Ghosts Prologue
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The Great Fire rose across the Earth, destroying all life…
The Great Fire crept swiftly and killed all living things in its path…
Some expected its coming, others did not.
Most were obliterated, few survived and those that did were scourged with disease and plagues…
Deadly and wicked tribes defied one another, splitting and creating more ferocious groups.
Defying each other, they slowly descended into madness until a power, enlightened them.
Generations upon generations came and went…
They rebuilt, but fragments of the old world remained. Nothing was ever the same again.
But the new world began…
A new dawn had come…
They became barbarians, savages who had forgotten civility but in the end became like animals ripping into each other and tearing down everything good, destroying all in their path…
Some survived and those who did came out of hiding and began to lay together and reproduce. Mutants filled the earth. Deformed vile creatures who maliciously haunt the new lands.
But those who have been born without deformities rose above them and clashed with their ancestors and other ruthless tribes formed…
These are their stories…
BEGINNING
Nothing was as it seemed.
It was a time of planting and harvesting, farming and hunting. It was a time of tribes and chieftains, war, and death. It was a strange time for a strange world, brutal and unforgiving breathing merciless rage across the savage Northmen Land.
Across the Land of Nala, in the dead of winter by the Northern Mountains, the cold air blew swift as lightning down the back of a young man named Malcolm.
He dug ferociously and diligently. He had dug deep into the earth and kept chucking dirt until his back was frozen and his legs were weary. Standing on the cold snowy day, Malcolm gazed at the burial place. He dropped his shovel and it fell in the icy snow as his hands and feet became numb. Bundled up with his blue skull cap and dark trench coat with his brown leather cowhide boots, his golden hair rested on his large forehead and was smothered into his blue eyes. His large nose was frozen and his thick pale hands shook.
He needed more firewood to warm himself before he continued. Gathering the wood in his arms, he clumsily brought it inside the small wooden cabin. He caught his boot on a nail sticking out of the doorpost and fell. Slipping on the floor but stoic, he managed to rise to his feet and collect the fallen wood. The kindling was inside. Slowly, he gathered some and started the fire under the hearth. He breathed on the small flames. Adding the logs, they grew as he gazed into the fire.
Malcolm didn’t want to think about what he had just done.
The face. He could still see his face.
The wind howled against the window violently.
It startled him. Turning, he saw that there was no one there and suspiciously tended to the fire. Finally, he added some larger logs and went to change his boots. The soaked ones he left by the fireplace as he tried on the new ones he had brought with him some months past. He wondered if he would need an extra pair.
Glad I brought them, he thought.
The warmth of the fire melted Malcolm’s freezing hands. Before nightfall, he was determined to finish that hole. He hadn’t had much to eat today and didn’t have time to hunt. The stale bread was all he had.
Putting on his cap, he went out into the bitter cold. It was getting worse outside. It felt as if some evil spirit reached down inside his throat and was clutching at his spine. The wind blew like bricks straight in his face. Malcolm thought a scarf or some kind of mask would do him well.
But as he walked out in the frigid evening, the face of the man came into his mind. The man who had come to the cabin to kill him left a mark in his mind’s eye. The scarlet corpse lay in the white snow. And the boy’s scarlet heart lay in his white bone-dried body.
What had he done? But this was righteous, this was his training. Nothing seemed to matter at this point. But he must bury the body. He had to give this man a proper burial, no matter what he had done.
Swiftly, Malcolm began to dig once more. He kept shoveling until it seemed a good depth. He picked up the corpse and carried it over his shoulder into the ditch. He jumped down in the hole, then placed the body carefully. He saw the gash across the man’s throat which he had given him earlier. He winced, got out of the hole, and began to fill it with dirt and snow.
Over the burial, he placed a rock to designate the spot. He looked over at his sin and saw the crimson-tattered face.
The man, whom Malcolm knew to be one of the prisoners that had been sent to kill him, was so fierce. The prisoner was going to kill him if he had the chance. The eyes were wild with fury, but beneath them in the black pupils, Malcolm saw that he was terrified. Deep down he sensed the man didn’t want to die just as much as he didn’t. He knew the man had no choice, just as he. But it still seemed senseless.
Malcolm went inside and warmed himself again by the fire. Above the hearth, there was an inscription carved into the wooden wall that he had been gazing at since he had traveled here. What is Man?
What a strange question. He was a man, he knew it, but everyone called him “boy this, boy that.” You were a man once you passed the Council’s test. Once you had been out in the dead of winter at the log cabin trying to survive the elements. Then you were a man! But how strange it all was. Malcolm had been training for years and this was the final test.
Malcolm bowed his head and sighed. He took a deep breath and then remembered the book. He fetched it and sat down and read by the fire.
It was a small paperback print that was poorly made. He figured it was made here in this cabin. It was titled Why? on the front cover. No author.
He began to read chapter two.
Why must these men of the Council bring us out here before Winterfest? I know it is to gain survival skills, to make sure we are ready for battle, but why must they send men to kill us? It is barbaric. They speak of what is right, and what is noble, but deep down evil runs through their veins. They do not know what is good. They say they do, but truly they do not. Does anyone? Is any man free of evil? Is there one person who is truly righteous? I think not. I know not. These walls tell tales of wickedness and woe. Murder and malice are within them. I must leave this place. It haunts my very soul.
Why must we fight? Our enemies, they say, are evil and barbaric, but I have never witnessed the enemy at all. I do not know them. Why must we fight them whom we have never seen? Whom we know nothing about.
