Fallen brotherhood

Once, there was a mighty brotherhood. They were the strongest, for they were as one. They were brothers, sharing the deepest of bounds. This bound reached deeper than blood, it was a bound of the soul. They shared one mind, had the strength of unity, but then it all collapsed.

For years, the brotherhood stood as an example of friendship and trust, always fighting for each other. No betrayal was even considered, but then, it happened. The first brother fell, he committed betrayal. He stabbed one of the others in the back. As is brother fell to the ground, wounded, he could not find the strength to admit his mistake. The wounded only had himself to get on his feet.

Still, they stood together, still looking strong, but the seed of corruption was already growing out of control. Soon, paranoia settled itself. In the heart of every brother, there was a voice telling them that the traitor would commit his vile act again. But what came next wasn’t expected.

A new blow came from the shadow. None could see who struck or who was wounded. And then, a third blow came. And then, another one. Soon enough, the brothers were divided. The brotherhood was but a mockery of its former glory, but still they tried to protect it. For years, all they could do was prevent the fall that would come. And indeed, it came.

All seemed for the best. The brotherhood was getting stronger. They thought of bringing it back together again. It would come back to what it was; it would regain its former glory. But a new betrayal came. And now, the warrior lies in a pool of his own blood. He can barely move, can hardly live. He looks up at the sky in curse between his teeth.

And now, as every other warriors turn to look at the traitor, the brotherhood collapses once more. The Brother of the Sword are no more.

From the bottom of his heart…

The young man laid on the table, four leather belts held him in place. Each one of them was holding one of his limbs. He could feel the leather burn his skin every time he tried to move to escape. He felt his skin open a little every time, never truly bleeding; only remembering him that there was no escape.

A girl was standing over him. Almost naked, she looked in his eyes as he tried to scream. She was pretty, maybe the most beautiful girl the boy would ever see. But she was cold, she didn’t smile. Her eyes were locked with his with full of curiosity. Her gaze was that of a cat looking at his toy.

As she moved her right arm, he could feel the cold embrace of the blade opening his skin, drawing a red line starting from his belly and going up his chest. When it reached his heart, the blade stopped. The girl looked at the boy, her face like a moving ice statue.

- You said you would do anything for me, right? You said you loved me. You said you’d do anything to please me. You said your heart was mine. That’s a fine gift. Really, I appreciate it.

She pushed the blade through the rib cage. She began to saw every bone, one after the other. For a while she could hear the boy scream. She tried to make him shut up with a kiss, but it didn’t work, so she kept on going. After a while, the boy stopped screaming, and breathing for that matter. Still, she didn’t stop herself.

After a long while, the hole was finally open. The girl threw the bone on the floor like a piece of junk. Her eyes tried to see through the blood as she carefully searched for something. She found it quite easily. She tried to pull it out and cut the thing holding it in place. She placed the heart in a jar which smelled like vinegar and closed it. She walked away with the pickled heart and laid it on a shelf near five others.

- So, now… to get rid of that corpse…

Asylium part II

The doors close. The elevator begins to move. Helped by the emergency light, I see blood, again. What the fuck happened here? It seems like someone tried to paint the metallic in red by making a thick line of blood at the edges and letting the closing and opening mechanism spread it. I get kind of dizzy. My head spins. I wonder if it’s the smell of blood, the sight of Jay’s body or a mix of both, but if it goes on, I might just puke. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. My head spins faster. Definitely, the smell of blood is not helping in any way.

Fuck! What is taking so long? I mean, only four floors and still it feels like an eternity. There is no calm music to keep me company. I am all alone, alone with the damn blood. I look around, trying to find something to distract me. You know what they say: “Careful what you wish, you just might get it.” Well, there it is! A short length of intestine is coming out of the aeration trap. Gross. My mind analyze the image and send a signal back that says: this is too much for you. I puke a nice pool right at my feet. I let myself fall back, leaning against the wall of the elevator and then I let myself fall to the floor.

I press my hands on my face and start to cry. Why the fuck am I here? What the hell happened? Why is there so much blood? Who could have done such a thing? And I yell a scream of anger, sadness and despair. It has all in one. It’s so satisfying. It almost feels like I lost two-hundred pounds just by screaming. I take a deep breath, again. The air has changed. It doesn’t have the iron smell it had earlier. The odor of blood is somewhat reduced. I open my eyes and look at the door. It’s opened. I’m at the seventh floor. The floor no one could enter. I’m there.

