Suppression is deadly. It’s the motivation behind the sword thrusts into another person’s heart, the final straw that breaks a person’s sanity and the deciding step off a five hundred foot cliff toward a suicidal death. It only takes one suppressed person in power to see a world fall into chaos and desolation.
I stood underneath a blood red sky, feeling suppressed anger coiling around my limbs. My temples ached from the calamity of grinding steel, desperate grunts, wails and sinister screeches that assaulted my ears. My eyes watered from the taste of iron and sulfur that blew into my mouth and up my nose.
‘Die evil scum!’ A voice boomed at my back. It was met with a high-pitch gurgle. I felt a heavy weight drop near my feet. When I looked down, I bulked at the squirming three clawed hand scratching its way toward my big toe; stumbled backward , so I found myself in the middle of a kill with the segregated edge of a heavy sword about to slash my chest open.
I was able to dodge the blow in time and see its way into its intended target and that of a monster. I stared at a body of a snake and vampire bat combined: on its slender back were large paper wings that had a claw at each joint. Two sinew legs and arms, with three claws on each, flanked either side of its middle. Its face was a cross between a cobra and an adder. It glared at its prey through beady red eyes and everywhere about its countenance was black and oppressive with its scaly skin seeming to suck in the light rather than reflect it.
The sword went deeper into the scaly space between its arms and legs. The monster crumpled to the ground. Its eyes turned yellow before they went black.
I cried with fright as its body coiled in on itself and materialized into a pile of black ash. From the ashes uncoiled impressions of people that were quick to dissipate.
I heard a high whistle move toward my left ear and turned my head at the time the nicked edge of a blade sailed across my eyes. I ducked and fell to the ground and wanted to scurry away from the mangled human remains but there was no where to escape. Everywhere I looked, it was a bloody massacre.
Then I saw the most frightening thing. A soldier swung a sword toward the heart of a black monster and felt the edge of the monsters claw against his neck instead. His helmet was shaken free from his head as the monster buried its claw further in and raised the soldier’s wriggling body toward its face.
Thunder shook the sky. A dying sun was further weakened by a gathering of threatening clouds. In a moment of semi-darkness, I watched the monster open its mouth and reveal four rotating black fangs, which churned each side of the mouth so the opening became a vortex.
The soldier’s eyes widen with fear. He wriggled desperately to break free only to find himself lodged deeper in the monster’s hold. My breath went cold against my stunned lips. I felt the urge to help the man and try to save him from his fate. I was too weak to move. It was as if some evil force had locked my body to the spot. Every breath I used to cry out for help turned into nothing more than whispers. All I could do was watch.
I stared into the monster’s mouth and suddenly felt my heart crushed under feelings of hopelessness, betrayal, guilt and pent-up anger. My days slid through my mind as an image reel; seeing everything I had come to value loose its meaning. As my heart started to loose out against the pain, I felt my will taken away from me along with the air from my own lungs and the energy from my body and soul.
I fixed my eyes to the dangling solider and watched his shadow break free from the hold only to be sucked into the monster’s mouth. The monster tossed the carcass aside and went toward the next attack. Within moments, I felt my sense of self return along with my energy and my heart beating free from negative emotion. Yet, the tension around my limbs were more obvious so I found myself gripping a sword in either hand.
I pulled myself off the ground and started fighting my way through the hoard; not caring what I slew in my path. When I felt the battle would last forever, it stopped with dead silence. My heart skipped a beat when I realized not one soldier was left standing. I faced a host of monsters on my own.
A dust storm rolled in at their backs, gathering up broken bodies and displaced souls into the air.
‘Ish see yousee.’ one of the monsters hissed. It stretched its wings wide, engulfing the rising storm, and flew into the air with all its glory.
‘NOW YOUSEE SEE THERE ISH NO WILL BUT MINESEE!’
It flew a path over the other monsters that pawed the riled ground and snarled threats my way. In a heart beat, all the monsters jumped into the air and flew circles around their leader.
I gulped back my fear and gripped my sword tight as they turned and made their way toward me.
‘Demonocorahn Inasoula Ventura Ni Lazerth obligano.’ The incantation left my mouth like a subconscious thought. I felt heat to my chin and neck, looked down and realized I gripped a crystal in my hand and not a sword. The crystal burned an intense white with power; feeding my mind with thoughts of “being in control” and my heart with the urge to grip its fire in my hands and hurl it toward the monsters.
I heard a thousand cries in my mind and felt the unified beating of a thousand hearts against my chest as I raised my palm high and bathed the vile vermin with white fire.
In a wink of an eye, they were gone. In another wink, so was I.
