SHIFT: Book One: HORIZONS

One: Void

I STAND MOTIONLESS in the center of the road. The hot sun beats down on my wounded shoulders. I spread my arms and lean back, embracing the temporary warmth. I let the sun's deadly rays burn my skin, for I know that the sensation will soon be gone.

Below me, the ground is hard and dry, for all dwindling remains of moisture that may have once soaked patches of it have disappeared as steam into the scorching atmosphere. My abused feet support me barely. The pain is excruciating, but I enjoy it.

Behind me is a trail of bloody footprints, and black flames drift into the sky from amidst the remains of a distant civilization. Cadavers litter the dark path, but I can't remember how they got there. Undead demons lurk in dark places.

On my right, a quiet and withdrawn shadow manifests into a winged beast with huge claws and two heads. Death and destruction mark its trail. It has no soul. No heart. No love. It was created by dark means to fulfill a single vain purpose.

On my left, an angel falls to her knees as her once pure white wings turn black and dissolve in the wind. Her eyes change from bright blue to a sick yellow, and the pupils narrow and elongate to form thin, black vertical lines. Her lush, dark hair turns pale and gray, and it falls out in dead strands as her once soft and beautiful skin cracks into dry, flaky scales. Her body grows thin and long as the limbs fall off and transform into a million black insects that scatter in every direction. A forked tongue pierces her now stone lips to reveal several rows of razor sharp fangs, and the serpent slithers away into a dark abyss.

As I shift my gaze from the monster to the sky, the sun fades away behind a thick layer of black clouds, and the warmth goes along with it. I become cold. The ground cracks in shock as a layer of frost instantly covers it. The previously blue sky turns gray and ominous, and the ash and snow fall together in a dark harmony. A blanketing shadow engulfs the world, and I look forward.

And I see myself.

I see neither sky nor ground. I see no light, and I see no dark. I see no black or white, and I see no color that resides between the two. There is no life, and there is no death. There is only nothing.

There is only what I am and what I have always been. There is only what I do not wish to be but must be. Or, in a sense, what I mustn't be.

I see a VOID, an emptiness in a space that otherwise should've been filled with things unspeakable. For I am Nothing.

But I am Everything...

I guess the future is just unwritten.

I take yet another step forward, and leave behind just another bloody footprint...