I get up slowly. HA FUCK! Getting up in an elevator plus a pool of puke near you equal hands in the aforementioned pool. Damn! If only Jay’s corpse was near, I could wipe my hands on his nurse uniform. So now I’m up. I walk toward the exit of this goddamn moving metal box. SHIT! Now I WALKED in the famous sea of puke. I try to think about something else. As soon as I realize where I am, my mind gets off my shoe. I’m in an office. There is no blood here.

This place feels weird. It contrasts with the third floor. It’s luxurious and clean. The walls are all windowed. The light of day temporary blinds me. Behind me, the elevator’s doors close and the cage move. I turn around, wondering who the hell might have called the elevator. I press the button to call it back but it doesn’t stop until it reached the second floor. The cafeteria? What the fuck is going on here? I turn my attention back to the office. It feels like I’m in the office of the president of the United-State. What the hell will I find here?

Rite of old II

The taste of raw meat invaded my mouth. I chew on the flesh, trying to tear it to shreds, but it felt like I was chewing plastic. I had to force myself to swallow the thing whole. The bite I had taken was so big that I thought I going to choke when I felt it going down my throat. But I was fine. Every time I feared, and every time I was fine. When I was done with the iron tasting heart, I whipped my mouth clean.

I looked at the dead man on the table. His chest open, heart ripped out. Only a monster could have done that. I am that monster. Or am I really? I am just a man who found the way to realize everyone’s deepest wish. I was no monster. Monsters always die in the end, and I am still alive. Any ways, what is the value of a life when that man is throwing it away in the first place?

So I walk toward the wash room. I take off my clothes and start the shower. The water is hot, mist already start to form on the mirror. I look at the clouded reflection of my face in the mirror and smile. I get in the water. I feel it drip on my back. My hair gets wet. It feels so good. I open my mouth to let the hot water in. I clean my mouth, my teeth and my thong. I was myself and stay in there for what feels like an eternity, but in the end, it’s just half an hour.

When I finally get out, I take my towel and give the mirror a show, just to clean it, to remove the mist. And then I see my face, renewed. I am young again, 65 years younger. All thanks to that man’s heart. I bones won’t hurt for a while. My memory is back at full capacity. And my health is just great.

I am not a monster. I am just a man with a secret. I have found the secret everybody wishes for. I know the way to immortality. I cannot die. I won against death.

Asylium

I wake up on the crappy floor, as always. My head kind of hurts. It’s one of those shy headaches, the kind that doesn’t have enough self-confidence to bloom into a full earthshaking headache. I sit up and pass my hands in my face, my eyes still closed. When they reach my lips, I taste something. I open my eyes for the first time of the day and begin to wonder:  why are my hands so brown? It could have been rust if human could rust, but still, the color’s not right. It’s too dark, like some kind of brownish-red, kind of like dried blood.

Ha crap! Blood! My hands are covered in blood. What the fuck happened? I lift my eyes from my hands, only to see the walls stained by blood all over. Someone finger painted my fucking room with blood! Man, some clean up dude is in for some major overtime today. Damn it! This asshole even painted over my niece’s drawing! I’m so going to kill the fucker. He is so dead.

But that’s only then that I realize. Who the fuck entered my fucking room? The door is always locked, like every other. Just to make sure, I take a look at the freaking door. OPEN! Not entirely, but my cell’s door is open. Something is fucking bloody hell wrong. They never leave it open; I might escape if they did. I get up and walk toward the open door.

As I get out of the room, I stumble on something. A freaking corpse! I let a little panic cry out only to kill it as soon as I can. I recognize the body even if the head is missing. It’s Jason. “Sorry Jay, no blow job for you today.” I say to the body. Not that I minded doing him a blow job, but making me swallow? Damn I hate it!

