The cold links of steel grinded against my hardened palms as I deftly spun the length of chain in a wide circle around me, driving back my assailants for a moment.
I stole a deep breath in the brief lull of battle, bringing my heartbeat closer to normal. The cowled men had jumped me while I was taking a stroll in the beautiful Dusk Garden that occupied the yard of the Duke. Luckily for me, the garden was built with a lot of open space, granting me a slight edge due to my far-reaching weapon.
That happened to be my only advantage. Three to one was never a pretty battle. One of their number lay limply on his side in a tulip bush, blood readily seeping out of a scalp wound. The remaining two circled me warily, trying to get behind my back, cutlasses held in firm two-handed grips.
I moved with them, idly spinning the chain in a vaguely defensive pattern infront of me. A warmth was spreading down my ribs where a cut had landed and my left leg threatened to collapse on me; I didn't bother to hide my winces – enemies tend to leave more openings if they think you're weak.
One of my attackers snickered. ”Feeling a little under the weather, are we?”
This brought me up short. Hired killers weren't usually very talkative, they swooped in, removed their target and got out. Talking was considered a waste of time in professional circles. There was a clatter of steel as nothing save my battle-hardened instincts led me to lower my arms, the other man's blade bouncing harmlessly off of the blackened links of chain instead of impaling me. A diversion then.
I danced ungracefully away from his reach, throwing one end of the chain at his face. He deflected it with the flat of his sword and backed off a step. This time, I didn't give them a breather.
I stumbled back into reach, lashing out at the right-hand man with a viscious back-handed swing. He just barely ducked under it; I used the momentum of my attack to intercept the blade of the second assassin. Wrapping the blade in the coil of steel, I yanked hard, attempting to pry the hilt out of the man's fingers. He kept his grip stubbornly, so I gave him a knee to the chest for his efforts. I was rewarded with a satisfying crack of bones and a painful grunt.
A sudden pain blossomed in my left arm as the first assassin's blade struck home. My lips drew back to reveal my teeth and a primal snarl left my throat. Dropping all thoughts for style and craft, I drew back my right fist and gave him a steel-reinforced blow to the kisser.
I wrenched my arm free of the heavy sword as my opponent staggered backward; blood cascaded out of the gaping wound, poisoning the wet soil with splatters of gore. I spat a curse, not fainting through sheer willpower alone.
My right hand still held the chain in a deathgrip, so I connected the end of it with the back of the man clutching his ribs, bringing him face to face with the earth in a shower of dirt.
My left hand hung uslessly at my side, sending messages of agony to my brain. Gritting my teeth, I un-clenched my right hand, letting the length of linked steel drop to the ground; it would do me no good with only one usable hand. I reached down for the cutlass of the fallen assassin, but my leg took the opportunity to give out under me, sending me sprawling on top of the grounded man. I heard the sighing of the edge of the cutlass parting the flows of air as it swept towards me, so I rolled to my left, landing hard on my injured arm. I screamed in pain and writhed on the ground, the world lurching precariously and darkening along the edges.
A heavy boot connected with my chest, pinning me down. The wound on my chest sprung back to its former degree of agony, and I screamed again. I kept on screaming until the lack of breath caused me to cough. Blood accompanied it up and I spat a glob of scarlet at the boot on my chest. The foot pressed down harder and my eyes rolled back in their sockets. My working hand clawed feebly at the booted foot, trying to push it off; the assassin slapped my hand away with the flat of his sword, chuckling grimly. The point of his cutlass grazed my throat, and my mind reeled.
This is it, I guess. Well...I won't go down like a slaughtered pig. I shall keep my dignity.
I wrestled a care-free grin on to my face and locked it there firmly; I could feel my face muscles twitching with the exertion.
”Get...,” I cleared my throat with a bloody rasp. ”On with... i-it...,”
I paused for a gulp of air that scorched my raw throat, causing my Adam's apple to bulge and the tip of the blade sank a couple of millimeters into tender flesh.
”Y-you fuckin'...fuckin' ba-bastard...” A gurgle escaped my mouth, causing me to grimace.
”You're not the one giving the orders here. Throw away your pitiful charade and grovel for your life, my lord.” The assassin spat out the title as an insult.
