Creus(Full Book)

Part 1

 ...The Prophet seemed to shine above, but this was only an illusion.

He looked away and ahead.

The sun glared down at everything below. Sunlight flooded the desert, and rays peeked their way past the clouds. The animals hid in the shade and drank from puddles.

Thousands of footprints led toward the mountain. All remnants of the Prophet. David followed them. He winced as the heat beat on his back, blinked from the sand around his eyes. Below, the sun-baked mud cracked with every step and the scents of cooked clay filled his nose. Sweat dripped off him and onto the ground.

Lush forests full of animals once stood here. Blue rivers had run through these stones. But now, in its place, a dry, isolating, desert had buried paradise, with the ground crumbling beneath his feet, and heat streaming in the air and wavering in blurred lines. David used his crusted hands to push through the sandy winds and squinted to look at the sky. Yesterday's winds had stopped, as sand had swept through his hair and beard, and whirlwinds of yellow buried him in the sand. But the sun didn't hide behind cloudy layers. Instead, it shone in full view.

David strode past cliffs, approaching a village. Crowds surrounded it, following the same footprints as he did. They walked along with him.

All of them followed the Prophet, who owned armies of followers that marched behind him. They asked for cures, things they could hold, and to change them. They blessed him, they listened to him, they learned from him. Stronger horses, dogs for comfort, and pigs for food. The Prophet held the answer to all things.

He walked past the tawdry huts, leaning roofs, and low winds that breezed past him. He saw the highest pinnacles of humanity in brick houses that stood against the wind, people dined and laughed. He saw the highest falls of humanity in fallen homes and crawling half-dead people, who begged for food as they reached for him from below.

David walked to the middle of the village. He stood in the bricked square under the soft sun. Nobody was there. He heard nothing, but the sounds of twittering birds.

Something reached his nose. He curled his lips.

David held his nose, closed his eyes. He remembered it, the smell of a village far away.

The smell of death.

It continued into him, emptying him of his previous joy. He pulled the water out of his bag, drank the contents, and sat down in the middle of the village.

Ahead of him, he saw a pit. The smell of death... With bodies, thousands and thousands contained inside the jaws of the Abysm and buried near the Abyss, where the demons lay and tore at the joints and sinews of the dead. Salgon peered at them with ever-watching eyes, the Nalrath tore the corpses in half and collected their ears, and Salugren used venomous fangs that rotted the flesh.

But, he held no witness to those things. Bodies were burned without regret and shame. People revolted. People ran, screamed, escaped, and ignored those corpses. They escaped the Plague. They revolted against kings and conquerors, who sat on golden thrones. He held no witness to those things.

He had already traveled far away from them. Away from the dead, who stared with empty eyes, and away from the drunks who sang. Inside, he dreamt of worlds inside his mind. All dreams, he held close inside his memory.

Death and death to the millions.

What was the world with people who rotted away for years, collapsing from the plague?

There was no use for death in his world... Years passed quickly... People rotted away in his eyes...Unrelenting death, no use in the world, then no use for this world. There was death, and there was life. In the middle were the memories and the dreams. The truly great things that disappeared at the end until all were useless. All was useless! In the infinite plain of dreams, worlds, and people, he was the smallest thing. The minute detail. The piece of dirt. A death in millions.