I search the body for keys, and keys I find, no surprise there. I put them in my bra; just to be sure I don’t lose them, and then clean a bit of the dried blood on Jay’s corpse. Around me, the walls are crappy, I feel like I’m in a bad horror movie. I could go right or left, there’s nothing to help me make a choice. And then, I hear it: a moan, a moan of agony. It sounds like a lost soul. Or maybe is it just in my head? Either way, I can’t find the source of it. So I go the logical way: the elevator in front of me. The place is as much a mess as the rest. A pentagram has been drawn around the button of floor 3… the floor I’m on now. There is a bloody fingerprint on the button for floor 7, the last floor. I press it. The door closes in front of me and I feel it going up. I wonder what awaits me up there. Maybe I’ll find the fucker who ruined my niece’s work.

Frozen House

It was a dark and isolated place. Everyone in town knew about it, but no one dared come near. The old house stood alone in the woods with only one light-post to let people know it was there. The only way to get to it was covered in many feet of snow, the place barely made it through all the white of winter. Long icicles stretched from the roof, pointing at the snow, sometimes even stabbing it coldly.

The air was cold, snowflakes where waltzing around the old house as if to bury it. The wooden walls did not begin to show any signs of weakness, but the windows and the roof where starting to fall off. The paint was begging to chip off the metal roof. A few windows were broken and snow entered the house, while the wind made the curtains float like arms trying to reach for something.

On the hard wood floor, inside the abandoned house, snow was accumulating. On some places, it has had the time to melt and rot had begun to do its work. In a corner, a grey rat was eating something that was once a cat, its tiny teeth tearing the rotten flesh of the corpse. Dust and mushrooms were presiding over most of the kitchen. From the front door, a once red and gold carpet led to the other end of the house, passing beside the kitchen.

One of the two rooms was contrasting with the rest of the house; Pink walls, dolls and a cradle. It seemed to be the only part of the house that received light, but it was as lifeless as the rest of the place. At the door of the room, mist gathered in a human shape. It took the appearance of an elderly man, a sad look on the face. He looked in the cradle and seemed to ask himself why and his eyes fell upon the blood stain on the sheets.

And as quick as he had come, the ghost disappeared and the house would be as lifeless as it has been for the five years after its owner had killed his grand-daughter in her cradle before killing himself.

Rite of old

The rocking chair stops moving. The floor’s creaking agony goes silent. The only noises in the room are those I make. My feet brush against the floor as I walk slowly toward the door that leads to the basement. As I was, I hear many of my old bones complain of the movements I ask of them. “Am I really that old?” I ask myself. I don’t expect any answers at all. I’m alone and I know it. I’m not that senile. Not yet. I open the door and begin to go down the stairs.

After a moment I begin to wonder, who seems to hurt the most? My old legs barely able to support me or the once solid wood of the century old stairs? I keep going down. I reach for the darkness of the basement. The walls and ceiling are not finished yet. Maybe I should work on that someday soon. Finally, my legs say, we have arrived.

I can barely see. My elderly eyes won’t adapt as quick as they used to, but I don’t mind, I know the place in every possible way. I walk on the concrete floor. I turn to my right to move toward the center room. I reach my destination: an oak table. It stands about three feet tall and there is someone on it. He is tightly tied. I can see he is trying to escape, but nothing can do.

“What do you want?” He asks. This is what they always ask, sometimes with a “Who are you?” other times adding a couple of vulgar words. I look in his eyes and smile. He is twenty years old or something. When I look in his eyes, it’s like he can read in my mind. Most of them do. The green eyes widen and the man begins to scream.

I reach to the wall at my right and take a dagger. The cold iron freezes my hand. I can hardly lift it. It’s so heavy, was it always so heavy? I don’t remember and it doesn’t matter. I close my eyes to concentrate. My breathing synchronizes with my heartbeat. My heartbeat synchronizes with the man’s. His breath synchronizes with mine. He is panicking. I take the dagger above his chest and let it fall with all its weight. I add the little strength left in my arms to the blow. The man’s chest opens a little. His heartbeat stops.

Blood spills over. I move my arm with renewed strength. I rip his chest open. I search a little among the torn flesh and find the heart. I remove it with the dagger’s help. I leave the blade in the body and take the red heart in both hands. I raise it in the air before bringing it to my mouth. Once at my lips, I take a bite out of it. With some instinctual disgust, I swallow. The second bite comes with more ease. And so does the third. Soon enough I’m stuffing on it. I feel the blood dripping down my mouth. I don’t mind. Once again, the ritual was successful.

