The Thousandth Year || Merlin fanfic

Merlin- Avalon

So... I accidentally discovered Once Upon a Time on netflix. Oops.

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**8 months later**

I guess now I should say what happened next, although I don't want to. I should describe how the bodies began to pile up, no identities, no family, and people began to be afraid. I should explain about those few outspoken survivors, stubbornly believing in someone the universe said didn't exist. I should recount the four trips me and Arthur took to the cave of the silence, each with some new innovation or idea, each as fruitless as the last. I saw three men consumed by the silence, although intuition says we began the quests with a lot more.

The white goddess protected us each time, not enough to remain conscious- each time we tried to attack the beast, we convinced ourselves we had defeated it, before either travelling to Avalon, or our loved ones returned to earth. Every time was slightly different, and every time we swallowed it without thinking. I'm not sure if that was part of the magic, or we just wanted it so desperately to be true, that we did not wake up until our entire squad were taken, and it was all we could do to get out of there alive.

We spent our days pouring over old texts, from huge volumes to the smallest scrap, our desperation rising. As did Arthur's sorrow. Although he would never admit it to me, I could tell he missed Gwen, and I could not help but hate myself for taking her from him.

Arthur hated the reading too, but me and him were the only ones who could still look at words of magic with our souls intact, so he had no choice.

"I'm a warrior!" He would rant, throwing the latest volume against the oaken table. "Made for war chambers and battlefields, not a bloody library!"

We moved the books into my place at Knighthallow: if only us could read them anyway, it didn't matter where they were. As the world fell apart around us, Arthur and I created something of a routine. Weekdays, we'd stay at the flat, and I'd teach Arthur to shoot, or become target practise for him. We'd do research, then crash on the couch for a film and popcorn. If it wasn't for the chaos, descending in tattered rags around us, I would have loved it. But the world was sickening, and it seemed we could do absolutely nothing about it.

The world population was 6 billion, wasn't it?

It was around 5 and half billion. Hadn't it always been like that?

The morgue's had long since run out of room for the bodies- it wasn't uncommon to pass corpses in the street, ghostly smiles still haunting their features. And although few were lucky enough to survive an attack, everyone one knew to be scared of the men who weren't men at all, who wore military dress, but had no faces, only a vague nightmare of twisted flesh, and wielded power beyond imagining. Far beyond my measly talents.

The 'government' was a joke. Police were more often than not the ones committing the crimes. Anarchy and blood ran through the streets like water, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Arthur's frustration continued to mount, as did my own. Before, I would have trusted in destiny, in the prophecy that promised me my vengeance and my peace, but I had learnt my lesson there. Destiny didn't care. The good guys didn't always win.

We go over the prophecy a hundred times, turning the words over, searching for new meaning.

The Pendragon, Emrys's bane
Is arisen once more
An end of Emrys's pain
A gift given fore.

A foe diminished again
The end of Silence shall forever ring
Magic, finally lies slain
And the crownless again shall be king