@ImportantNobodyDeep within a forest and far from the prying eyes of the average man; a storm was raging. It's clouds were as black as night and held lightning the likes of which had never been seen. It's color was as red and dark as freshly spilled blood and hundreds of thin bolts danced along the surface of the clouds. Each was created upon the outer edge of the clouds and they all arced further into the storm. With each day that passed the clouds stretched further while the arcs of lightning got thicker and more visible.
It would grow in this method until it's thick black clouds stretched from one end of the forest to the other. It caused a drastic change in all life of the forest. It was only at this point that someone from the local village took notice: a lumberjack out to make a haul. A man standing around 6 foot high with a slightly tanned face and a large muscular build for tearing down trees.
The man had been felling trunks a mile north of the phenomenon. With three mighty blows he tore through a trunk that was 2 men thick .
âTi-imbe-e-r-r!â his deep voice boomed just before the tree cried out with a sharp
*snap*. As his wrists flung the axe up on to his shoulder, his head rocked backwards to allow him to watch the trees canopy, emerald green eyes glistening in the sun. It was important to enjoy the little things in life. For the lumberjack it was watching the leaves and branches twist and heave as they fell. Sometimes creating a brief but beautiful symphony of cracks and snaps. It was as the canopy tore through the air and exposed the scenery that the man saw his first glimpse of the dark storm.
The sight left him awe struck for a few moments. The streaks of red which lit up the dark clouds were enticing in a subtle way. Showing the way to something greater and also beckoning him forward. In just a few seconds he did exactly that and set on towards the storm and the shadows it casted on the forest.
As he drew nearer it became more apparent that most of the darkness in the clouds shadows was simply the forest itself. All plant life in the area had begun to turn a sickly black color. Even the grass was black as night and it crumbled to dust with each step the man took upon it. The trees had lost their leaves and had turned an ashen grey, not yet dead buy certainly dying. Concern and curiosity fought for supremacy within his mind, but still he continued further into the forest.
Above him the energy was beginning to grow more frantic, creating more arcs than before that grew not only in frequency and intensity. As more time passed by and the energy became more vibrant the man found it harder and harder to look away until he was simply looking to the sky as he walked. Guided with an unseen hand through the forest towards a clearing on the woods. The center of which held a large lake filled with what would appear to be extremely dirty water. It was only upon reaching this clearing that the mans mind was partially released, allowing him to look away from clouds and onto the clearing and the lake. Confusion danced across his face for a moment, for in his mind the scenery had simply changed out of nowhere. The powers that be in this place would not allow his mind to wander very far though and so yet another distraction was thrown into the mix.
Upon the bank of the strange lake a small burst of red sparks lit up the darkness for a brief moment, grasping the mans attention immediately. As they dimmed away and fell to the earth yet another show of red light came about, a tiny set of twin lights no bigger than the tip of a needle that danced and twirled around one another just above the dirt. As they spun they released a shower of sparks onto the ground which sparked some growth within the soil as a small, pitch black plant stem broke through.
The man began to take small steps towards the light show just as the tiny orbs began to rise into the air, the black stem stretching up in unison. Both the lights and the stem would rise up to around the mans knee height before stopping, allowing the orbs to expand their rotations. In that same moment the orbs began to dim in brightness as the amount of sparks they created increased dramatically. The black stem split thinly at the top with a light shower of sparks, allowing 3 additional stems to curl away from the tip and drop lightly towards the earth.
At the very tips of these hanging stems gathered the sparks of the now faded light orbs and with just a few pulsations they took form. The light on these stems faded with time as well to expose a plump red plant bulb whose folds glistened with a red light hanging from the stems. The beautiful sight painted a soft and stupid smile upon the lumberjacks face as he dropped to his knees with outstretched arms. The tip of his finger had barely grazed the surface of the nearest bud when all three blossomed in unison and with strange force. With their forceful opening they released a hazy red cloud of toxic spores that would hit the lumberjack square in the face and send him reeling. A howl of both pain and surprise echoing into the darkness as he hit his rear, scrambling backwards away from the lake and the plant.
