Fan Fiction ❯ The Reaper of Shadows ❯ The City of teh Damned ( Chapter 1 )

A sinister wind seemed to moan eerily down the dank and sinister streets of Dikay, where all the ominously looming buildings along each side of the road seemed ready to pounce upon any unfortunate lone pedestrians who might shamble down their grim, and uneven streets. It is a city of darkness, where who knows what evil could lurk under any kitchen sink, and all the warped ally ways seemed to have incandescent eyes leering from within their depths, waiting, waiting for some hapless prey to carelessly stumble into their razor-lined maws.

In the distance, a dull light, pale as the full moon when the wolves begin to howl. As the light spectrally bobs closer, snatches of ghost-soft conversation can be heard.

“I'm telling you Mel, you did good leavin' her like that, she was nothin but trouble to ya anyhow.”

“So you keep saying, but I still feel this terrible emptiness inside…”

“Well that's how yas supposed to feel, af'er all, ya don't got no liver now do you?”

“You know very well that's not what I meant Paul, I just can't get over her… the way she used to smile at me every morning.”

A long moment of silence passes between the two lumbering figures as the small lantern swings back and forth, the rusty links holding it to decaying plank of wood squealing out like a death toll.

Suddenly a searing bright light from the heavens blind the two hulking shapes, causing them to flinch back a good distance, and where they stood not ten seconds ago now stood a blazing inferno, column shaped, and reaching up, far, far among the stars. Almost as instantaneously as it had appeared, it now disappeared, only not so much leaving, rather amassing its entire self into a now star bright globe of pure flame, crackling, and shooting variant sparks of into the night. Shadows danced beneath the luminous ball of energy, as the entire lane seemed to come to life with the playful emanations from this spectacle. Then all at once, the ball imploded, without a trace, and everything went dark once again, but the shadows still danced. Slowly, and with a spine-chilling, maniacal laugh that seemed to emanate from everywhere, and no where, the shadows started to conjugate before the now severely surprised forms, until there seemed to be a man standing before, them, entirely made of shadow.

Only He wasn't a man, and yet he was, like when you stare at a bright light for a long time, and look somewhere dark. A material creation of silhouettes. Slowly, the man leaned forward towards the one named Mel, who jumped back with a small yelp. The man straightened, and looked puzzled, or at least as puzzled as a man who couldn't possibly be there can look. He took a deliberate step forward towards Mel, and once again leaned over, this time wrapping his long, stringy, non-existent arms around Mel's back, embracing him in a lose hug, patted his shoulder thrice, and was gone in the merest blink of an eye.

The two creatures looked at each other with stupefied, if not somewhat dumbfounded faces, and Paul's with an accidental click, Paul's jaw fell to the ground, and landed with a guilty-soft thud.