Alius slipped into the walls. Darkness enveloped and ensnared his senses. The feeling of oblivion always struck fear in him. This time the walls might not return and he’d never step into reality again. They always did. Like rainwater through a hole in a roof, he dripped into the past. Another version of reality in which he got to watch the torture of David and his old wife Elizabeth. This eternal corridor of suffering was his wish, a gift in the form of a curse that could only be cured by an old version of himself that could never forgive.
He formed in the study of the manor house. It was filled with junk and old furniture. The house was in its run-down state. Quickly, he retrieved a slice of torn paper and a drying vial of ink. He carefully wrote a note.
Loud growls and sharp screeches came from downstairs. Alius knew what this moment was. He blew on the ink, rolled the note up and pushed it into his jacket pocket. He then crept down and peered around the corner.
His old, living, barely sane self was brandishing a cluster of garlic, waving it before his furious wife. Elizabeth was backed into the pantry and down into the old dungeon. Elizabeth was the first to contract the blackness of the curse. It seeped through the walls of the manor and took her by night. She changed into a cold demoness.
Alius sneaked out of the house and out into the front garden. He closed the gate behind him and breathed deeply. “I pray that Elizabeth knows what she is doing.”
“Ah, Captain.” Jarrod waved, already on his way to the manor house for official business.
Alius nodded and smiled, remaining natural. He had already broken the one rule he had set for himself which was not to be seen. However, he had little choice in this case. “Jarrod, how can I help you?”
He looked somewhat confused, “You asked me to be here by the eighth hour. Did I go mad?”
“Not yet,” Alius smirked. “Come back in thirty minutes.”
Jarrod nodded and looked around. “Very well, sir.”
He watched the man waddle away then headed off the path towards the village under the cover of trees. He couldn’t move like he could in the other ring of this grim circle of hell. The curse had not taken hold fully and the walls still resisted the creeping evil that would soon twist within them.
Mr Potter’s house was dark from the outside. He tested the door. Locked. Normally folks left their front doors open, but the fear-mongering his past self engaged in had riddled the villagers with a deep-seated mistrust.
He looked through the window and shocked himself, his reflection stared back at him, eyes glowing. Shamed by his fall from grace, if he was ever in grace, he looked away and moved around the back of the Potter’s home.
The back door was the weak point, he was able to use an old metal rod to flick the latch and ease himself into the house. The kitchen was still warm from whatever Esmeralda had been cooking, it smelt great too. The house was sleeping.
Mr Potter slept on an armchair in the living room. He knew this for he told stories of his pregnant wife being disturbed by his snoring. The loud snorts proved that. He moved into the bedroom where Esmeralda was to be killed by her evil husband. Evil. That was what Alius thought of him, beyond forgiveness. Potter’s evil was so powerful that it motivated such a desire for hell even the server laid on the flames alongside him. God forbid the curse, he thought.
Esmeralda was sound asleep in the bedroom. The corner held the standing mirror and the bedside table had a melty candle flickering with a fading flame. What an angel she was. He approached and kissed her on the head while retrieving the note from his pocket. She smiled softly. Alius tugged on the blue ribbon that kept her hair up and inspected it, he wanted to keep it as a memento so very much. He sighed, placed the note in a drawer and tied the blue ribbon around the handle.
Esmeralda grunted and rolled over.
Alius stood dead still. He looked around at the dim walls and shuddered. He approached the mirror in the corner of the room and adjusted it. He was captivated by the man who stared back. He had let this woman with child die so many times. He had failed good people eternally for his own bitter revenge. Now here he was, standing in the darkness of a murderer's room, looking at himself, praying that just one time he could break the pathetic ceaseless predictability he had come to rely on for so long.
Alius shook his head and lifted the mirror, turning it around so the wood faced him. He used his claw to scrape: “Matthew 25:41”. He left the house and closed the door behind him.
Soon Mr Potter would awaken from his slumber and commit a foul act.
***
David tore through Greg like paper in the wind. He sent the man flying with a lacerated chest.
Another villager attempted to run him through with a spear but it was caught in David’s cruel claw. He yanked the spear and dragged the man into his embrace then ripped the flesh of his neck away to drink heartily.
Greg was trying to stand but his wounds were too grave. He was able to sit up for just a moment and reach out. “I forgive you!”
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David threw the drained husk to the ground and glared at Greg darkly. The other villagers dare not attack now after seeing his power. “What did you say?” he raised his eyebrows.
Greg was taken aback by the power of his words, they had stopped David mid-feed. “I said…” he groaned, “I forgive you.”
The vampire smirked, “You?” He growled, “You have no right to forgive me, for I did nothing wrong.” He walked to Greg and scooped him up like a child. “You will bear witness to righteousness, for it comes in the form of great power.” He buried his bladed teeth in Greg’s chest wound and drank freely. Once done, he let his body drop and turned to look at the cowering villagers who had not the will to attempt even the slightest jab.
“W-what are you?”
