World's End

Chapter Twenty Four

They were running.

They were always bloody running.

And Marissa was getting tired of it. Pestilence was always nearby now, him and his horse chasing after them. He was purposefully holding his horse back, not racing to catch them but following them enough to keep them on their toes, preventing them from getting any sleep, keeping them moving. It was like he was waiting for something but Marissa could only think that maybe he was just waiting for them to give up. But they didn't stop moving. Even when they thought they had lost him, they hadn't.

There was one perk though, to having a Horseman tailing them, aiming arrows, and firing at them when they slowed down.

They didn't get attacked by any other creatures. They saw them, more of those creatures they had first encountered with the mouth faces. They lurked in the background, hissing and spitting. There was a few times when some of them looked like they were going to make a move on them but the Horseman would make himself known then and they would slink back into the shadows. But they didn't seem to be leaving, they followed behind the Horseman, a small army amassing behind him.

"This is exhausting." Marissa panted as they ducked out of view and down an alley way. There was a river that they were contemplating jumping in and hoping that if they went with the water, the Horseman would leave them be. But there was no knowing until they tried.

"Just... One of you shoot me, please. I can't ... I can't keep up another day of this." Ellie Rae gasped as she came to a stop and put her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. She had dark bags under her eyes. Four days of being awake, of running.

"We just need to sleep, that's all. No one is shooting anyone just yet." Jax yawned as he said that and squeezed his eyes closed and opened them again widely. They were all struggling. Ellie Rae looked at the three of them.

"How are you doing this? You guys don't even look tired."

"On the contrary, I'm about to pass out." Lincoln swayed where he stood. Marissa moved to steady him as he swayed a little too far to the right. He jolted, eyes opening as Marissa pushed him upright. "Thanks."

"We can't stop now. He's not going to stop and even though I would love to know what his game is, we can't give up." There was a wild look in her eyes as she said that. As if to remind them that he was still following. An arrow whistled through the air and landed at their feet, causing them to jump.

"Okay, I'm awake again." Ellie Rae said, shaking. Marissa groaned and looked to see Pestilence and his horse at the end of the alley. Marissa grimaced when she was that around him, oily swirls of darkness curled around him. She shook her head and slammed her hands into Lincoln.

"Run! RUN!" She urged, screaming. They didn't question her desperation, instead just did as they were told and took off again. Marissa heard a low chuckle in her head and she smacked the side of her, as if trying to knock it out with brute force. She had seen those dark tendrils before. In her dream vision. Pestilence had used them on Adonis and Dalton. It hadn't been a pleasant experience to watch and there was no way she was sticking around to feel it for herself.

Pestilence watched as they disappeared again and he recalled the tendrils of ill back into his body. It took a lot of energy to put them on display, to frighten the children he was tasked with following. He patted his horse's neck, stroking its mane. What had he done to be assigned this pesky business while his comrades were off on their own missions.

Ah, that's right. Because he was the one who was at fault for young Marissa. He had cursed both his and hers existences for the past twenty-four years. Then things had turned disastrous when Jaxon and Lincoln had spurred into existence. And now they were all together with the quiet one, Ellie Rae, and they were determined to get answers and stop the end of the world.

Pestilence spurred his horse into a walk, going down through the streets. He knew where they were but he was in no rush to catch up. Give them a few moments to catch their breaths again. They were no use to him dead.

Well, they were but the Chancellor and passed on strict instructions from the Master that they were not to be killed. Or dead. He wanted them alive, for whatever reason. When did they start taking orders from a human? He shook his helmeted head and sighed. The whole point of ending the world again was so that they could have some fun, do it their own way, with no instruction from the Creator. Pestilence looked to the sky, knowing full well that everything they did was being watched. Why didn't He intervene? Why didn't He just do the same thing as last time and do a Rapture two point oh?

That's right. Because free will.

Pestilence, however grateful for freewill, wished very much that his brothers had not elected to take a separate path from the original Design. Because if they hadn't, they would have returned to sleep and enjoyed a blissful sleep without interruption.

But then they had been discovered. The Master's predecessor had found them one day, asleep in a cavern deep below the citadel. He hadn't told the Master, keeping his discovery quiet because he know that if the Master knew about the Horsemen asleep under the Citadel, he would rise to tyrant. He had always had mad ideas about the world Pestilence always thought it was genetic- his family before him holding the idea that there should only be a perfect, unflawed race of people. To bring around the end of the world again would be an opportunity to do this.

So when the Master's predecessor found them, he had done the one thing he could thing of that would incapacitate them without actually knowing if it would do anything. It had been a stroke of luck and a probable intervention from the Creator that the man did what he did. When the Master finally discovered them, that was when it had all turned. He turned on the predecessor and killed him, fuelled by rage that this had been kept from him for so long. When the Horsemen were awoken by the Master, they found that their plan was no longer theirs, it was his. He had taken role of master over them and was able to by...

Pestilence shook his head as he thought back. The Master was insane, that was a certainty, and he had been from a young age. Pestilence was grateful for what his predecessor had done when and they had been given no choice. The Creator, if he was right, had done them both a service and a disservice. None of them had full access to their gifts, leaving them weak and malleable in the Masters hands. But at the same time, he did give them free reign to cause destruction and reign terror over certain lands. War and Death were having the time of their very long lives. The Master allowed them to wreck chaos and now that his plan was starting to move into certainty, as they got closer to doing what needed to be done, he was now giving them orders on what to do and where to go. They went like pups, eager to please and excited to kill.

The Master had not been pleased with Pestilence. Which was why he had been assigned the role he had now. Follow the girl, follow the boys.

He knew this for certain, his brothers would be joining him soon. They were at the Citadel now, getting their instructions. His bones vibrated as he felt the decisions being made. As soon as they arrived to join him, they would move to take the humans and bring them back to the Master. And then he would be able to join his brothers in the quest to find what had been stolen from them and return to their full strength and bring the world crumbling down.

Then, he would have peace.

But now wasn't the time for peace, War reminded him. Famine had concurred. Death had merely stood there, leaning on his scythe as he watched out over the masses of people within the Citadel. The four of them had stood there while they waited for their orders.

In the beginning, Pestilence had taken to his role with glee. He enjoyed concocting and infecting people with new plagues. His favourite had been the Bubonic, the name the humans giving it had brought him much joy. But as the years passed, he came to detest killing people by making them sick. He didn't care too much about humans dying. They were meant to do that. But he wanted more.

Which was probably why he enjoyed working in the Master's laboratory, creating twisted experiments while the Master had perfected the perfect human.

Pestilence's sword began to vibrate at his side. He looked down at it and reached his hand across to pull it out and pointed it towards the sun. The metal blade shone and, although no longer perfect, a metal shard missing from its edge, still sharp and beautiful as he held it to the air. It hummed, a homing beacon. He smiled.

His brothers were coming.