Correction on earlier: assassins are very talkative indeed if you mess with the way they want to do things.
I just left the grin on my face and stared up at him through a haze of red, daring him to finish it. My killer let out a growl and flexed his arm; a warm splatter of blood covered my face.
Not as painful as one would think...
I let my conciousness slip and embraced Death with open arms.
***
So this is the Abyss...
My mind bathed in cleansing light. It is considered common knowledge that when one dies, their mind enters a vacuum – the sum of all light, and the end of light too. There they are cleansed of sin and hope, until they are pure of soul. After the Cleansing, they drop into the Abyss, to forever wander in eternal night. The Final Voyage. Death does not release you; Death does not end all suffering. Death is merely another existence, one full of shattered hopes and jagged regrets.
I decided that I would take everything out of this last portion of warmth in my existence. The Cleansing felt euphoric, setting my essence a-tingle; it was like a mother's love, like a lover's embrace, like the firm grip of a tiny hand on your finger. It was all this and more.
I pictured myself smiling, as I had no real mouth anymore. My mind's eye conjured up a rather plain looking man in his mid-thirties, dressed in a maroon tunic under a black coat with long tails, black, silky breeches and polished grey-dark shoes. The phantom had shoulder-length auburn hair, a jutting nose and intelligent green eyes. A wide grin tugged at an old scar running from the right temple to the chin.
This is who I am. This is who I'll still be in the Abyss.
My mind felt groggy. Thoughts seemed to wade through a muddy swamp before emerging in my conscious. A faint ringing filled the vacuum. In a moment, I figured out how wrong that was; a vacuum is a vacuum because there's no air inside it. So how was it possible that sound could be heard in it?
It's against the laws of nature. Oh, but I forget, there is no nature here...only Death.
The eerie light intensified and magnified, before twisting in on itself in a way nothing should be able to, and there, at the center of the distorted reticule, a dark rip was being created. I stared in shocked awe as the surface shimmered and a pale, bony finger emerged through the rip in the fabric of the universe. It hooked onto the edge of the ragged scar in the vacuum with a crack of unused joints. A second finger forced its way through with shaky jerks – for the rip was but an inch thick – hooking onto the opposite edge. The two fingers trembled as if stuggling against a great force and, ever-so-slowly, widened the rip. Darkness poured into the vacuum, covering everything in a layer of murk.
I got a glimpse into the vast blackness on the other side; it seemed as if layer upon layer of oil had been spilled until the whole area was covered in it, the blackness so pure that it shone with excruciating brightness.
The rip had widened to about a foot in width and the bony fingers stopped their sluggish movement. A heavy sigh vibrated the dusk around my mind. The sickly smell of sweet wine mixed with the stink of rotting corpses left in the sun filled the vacuum, carried on the winds of the unnaturally resonating sound. Thakfully I had no mouth nor throat anymore, but I could still imagine the bile seeping up my throat, burning the innards of my mouth.
The following stillness was literally touchable; it groped along the edges of my mind, slithering into every crevice, seeping down into my core. My mind shrieked and recoiled from the touch of this foreign being, but it had me pinned. I howled in torment; I tried to force it out, to make it stop; it wouldn't be long before I would cease to exist.
Abruptly, the tendrils of darkness withdrew.
”YOU ARE MINE, MORTAL.”
The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, crushing my mind in the middle. It was omnipotent, echoing inside my mind to the point where it seemed like I would unravel, burst apart from the inside. It shook the very foundations of my soul, tearing it up and flinging bits and pieces around. I screamed and howled, shrieked and gasped, flailed and writhed within the confines of my own mind, petrified with pure terror as a bony hand slowly forced its way to me. Chords of muscle were easily visible through the almost see-through skin, and the yellowish talons curled sharply inward, creating a ghastly visage of a claw wrapped in tattered black rags, glossy with decay.
There would be no dignity this time. I stared helplessly as the Gatekeeper closed in on me, inch by excruciating inch, begging it to get on with it, but it was in no hurry; we had all the time in the world now.
[I might continue this into a novel later on, but it can stand alone as a story in my opinion]
