Umbra Finem

"In my end is my beginning." - T.S. Ellliot

Prologue

He began his long night by watching the sun sink beneath the horizon, as he did every night. The light refracted by the shimmering waters was a beautiful amber. The man stood in the receding tide, ankle deep in the water, letting the warmth wash over his face. This had always been his favorite moment of the day, even before the cataclysm. The cataclysm had changed many things, but it had not touched the sun. He was glad for that. He was glad for many simple things now. He was glad that he was alive. He knew that if he could have one wish at that very instant, any wish at all, he would wish for the sun to hang in the air for a few more minutes, so that he could continue to bask in it's radiance and savor every precious second of light. He felt almost confident that this would be the day, the day that the sunset that would last for a joyous eternity.

But as with every other sunset, he was wrong.

The warmth receded from his face, and when he opened his eyes, the beautiful amber light was gone, replaced by creeping gray shadows. The sea had claimed the sun for its own once again, and once again, the moon had taken to the sky, hoping to light the way for the denizens of Earth until, once again, the sun was released from its watery prison. And as the light faded, once again, the man turned his back to the sea.

There was work to be done.

A familiar sight greeted his eyes. Mounds of decaying corpses littered the length of the beach, piled five or six bodies high. Their blood had stained the sand around them red, and a ghastly odor hung in the air. Their bodies were bloated from water absorption and long hours in the sun; their flesh sagged grotesquely, hanging off of skeletal frames. Many of the corpses were horribly mutilated, small and large cuts disfiguring them. Pieces of skin were missing from what flesh they had left, as they came under constant attack from the various carrion that swept through the air. Dismembered limbs were strewn haphazardly among and between the piles of corpses. The bodies were an equal share of men, women, and children. There had been no battle, no war here. Only slaughter.

The man picked his way carefully through the piles of carnage, looking about for a suitable corpse. It was hard going; the light had faded quickly and his eyes had not fully adjusted. He walked slowly, scanning every body in a pile. Behind him, the shoreline quickly vanished in the gloom, while in front of him, a vast open space of sand remained. Beyond that, he could very faintly make out the outline of the forest in which he made his home. The man was already intimate with nearly every body in the piles close to the ocean, but he was a very careful man; he combed each pile thoroughly every night, in case he had missed something the night before.

Time passed, and night now fully gripped the beach. High above, the moon shone bravely, making a valiant attempt at cutting a swath through the darkness. After awhile, the sand under the man's feet disappeared, giving way to grass that felt cool underneath his feet. He was glad for the change; he stopped for a moment and dug his toes into the dirt. He stood there for a long moment, sensing the air around him. In the distance, storm clouds were beginning to gather, marshaling their forces to block the moonlight's rays. He could taste the scent of rain. Abruptly, he set off again. He aimed to finish his task before the first drops struck. Eventually, he came upon the outskirts of his forest. The trees grew close together, and rose high, high above him, gnarled and thick. At the edge of the outermost trees, the remnants of a large village stood.

This was where the corpses had once made their home. This is where they used to laugh and cry, where they used to love and hate. The man liked to think that the village had once resonated with the kind of busy sound and energy one would find in a city; just in a smaller, more peaceful scale. If it had, he would never know. The village was as dead as it's inhabitants.

A few huts remained, albeit in shambles. The rest had been burned, or pulled to the ground. Burned and broken timber was strewn about the ground, amidst bodies. Wherever the man went, the scenery seemed to change, but the corpses remained a constant. The ground was hard and lifeless. Some pieces of cloth clung to the beams of broken wood. A light wind blew through the village, ruffling the man's hair. A light tinkling sound reached his ears.

He spun around instantly. A knife appeared in his hand, as if from nowhere. He crouched low, and his eyes swept the area in front of him.

All remained silent. Nothing moved.

He remained crouched.

He tightened his grip on his knife.

He felt his heart quicken.

The silence pounded against his ears.

Another breeze whispered past him.

And then he saw the wind chime hanging from the ruined wall, gently crash against itself, replicating the sound he had heard. He remained crouched for a time, until another gust of wind blew past him and set the chimes off again. He slowly straightened up; the knife disappeared back into his sleeve. He turned to resume his endless search, when a stream of moonlight reflected off of something below the chimes.

He walked over to it carefully.

The object that had reflected the light was a silver bracelet, attached to a slender wrist. The body itself was slumped against the wall, its head hanging down. The man knelt down in front of the body, and lifted its head.