Pale

Hello again, dear friends. Is it really the right way to say things? I’m not sure, but let’s keep it that way; it’s simpler for your limited minds. Don’t say you don’t know who I am. We’ve known each other since the dawn of time and shall know each other for eternity. I have always been with you, even when you didn’t want me to. To tell the truth, you never really wanted me near you. But I don’t mind, I do as I please. I toy with you as much as I want, and there is nothing you can say.

Don’t recognize me yet? Are you sure? You always speak about me. Literature, music, poetry, painting… it all speak of me and you don’t even know it. I am what make you move. I am what drive so many of your actions. I drive you where I want you trough fear. You are merely puppets in my hands, bent to my eternal will. I have made science go forth so much and yet you despise me more than my brothers. You hate them only because you see me in them. I am your nemesis, the only enemy you really want to defeat yet can’t.

Just look in my eyes and you’ll understand: you cannot escape me. But also, I cannot get a hold on you. Isn’t it sad, being so close yet so distant. I am always somewhere near you and you fear me. I am everywhere. I was always in history: First World War, Second World War, Vietnam, the holy crusades, war of independence, John F. Kennedy, September 11, the Titanic. Don’t you remember? Ha! But I think you begin to see me for who I really am. I’ve had many names throughout the ages. Hades, Pluto, Hel, Anubis, Thanatos, Gehde, Samael or, the one I like the most, Grim Reaper.

Now see me for what I am: eternal. Love me for what I am: inevitable. I am death. And I walk the earth.

Red

Some say you invented me. Maybe but, who cares? All that really matter is: I’m here. And I’m not going away. I won’t leave you; I love you too much for this. I’ve helped you so much in the past and still so few of you thanked me. Some of you even try to kill me. Ungrateful bastards. If it wasn’t for me, you might still be hiding in caves. You’d have nothing of this so great technology. No internet. No cell-phones. No private planes. And the only way you find to thank me is to try to kill me? Not so fast fucker!

Because I killed, and am still doing it, so many of you doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I can’t exist without you. Yeah. I know. I’m not sure you invented me, but damn are you keeping me alive. To tell the truth, I’m alive and kicking. I changed, that’s for sure. Some say I’ve become dirty, but do I really care about that? No, you’re right. Don’t worry, I’m still with you. I won’t leave you so easily.

And don’t say you hate me, I won’t believe it. You’re just lying to yourself to give you good conscience. You create reason to be with me. Don’t believe me? I’ll show you. Remember me back in Rome? Or maybe back in the holy land. Yeah. You had no real reason to go, but still you did. Maybe I should talk about the French revolution. Yeah, that’s how they called me. Guess what? It was still good old me.

Don’t you get it yet? We need each other. I need you to survive and you need me to show off how better than everyone else you are. Don’t deny it, you’re hurting my feelings. NOT! But I sure hope you recognized me. I am the rider of the red horse. I am war. And I walk the earth.

White

Now, now. Calm down, little one. It’s not like I wasn’t there anymore. Sure, my golden age has passed, but it’s not like I’ve disappeared or something. I didn’t die. I just changed my face. The way you used to see me. The way I presented myself. It all changed. I’m a new guy now.

I’ve traded the swords and armors of my brother for the suits and money of man. I no longer travel the world in rotting boats, filled with sickness, outcasts and whores. Those times, as good as they were, are gone. I now travel the world on a jet plane. Private jet plane, dare I say. I look at myself in the mirror before making my public appearance, and I like what I see. I promised many things but offered you none. I swore to do better than my predecessor, but I was my predecessor.

You have given me two sides: the righteous and the wrong. But it is all illusion. It was all just to make yourself feel better. Just to justify your murders, to justify your genocides. You called me righteous when you put natives in reserves, making them outcasts in their own lands. You called me righteous when you went to Jerusalem to claim it back from the infidels, from those who build the city. You called me evil when I came from England, when I took your country from French hands. You called me wrong when I’ve sent barbarians in Rome.

Don’t you see I am righteous and wrong, all at once? I am righteous for those I send and wrong for those who receive. It’s all about your point of view. I guess you see who I truly am, don’t you? I am the rider of the white horse. I am conquest. And I walk the earth.