Alone in the Dark, Weeping and Wailing for Death. Merciful God, Save Our Bodies, Damn Our Souls.
***
Rain. Such a beautiful sight. Such a melancholic view. It reminisces of fallen tears, of lost joys and it’s always the first to cry with us, to feel our pain. When it falls, it brings life to the earth. And yet she is there at every funeral, at every sad event.
What is it about it, what mystical event causes our trance with such mundane occurrences? Why is our mind shrouded in awe as the first drops of a spring drizzle make their way into the earth? What causes our tears to fall in unity with the weeping from the sky? With the tears of divinity.
“Tears of god! He’s weeping!”
The distraught cries of a broken mind filled the padded walls of a mental institution. The ear shattering screeches of a man long lost to the machinations of a sick brain, of an unhealthy imagination, could be heard throughout the room. But nowhere else. For none other than himself would listen, none other would believe that he was well.
“He’s weeping! Weeping!”
Tears rolled down his eyes and into the floor. They mixed with urine and saliva as the rain increased and thunder roared outside. Over grassy fields and snowy peaks, over gentle breeze and clean skies. Things, he would never see again. Things, now so foreign and unknown to him as the moon and Mars are to the beasts. Left simply to be admired through a transparent glass, only to be observed, never to be felt. Never again.
Sobbing and crying, arms constricted behind a straitjacket. Knowing his life was gone, knowing his excuse and salvation for escaping prison had finally backfired, had finally consumed him. Turned him into what he had once lied to be. Alone in the lightning illuminated darkness, a broken man wept bitterly.
+++
Fire. It burns with desire, with passion. Once set aflame, once ignited and left to freedom, it is uncontrollable. It burns and destroys, ravages and leaves but ashes behind its path. Whomever believes himself its master is a fool. Fire does as he pleases, helps whom he feels like helping, murders and sets aflame the idiots who fail to understand him.
It was a tool, a weapon. He was an ally and a necessary being, something without which we cannot hope to achieve our goals. Fire took pity on our pathetic beings and embraced us, made us rise above mere animals and vermin, made us gods amongst mortals.
Explosions filled the air. The stench of gunpowder thickening as the gunfire increased, destroying lives and sending souls into the eternal flames, into the never ending fires of the underworld.
“Putos! Putos todos!”
More gunfire, more death. Fire was the power to create it all, to end it all. And it was a vital cog in the killing machine that was an AK-47. Mighty Russian machine, mighty ember and pearl of a fallen regime. But it survived, the weapon lasted for ages and ages, till it came to rest upon the trained hands of a murderer.
“Vamonos cabron! Nos estan partiendo la-”
A bullet went through his head. Fire did not retreat, did not fall back. It only spread. In all directions it went as it ate everything and all, it did not discriminate as it engulfed everything.
In this case, a man could be similar to fire. A man with no hair, a man with a silver cross tattooed on his left arm. A man with eyes dark as his soul, with a heart and past that had murdered countless of people. This man stood behind a brick wall, with the corpse of his partner in crime beside him as he shot and killed the members of an opposite cartel. People like him, but different in master. People who needed to die.
The man like fire got out from cover and unleashed a spray of bullets, a spray of death. Screams of agony filled the air as the men fell and the blood flowed. They were outside a gas station, murdering each other like roosters fighting for amusement.
The lone shooter, the lone fighter of the unknown cartel fell behind cover once more, as the bullets flew and tore chunks of the brick wall to pieces. He knew he was outnumbered, he knew death was the prize for the losing party, and he knew exactly who would die.
With a prayer shot to the skies, with a plea to salvage a lost soul and keep his family safe and fed. The man like flames shouted as he had never before and pulled the pin of a hand grenade.
Leaving his cover, the man threw the projectile, threw the explosive to the gas station and ducked the hail of bullets that came his way. He was outnumbered, but not outclassed.
The thunderous explosion that followed was heard throughout the city. It was heard for several blocks and many were alarmed by it. Many more were scorched by the fires that resulted.
The man that set it aflame smiled as the heat wave flew past him. No screams were there to signal the dozens killed, no agonizing bellows of suffering to mark his narrow escape. Only the crackling of the fire.
