Becoming a Beast

Drowning

The world was filled with darkness.

It surrounded him.

Embraced him.

Killed him.

And just when he felt he would breath no more, a light shone through the darkness, terrible and bright.

Shielding his eyes, he sat up. He drew his tattered cloak around his shoulders and stared at the light until tears streamed down his face. The light blinded him, but he could not look away. The earth was made of tar and the sky was filled with shadows. Nothing existed other than the light.

"Do you fear death?"

The voice was loud and he covered his ears.

"Do you fear that everlasting darkness? Do you fear having those icy fingers intertwine themselves around your heart?"

He pulled his cloak more tightly around his body and drew a shuddering breath, the fear of which the voice spoke invading his mind.

"I'm drowning." He whimpered.

"Yes." The voice replied. "You are drowning in your own fear. Fear fear fear. Fear is everywhere. You cannot escape it."

A sob rose up from his throat, choked off by his trembling fingers as they were pressed against his lips.

"How do I stop it?" He cried out. "Please...Please! Take away this pain!"

"Do you fear death?" The voice repeated.

Roots broke up from the black sludge that covered the ground. They intertwined themselves around his legs.

"Do you fear death?"

He whimpered pitifully. "I don't want to die." He whispered; his voice lost among the darkness.

A chorus of voices rose up out of the blackness, their voices crying out the same thing over and over again.

"We don't want to die. We can't die here."

The voice grew louder, overtaking the chorus of souls that had been trapped in the cold and the shadows.

"Will you make a deal?" The voice asked.

He looked up, tears falling from eyes that could no longer see and streaming down cheeks that could no longer feel. "A deal?"

The voice chuckled darkly. "Yes. A deal with death."

Whispers ran around the shadows like wildfire.

"A deal." They whispered. "A deal a deal a deal!"

He gazed into the light, despair colouring every word he spoke. "Will I die?"

The voice seemed to smile, although it had no face, no expression of any kind. "No. You will live forever- in a world that is all your own."

A desperate smile spread across his face. "Forever? I shall never need fear death again?"

"Never again."

He laughed, the sound echoing around the endless cavern of fear and despair. "This darkness...it is enough to drive a man mad. But...perhaps I already am?"

The voice seemed to smile again. "Who knows?"

The man raised his arm, outstretching his shakinghand towards the light. "Please." He pleaded. "I will make the deal with you, just take away this pain."

"As you wish."

And then the light vanished.

The darkness enveloped him, invading his body through every pore of his skin.

He tried to scream but the darkness had tied a rope of shadow around his throat. The roots tightened around his legs, pulling him down...deeper and deeper.

Two pinpricks of light appeared above his face, poised over his eyes. They fell down like drops of rain, burning his eyes as they fell inside them.

His eyes were gone.

No longer would he see the things that he feared.

Next came his body. The darkness covered him like a second skin; it was so cold he felt as if he was being doused in ice water.

Then he felt nothing.

No longer would he experience the pain he feared so much.

The roots climbed up his body, all the way up to his head, and he could hear the cries of the souls that had come before him.

"You fear to much. The deal is struck. The darkness is now forever yours."

Then there was nothing.

He awoke in a field, empty for miles around. A single tree grew in front of him, an unlit lantern hanging from its lowest branches.

"The deal is struck, you feared too much."

He ran his hands over his face, at first overjoyed to live once again. Then he stopped, his fingers resting over the monstrous face that he had been given.

No...

No no no no no!

"Why have you done this?" He screamed, his hands covering his face. "This isn't what I asked!"

"Do not question my deal!" The voice raged, its fury echoing inside his mind and the empty cavern inside his chest. "I did what you had asked of me. But by my terms." The voice was calm once again, simply an echo carried on the wind. "No one can truly come back. Once you are lost then the forest will claim you. But I have made you master of that forest. In a way, you are now the master of death itself. You must burn the wood of this tree inside this lantern. Or else your soul will go out. You may have power over death, but death never really lets anyone go. Remember that."

The lantern burst into flame, the cry of a trapped soul drifting out from inside it.

He put a hand to his chest and felt his blackened heart go still. It was cold, but he did not feel it. The moon was bright, but he did not see it.

"I am not alive." His voice trembled with anger. "This is not life."

He straightened up, his black cloak snapping in the wind. "But I will take it. I will grow and burn as many of these trees as I have to. I will own this darkness because this darkness is now all I have."

Cruel white light burned in the empty sockets of his eyes, illuminating his face for a moment before dimming down like the light of two dying stars.

"I will become a beast if that is what I must do to survive."

With that, he turned on his heel and walked off through the field, the grass turning grey and dying beneath his feet.