Fated Faith?

Stories have no beginnings nor do they ever end. Storytellers bring you in at arbitrary points of their story and have you leave abruptly, allowing you a short glimpse in the lives of the characters and share in some of their joy and sorrow. The story existed before we joined and will continue to exist after we have gone. So come gentle reader and let us join a tale already in progress at a disreputable tavern on the outskirts of a dark wood (don’t most stories?). One would expect a tavern such as this to be populated with all sorts of unsavoury characters engaged in shady undertakings with the atmosphere one tense breath away from a brawl. This however is not the case as you walk inside. There is but one patron that you can see, and at a closer glance he seems to be a distinguished looking gentleman albeit with his face hidden in shadow. He seems to be enamoured by the play of light across his table as the fire flickers and dances. He is not important to you and thus you look away and see another in the shadows, teeth glinting in the dark as he leers and beckons. Making sure your sword is close to your side and your dagger is safely concealed in your sleeve, you cautiously make your way to his table. He grins once more at your apprehension and passes you a mug filled to the brim with some sort of steaming drink. You take a careful sniff and drop in some powder, which the apothecary has assured will nullify all poisons. One cannot be too careful after all.

A thin rasping laugh arises from the old one’s throat and his watery growl echoes in your ears, “Easy child, If I wanted you dead, you already would be.” Your voice sounds quavery to yourself as you reply; “I trust no one, least of all you.” He looks at you once more with his piercing eyes and states quietly, “Far be it from an old man to tell the youthful what they should do. However, I trust the job I requisitioned you for has been adequately completed?” You give no verbal response, and silently pull an object out from the sack by your side. His greedy hands grab it and he looks upon the face of your dead king. He kisses the cold forehead and a tear drips unnoticed down his cheek. You wonder about this strange old man who commissions a kill and then weeps at the sight of his dead quarry. This ceases the second you hear his cracked voice ring out across the empty tavern, “Oh my son, why must you still hurt me so? Why did you make me do what I had to do? How many times must you break my heart?”

At the end of this lament, the man you saw as you walked in has moved to your back, his face hidden beneath his hood. You feign ignorance and watch his hands from the corner of your eye while still keeping an eye on the man who is crying over the son he has killed. You notice a glint of light and in a flurry of movement you are out of chair and twisting in the air. Your dagger flies out from your hand and smacks into the hooded man’s head. The next instant, your sword is in your hand with its point touching the old man’s neck, who does not even glance at it, his gaze intent on the severed head between his hands. You hear a rage filled voice shout, “What in the five hells is going on?” and are startled to realize that it is yours. He looks up at you and replies in a weary voice, “I cannot let my son’s murder go unpunished.” You gape at him like he has grown another head, “You were the one who commissioned me to do so!”

“Be that as it may, I must still avenge him.” With that the old man thrusts himself forward, your sword sheathing itself in his neck. A fountain of blood gushes out, flowing over the head of his head, as a sort of final offering. You shake your head at the madness of the world and sheathe your sword. You turn to walk out and realize that the room is spinning. It seems to be hard to breathe and throat is constricted. Your limbs lock and you fall across the body of the man who tried to knife you. Your last coherent thought is one of admiration and you have the give the devil his due. The old bastard really played you and planned out all eventualities, for the dead face staring at you is of the apothecary you went to this morning. After that you know no more. I must apologize dear reader, for I have led you astray. I claimed that stories have no endings and continue on, but some stories do have endings, namely your own. They’ll dump your body in the morning.

All is Illusion

Illiterate I wait,
for these letters to take shapes.
Forming words that do not satiate
the appetite of my hate that drapes,
bodies in the dull light of the moon.
She begins to swoon,
the carnage too much for her to bear,
as he walks away without a care.
Life is dying slowly.

Just felt like it.

yeah, I did and now i'm posting it. that is the all:

What is hope?
The lack of despair.
What is despair?
The Overburdening of Sorrows.
What is Sorrow?
Too Much Hope.
What is Hope?
The Sun rising again.

You know what they say.

Sometimes, words are not enough. Sometimes, there’s nothing that will ever fill the empty gaping hole in the middle of one’s heart. Sometimes, there’s nothing there at all. You’re kneeling beside a body, the blood staining your jeans, and you look at the pale face and the unfixed eyes of your best friend and you can’t even bring yourself to cry. All you feel is a cold emptiness and a surge of rage. A cold rage, like the biting winter wind, like the edge of darkness, like the vastness of space. In the end, there’s nothing there but vengeance. All humanity is stripped away, leaving nothing more than a bitter icy core. Looking up at the mocking eyes of the one who has stolen more from you than anyone ever could, you can’t keep yourself in check. Your arm moves of its own accord, whipping a blade at the sardonic face. It’s blocked with ease, but that was only a diversion. You have followed in the shadow of the blade and have your sword raised to even the score. You reckoned without his speed however, and you are parried. He is something more than human, something beyond mortal reckoning, and in the end you have become the perfect counterpart to him, for you are less than human now.

