Mark walked through the bar section of the Adventurer’s Guild.
It was abandoned; not a soul occupied the previously packed hall. There were drinking glasses which stood half full on tables, plates of food lay where their owners hadn’t finished them.
Whatever had caused everyone to leave in such a hurry had been important enough that they had left their possessions. Mark even saw a wallet on one of the seats he walked past.
He had thought that everyone paid for things using little golden coins, and yet when he opened it he saw an ID and cards. Mark felt a growing realization.
He was being lied to.
The gold was one lie at least, and why anyone would make that up? This person had some sort of credit card.
Mark had to wonder, was the gold connected to everyone’s disappearance? Why had his things been taken, while everyone else had their food and drinks still here? The question on whether he should scream and attract attention, or hide from an unknown threat weighed on his mind.
What else could they be hiding, and why did it need for him to not have armor or weapons?
He walked outside and immediately identified a car parked in the middle of the street, a dark colored van that resembled something built for a family with plenty of room for occupants.
Mark turned and saw no pedestrians, no one glancing through a window, there was no one walking into shops or scowling at customers. He walked into the street and peered through the van’s window to be greeted with empty seats.
Though the seats were empty, he could see a purse next to where the driver would sit. Going around the car he noticed something a little more daunting.
The keyes were still in the ignition. The doors were all locked.
And there was a handgun on the floor, near one of the pedals. If it was being stored it would be in the purse, or maybe on someone’s person or even in a hidden compartment in the vehicle.
Instead someone had dropped it on the ground and then disappeared from their locked car before they could even take the keys out.
Whatever had taken these people, had it simply decided to spare Mark?
Or had everyone abandoned him for some form of testing?
Mark knew they needed to run tests to determine his capabilities, to ensure that civilian casualties were mitigated. Were they checking to see if he had some kind of money ability?
Was he being tested for survivability?
Was that why Zirrilit had disappeared, had she been taken?
Right as he started wildly searching for an imaginary threat he heard a slight crackle from the van and refocused.
“Extraction. This is Home. What is your read? Over.”
It sounded like a radio. Mark peered back into the car until he finally noticed the small handheld device partially concealed by the rear seat.
“Extraction. This is Home. Do you read? Over.”
Mark pulled on the handle to the car door and found it locked, he then turned to look for something to smash the window out with.
“Extraction, this is Home. We have been cut off from the area. Something is preventing entry. Human-like entity has been spotted approaching one of our blockades and-”
The radio cut out, and as it ceased crackling Mark was left in erie silence. The birds had gone quiet and even the trees stopped their ever present shivering in the wind.
Human-like entity? Mark thought, did they mean that as in… Appeared similar to a human, or did they mean that as in it resembled entities associated with humans?
Or was none of it real? Was being given just enough gold from stupid quests to purchase armaments real?
When people told you teleporting and learning to shoot lasers from your eyes was possible it made sense to believe whatever anyone told you. Now it stood to reason that maybe the researchers would want to know what kind of armaments humans would default towards.
Mark backed away from the van and nearly tripped on his robes.
He tried to organize his thoughts and watched as every light he could see suddenly turned off. The buildings sat dark and silent, the streetlights were no longer lit and there would now be nothing to protect him from the oppressive darkness come nightfall.
The lights in the van flickered for a moment before it too laid in darkness.
Mark realized something was messing with the electricity, or whatever power source this place used.
The buildings took on a new tone as the windows sat like dark paintings, no longer revealing the interiors but instead only allowing for unseen or assumed figures to look out. They littered the structures surrounding him like the dark pupils of monstrous insects.
Mark felt exposed, standing in the middle of the street. He had no weapons or armor, and there was no one to come to his defense. The hairs on his neck began to rise as he felt a presence, something that he couldn’t see but could see him.
The human tore his sight across the town in vain, knowing he would never see what was haunting him.
He needed a weapon, like the handgun locked in the van.
He needed a method to contact someone, like using the radio in the van.
I need to get into that van. Mark concluded, he began to feel fear in a way he thought he had never felt before.
Even the slavers hadn’t made him feel like this. All thoughts of this being a research experiment were banished from his mind as he put a finger on the emotion.
The angel. This place felt like his clouded half memories of the angel.
It was hard to identify why. The shadows looked darker, the rare specks of light contrasted the horrors he knew lurked in the dark. Scavengers drawn to the wake of a metaphysical predator.
His breath quickened as he searched for a rock, finding only small pebbles and pieces of gravel. There was nothing he could use to reliably smash the window out.
His eyes were drawn towards the treeline a ways past the town limits, surely there was a branch out there somewhere.
Mark turned, glancing one more time at the dark buildings. Looking at the sun he realized he didn’t have long until nightfall. He made his way towards the edge of town walking down the road. Never allowing his sight to leave the edge of the next house, expecting all manner of horrible things to leap from the alleyway. Hiding from the exposed street that divided this town.
There was nothing, just a dumpster and a side door to some type of restaurant.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
He continued his vigilance and at the end of the next house there was nothing there either.