Upon impact the spores would infect the body and cause instant sensory hallucinations, which is why the man howled as he did. To him, that simple burst of air felt as though it had torn straight to the bone of his jaw and on top of this there was a bright red flash as the spores touched his eyes. Frantic pawing and a copious amount of fear filled tears made cleaning his eyes relatively easy and allowed him to get his bearings.
While he had not thrashed about he strangely enough, was no longer facing towards the plant or the lake but rather away from it and towards the forest. Quick as a whip the man turned 180 degrees to face the lake and plant again. A deep sense of Dread welled up within his chest as he stood and stared the plant down, a cold sweat dripping down his brow. From inconceivable place a deep and throaty chuckled endlessly, standing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end.
Deep inside his mind a voice was screaming, urging him to turn and run but this voice was silenced by an undying curiosity. This time a curiosity to see exactly what it was that was starting to bubble beneath the surface of the dark lake. From the murky water a single pitch black tentacle stretched towards the sky until it towered high above the man. Whose eyes were glued to what was going on.
When it reached around 12 feet high the tentacle finally stopped growing but it began to make an ungodly noise. As though a large creature was heaving and readying to spew vomit. With each heave the tentacle would quiver, eventually making a small orb appear at its base. With each heave that would follow the orb would rise higher and higher until with an audible
*pop* it reached the top; at which point the tentacle would spring into movement once again.
The strange tentacle fell back and downwards towards the surface of the lake in an almost free fall like state. Curling itself at the last second so that it shot through the air just above the water with such speed it rippled the water behind it without ever making contact. It moved at this incredible speed towards the bank the man stood upon, angling at the last moment so that it was now headed towards his face. A sinking feeling entered the mans stomach as he was overwhelmed with fear but found himself unable to move other even close his eyes as it closed in on him.
A quiet gasp slipped from his lips; the tentacle stopped only an inch from his nose. Again the voice inside him screamed to run and again it was smothered by sickening curiosity as the mass began to heave once again. Almost out of nowhere a slit began to appear on the surface of the mass. A slit through which long and thick strands of matted black hair began to protrude, more and more falling through as the tentacle heaved.
With more and more being exposed it wasnât long before patches of lightly tanned skin began to come through. A severe chill ran through the mans spine as everything came to a rest, his jaw dropping open in a silent scream. Staring back at him was the severed and mangled head of a man with emerald green eyes whose days of glistening were far behind him. For the lumberjack, it was the very same face he saw staring back at him from his looking glass every morning.
Adrenaline began to flood through the mans body, bringing about a light tingling across his body showing that things were coming back online. Even now his scream was beginning to come through piercing and loud. But, it wasnât from his mouth. The muscles of the face staring back at him had not moved an inch, yet through its slightly open mouth came a terrified and ear splitting yell. Horrified as he was the man tried harder still to scream and still his voice was stolen from him.
Just as he thought it could get no worse, the once distant eyes and relaxed muscles of the face began to distort and change. A look of intense ferocity crept over the once dead face as its gaze locked with the lumberjack, its once terrified scream twisting and distorting until it became a beat like roar with its mouth still hanging open.
In one quick movement the doppelgangers face closed the tiny sliver of distance which remained between itself and the lumberjack. Going so far as to graze the tip of its nose with his own so as to inspire the most amount of fear possible; with great success. The lumberjacks voice was his own once again and it came out in a shrill
yipe as he spun on his heels, turning away from the tentacle and the lake and starting on a dead run.
The moment he turned from the creature he felt a brief moment of peace at not having to see it anymore and he seized it. Putting his feet to the ground with as much force as he ever had before, hell bent on never seeing this place ever again. However the man only felt the glorious thud of freedom beneath his feet for three steps when it was suddenly ripped out from beneath his feet. Almost to literally.
On the 4th step the mans monstrous, adrenaline fueled step met only air as it came down and it sent an icy chill through his entire body before it suddenly met a thick, gooey substance. Just like moments before his vision was suddenly masked by a horrid flash of red light, revealing everything for as it had been all along. Where he had thought that he was running back to the confines of the forest he had infact turned and ran directly into the black lake. While he would never understand it in his last moments, a hallucination had caused him to misread the position of the black lake and caused him to run straight into what he wanted to avoid. What he did understand, was this lake was far from being filled with water.