He has power and wisdom on his side, all you have is an icy anger that keeps you alive through all the wounds you have suffered. In the end, it’s not enough, it never is. Anger can only take you so far, keep you going only so long. You are spent, and nothing remains. Sometimes, apathy is a stronger force than anything under the stars. You’ve already lost everything and there’s nothing more to lose. Nothing matters anymore, and in the end, a life is nothing more than a bag of bones and flesh. So you attack with reckless abandon, heedless of any consequences. You parry an attack with your left arm, losing it in the process, however it gives you an opening and you take it. A head falls upon the bloody ground. It is not yours. Your vision however begins to blur, your knees buckle, and you fall upon the muddy ground. You dimly feel water on your face and it tastes of salt, it brings back memories, but you don’t care any more. Sometimes, you just want to be alone. Sometimes, death doesn’t bring the release you wanted. There’s no sense of satisfaction, there’s no sense of despair, there’s no sense of rightness that you’ve done something that needed to be done. Sometimes, there’s just emptiness. Sometimes, that is good enough. Sometimes.

Goddamn Convies!

Gunther Lipwan was in a good mood today. He had just finished a mission with his fellow warriors in the port town of Andalar, and had garnered quite a bit of loot. He didn't have any of it left now, but the taverns and whorehouses had given him quite a welcome before. And now his squad had been chosen to go through the portal to some backwater world and cow the natives. It was another chance for his men to shine, and perhaps pick up some of the native girls while they were there. Yes indeed, Gunther Lipwin was a happy man.

The new day dawned bright and clear as the men of Task Force alpha checked up on their automatic weapons and prepared for their journey through the portal. Lipwan signalled his troops and they marched through the portal in an ordered formation. He needed his troops to maintain control till they had sufficiently scared the natives, then the looting and ravaging could start. He felt his nerves tingle as he traversed through light-years and arrived at the backwater world the spooks were calling Kalak. It didn't look that different from home, though it did seem to be technologically backwards. The portal had opened onto a highway, and it seemed that the natives still drove hydrocarbon fuelled vehicles. He was further surprised to see that there seemed to be some sort of welcoming comittee waiting right by the portal. One of the natives detached himself from the rest of the group and bowed towards Gunther's men. He spoke something in his own tongue which the translator translated roughly as: "Welcome to our fair world, hopefully you are here on missions of peace and trade and will not try to disrupt the harmony of our planet."

Hearing this caused many of Gunther's men to burst out into raucous laughter. He put on the most innocent expression he could on his face and said: "Of course not, we come to raise up your world to the level of our own." After this he shut of the translator and added in an undertone, "Kill him." A bullet shot out from the back ranks, striking the native who had spoken in the face. A second after this, Gunther shouted another command, "Shoot at will!" and a hundred men opened fire upon the massed natives who had come to attend them. Acrid smoke filled the air, and Gunther Lapwin noticed a distanct lack of horrified screams. As the smoke cleared, he saw why. There was some sort of shield that had protected the natives from the hail of gunfire and that annoyed him to no end. Why had the spooks not told him that there was magic upon this world? Well, he had come prepared in any case, and got ready to order his men to switch weapons. His words got caught in his throat as the shot native got up as if nothing untoward had happened and started speaking in Gunther's native tongue.

"Fuck man, did you have to do that?" he said, as he spit out the bullet that had been shot at him. "See, now I'm going to have to kill all of you, and your petty little weapons can't do anything." Gunther started to panic and tried to order his men to fire all they had, "Fi--". He never got to finish, b/c the next thing he knew was that he was on the ground and his midsection felt really wet. He looked up at the native who had gutted him and the latters maniacal grin was the last thing he saw.

---------------------------------------------

Hamil Anderson sat peacefully amongst the carnage he had wrought, picking up choice pieces from the soldiers that had been slaughtered. Some of the uniform pieces and heads would have to be sent through the portal to tell the Calamanci just how much Earth appreciated their hostile actions. Whistling a soft tune under his breath he walked off in the direction of his car, uncaring of the blood dripping down his coat or the viscera that coated his hands. Hamil never worried about such small technicalities.

This is a new begining and an old end.

It depends,
said the angel as it descends,
upon the milk of human kindness.
The beginning is a kind of madness,
said she with obvious glee.
Make of it what you will as you flee
from the fires of desire,
and become one with the heavenly choir.
Keep it with you till the end,
for the beginning none can comprehend.

Merry Christmas! (sorta)

His mouth was full of blood. He could taste the coppery tang and realised that he was not long for this world. This just hurried his steps as his mission had to completed. He navigated the myriad pathways of the ancient maze in search of the antechamber. They were not more than five minutes behind him, and they could not be allowed to catch him. There it was, the antechamber he had spent half his life searching. His life's work was almost accomplished. He collapsed through the doorway, his blood coating the ancient runes. At the touch of the briny liquid they burst to life, becoming edged in blinding light. Behind him, his enemies howled in impotent fury. He breathed his last in peace, a smile caressing his dead lips. The changes that started in the antechamber took little time to show their effects in the world above. In a few minutes, all the pollution upon the earth was wiped out. The dying earth was returned once more to its pristine state. Extinct species breathed once more, while dying biomes gulped a fresh breath of life. All began to live in harmony. Another subtle change had begun even before this. All feelings of hate, jealousy, sadness, defiance, and any negative emotion had been wiped from the human psyche. The human genome had all deleterious mutations removed and was ironclad against any future mutations as well. This ensured that the human race had stopped evolving. Everybody had become happy, satisfied and nice, due to the very changes made in them. He had wrought Utopia, but at what cost?