Trail of shadows

Slave onto himself

Cold.. 

That's all he could feel

The numbing taste of bitterness and melancholy stained every fibre of his being, a comforting pain in his world of inconsistent madness. His tattered boots trudged along the mangled path, crushing dead roots beneath his feet to fade to ash and death. The long road continued for some distance, no way he could make it in a day and he knew it. 

With a fatigued and distorted groan he turned to his left and slumped down at an old rotting tree that drooped over the path, like a mother over her newborn child. Taking this moment of rest he looked around, scanning his surroundings and trying to find his bearings. But to no avail, the thick fog and smoke continued to billow from all around, only warded off by the pale golden light of the lanterns, scattered across the plains. The faint silhouettes of fallen buildings dotted across the hills ahead of him, remnants of a past long forgotten and unknown by outsiders.

His faded red cloak's hood draped over his face, the expression of pain and sorrow carved into his hollow skull. The cracked skin forming dark rings around his eyes. His vision hazing before falling into the darkness of his mind. 

-He shot up, the swirling abyss surrounding him and coating his vision in the ebony veil of death and despair. Looking down he saw the faint silhouettes of several bodies beneath him, reaching up to his floating body and murmuring, their deep voices crying in unison, "we cannot escape our paths... only draw others to merge their own".  Their murmurs began growing louder and louder the sound of their wailing echoing across the black void he floated across. As the noise became a static mess, a blinding white light poured through his sockets a blinding haze. 

Suddenly the world zoomed into focus, there he sat in the rafts of a galleon. The groans and cries of the chained soldiers surrounding him. His back arched as he felt the sharp pain of a whip lashing against his exposed back, the blood trickling down his spine and staining the cloth around his waist. Flinching at the pain he toppled forward and collapsed on the tattered wooden floor, "Stand up mongrel" The fat slave master snarled glaring down at the collapsed slave beneath him. "What is your name maggot?" The burly man asked threateningly, "C-Carthus sir". The knight stuttered while standing up before feeling the solid force of a iron cased fist colliding into the side of his skull, his jaw cracking as he stumbled back down to his knees, dark crimson blood spurting from his mouth as he coughed, gasping for air, Carthus trembled before looking up at the sneering man looming above his shaken self. The slave master looked sternly down at Carthus, kneeling down and making eye contact with his sunken eyes, "Listen maggot, your name is nothing, a remnant of your past life, now you are an undead slave and nothing else, nothing more". The words sunk deep into the mind of the fallen slave, his will to exist fading into the numb state of his soul. 

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted as a blazing ball of lead shattered through the hull of the ship with a loud crash, splinters and embers flying through the air which was now smoggy with a thick lair of smoke. Carthus sprung up abruptly, using the side of his shoulder to bash into the slave master before ripping a gauntlet from the mans grasp and clanging it against the cast iron chains that clutched his ankles. As the overwhelming force of the ocean waves that flushed into the boat threw debris and drowning slaves against the sides of the boat, he cracked the shackles enough to pry them open and running in a jittery manor, clambering over the soaking seats and heaving himself up the ladder in the centre of the gallows. Looking back he saw the chaos of nameless soldiers having there chained bodies pulled from the gaping hole is the ship, he stumbled as the boat jolted backwards as the water began to capsize the galleon. Snapping back to reality he leaped across the floorboards and tumbling forward and avoiding the jabs of an armoured guard wielding a pronged spear. Not knowing what he would or could do, he just kept running, the blood curdling screams and distant sounds of violent explosions surrounding him and piercing his eardrums. As Carthus dashed up the steps to the main deck he saw the destruction and carnage that laid waste to the boat he was now sinking on, he saw the distant fleet of ships sailing away, their billowing red sails filled with the gusts of wind burning the image of hate into Carthus' eyes, he had nothing left in his world now, as the ship sunk down below the surface he walked over to the shattered mast at the bow of the boat, its haywire splinters and spiked out wooden debris held a tattered piece of red cloth, its tears and rips feeling reflective of his current state. Carthus plucked the scarlet sail fragment from the rubble and pulled it around his collar, dawning it like a hood, it felt warm, beckoning even, a light in the murky depths. He held it tight as the cold abyss of the ocean dragged him down and surrounded him with the enticing aura of the darkness, he closed his eyes waiting to die..

..

..

But then there was light.