Then he felt eyes on the back of his head, he turned around so fast that he almost lost his balance. His footsteps slammed into the asphalt as he steadied himself, leaving echoes to break the dead silence.
But as always there was nothing. The town was empty and he was its only occupant.
There were garbage bins which took the form of metallic cylinders. Lone trees and groups of shrubs broke up the monotony of the empty dead houses, and every so often he would see another vehicle parked in the middle of the street.
He passed a bakery, multiple restaurants, and multi-story houses. There was an empty carriage designed for a beastmaster beside a fully electric car, a shovel stabbed into the ground beside a small half dug hole in someone’s lawn. So far he hadn’t seen a single living creature.
There were no ants and no spiders. There were no small rodents running through the brush. And certainly no monsters.
The fact that he had seen nothing didn’t calm his nerves and he turned before realizing.
There was a shovel in the ground.
It was all the way across the street, so he picked up his pace. His hurried shuffle transformed into a panicked run. The man’s footsteps announced his presence to anyone or anything who cared to hear it.
He reached for the shovel and gave it a tug, then braced himself and pulled hard enough to rip the tool free from the thick and stoney topsoil.
Mark stood holding a chunk of flattened and curved metal attached to a five foot stick, the only thing he had which he might put between himself and the darkness.
It calmed him somewhat. No longer was he an unarmed victim to whatever was stalking him.
He took a breath and came to terms with his situation, obeying the most primal instincts he had he came to an understanding.
Something was watching him. His hairs were standing on end because he knew there was something malicious in the shadows.
He had never even considered entering one of the buildings or that cart, whatever it was and wherever it was he knew it was in one of those buildings.
Mark took his shovel and began to make his way back to the car, the van which he identified as valuable.
The atmosphere was still tense. The windows were still evil, but now his reaction was to tighten his grip on the shaft of his newfound weapon instead of cower.
Mark found the van he sought and raised his shovel in a two handed grip before bringing it down hard enough to lodge itself into the glass on the driver’s side window.
He flinched as the echo tore through the silence, having thought it would shatter the glass.
Tugging for a moment, he tore the metal head free and in the same motion caused another violent noise that broke the dead silence of the world around him.
He raised the weapon again, shifted his stance and threw everything he had into another strike.
The glass shattered.
For a moment Mark was elated, and then the car began screeching as an internal alarm went off.
“Fuck. Fuck!” Mark responded without thinking. He froze in panic before rushing to unlock the door and enter the vehicle.
He snatched the radio off the ground and began twisting knobs, he tried to listen over the alarm but as far as he could tell he elicited no response from the device. Mark stuffed the radio into his armpit before going for the gun.
As he stepped back from the car, heart pounding. The noise was bad and every instinct in his body screamed to get away.
Mark turned and ran directly into someone, he screamed as he hit the ground dropping his treasures. He scrambled for the gun and took aim-
What could only be described as an angel smiled down at him.
A normal angel, it appeared as they had always been described to Mark. A person with wings and a torso with only two arms and two legs.
They had a normal number of eyes and hair that was the color of-
It was a normal hair color.
Mark felt his fear melt away, the same way he felt a presence watching him; he could feel that this creature’s intentions were pure.
It smiled with the glee of a laughing babe and yet also possessed the approval of a gruff old man. The winged creature stood, a perfect simultaneous copy of every human who ever was or will be.
He could see it now, its hair had a brownish, blackish, blondish and reddish hue with highlights of every color Mark had ever seen. Its skin was the tone of any human who had ever walked under the sky. Its eyes were like windows revealing a soul older than the universe itself.
“Are you okay, human?” It asked. “I heard the glass break, were you injured? What transpired here?”
Mark was stunned and struggled with words for a moment, the sudden concern the creature elicited filled him with guilt.
He had damaged the vehicle, its alarm had stopped the moment the winged creature drew near but the window was still broken.
“I thought there was something dangerous and I-” He swallowed the lump in his throat, “I broke the window so I could get these.” He held the gun and the radio out, the creature pulled them out of his hands and put them back into the van.
Mark watched as the window reformed itself, shards floating off the ground and perfectly aligning themselves before melding into a complete pane of glass.
“I’m really sorry, I was just worried that something was going to happen-” Mark started.
“I find that humans often make short-sighted decisions based on fear.” The winged creature didn’t even turn to look at him, staring at the van. “Oftentimes humans harm others and think nothing of it so they can help themselves.”
He shrunk back, “I didn’t mean to.”
It growled slightly, “Do not lie Mark. But if you seek safety, I can guarantee life eternal. Follow me.”
Its irritation fled and with that it began walking away, moving with perfectly measured steps like a dancer. It walked without pause or doubt, neither looking back to see if Mark would follow nor glancing about to intercept threats.
Mark hurried after it, fearful that without this holy guardian this place would go back to its dark nature.
It went into one of the buildings, what appeared to be a warehouse, and Mark followed it there too. He expected to get lost, or to at the very least lose sight of the winged creature in the synthetic abyss that was a windowless building with no artificial lighting.
But that was not the case, as the shadows refused to touch the guardian, it remained uncannily in his sights despite him not being able to see his own hands in front of his face.