Police officers surrounded him. They took away his arms, they took away his freedom. They tortured him and beat him repeatedly, they denigrated him and made his body pay for the sins his soul and mind had committed. Then he was thrown into a cold cell, with no clothes, with no sense.
===
Shadow. Darkness and shade, mystery and stealth. The keepers of the night and allies of silence. Darkness is their embodiment, their whole fused into one.
Can you feel the chill creep up your spine as the darkness surrounds you? The shrill scream of terror awaiting for the slightest contact of the blade against the skin? Terror, terror goes hand by hand with the darkness. They are like lovers, embracing each other with the mind in the middle. Slowly losing its sanity in the wicked dance between horrors.
Shadow moved in silence as the night was at its darkest. No light seeped from the covering protection of the clouds that blocked out the moon and its shine. Nothing could be seen as shadow moved through the hallways of a hotel.
Shadow carried his blade, a weapon for hunting and skinning, a weapon meant for beasts and creatures of the woodland. Nothing he cared for, nothing that to him mattered much. His weapon would still be utilized to murder, to slaughter beasts in his eyes.
The hidden man walked past many doors, moved through the corridor like a ghost. No sounds came from him, nothing that would betray his position as he moved towards his mark. He was one with the darkness he was one with the void.
A scar, large and hideous ran down his face. From his brow to his chin on the left side, the flesh having never healed, his past never forgiven. Tattered clothes that stank of human waste and sweat mixed with blood covered his dirt filled body. Fleas dancing and feeding off of his flesh as he walked. A large beard matted in mud.
Shadow and death, he came to a stop near one of the doors. Shade and pain, he slid a thin blade and a metal pin into the lock. Darkness and horror, he entered the room in silent manner, in a skillful way.
In tattered boots he threaded, a worn out jacket being his only protection against the bite of the air. He walked over to the bathroom of the hotel, the room closest to the door. His eyes searching for his prize, his heart hungering for his keep.
The man could be heard snoring deeper inside the other room. He had to be careful and swift, he had to grab only the most important things. But how could he deny such niceties? The way they lay there...
Clothes, wrist watches, coins, toothpaste, toothbrush, bottled water...
Treasures! He could only describe them as such, his treasures they were. Yet his heart ached and his mind wept at the notion of leaving them behind. But he could not carry much, lest he found himself behind bars yet again.
But oh, the way they shone! To his eyes they were gems, to his soul they were needed, to his mind it would be sinful to leave them behind.
All concerns forgotten, he grabbed as much as he could and stuffed it into his jacket pockets. What he could not salvage in them he stored in his arms and hands before dashing out of the hotel. Unseen.
He hid his treasures inside a supermarket cart and returned to his hideout, deciding the man in the room wasn't worth killing.
///
“Vhy did you do it?”
Said the dark voice, the dark and deep voice. The threat of death hanging from the very tip of his tongue as he said it. The knife pointing at the Snake’s throat menacingly, a few droplets of blood trickling down as the point tore through the skin.
“I-I-I D-dd-d-didn’t m-mmm-mmean to...”
Fear. Terror. Death. They were all flashing across his eyes as he looked upon his master, upon his lord. Pitiful creature the snake is, slithering disgustingly through the filth they throw upon the floor.
“You, didn't, mean to...”
The large bearded man before him spoke, making a mocking pause in between each word, grinning as he said it, laughing with his facial expression despite the rage inside his body.
The man raised a hand and the snake cowered. He cowered like a dog before being struck, whimpering miserably as the hand slowly reached out and patted his head.
“Good boy.” The bearded man in an officer’s uniform smiled as the snake eyed him with fear shining brightly from his blue eyes. Eyes that showed the filth of the world, the filth of life itself.
The master had his dog cowering before him, soldiers with their faces covered surrounding them. The snow fell around them and the death scorched trees only added to the dark atmosphere as crows began to stand atop their branches.
In an instant, just as the snake began to feel the fear leaving his body. The master’s face showed all the rage and fury he had been concealing, his arm was raised with an earsplitting roar in a language the snake did not comprehend and the bearded man, the master struck him with all his might, shattering the Snake’s nose.
