[ Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: The Storyteller
Date: 16 May 2000
Time: 07:46:06
Usually the park would be a place of quiet, easy joy, somewhere people would go to have their lunch on the grass while looking at the children playing. Today only a single child is playing, picking the leaves off a small bush. He feels empty, bored, he is about to go home and watch tv. Deep inside his brain tissue, a spectral hand takes great pleasure in wringing the last drops of self-loathing and fear out of the boy's state of mind, before it's too late. The hovering spirit would remember its own childhood, if more remained of its mind than the rudimentary details on pain and agony. Such as how quickly children repress their suffering.
The shade lets its talons slip out of the boy's head, and drifts off to catch up with its fellows, those that are blind to anything of the skinlands. The band of souls writhing its way through the park looks more like a single mass of black ooze than a collection of individuals; in the shadowlands, the hatred and frenzied pain the group emits would send any wraith on a one-way trip down the spiral of hells to the Void itself. They slither and leap forward with determination, towards the distant heart of the Necropolis ahead.
Lance could pick out the black mass from a hundred yards away, the noonday sun illuminated the city enough for good visibility. His arm twitched and flickered a little, he was losing connection with his corpus as the fear he felt fed the voice of his shadow. A voice that was thick and heavy, and urging him to flee back home where he'd be safe and would never have to worry anymore. About those black, serrated claws slicing through his ribs and on through his head, like he had seen one of the bastards do to a legionnaire once. He had always wondered what happened after you fade away, like he did. They would never talk about it, he had tried to get it out of them enough times that he didn't have to ask anymore.
He looked over the phalanx he and his cohort formed. The rest of them were probably as affected as he was, losing faith in their existence, though many of them were veterans. The spectres were getting closer now, the faces of those in front lit up as they saw Lance and his group. His companions noticed as well. Several of them drew their weapons, and Erikson kneeled and took aim with his rifle. A few seconds later a jet of green flame shot from the barrel followed by a thunderous crack. One of the spectres fell backwards as the rest pressed on, close enough that their formation started faltering. Erikson's gaunt face grimaced as he started to reload, but it was too late. The first doomshade hurled itself at him a second later, an improvised axe in its hands as it swung the weapon in a ferocious arc, disrupting the phalanx completely even as the legionnaires fell over it.
The shade watches with glee as the first of its brethren clash with the legion troops sent out to greet them. It loves the terror as the screams of the dead fill the air, both the frenzied wailing of the attacking spectres and the agonized cries of the wraiths falling before them. The air is thick with dissolving plasm, the shining blades and batons of the legionnaires holding their own, cutting down many of the shadow-eaten that are careless in their lust for battle. The clear whitish plasm that passes for blood fades quickly on the blades and claws that are soaked in it today. Tomorrow, nobody will know, living or dead.
As the shade skips closer to the melee, it hears the tiny voice weeping once again, begging him to stay away this time. It answers by pulling the heavy revolver from its belt, and waving it in his talons towards the dwindling number of combatants. Two, three times he fires, the maggots that pass for bullets screeching towards random targets in the battered mass. Two of his own fall to the shots, but they are winning anyway. A single wraith is hit, a man in a sports jacket and sunglasses, and he falls pathetically to his knees clutching the wound. The shade walks over to him quietly, ignoring the weeping, and puts the revolver away. As he looks over, three of his brethren are tearing a lone wraith limb from limb while waving his own sword in the air. The voice weeps in unison with the frantic breathing of the wraith before him, and without knowing why, the shade pulls out the gun again and sends a maggot-bullet spiralling through the wraith's sunken head. The corpus slumps over and starts to fade away even as he is approached by a skeletal member of his band, sporting the massive razor claws of a killer. They glare at each other fiercely for a second, the hive-mind speaking wordlessly, and the remaining spectral victors resume their unstoppable stride towards the Citadel gates.