Prompt: ‘I opened my eyes and I had no idea where I was.
Time is a strange thing when you have lived for an eternity.
Throughout the eons I have seen many things, the birth and death of celestial events that pushed the gears
of the cosmos. I have witnessed the stars sing when they first appeared in the skies a song no human voice
could ever reciprocate. The ancient tongues of the beings that roamed the world in its genesis. The scent
of the first flower that bloomed in the mud of the earth that had just begun to breathe.
Many empires have risen and fallen since then. Many people, rulers, peasants, heroes and villains have
come and gone by, each leaving their mark in the memories of those who come after; their numbers
growing and their souls glimmering like the many stars before inevitably being reborn once more.
It was the same old story. Just a different time.
Until the Great Chaos.
Thousand gods, ten thousand immortals all against the Darkness that was threatening to consume the
existence of the universe. Blood and ichor spilt like molten iron seeping into the ground they fought.
Tears and deaths ascending in numbers with every passing second.
I was there when it happened. Afterall, isn’t it the butcher that sees the victim’s final breath?
Yes, I had been the one to start this mess. I was the catalyst that broke the harmony of heaven and earth
thus leading man and immortal kind to spiral into chaos. The calamity that shook the world and its peace.
Was I regretful?
Well, would it ever matter that I did?
A calamity does not bear tears, a traitor does not bear innocence once blood is spilt and sorrows have
been born. It does not matter anymore.
As I stood before the gods under trial, I showed no fear in upon my face, my head held high and neck
bared, daring them to cut through the flesh and bone. It didn’t matter to me what they thought nor what
they did; death was ineffable, and I was long prepared to embrace it.
I listened and listened as they bore their judgment upon me. I listened until my vision faded, and my
consciousness slipped from me like the sands in an hourglass.
Only for the strangest thing to happen.
The first thing I noticed was the song. It was melodious and keen like the sharp cry of a bird, to which
then I slowly realized was the sound of a flute being played. The melody was cold and melancholy, like a
lost soul searching tirelessly for something they cannot find.
When I opened my eyes, I had no idea where I was. All there was before me was a great rugged wall of
red stone illuminated by the warm flames of a fire lit neatly near my right. My body felt tender and
bruised and my head felt strangely heavier.
I looked around to see that I was, in fact, in a small cave with its entrance pitch black, indicating it must
be nighttime wherever I was.
But who could have brought me here? Where was I?
The very thought that a stranger had bodily dragged me away to an unknown location made my stomach
churn in fury.
“Ah, I see you’re awake."
I turned sharply to see a masked figure standing at the entrance of the cave with a lantern held in one hand
and a brown satchel in the other. I frowned at them nastily, “Who are you?”
“Good question,” they replied loftily as they entered the cave and sat on the other side of the fire with an
air of authority. The very thought fuels my anger. It made me wonder of I had anything nearby me that
could help me kill him and be done with it all.
“But I have a better question for you,” they continued.
I glared at them, “What makes you think I would want to answer?”
The figure finally took off their mask revealing a pair of red irises and a pale colored face that turned my
blood to ice and fear shroud my skin and clouded my senses with panic and inexplainable sorrow.
“Because,” said the Darkness himself, with a grin that doesn’t reach their eyes, “I believe you and I have
some unfinished business to talk about, my friend.”
