Provinces & Kingdoms

Part: 4 Believe In Death?

¤Author's note: Dedicated to TheWilliamBecker and Chaserjinx8065 for inspirational reasons.¤

"To fall down means only to stand up stronger..."

A dark, blurred shape was heading towards me. Its tentacles moving awkwardly, as if trying to reach me and touch me but being prevented from doing so by some invisible force.

I couldn't see much, only blood. Lots of it.

The thick, deep red liquid oozing over my body and running into my eyes, mouth and nostrils.

Gasping for breath, I spluttered the crimson fluid from my mouth. I could taste it around my teeth as I prodded my gums with my tongue.

Where did the blood come from?
What happened to me?

I panicked as I realised that the blood was actually running over my hands and neck. It was gradually rising and what once was a pool of rich red around, was now a tomb of blood.

I watched as the thick, sticky substance flowed over my arms and legs, my toes and face were still free from it, but not for very long.

I realised that my body must be fixed to the floor so that I couldn't escape.

As the blood began to run over my face I noticed a little black blob moving.

Then, as the dark shape I saw earlier, which is now more in focus, the little black blob was joined by others.

The 'hand' was trying to cover my face to prevent me from breathing, but it was still held back by this unseen foe.

As many more black things appeared, I saw that they were in the blood, rising out and creeping over to my bare skin that wasn't covered in the blood.

As one crawled on to my cheek I saw what they really were... Flies.

Big ones, this one I could see clearly enough to make out the massive compound eyes. An eye made out of thousands of smaller eyes, but despite this fact, files, in general, are actually poor sighted and therefore had another pair of normal eyes on top of their heads in addition to the compound eyes.

It's feelers were tapping lightly over the bridge of my nose.
I dared not blink for fear of attracting the minibeast's attention.

It began to crawl up my nostril.
I could feel others following it up my other nostril.

The blood was now just covering my mouth and with the flies in my nose, I had not way of breathing.

The dark, ominous 'hand' managed to break it's invisible boundary and reached down to me...

The blood gushed over my now, oxygen-thirsty, shaking body.

More files covered what was left of my pale bare skin.

I closed my eyes and excepted the inevitable.

The hand pushed down on my chest and smashed my bones, the sound of my inner organs mixing with blood, flies and shards of bones made a sickening, wet, crunch.

The hand pulled out my main, blood pumping, organ. My heart.
It was covered in a thick, black, sludge of dead flies and blood.

A Darkheart...

I jolted awake, my heart pounding inside my chest.

Had I been screaming?
I wasn't sure.

Was it real, did it happen?

Or was it just a dream.
If it was, what did it mean?

I got up and splashed freezing cold water over my face and chest.

I came into focus as I stared at the mirror.

I saw a fair-haired boy with blue-grey eyes that had crow's feet even though the boy was a young man...

The scar that stretched across my body reached from my left collar bone, ran in between my pectorals and touched the top of my right hip bone.

This scar is my personal secret.
My older brother accidently dropped a sharp knife on me when I was a baby.

It cut me.
And as I grew older the silvery piece of skin stretched and grew with the rest of my skin creating the now huge scar.

I was pulled from my mirror-gazing as I heard the familiar knock on the door of my room.

The younger ones' job was to wake the older kids and notify them of the morning's presence...