David wiped his mouth, “I am everything. You are a fraction of an existence that ceased to be a million times over.” His wings rose and he let forth a piercing howl that shook the village.
The villagers tried to flee but he pulled them apart as if they were nothing. He fed repeatedly, discarding the carcasses of the villagers. None of them offered forgiveness. They were paralyzed with fear and pain.
The remaining villagers hid in their homes and cowered while some fled into the forest to seek shelter under the trees, none were safe from the hunter's gaze. He set the village ablaze and smoked out the people. Some he fed upon, others he killed for the joy. His veiny belly shook with gluttonous revel, filled with the blood that he had taken so callously. He decorated the black willow with the corpses he made. The bodies swung in the wind.
Once he had gorged on the villagers within the inferno he took to the skies and swooping like a bird of prey to snatch up men and women who were running or hiding in the forest. He could smell and taste them. Each person he killed was carried back to the village centre and dropped from a great height. The cadavers splatted against the ground or were caught upon the unyielding branches of the willow.
The final man was caught just by the edge of the forest. David knew he was the last for he smelt no other life nearby. This was to be his final meal in this reality.
“Please, whatever you are, I beg you…mercy!”
“Mercy? God desires mercy, not sacrifice.”
The man was backed up into a tree, he raised his hands. “Please.”
“I am not God, for I demand sacrifice.” David’s voice had lost all humanity. It was powerful and gravelly. “You are the last. Are you not proud of your cowardice? You managed to cling to your miserable existence for a moment longer than the rest.”
“I have seen your evil, it brought me no pleasure.” He quivered.
“Then you truly are damned.”
***
“Enough, Simon. The walls are broken. The curse will call him.”
Simon nodded.
“Go and fetch him.”
“Yes.” Simon dashed out of the smashed manor house and left Elizabeth alone.
Elizabeth stood at the window and watched. Smoke rose from the village in great plumes. She waited. Twenty went by until she saw something. It was closing in at speed. Simon. He spun through the air toward the Manor house. Elizabeth managed to move from the window into time as he came crashing through. She dusted herself down and sighed. “Fine.”
She had gotten more adept at using Esmeralda's body, able to stroll down towards the village. When Elizabeth reached the village she stopped, mouth agape, eyes wide. The village was doused in blood and flame. The willow had become a wretched effigy to David’s new cult of eternal death.
David stood by the willow with hands on hips and wings spread wide. “You had some nerve sending that ghoul to fetch me. Offensive. Odious. Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth cleared her throat. “You broke my body.”
“Now you’re attached to another’s.” David turned to face her. His dark eyes glinted and his monstrous visage was difficult for Elizabeth to remain fixed on.
“Yes.” She bowed her head.
“Do you know who’s?”
“It’s Esmeraldas.”
David snorted out two gusts of bloody mist from his huge nostrils, “Esmeralda.”
“Yes, your wife. She was…you killed her.”
He looked at his hands. “I did, didn’t I?”
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes, “You have forgotten?”
“Why did I kill her?”
“You killed her for me?”
“For you? I killed for you? Before I became immaculate?”
Elizabeth nodded sadly, “We both played a part in this story, David. I am so sorry to have put you up to great evil. Do you forgive me?”
“Forgive you? What should I forgive you for, my dear?” He swooped up and landed before her. “My dear.” He took her hands, “You have made me greater than I could possibly imagine.”
Elizabeth looked down. “We are forsaken, trapped to relive this nightmare for eternity.”
David shook his head. “No, I know a way out. Both of us can leave.”
Elizabeth did her best to shroud her thoughts and the smile that had crept on her lips. “You do? I only know of the walls. I have had Simon bring them down.”
“Yes, the walls. The walls are the answer. We came from the walls and so we shall return to them. That fool, Alius, he thinks to trap us there.”
Elizabeth tried to respond.
David gripped her by the chin tightly with his blood-soaked claw, “Alius.” he looked directly into her fiery eyes. “Where is Alius.”
“I…” she struggled to speak, “I do not know.”
David’s thin, blue lips twitched, “You are lying.” he squeezed her face tighter.
Elizabeth grabbed David’s wrist. His strength was nothing like she had experienced before, not an inch of his fibre gave way. “Please, I do not know…he went through the walls I believe.”
David lifted her from the ground, legs kicking. “You disappoint me, Elizabeth. In my blood haze, you thought to play a trick on me.”
“I am sorry, my love.” Elizabeth choked out, “A-Alius told me to keep you away from the walls, he ventured into them to prevent you from entering.”
David growled, “You sought to hide this information from me. You lied.”
“It’s what I am best at, David.”
“You do not deserve to worship me.”
“You cannot kill me, David. I am already dead.”
David laughed, “Right you are. I have a special place for you though.” He flew beside the great willow and impaled Elizabeth on the topmost branch. “Here you will rest. Think about your betrayal, it’s all you have left.”
Elizabeth reached out weakly towards David as he flew toward the manor house.