The coward fell to the ground, weeping and sobbing as the blood flowed and the snow bit down on his naked body. The bearded man shouted many things at him, many that were true, many that were exaggerations.
But to the Snake, the one thing that hurt him the most, the one thing that truly made him writhe in his insides and curse the gods, was the anger. The anger he himself had, for not being able, for failing.
He, the Snake, had failed in his act, in his endeavor. The smugglers had fallen in his trap, he had successfully mislead their leader into using the old forest path. The one that was, coincidentally, hosting an ambushing party of Russian soldiers.
A fucking, small party of Russian soldiers.
The smugglers dealt with them. They crossed the path and now they would deal with him too.
“Fucking vastard! You, you think you trick me?!” The leader of the smugglers, the bearded man and the master, shouted and hollered in his language. He cursed and slammed his fist against the Snake’s face time and again. “You no trick me, vastard! Fucker!”
The snake cried and cried like a child. A scared, defenseless child. His tears reaching the snow and mixing their salt with the frozen water.
The beating went on for many minutes, the blood dried in the leader’s gloves and in the Snake’s face. In the end, the bearded man pulled out a Makarov and shot the miserable man before him.
Twice through the face.
Twice through the chest.
Thrice in the genitals.
And once in the arm.
The last bullet was shot to the sky, signaling any nearby predators that food was served.
]]]
Money is such a strange thing. It’s worthless, and yet we make it valuable. It is the simplest thing to create, so simple, most could do it, and yet we break our bones and backs just to earn a scrape of the great wealth of the world.
To see the masses wailing and fighting each other like rabid dogs for printed paper, to see them murder, steal, suffer for something so simple and pathetic. And yet, so necessary.
A man of politics and wealth, a man of lies and half truths sat on a chair in his office. Head being held by his hands as another one stood before him, talking and talking he went, not taking the hint that his presence was not welcome.
The man that held power sat and listened, hiding his eyes that shone with hatred behind the cowboy hat. He glared at the police deputy before him, glared with hatred only a sick mind could conjure.
“Ya understand these rights I've read ya?” The deputy concluded with a hand over his holstered gun, not knowing what might occur, not certain of what those in power were capable of just to stay in it.
The mayor had lied, he had stolen and made many dealings with many different people. None of them good, none of their business legal. But now, now justice would shine! The mayor would face imprisonment after a lengthy struggle with the law, after many had met their ends before the muzzle of a gun.
The mayor gave a dark smile, one devoid of emotion or feelings. It was the kind of smile the condemned give. Full of rabid desire to hold on to what he had.
The mayor’s hand found itself sliding down to the upper drawer of his desk. Where he kept his only true friend, the only one in the world who would not fail him in his hour of need.
A 44 magnum, all chambers loaded and ready to fire.
The deputy noticed this and gave a smile of his own, just as the mayor’s hand touched the handle of the drawer.
“I was hoping you’d do that, fucker.”
Three explosions followed, three bullet wounds came after, a small stream of blood at the end.
/\//\
“Fuck you all! You don’t know shit!”
“Fuck us? Fuck you Joey! You’re fucking crazy!”
A cloud of dust was left behind as the van sped away from an infuriated Jonathan D’Matre, ex-militant and leader of a former peaceful revolutionary group. Now turned into a potential terrorist organization.
“Fuck you all! Bitches! I don’t need your shit!”
He shouted and spat as he ran, shooting after the vehicle as it sped away in the distance, emptying magazine after magazine of his 9mm on the fading shade of the group’s van.
D’Matre shouted and shot the dirt beneath his feet out of anger. His plans to free his nation of political oppression had just banished along with the explosives filled van.
His target? The governmental palace. His plan? Blow it to hell with tons of dynamite and homemade explosives. His only problem?
“I’m surrounded by fucking faggots!”
He kicked a rock and shot it in midair, sending a cloud of dust flying away as the bullet tore chunks off of the stone.
