InvisionFree gives you all the tools to create a successful discussion community.
| QUOTE |
| A man, alone, yet not. Darkness all around. The sounds of sirens, white and red flashes. Distressed voices barking out commands dinstinct yet muffled. Consciousness coming and going. Screams of both ecstacy and agony combining together in an almost chillingly angelic choir echo all around. Opaque landscape, devoid of life. Monstrous silhouettes shifting in and out of the crevices pock marking the landscape, black blots of disease upon the skin of the Earth Mother Gaea, her voice echoing as tremors across the land. A sickly form, emaciated and frail, scraggly grey hair bursting from the head in a great growth. Multitudes of disease eat away at the body, blood flows from the pores, black blotches of skin form and subside, a cocktail of agony. Before the man and next to the figure hangs a lone woman from the gnarled branches of a dead tree. A single touch with a decayed finger, the woman falls, her body spasming in death throes as bloody words form upon her abdomen. The first, Pestilence. Light comes as new agony erupts across the entire being of the man. A woman lays on his chest, her sleeping face peacefully unaware of the suffering. Brown flowing hair greasy from lack of upkeep, a hosptial? But when...and why? These questions go unanswered as the void envelops the scene. Fields of wheat, golden under the sunlight of a midsummer day. Children play a game of tag, their faces obscured by simple masks, their white tunics flapping gently in the wind. The whinny of horses, the sounds of multitudes of hooves. Centurions of long ago come by the hundreds, destroying all within the wake of their wave. At the head of the torrent is but a single figure, the malnourished steed a pale green palor mounted by a man within a black cloak. Eyes burn fiery red within the skull of the rider. Women and children flee, men stand their ground with simple wheying tools and axes. All face the wrath of those who ride towards them, gladius and spartha swings bringing the fires of conflict to this peaceful land, the blood of innocent lives dying the wheat a dark red. The second, War. The syringe plunges into his arm, the life-blood of the man drawn out ever so slowly, precisely. The inanimate proboscis withdraws as the lab tech prepares tests. The spouse of the bed-ridden man weeps, his body limp, sweat covering his brow. Her lips touch his in a loving expression, before she turns and cringes. Hundreds of people stand on the paved streets, their clothing ragged, skin and hair greasy and unkempt. Ceramic and dinged metal bowls held out through torn gloves to a single obese man. The jolly figure smiles softly as he reaches his ladle into the simmering pot, steam carrying the scents of soup for the hungry wafting into their nostrils. Pitious pleas to the server, both of hunger and grief. The streets littered with corpses, all emaciated and bloated, their stomachs like grotesque balloons awaiting to be popped, spraying putrid ichor and smells across the vicinity. Street lamps blaze softly in the midnight sky, swarms of moths and other miscellaneous bugs flutter around the flames, dancing their cerimonious dance. The third, Famine. Soft words, rumbling and unclear, solemn tones caught by those who were listening. The man's condition took a turn for the worst. His spine aches and skin feels as if it were on fire, the million bites of non-existent cockroaches gnawing joyously on such a bountiful feast. Caws abound, crows flock to the branches of trees around the man, his naked form caught in the twilight fog, the dew covered grass cold beneath his feet. Stone monuments erupt from the ground all around him, writing destroying the beauty of their symmetrical designs. Before him lays an open ditch, six feet deep, several feet across and several times more long. The mahongany coffin lays open, the doppleganger of the man laying their with a calm expression on it's face, the navy suit covering the body of the coffin's occupant. Suddenly, the eyes open, the black abyssmal voids staring up to him. Within a moment the copy is behind the original, a soft whoosh. A dull sensation, and then agony, a curved blade erupting from his chest. The copy's face has melted into bleached white skull of a human skeleton. A voice in-tones within his head, soft and pleasent, yet at the same time sinister and forboding. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Mr. Roseman. It tolls for thee exclaims the phantasm. A swift release, and all disappears. The final, Death. Soft bleeps become a single monotonous tone that goes onward. Tears drop onto the face of the man, as the white blanket is pulled over his head. All is clear now, and the doctor exhales softly. Roseman, Charles, time of death, Eleven fifty-two PM. A funeral several days later, the mahogany coffin carrying it's occupant to the grave. A single angelic statue above the headstone in an expression of sorrow as the wooden sepulchur is lowered by winch into the ground. |