The black substance was thick as syrup and worse than that it seemed to grasp at his body and yank him down further now matter how hard he struggled. In an effort to scream one last time the man opened his mouth and reached to the sky, only to have the thick substance shove its way down his throat just moments before his vision is covered entirely.
All at once his senses clicked off. Darkness, emptiness, nothingness. Visions of horrific, mutated animals clouded his mind. Images of them tearing people and cattle apart again and again. Then just as fast as they left his senses came flooding back. Starting with a sense of cold rigidity against his back and followed quickly by the ear splitting yelling once again. With a loud gasp the man suddenly sat up, blinded by what felt like ridiculously bright streams of light coming in from the familiar surrounding of his bedroom back home.
Frantically his eyes scanned the room while his chest rose and fell with his frantic breathing. It was obvious that there was no one in the room with him, but still his ears were filled with the incessant screaming. It drove just to the point of panic before they started to die down, allowing his hands to fall from his ears where they had apparently pinned themselves.
Calm began to spread throughout his body as he dropped his hands to his lap and tried to lay back down on the bed⌠But for some reason he couldnât lay down. It wasnât that it hurt, his body simply wouldnât move the way he told it too. No matter though, perhaps it would pass as he sat here.
*Pound..Pound..Pound* The noise came from the door to his right.
âBenudan!â A gruff mans voice cried through the door.
âBenudan you canât hide from us! We know it was you!â
There was a clear sense of urgency in the mans voice. Was that the town guard? The voice seemed distantly familiarâŚ
PoundâŚ.POUNDâŚ.POUNDâŚ.SMASH!! The door lunged in a few inches before falling flat to the ground, allowing three men to come barreling through along with it. Each man was dawned in a set of gleaming steel armor and brandished a longsword in hand. Were they here for him?
With what seemed like almost sloth like speed Benudans gaze turned towards the doorway and the men there. The men were no longer staring at him, they were looking at something further to his right and so his head also moved, but he could feel that it wasnât him moving this time. As his vision shifted he was immediately greeted by a wall covered in splatters and strings of blood, which would only grow in size and gathering. Worse than that were the bodies⌠not just one, but three. A woman and two men in assorted pieces. The only thing to give them all an exact number, were the heads piled in the corner.
Benudan screamed with as much force as he could muster, but to absolutely no avail. The only thing that could be heard coming from his chest was a deep and sinister chuckle. There was a deep urge to move away and run for his life, but his body was rooted firm to the spot. Slowly his head turned to the side, turning what felt like an incredibly icy gaze to the guards in the room. It was now that his body began to move, only now he would have given anything for it to stop.
It was creepily apparent to him that he was no longer in control of his body and some abnormal force was responsible for his body standing up from the bed. Nor was it him that approached the guards with a slow and sure stride, despite their very obvious warnings against it. Despite also Benudans multitude of attempts to stop his own body.
As the 1st guard swung his sword for his head, it was not Benudan who stretched out his hands to catch the blade and use it to cut the guards head off with his own weapon. It was Xavier Bloodbayne; and it was he who heaved that same blade through the air and into the skull of the furthest guard. Ending it all by shattering the facial cavity of the remaining guard before he could compose himself.
As the final guard pawed at his shattered face in his final moments of death, Xavier walked towards the doorway. To the left of the door was a looking glass and Xavier turned his head towards it for only a moment to give Benudan one final look of what his prison would now be. What was once an admirably handsome and tanned face was now ashen and riddled with a number of scars Benudan had never seen before. In his head, Benudan cried out in anguish to see himself as he was. However on the outside, Xavier smirked and chuckled once again as he crossed the threshold to the village beyond. It was at this moment that Benudan was all but snuffed out of the consciousness, removing his voice and opinion but allowing him to despair in everything done using his body.
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PrinceAlexus