They live in the woods and feast on animal’s flesh, but does that make them evil? They say they have killed and raped our women, but I haven't witnessed those kinds of acts in my lifetime. They have never stormed our borders, they have never even crossed the outer reaches. But I have heard of stories of soldiers killing and torturing and molesting the Enemy. What savagery. I do not think I can ever fight in this battle. In this invisible war. The real war is inside our very village, inside each of our hearts and we cannot win this battle because no one is righteous...
Malcolm didn’t finish but kept his eyes on those last lines and read them consciously. He looked up and saw the fire fading. He stoked it, wrapped himself in a blanket, and sat down to the warmth of the orange flames.
What was the author trying to convey? These were questions nobody had ever brought up. The author had a point, but it seemed like an attack on his people. He shouldn’t promote this kind of talk. It was propaganda against the Council. This was an attack from the Feuding Families of old. It was an attack against the Truth itself.
But whoever wrote it, seemed to make sense. These were questions Malcolm grappled with himself, but never would he dare ask them. Especially of his father.
Oh, Father. How he wished to see him now. He had grown so much since the last time he saw him. He missed him dearly, but he would see him soon. He had to endure his final test. But just like the author, he hated it.
He was seeing the back of his eyelids so went immediately to the couch and snuggled up with his blankets.
Awaking to snow falling from the roof, Malcolm shot up and thought it was danger calling out to him, but as he checked his surroundings he found he was safe.
Rising, he ripped apart the bread he made last week, stretched, finished with pull-ups, and changed quickly. He arranged the room, tidied up, and put on his winter coat.
The cold was bitter. Just as frigid as the day before, maybe worse. His breath blew in the gray sky. No sound was heard except his footsteps in the snow. Life was nowhere to be seen and it looked like it might snow again today. He cut some more wood and chopped away until he was all out.
Trees don’t cut themselves down.
He traveled quite some distance out in the woods with his axe and found a solid and beautiful tree. He felt its bark and heard the crackling of its branches. Snow lay heavy on it. Icicles hung low like long fingers stretching out to capture him. He stepped back and was about to strike when he heard footsteps running straight for him.
Turning around, he saw a man coming straight for him. He didn’t have a lot of time, only a few seconds. He sprinted in the opposite direction.
Malcolm’s heart raced and perspiration froze to his rosy cheeks. Full speed ahead, he rushed and he wasn’t going to stop. The man, he could see, had a big blade in his hand and he wasn't stopping any time soon it seemed.
Malcolm stopped and decided to face his foe. His heart continued a mile a minute.
They both circled each other ready for the other to make the first move.
“You don’t have to do this,” Malcolm begged. The man lunged at him without a word. He escaped the blade. The man swung again, but Malcolm deflected it with the handle of his axe and pushed his weight off him. He staggered back but came back quicker than before.
Then the prisoner swung at him as they struggled for power fighting violently and with tenacity.
“Please don’t do this! Don’t make me do it!” Malcolm screamed at the top of his lungs, fighting and deflecting his swings. The boy’s arms felt like wax; he was becoming weaker.
The man stopped to catch his breath, “It doesn’t matter. I’m already dead.” He looked defeated, on the verge of tears. “If I kill you, they kill me anyway. But if we both surrender they’ll kill us both. In the end, it’s all oblivion.”
The prisoner lunged again with fear in his eyes and cut Malcolm. He staggered back and the man went for his throat, but Malcolm hit him instead with the hilt of his axe. The prisoner cursed and held his face which was cut and bloodied. His eyes grew big and wild with rage. Malcolm held his arm while the man regained his footing.
Malcolm afraid of his foe and what he might do to him went for him, axe in hand, ready to strike. He pierced him in the gut and released the sharp blade as his insides came oozing out.
They both fell silent.
Malcolm fell back onto the ground and dropped his weapon. The man tried to pick up his intestines and put them back inside, but it was futile. His mouth filled with blood as he spat.
“You truly are a barbarian. Just like the rest of ‘em. You’ll do well, soldier. You’ll do well.” He laughed and sank to the ground as his eyes fluttered and went into shock. On the scarlet snowy ground, he slowly and painfully died.
Malcolm remained silent and horrified at what he had done. His body dropped to the ground as he went into the fetal position and lay there until he fell asleep.
He woke up and hurried inside. He was freezing as he quickly made a fire. Warming himself, he put on a pot of hot water for coffee and drank by the fire.
Suddenly, he heard a knock on the door. He brought his ax, opened the door, and saw someone familiar. Someone whom Malcolm hadn’t seen in a long time.
“Father…”
“Malcolm,” the burly man said softly as he came in and closed the door. They embraced and Malcolm dropped the axe with a clink on the wood floor. They held each other for a long moment. Malcolm felt safe in his father’s arms. All of his troubles left him as he was held.
“I missed you, Father.”
“I missed you, too, but it’s over now. You have completed your training.” His father beamed at him. “You’ll do well, soldier.”
Two more men entered to Malcolm’s surprise.
“Quintus, Desmond!” He embraced them.
“Man, it’s been a while! You look like horse shit!” Quintus laughed. “Mason, we’ll clean up this mess. You and Malcolm go on ahead. We’ll be right behind you.”
This disturbed Malcolm greatly. “Clean up this mess.” The mess was the bodies, the blood, and the innards of man’s flesh. Disgusting, it all was.
“Thank you, men. Soon you’re gonna have to call me chief.” Mason winked at them.
“Don’t push your luck! Not just yet,” Desmond said. “You’ll have your day.”
“Father, is it true?”
“The day after tomorrow, I will seek Counsel with them. But enough of that. We must be going.”
“You’ll do well, soldier.” The two men said to Malcolm and patted him on the back.
Those words haunted and hummed in his ears. They stayed with Malcolm on the journey home to his village reminding him of the man. He couldn’t close his eyes without seeing his bloody face. The throat which he cut.