Chapter 16 - Billy Visits Apocalypse Land

Billy found himself on the back of a wagon, rumbling down a cobblestone road. As he looked up groggily, he heard three voices, all speaking at once. “So, you’re up, are you?”

He met a man’s eyes. They were deep, bottomless pits of despair and loneliness. They were the chill down your spine after a sound in the middle of the night. They were the monsters on the other side of the window that would show themselves if you looked out too long into the darkness.

Next to him, sat two other men, identical but for the eyes. The second man had red eyes so bright that they hurt to look at. They were made of fire and blood, of death and rebirth. They urged you to plant the seeds of your enemies and to nurture that hatred so that the inevitable battle was glorious. To craft weapons of destruction in a vicious cycle until the world was reborn anew.

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The third man’s eyes sparkled with cunning and mischief. They glinted like a stray silver coin in a dark alleyway. A lost locket that finds its way into the wrong pocket. A blue so dark that it melded with the night. A warning cry, not an omen that something was coming, but that something had already gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Billy looked from man to man, unable to maintain eye contact with any of them. He turned his head to look away, but all that he saw was destruction. Cities burned, forests withered. A golden giant was being torn apart by beasts of darkness. Every swing in the battle created oceans and destroyed mountain ranges. Legions of demons marched, killing, consuming, corrupting. Click. Click. Click click. Something scurried beneath the cart.

“This is the fate that awaits the world,” the voices intoned. “This is not a warning. This is a promise.”