D’Matre groaned and sat down in the grass, pondering, planning. His machinations and schemes were in shambles, his life’s work was destroyed and his ‘friends’ had abandoned him because they lacked conviction.
What is a righteous revolutionary to do? Give up? Nay, he would not leave his people under the unjust rule of a government. Try again? Perhaps, if he had enough money and willing compatriots. But they had taken the van, he had nothing to sell and only a couple more magazines for his 9mm. No one would rally to his call without money or weapons.
He was defeated.
Grimacing and spitting, D’Matre stood and placed his weapon inside his pant’s pocket.
‘Maybe in Paris or Toulouse... Yeah, there’s that bar...’
D’Matre started walking, listening to the wind as it flew by, hearing the faint chirping of birds in the solitude of the countryside. No buildings or people to pollute the area, just nature. It was as the world had been meant to be, for D’Matre at least. No rulers, no government.
Just freedom.
It was as he walked across the empty fields that his eyes caught another sight...
***
It was when the storm was at it’s highest that the broken man saw him...
+++
As he spat blood and curled against a corner of his cell, as he saw in the direction of the bars, that was when he saw him...
===
As he returned to his hideout to place his captured treasure in a hidden place only he knew the entrance to, that was when the strange figure appeared...
///
As the wolves began to bite down on his flesh and the blood began to drown him, he felt life again, coming from an approaching shade in the darkness.
Bones were repaired, veins and arteries resown into the complex structure that is the human body, eyesight returned after new eyes were formed and their nerves reconnected to the brain.
The Snake breathed once more.
]]]
The mayor opened his eyes and saw a man. A man of power.
He wore a two-toned shirt, the left side being yellow and the other cream. His coat was leather brown, and had buttons that did not match in color nor size, his hair was short and two-shaded as well. Most of it was white, while streaks of black ran through the sides. He had a small, short, white beard.
The man looked at the mayor and pointed a bony long-nailed finger at his chest where the bullets had pierced.
“You’re welcome.” He said, in a cheerful, mocking voice.
“W-who are you?” Croaked the resuscitated man of wealth and schemes.
“I am Discord, and I would like to make an offer...”
The god of chaos spoke slowly and with sinister tone, direct to the point and always cheerful.
“Offer?”
The mayor winced as what was left of his wounds disappeared, as blood flowed through veins and arteries that had been destroyed but mere minutes ago.
Discord smiled widely, frighteningly so. In his eyes was glee and malice, schemes, plans, machinations and multiple tricks. He had an idea, an idea of evil and great power needed for its completion.
“Oh, it’s nothing really... But you see, a friend of mine, old Celly to be precise. Well, she decided to trap me in stone for an eternity!” Discord placed arm in forehead dramatically as he continued, mocking and laughing at his own despair.
“She wanted to keep me there forever, yes... A rather harsh punishment for such a handsome fellow, wouldn't you say?”
The mayor frowned and tried to stand, but his energy and strength were still far from returning. He contented himself by simply replying.
“No... I don’t think I’d say that.”
Discord frowned and huffed, feigning offense.
“Anyway... My friends and a couple of their servants got me out from that mess a few weeks ago, switched places is more appropriate since they are imprisoned now. And-”
“Alright shut it! Trapped in stone, fucking shit name for a jail. What do you want?”
Discord smiled once more, unabated by the insult, unmoved by the shout. He was in control, he was playing the fools like puppets.
“Your help. I have returned life to you, I ask you to repay the favor by coming with me, helping me free my friends and playing a small game... I ask nothing more.”
“Saved my life? How’d you do that, exactly?”
The god of madness and chaos could see what was going to happen, he could picture the sudden movement, the swift motion. The mayor had hidden it magnificently since their conversation started. Every movement as deft and quiet as a cat hunting for prey, experience was abundant in his years.
Discord gave a sinister smile.
“How certain are you, that you will reach the weapon before I-”
“Fuck off!”
The mayor pulled out the 44 magnum from his desk and shot. Once, twice, thrice. Bullets flew and landed on flesh with bone shattering strength. Discord, lord of chaos found himself being pushed back by the impact of the bullets, by the ear shattering sound of the firearm as it spewed death time and again.
