Prologue: "The Life Extractor"
Of Oblivion
Prologue: "The Life Extractor"
ob·liv·i·on - /əˈblivēən/
"The state of being unaware or unconscious of what is happening."
A young man lay down, slumped on his couch. He wore a white long-sleeved shirt with the cuffs rolled up. Around his neck hung a cerulean colored tie. To his side, there were two faceless children. Across from him, there was a faceless wife. The children played on the carpet, as his wife slowly nodded off. The man also closed his eyes, for a moment, before standing up. He walked into the kitchen, and opened up a wooden cupboard. Taking a container of pills in hand, he gazed down at his translucent medication bottle. He weakly shook a tablet into his hand, sighing.
Like a pendulum on a descending string.
A white feather gracefully passed through the air.
After a moment of thought, he dropped the pill back into the bottle, and placed the container back into the cupboard. The man sauntered upstairs, unfastening his tie from his neck. Letting the cerulean silk slip from his hand, it began to slide down the set of stairs like a repeating waterfall. Entering his dusty library, he sat on an oak piano bench. After glancing around, slowly, he began to play a melodic waltz, as he gently nodded his head from side to side... This soothed him.
Calmly, the feather slipped through the sky.
A cold voice from behind him whispered. "For every key you strike, someone will die." The man immediately took his hand away from the piano, and turned around on his bench to face who had spoken to him. A quick surge of shock filled his body, and a cold sensation visited his limbs. He shook his head slowly, and screwed up his face in confusion. Before him, was a spectre. Where there should have been a forehead on this demon, there was nothing. The top half of it's skull was not there, and inside of it's face was visible nerve and open flesh. Engraved across the ghost's skin were lines of spells, hallowed in the dark magics. The bottom rims of what was left of it's eye sockets were hollowed out. Hominid in nature, this un-transparent and freakish being stood on two legs.
The feather met with a rising fire, and began to catch aflame.
It's fingers twitched weakly, and the sound of it's breathing seemed backwards. "What in the name of..." The young man stammered anxiously, and the spirit grinned. The man shook his head, once more. "Wh-what are you?" Humoring this question, the spirit replied. "I am The Messorem." The phantom tilted it's head to the other side, and the young man stared at the demon's chest... It's ribs were like a cage to the heart it did not have.
Swallowed by the merciless heat, the feather began to bend and fold.
After many long moments of painful silence, save for the haunting breath of the Messorem, the phantom spoke once more. "For every movement you make, someone will die." The man began to wonder how far this threat would apply, but began to avast his movements entirely. He stopped breathing. Made a strong conscious effort to resist muscle spasm, and even closed his eyes to refrain from blinking. The demon laughed, perhaps in schadenfruede. This sudden noise caused the young man to weakly jerk back.
In desperation, the feather sent what threads of itself that it could, upward and away.
Spending nearly a full minute on concentrating not to move, the colt finally entered a meditation of peaceful thoughts... Which was interrupted almost as soon as it was achieved. "For every thought you have, someone will die." This angered the man and he began to feel reluctant to continue this exercise. He felt utterly helpless. The lone thought that all of this could possibly be true was the only thing that kept him from ignoring the spirit altogether. But this lone thought just might be an act of murder, and in realizing that, the string of contemplation would become genocide.
The feather's resting remnants eventually became a black needle.
After nearly ten minutes, the man finally managed to cease all brain activity for one second. This diminutive blip in time seemed like an eternity. Never before had a second felt so long in his life. Once this little moment passed, The Messorem's words took a violent chokehold grip upon the man. "You have failed to hinder the extinction, and now you cannot reverse it." The man unclosed his eyes in terror. What started off as a faint whine began to amplify as a very loud ringing that came from the center of his head. The demon added. "You are alone." This echoed and scraped through the young man's head, causing his wake to languish. By the time he could end his thoughts, everyone had died. He was the last person on Earth.
Fallen from the wing, and immolated to ash. Had any of the feather survived?