It was a woman; a strikingly beautiful woman. Thick brown hair cascaded around her shoulders, some of it covering her face. He brushed it away with the back of his hand. Her face was heart-shaped, her lips full and her lashes long. Her breasts seemed very full, and her skin very fair, underneath the dark grey dress she wore. She looked no older than twenty. Her skin was not yet rotten, and she remained owner of all of her limbs. As beautiful as she was, the brush of Death had not missed her. Her cheeks were gaunt, and her skin was tinged with an unpleasant grey. Her eyes were open, and glassily staring in front of her. He reached out and closed them tenderly. No major cuts decorated her body, and the man was at a loss to how she had died. He pulled her from the wall, and turned her over. There he saw his answer.

A huge slash ran diagonally across the full of her back. Upon closer inspection, he saw that the cut wasn't very deep. He looked up and surveyed the village. The man had spent many moons trying to piece together what had happened to the village and its people. The Ignotus had attacked at night, most probably. The woman had tried to flee with the others, and had been cut down from behind. But the blow had only been glancing; she had stumbled, fell. The Ignotus rode on, driving the people towards the beach, towards the killing zone. She had been left behind, forgotten, and she had crawled to the wall, where she bled to her death. The man allowed himself a small smile. He had found his corpse.

He lifted the woman over his shoulder, in a fireman's lift. As he straightened, he wondered how he could have missed her in his previous searches of the village. Perhaps it was not until this night he was fated to meet his corpse; before would have been too early, and after, too late. He made his way out of the village, and into the dark of his forest.

The forest was an unsettling place. The trees grew close together, making walking difficult, and suppressing light to the point where sight was almost impossible. The man had suffered many injuries here when he first came upon this place, but he had since come to know the steps by heart. The scars on his body served as a constant reminder to the respect he must pay the forest while he made his home in it. In the few places where moonlight did manage to win it's way through the canopy of treetops, it cast eerie shadows. The forest was dead silent, except for the rustlings of the creatures that were following him.

They followed his progress from the trees, keeping a close but respectable distance. Occasionally one would dart past him overhead, and then turn around and leap back. It was when this happened he caught a flash of their crimson eyes. He called them Quick-Claws in his mind, because they were very fast, and in the morning, when he inspected the places they had been while following him, he found deep gouges in the wood of the trees. He guessed that as many as fifteen were following him. He didn't exactly know why they had such a fascination with him, or why they didn't kill him. He knew they were more than capable; he had often come across a mutilated deer in his explorations through the forest, hide shredded to pieces. At first their constant presence had unsettled him. He had spent many a sleepless night looking out at the bright, snake-like, crimson eyes watching him.

With time, he grew used to them, and they became his only companionship in the lonely forest. But soon that would change.

Finally, he came to his destination, the place he called home. Home to him was a large clearing in the middle of the forest. Moonlight streamed in through the opening in the canopy above him, reflecting off of the small pool that he drank from.

It almost looked like a picture from a pre cataclysm fairy tale.

The man sat the woman's body down in the middle of the clearing. He laid her with her face up and then knelt over her. He slit the middle of her dress open with his knife, and then opened it slightly. He did not expose her breasts to the night air; he was too shy for that.

Around him, the Quick-Claws watched him with their glowing eyes.

The man made a small incision in her chest, right between her breasts. No blood welled from the cut, nor did he expect any. He then proceeded to make an identical incision at the tip of his right middle finger. Blood welled from this cut.

It began to rain.

He placed his hand on her chest, with his middle finger resting so that the two incisions he had made were level with each other. Using his other hand, he gripped one of her's tightly, bringing it up to his heart.

The Quick-Claws grew restless;they began circling the clearing, faster, faster, so fast that their eyes began to become a dull red blur around him.

He remained hunched over, holding the woman's hand. Both were perfectly still.

Five minutes passed.

The man began to tremble.

Ten minutes passed.

He was perspiring profusely now, and his sweat mixed with the rain.

Fifteen minutes passed.

He visibly shook now, his eyes opened and closed of their own accord. His tongue lolled out of his mouth. The rain had increased in power, shaking the trees around him with leviathan fury.

Twenty minutes passed.

Finally, the man collapsed in exhaustion. He laid in the grass next to the woman, his entire body shaking. He gasped for air desperately, trembling violently.

The Quick-Claws were extremely agitated now, jumping back and forth through the tree tops at a blinding pace. The rain flew through the air with almost tangible fury.

The man used the last of his strength to rise to his knees, and grab the knife that had fallen from his hand. He slit the palm of his right hand open, and smeared the blood across the woman's forehead. Making a push, some of the moon's light opened a hole in the middle of the storm clouds. It was almost as if the moon wanted to watch the events taking place below.

For the first time in months, the man spoke.

"Rise." He croaked.

In the distance, thunder boomed.

And her eyes opened, a startling deep grey flecked with sapphire blue, staring up at the moon hanging amidst the swirling storm.