to-face with Ciaphas'body. His eyes shone like grim stars, vivid and illuminating, mocking me.
It seemed like I couldn't be anywhere else but right where I am, as though I had been fooled by the demented wizard. I looked around and saw blood flying through the air and causing the rocks to shatter.
I saw the tip of my spear embedded into his chest.
My body remained numb, as I felt my death finally approaching.
Time seemed to stand still. It was a surreal experience as if I was reliving a nightmare. I watched the blood spill over my dry lips, and the tears formed inside my eyes.
As he pulled my body towards him, I noticed Mudlark's smirk, and I tried to hide my fear because in him I had noticed the ghostly eyes of a monster staring back at me. His face had no hair. The bone grabbed my skin and gnawed it as he drew me in, approaching his gaping skull. He was grinning, as though he had stolen a smile from a devil, especially when he bit my face, causing me to scream in pain, and the skin that remained on my lips and face began to rot and seep, covering his skeleton to the point where it was barely recognizable. He seemed to enjoy the taste of it.
The bones devoured my flesh as I sensed my life slipping away.
He seemed to be laughing at me, as I gasped for air.
His jaws dug into my chest with vicious pleasure.
As I died, I saw a clearing far, far away, and I hoped that this was the place where I would be released from this hell.
I had never felt pain like that, and I knew I would never survive.
As I watched my life slipping away, I saw a hundred different faces, some of them I recognized: my friends and family, friends of my mother and father as they were dragged into the darkness.
I saw the faces of my enemies, and how they slaughtered my comrades; how they watched as we went down fighting against them.
I saw my face as I was dragged into the darkness, but it seemed like I was not the one watching; it was the ghost of myself. Somehow, wherever I was, I was no longer myself.
Thankfully, Ciaphas woke. a mystical aura leaking out of his eyes, staring at Mudlark with Hate and disgust. The world seemed to have slowed to a crawl. I could see everything, even though I knew that it was a dream. The world seemed to be frozen in time, yet I could see things moving around me.
I saw a pair of eyes, ancient and radiant, and a face that looked like it was made of stone.
Ciaphas' eyes were glowing with a light that seemed to shoot up from his skin. His eyes were endless; like endless and endless nights. At first, I wasn't sure, but they were so bright.
Blood flecked across Mudlark's face as its bones hardened into stone, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Ciaphas stand to his feet, Mudlark's body collapsing, its skin crumbling away, the bones tensing, the flesh hardening into a crust around the bones. Raindrops pinging against Mudlark's hardened skin as he tried, and failed, to move after his body was turned to stone, and the bones clanked together a foreshadowing of what was to come.
Ciaphas was inhuman, that much was obvious now, an abnormality with the spirit and power of a sorcerer. The rags on his body were tattered, the demonic energy pouring from him like a geyser of blood. He looked like a man, but he didn't look human anymore.
Ciaphas' eyes were glowing with a light that seemed to shoot up from his skin. His eyes were endless; like endless and endless nights. At first, I wasn't sure, but they were so bright.
The black, rippling dark of night seemed to be full of eyes as if everything within the world was watching me. They came in all shapes and forms: huge, angry, predatory. The air was thick and smelled like rotting flesh and faeces. I could smell a pungent odour that was unlike anything I had ever smelled before. It was a mixture of sulfur and decay, with a hint of sulfuric acid. I could tell that it came from the bones of a creature.
An odour of brimstone and brimstone mixed with something that reminded me of the forest and the forest itself before the coming of Morgath and the Nine.
A putrid scent of decay and rot hit me, seeping into my nose. I felt the dirt under my nails, a scab on my face, and mud on my chest. The air tasted like sulfur and ammonia, with a hint of mustard and rotten meat.
My tongue was dry and dusty like I had licked a hundred different things over my lifetime. Although I couldn't put my finger on it, there was something askew in the air, something wrong, foul, wrong.
The sound of bone breaking and grinding seemed to echo throughout the world, mixed with the sounds of cracking bones and screams.
The voices of the crowd rose and fell in glee, as they sang to the stone man and became one with him.
The words of a Strange entity echoed in my head, becoming more and more annoying, like a chant. But then I remembered and realized they were making it more and more clear: "I am the Master here."
The sky began to crack as an egg and rain fell upon the world, a deluge that poured down for hours, days, weeks, and finally, a month.
I could see the world turn rotten. The sky turned black and dead like a corpse, and the tendrils of darkness crept into the cracks of the earth, like the serpent of a Baphomet.
The rain did not stop, and the mudslide continued.
I could hear the cries of the dying, the cries of the dead and the dying. The cries of the damned. The desperation and the pleading, horrible, haunting cries of the damned.
The world continued to turn upside-down and backwards, like a bottomless sea of rotten flesh and stone. The light seemed to be stained a sickly green and the air was the colour of dead leaves, the colour of a corpse.
The ground beneath my feet began to shift and crumble, the earth giving away, as the ground was taken over by the living earth, giving way to the dead underworld. It seemed to be an endless pit of darkness that stretched in all directions.
I could see the world turn rotten. The sky turned black and dead like a corpse, and the tendrils of darkness crept into the cracks of the earth, like the serpent of a Baphomet.
The rest is a blur to me. It was as if I couldn't remember what was happening. The only thing I do remember is being back in the forest Staring at Nathan and the now-dead assassin that somehow was turned into stone.
The blast of colour and dizziness took over me as I collapsed and landed on my side in the mud.
I saw through my blurred vision as if it was a dream as if I was looking through my own eyes, at the fading form of a boy I once was. At first, it was just a blur, and then I fell into blackness.
It was then I realized, I didn't feel cold anymore. And then the darkness took over I and the world became silent.
A cold, freezing sensation forced its way into my soul as I found myself in the forest again.
I couldn't remember where I was, but I knew I had to be in the same place.
It felt as if I had just been there days ago. It was a place I knew well, and that much was clear to me.
I was back in the forest, and I was with Nathan.
I sat up, soaked in sweat, and began to shake. The air around me was cold and almost tangible. The air that was in my lungs felt as if it had been washed.
I looked around me and I realized I was back in the forest. I wasn't sure where I had come from or how I even got back but I knew I had been there before. I remembered the night that we had been guided into the forest. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in the forest.
I looked around me and realized that there were no bodies;
no marks of the fight. I searched the ground around me. I looked at the trees to see if there was anyone there but there was nothing. I looked around and I remembered when we had first entered the forest, and I remembered our passage back. The forest was empty, clean, and void of bodies and skulls.
The forest felt as if I was being watched as if someone was watching me. Was that a person, a shadow? Was it an illusion? Did the dead have that power?
I looked around and I noticed something strange, I saw voices, or thoughts in the forest, something, or someone that was looking at me.
I searched through the forest until I found a dead tree and looked up, peering into the branches.
Through the branches, I saw something, a human form, hard to make out in the darkness.
I was afraid, but I continued looking. I strained to see through the haze and mist that covered the marsh. The starlight was blocked by a veil that was not made of clouds at all, but of something more substantial, like a wall or a misty net. The closer I tried to look, the further I could see and it suddenly vanished altogether. The soft swish of leaves on the forest floor was what caught my attention next. A deer crossed the path in front of me and hopped over roots and bracken and disappeared into the pines. The sun had begun to dawn in the sky, but it still painted the clouds with a creepy blue blaze.