Poison in the Darkest Shadows

Prologue

The bony branches of the trees glistened with snow in the dark, evil night. A hunched over old woman swiftly walked over to the iced over pond. The woman was wearing old rags and was carrying something in her arms. As she hurried to the pond, a dark shadow passed between the trees. It had no specific shape, but it was obviously large with an unnatural feeling to it as if the evils of the world had come upon it's soul to cause it to be deformed. The wind howled on this cold, winter night. The shadow seemed to whisper to the woman something, as she suddenly turned and saw the creature. She screamed a loud, terrifying scream.

"Get away from me! Go back to the underworlds!"

The old woman tried to run, but her arthritic knees didn't allow her to go faster than she had already been going in the first place.

"Fool!" screamed the creature in it's unnatural voice, "You should have left when you could! Why save this child now? Hand it over while I still have my patience!"

The old woman cried, "You will never have her! Never!" as she tripped and fell upon the hard, rocky ground.

The creature hissed with impatience as it walked up to the old woman. It kicked her and her body landed with a loud thump on the rocks 50 feet away. It picked up the bundle the woman had been holding in her arms. As the creature turned, the bundle was revealed as a baby girl with large brown eyes that were so deep, they looked violet. She gurgled and smiled at the creature, innocence hiding the creature's evil from her eyes.

The creature wound up it's arm to seemingly throw her into the pond to drown a painful death, when the old woman stood up in a last effort to save the baby girl. With the last of her strength, she sprinted and leaped on top of the creature.

Shrieking in surprise, the creature pushed the old woman off him, but with an inhuman grip of strength, the old woman dug her nails deep into the creatures body. With a shriek of pain, the creature let out a fountain of a black, goo like substance. Suddenly, the woman howled a few words that no mere human could comprehend and a large dagger appeared in her hand. Using the dagger, she stabbed him over and over again, each time leaking more goo.

As more of the black substance came out, the creature seemed to deflate like a balloon loosing all of it's air. The creature, struggling, managed to sink it's fangs into the old woman. Blood gushing out of her, the old woman never relented in her attacks. The creature seemed to summon more of his kind as dark shadows appeared around it, threateningly. The woman didn't seemed scared at all, her eyes were a steely gray as she stoically persisted in stabbing the creature.

It threw her off itself, as the dark shadows seemed to give the old woman a push, and took out a sword with a flourish and said, "Woman, you want to fight? I will fight you, old fool. You should have left while you still could," With a gleam of shear energy, the old woman also grinned the grin of a mad woman and replied with her own swish of a sword swirling out of a sheath. She was ready to die as she though of all that she had lived for. Yes, her business on earth was finished, it was time for the next generation to take over this earth. She had seen her fair share of days.

With a look of determination, she growled, "Bring it on knuckle-dragger! I have nothing to lose!" The old woman truly looked like she was willing to give up anything, it was quite terrifying. With a flash of light, the two swords collided with a sound as pure as a perfectly tuned instrument. The ring shattered the cool night air. The two creatures seemed to dance into the night with their feet that were as quick as daggers and their body's formed the shapes of practiced swordsmen. Someone may have mistaken them for dancing if they hadn't seen the swords or the flash of determination in the old woman's eye's or the pure, gleeful energy that radiated from the mysterious creature.

The creature had an inhuman speed in it's strokes but the woman managed to counter each attack. For a while, it seemed like the old woman might even win. The creature seemed to never tire as the fury in the old woman seemed to diminish, the creature seemed to gain the upper hand. It stabbed and stabbed, until it finally broke threw the old woman's defenses and cut off her money bag. Surprised, the old woman finally let her steely face flash a look of fear which quickly hardened into stone.

The creature gave out a sound that sounded like a high-pitched uncontrolled giggle with a large portion of hysteria and with a last flash of speed, he struck down hard with his sword. The woman managed to partially dodge this stroke, but the sword still hit her sword arm hard. She just tossed her sword to her other arm at the last second and continued fighting, seemingly oblivious to the sure pain that came from the creature's poisoned sword. They battled on through the night until the woman suddenly seemed to trip over herself and fall. The creature, as prideful as it was, did have enough sense to know that such things didn't just happen. After all, the ground they fought on may be rocky and they were tired, but could such a thing really happen right now? It walked up to the old woman to investigate.

Suddenly, the old woman jumped up and stabbed the creature hard. It seemed to collapse. Their was a liquid on the sword that wasn't the goo of the creature nor the red blood of humans. No, the old woman had put poison on her sword and had poisoned the hideous creature. The creature spit up tons of the black, revolting goo. The old woman wasted no time and put the creature in a choke hold and started stabbing it again. She was relentless in her attacks.

With a final roar, the creature pushed itself up with obvious pain in his movements and shrieked it's desire, pain, glee into the world. Such a cry would have stunned the hardest hearts but the old woman seemed to be invincible as she launched her attacks on it with a new found force. The poison she had infected it with was incredibly painful and would had made a regular's person's heart writhe from the pain and bleed. That unfortunate person would die. But unfortunately, this creature was no mere human.

As they battled on, they both received many wounds. The creature seemed to heal right in front of her eyes. The old woman looked like a zombie with all of her wounds, but she fought on.

"Woman, give up! You can't win to the unmatchable power of I! You are just causing yourself more pain!" The old woman searched deap within her soul and thought of all she held dear, all that she loved, all that she found strength in and funneled all that strength into one action, stabbing this creature. She had done the unthinkable; she had sold all that she had cared about in her soul to the devil for strength. She was indeed the most selfless person in the world.

Finally, the creature collapsed. The old woman, the fight gone out of her, also collapsed with black muck covering her entire body. The old woman writhed with the pain of her many wounds to both body and soul as the life was slowly squeezed out of her. With one final gasp of air, the old woman gave in to death as her spirit floated up to the heavens.

Dark shadows surrounded the baby girl and slowly lifted her away, away, far away.