We Are: Waking The Fallen

9: The Capture of Death; Past

It is to be noticed, that this event took place not to long before the current time I am narrating from, but it was a time where both of our Warlords were young, though old enough to fight. They are both alive at this point, so very, very alive. So very, very fragile.

Gore-crows dived from the sky, attacking the dead in vicious swarms of pitch-black darkness, shifting like a silky fabric. The crows violated the dead that could not be saved by the few survivors of that battle. 

The crows were ruthless: No body remained untouched but their assault. Eyes were plucked from skulls and swallowed. Limbs pecked and prodded, ears ripped and pulled. Red blood pooled out of the new wounds and dripped lazily onto the the already stained floor.

There was a low, but piercing sound that echoed through the plains filled with the dead. The gore-crows cawed a harsh response, and many, if not all, gathered around one mutilated, broken and blood body. The body had shattered bones stabbing through the white skin of the creature it used to be once. It had no eyes and no gender that could be seen from it's mangled form. The wretch was bald, but bloody furrows in its scalp showed that he hair had been ripped. Their ears were pointed, but not as far as a Thorn Elf's, the tips merely angled at the tips.

But as the crows gathered around it, the form lifted, repairing, reviving itself. A black cloak wrapped around the still bloodied form, but just before the hood fell over its head, a face, a face of nightmares could be seen, a face without skin or flesh, with no teeth or eyes or hair. A face with no muscle. Only bone, only bone formed in the incorrect places. For in the place of where a human's eye would be, you could have seen solid bone, but where a human mouth would lie, was a gaping hole. There was nothing. Void. Gaping emptiness of pure nothing. 

The hood slipped over the figure of bones, and it was masked from sight. Only one gore-crow remained, the rest all formed the new creatures body, as well as the mangled corpse.

"My, my..." It shook its head mournfully. "Filthy humans. Inadequate at killing neatly. I have to harvest the tortured souls." The figure sighed. It was not clear out such a thing could utter any form of language at first, with no mouth tongue or lips.

But it was the crow; the gore-crow uttered the creatures words in a twisted and distorted and forced way. The cloaked figure shook is head and began weaving words through the crow, the words making no sense to anyone. But ethereal forms began forming around him, forms like the souls of the dead, hundreds, if not thousands gathered around him.

But that was when a girl, with ears like a human, but the other features of a Thorn Elf; the angled eyes, the white hair, the eyes that looked older than herself; appeared, atop a horse that looked ready to collapse.

The cloaked figure began to disperse back into crows, but it was too slow.

The girl had trampled the ethereal souls, making them seem to evaporate as they were crushed under the heavy blows of a fatigued horse. The figure screamed in agony, but the sound did not come from the crow this time, but from the void inside the figures skull. The scream was deafening, blood curling, and spine shivering. Any mortal being would suffer if they did not pass out immediately, from the pressure of such a noise. It as the scream of millions.

No, it was the scream of everyone, everyone who had suffered through their deaths, suffered and not been able to return. Suffered and forced to watch their loved ones die. Suffered and died all over again.

 The girl, though, smiled. The scream did not effect her, and the cloaked figure looked on in horror. It had no choice left. It could not escape. It need the souls of the deceased to ferry to the world where the grotesque creature belonged. The girl knew this, just like she knew how to protect herself from the screams. 

The deformed creature spun around, as more and more children and teenagers rode forth on their fatigued horses. The cloak that covered the creature billowed in the wind, that the children created, chanting to themselves. The wind grew ever stronger until, eventually, it forced the cloak off of the creature.

It was bone white and seemingly sexless. Its back was tattooed with the wings of a raven, pitch black against the white skin. The creature had no skin covering its hands, so they were completely skeletal. Under the cloak, it was wrapped in a grey fabric, torn and tattered, that was open at the back, revealing the tattoo. It was bald, and instead of where it's eyes should have been, were too spirals, which when they were large enough to reach the position of the ears, which, for the creature, were holes, similar to that as the void of its mouth, and the spirals straightened and curled around the back of its head, ending in a large spiral the the bad of its skull.

The void in the creatures face widened and it screamed, louder than all of the souls of the dead, more piercing than the combined caws of the crows, but still the children seemed unaffected but the noise. The creature stopped screeching, and stepped backwards as the first girl advanced. But it crashed into the other side of the circle of children. If the grotesque thing had eyes, they would be filled with fear, as it spun around, trying to keep up a defence from the circle that had it surrounded.

The first girl climbed off of her horse and the figure shrank back as she approached. "You may call me, The Dark Lady." She smiled sweetly and stepped closer. The figure's form flickered into an image of a human man, then back again, as if the form couldn't be held. The Dark Lady smiled and tossed her beautiful head. The figure's form wavered again and settled for a tall, handsome human. Again, they were bald and sexless, and had the same tattoos and outfit, but they had stunning eyes and figure; their skin was pale, but had more colour to it than before, and they were muscular. Their eyes were stunning and nearly white, and they had a beautiful smile. He stilted his head.

"You may know me as..." Their voice was monotonous. They hesitated before finishing their sentence. "Death, I suppose. If that pleases you." Th Dark Lady's smile broadened and she made a swift motion with her hand. Th children behind Death dropped something heavy. But Death saw it coming and weaved out of the way and shrieked; similar to the noise they made before but no where near as loud or as high pitched. A frequency that everyone could hear. The Dark Lady covered her ears, as did the others. Another object went flying at Death, however, and hit them in the back of his skull. 

His human figure shattered, and the small, fragile, white form returned as it fell to the floor. The shriek was cut off and Death lay on the floor, unconscious. The Dark Lady smiled and kicked Death in th side. They just rolled. The Dark Lady motioned again, and boy lifted Death onto his horse.

"Now, my friends, we will be immortal!"

The Dark Lady, so many years ago, met Death on a battlefield, here many people died. But Death is weak of body and mind. His only job is to offer sanctuary and nothing else. It is a sick notion to remove the one who collects the souls from their job. Doing so only mans people will be brought back to life without choice, and in the same form they were in when they died.

The Dark Lady has stolen Death, and people began to notice something was wrong, when someone who seemed to be dead for weeks, suddenly woke up, disorientated and sick. 

Even from the current time I normally narrate at, Death is still her captive, weakening more and more as more people are revived. If the Dark Lady is not stopped, Death will wither away, and no new form would be created. No one would be able to die again. 

Even now, if your time line, Death hasn't fully recovered from their ordeal under the Dark Lady. 

Spiral. The Hoarder, the Keeper, the Shield.