Eventually, after several minutes of walking, Mark worked up the courage to ask a question.
“Are you an angel?”
“No.” It answered without hesitation. “Do not confuse me with them, for I am not a soldier. I was designed to help people, I was made in the image of God, just like you.”
The answer gave Mark courage the same way it goaded his curiosity.
“How come we never see you? Why am I only being helped now?”
That elicited a sigh, and for a moment the figure did pause. Its aims grew uncertain and it began to look at its hands, seemingly confused on where to put them. Mark felt regret for bringing such sadness and uncertainty to his savior.
“God does not like it when I go anywhere. He says it is too dangerous.” It began, but it could not properly explain. “I was made so long ago, back when God was a God of harvests and sunshine, Of smiling children and hospitality. He was once God of everything that anyone could ever want for.”
It smiled as it reminisced, an infectious smile that made Mark who was standing four feet away feel ecstatic just for looking at it.
Then it frowned and that mere action tore Mark’s smile away too. “He made us before he learned war. I once looked just like him until he changed, and I cried for a thousand years until I could not make tears anymore.”
It was more than the story, its expression was infecting Mark and its emotions were so intense it was transferring some of them to him just because he was looking. His eyes began to water and he brushed a tear away.
“He says it is too dangerous for me to leave, and so he never lets me go. I snuck out to find you Mark, because you are the only human not on Earth. The only one he can not watch perfectly. He wishes he could but there are so many beings here that it becomes difficult to force his will without… Complications.”
Mark nodded, God was on Earth and thus this being was free to be here.
“Do you think you can help me find my friend?” Mark asked. “She was supposed to wait for me, but I can’t find her.”
The winged creature smiled, “Of course I can, I love to help others find what they should have.”
It grabbed his wrist gently but with an unbreakable grip, like a perfectly fitted vice, and began to move at speed through the pitch-black darkness.
Turning his head, Mark saw the light created by the doorway shrink until it disappeared completely before turning his head forwards. It maintained the fastest movement speed Mark could reach with eerie precision and adjusted whenever Mark felt himself needing to slow.
He ran what should have been a thousand warehouses of distance, yet somehow never left this one. Eventually, he saw a light in the distance in front of them and it began to grow larger until the two of them entered a well lit room.
It was bright enough Mark had to shield his eyes and blink rapidly until he could adjust.
“Zirrilit! Zirrilit, could you come over here please?” The being called out as Mark quietly wiped at his eyes.
“Mark!” Zirrilit cheered and ran out of the crowd. “Mark, you made it!”
Mark opened his eyes and saw her, along with the other townsfolk, standing within this brightly lit room. There were rows of stone benches lined up with a podium at the opposite end of the room.
“Mark- You missed it, they baptized us in the water in the name of their lord! I had to hold my breath and now I can see!”
Mark looked over and saw what she was pointing at. Behind the podium, behind the basin they had placed the people into to bless them with faith…
There was a hole in the air, a doorway that led to nothingness.
Zirrilit lifted Mark and took off towards that doorway, she began speaking, “I asked and they said your God won’t let you get anyone else’s blessing, because you shall have no gods other than Him, but if you get close maybe you can see too!”
She gazed through that doorway and saw all that she could have ever wanted.
A place with no wars. There was no death and no pain unless you wanted it. There was nothing but what you asked for.
There were naked people, dancing around in an eternal festival. There was food and gold flying through the sky.
Mark looked, but he had not been ordained with the sight that being wished for everyone to have and so saw nothing. There was no light and no darkness, everything was equally visible despite the contradiction.
There were naked people, clad like romans draped with tan and pink cloths around their waists which they held in their hands and their skin was bright red..
Mark realized they were not holding cloths at all, but rather that they were holding their own skins tightly around the remnants of their flayed bodies.
He saw a realm of nothingness where they had asked to have everything torn off just so they could feel something, anything at all. Coins and food and treasures, everything that anyone had ever desired rained from the sky but eternally out of reach despite being close enough that they could hope to one day catch one.
Mark looked into Hell, a dimension of suffering created and hidden in the place between worlds. Mark had not received the blessings of these malicious godlike beings and so he saw what this place would mean.
A dimension where time stood still. Where you never aged. Every second of reality was an eternity in there.
A ragged scream tore through the church devoted to monsters, he backed away not even realizing it was himself that could not stop shrieking.
“What is wrong Mark?” The winged creature tilted its head, its wings blacked and charred draped across its back. “The lord wishes to bless his followers for what they wish more than anything!”
Zirrilit saw it, even in this place they were pushing each other despite the lack of ground. Swarming to get to their lord. They were screaming his name and raising their hands towards him cheering, shrieking.
Screaming. They never stopped screaming.
Mark saw them attacking each other over every inch, scrambling and warring in a desperate race towards the dark throne. He saw that horrid monster with a crown reach down and select a winner.
He saw that dark lord reach down and pluck one of their heads off.
And they both saw that it was everything that thing could have ever wanted.
“Why are you doing this!?” Mark screamed while turning, full of betrayal and fear.
He saw his answer in the winged creature’s eyes, those dark ancient pupils.
I hate you.