His leather jacket was pierced and burned where the bullets went in. Blood however, did not make an appearance.
The mayor smiled as Discord’s body fell to the floor. He had done this many times, ‘talk’ your way out of situations like this, it had saved him from many unpleasant compromises and agreements he didn't quite like.
The mayor holstered the firearm and thought.
‘What to do now...’
“How about helping?”
The mayor yelped in surprise and terror as a hand shot out from the very wood of the desk and grabbed him by the neck. Not applying pressure, but not relenting its hold either.
“You’re a faster shooter than I thought! How excellent! Now, will you come quietly, Duncan? Or should I go ahead and convince you?”
“You’re fucking crazy! Fucking crazy! Let me go!”
Discord had the look of madness in his eyes, he had the look of dementia. His pupils were retracted and his eyes bloodshot, his hair was in disarray and sweat was falling down his brow. The horrifying marks of where the bullets had broken his suit were ominously present.
The mayor was filled with fear, his hand grabbed the handle of the 44 magnum and shot through the sheath, piercing Discord’s suit three more times before all chambers were emptied.
Discord’s smile only widened as the weapon fell from the terrified man’s hands. As the mayor’s eyes went wide with horror, as his blood turned cold and sweat like ice fell from his brow.
“I am Discord, god of chaos. Nice to meet you.”
“What the fuck are you?” He stank of fear, the scent of terror.
Discord frowned playfully and placed the mayor down on his feet.
“Haven’t you been listening? I am your newest friend! I’m here to help you, if you help me.”
Unbeknownst to the mayor, unbeknownst to the frightened man. Discord had said similar things, and done equally terrifying deeds with all five others. He had convinced some with gold, others with promise of freedom, some with weaponry and soldiers had lured into a deal, and another with the sworn word of giving him revenge.
“Live once more, do me a small favor, you won’t even notice you did it, and you’ll have your life back and better than ever...” To the mayor he said...
“Follow me into a world of dreams and charm, wreak sadness as it was sown into you, and you’ll have your freedom...” To the broken man he whispered...
“Grab your arms and your resolve, follow my lead into a new world where you’ll be a god. Do this, and you will return stronger than before, invincible...” To the fire he exclaimed...
“Follow me friend, you will come back as a king! Gold will fall from your arms, so much it will be, you would not be able to hold it all in the entirety of Manhattan...” To the shadows he promised...
“Come son of the night, hidden dagger. Come and do as I tell you, do me a favor and your revenge will come true...” To the Snake he extended a hand...
“You will aid release an empire from the reigns of a tyrant, your name will be praised and freedom will be universal. Both in the new world, and in the streets of France your name will be legend...” The anarchist’s spirit he rose from the grounds...
And as one, as a simple force and voice, fueled by the promises and possibilities, pushed onward by the power and the might before them, by a man- nay, a god! A god that would make their dreams become a reality, to be able to live such things, to simply imagine them...
“I’ll follow...”
As one they answered, as one they agreed.
As one, they sold their souls to the devil.
(((
In Equestria, in the land of friendship and love, of purity and untainted souls. A storm was a brewing.
Celestia paced back and forth as her guards flew above the city, a red dawn had marched from the east, spilling its orange tint over the skies. The city was in a state of maximum alert, soldiers patrolling every site, every crevice where the lord of chaos could be hidden.
Luna could not sleep, she could only clench her jaw in anger and fury, but mostly. Frustration. Deathly, pure frustration. Their most powerful foe had escaped, he had banished and those that were captured refused to speak even under threat of banishment.
Twilight and her loyal friends stood beside their ruler, weary bags under their eyes from a restless night, a worried night filled with the shouting of orders and hollers from officers. The castle was busy as a hive, the city was terrified as the day of invasion not so long ago. When changelings roamed free.
This time however, was different. It could be smelt in the air, it could be felt in the earth. In the sky the colors of blood and fire threatened and loomed over the inhabitants, in the waters a bitter taste had polluted the once sweet and refreshing feel of a spring stream.
It was war. A war they did not know they could win, despite hope, despite prayer.
There Would Be Chaos.
