„The Dark Haze"
Lord have mercy upon our pitiful souls, sin has spread across our once proud and saint country of Haze. God's wrath is inevitable and we shalt all suffer greatly of it. Death? No, death would be a reward for our sinful souls, we shall all forever burn in hell, rot slowly and then like the Phoenix from ashes we shalt resurrect to burn once more in an eternal circle of compulsory martyrdom. Our bodies shall rot, worms shall explore every nook and hole in our body with full freedom and we shall lay there, helpless and horrified. Shall we be given at the very least the privilege to scream? For what we have done it seems like inevitable act of justice to close shut our mouths forever so that we no longer may enjoy the luxury of sharing the terror that spreads within our threadbare souls. Mercy seems like an utter impossibility, God's justice would be non-existent if our evil people were to be forgiven for what we have done. One thing remains certain, the consequences shall be as horrifying as the act that has served as the catalyst of the horror that has yet to begin.
The reign of William III the Bold was the torch that brought content to the long since frustrated souls of the millions of terrified and concerned citizens of our troubled country, it was the great sun, and it was that saturated light that carried to our humble people the gift of sweet and so warmly desired peace. People had long since lost hope for the break of the morning over our small, secluded lonely lands and realms, over our barren hills that grew dry and empty over the years up until the reign of William III began. It was then that our long since god forsaken people found hope and illumination in this troubled age of ours, it was then that the message of the Lord himself was finally delivered to our people and inevitable peace of mind once more dominated those troubled lands that spread far and wide yet known those lands were before only for pure madness and foolish determination in staying in the mortal pool of ignorance that left of our people only the very remains of what may be recognized as the heartless and faithless skin and bone of the human kind. When the great outbreak of glory took place our people where not desperate, they only longed for the inevitable to finally fall upon their shoulders, they only craved for the ferocity of Death's blade itself to strike upon their deceased bodies and desired to die and die only for only death seemed to hold hope of a better future and the world promised only protracted pain and misery in this seemingly unholy and doomed world. Now they knew that the mercy of the Lord was not one to be ignored, they knew that God was truth and only he could be entrusted by the human kind. From then on, fruits and vegetables grew far and wide throughout our now green and fertile lands that like magic from barren lands of lost hope turned into the simile of Haven.
Sadly, time's teeth cease to emit their destructive power only in places of abandoned hope and protracted misery where for its ferocity there is no such need anymore. Alas, our land was not one of such, or so time thought, and soon time broke the time of peace and prosperity by casting our beloved king William III into the hand's of our Lord as he finally stood to be judged unmistakably by the grace of God himself. Times of mourning and despair came upon our lands, for the man who so greatly improved our otherwise sad and miserable lives had finally given vent to his last final breath and rest upon the flowery bed of death to sink in his rightfully earned sleep of death. Four days the late king's people spent mourning after his death and four days followed hence of happiness and rejoice after the coronation of a new, young ruler who went by the name of Henry IV and was the rightful heir and son of our beloved king. Henry brought hope and rejoice wherever he appeared, the people feared he would fail to equal the greatness of his father, the challenge was cast and suspension brought anxiety to the common people as they watched with apprehension unnamable whether their new ruler would bring to their homeland prolonged times of prosperity or perhaps a new dawn of apocalypse and perdition.
Days, months and years followed afterwards during which the country's state worsened dramatically with each and every passing minute. The economy suffered greatly, our people endured poverty and hunger and in the midst of this state of misery and decay, horrible plaque crossed through the country, striking over half of our population into peril or a state between life and death were an individual no longer resembles a humanoid creature but rather a jelly-like parasite monstrosity thriving on the mercy of those who have yet to be infected with the horrible disease. Our king, however, seemed utterly indifferent to the utterly agonizing situation of his kingdom. He neither spoke to his people nor did he move a finger to cure the many problems his realms were troubled with. His king's servants, seeing with their own eyes the tragedy needed utmost attention, constantly tried to convince their indifferent master to aid his country, however their avid efforts were in vain. The king spent days sitting in his study, absorbing his senses in a constant state of reverie and perusing with utmost interest tomes as ancient as the world itself, contacting his servants only to send them on errands for various books, tomes and manuscripts of unknown origin. A great many of people looked at the king with great disapproval, considering their ruler's behavior to be one of utmost singularity. Some simply thought Henry to have gone utterly mad in his Palace and slowly began to plot against the king's reign.
One day the unthinkable happened, to the pure amazement of the people, the king arranged for an assembly in front of his window. The people waited in anticipation for hours but still not a single figure emerged from the dark seclusion of the king's study. When people, considering the announcement to be another of king's eccentric follies, were just about to take their leave the king appeared on the balcony. Solemn silence followed as the people waited in anticipation for the speech. Then Henry IV began to utter slowly strange incantations in what seemed to be an ancient, long forgotten language. Just as his singular speech ceased to echo through the square and beyond, the madman threw himself from the balcony, falling upon the squalid square beneath. The king was dead, his face, covered in a cloud of sorrowful gloom, twisted into a horror-inducing grimace of agony and despair. To the outright disgust mixed with fear and superstition their very own king appeared to have been unfortunately struck by the horrible disease, his body emitting a foul odor of rot and decay while his skin was thoroughly covered in greenish ooze that seemed to slowly devour every inch of its prey. A long moment of solemn silence of mourning followed. Far in the distance cries of children were barely audible through the strong whistling of the wind. Then, all the people in the square, as if miraculously struck by forces unknown, began to act in a most singular and horrendous manner. Men, women, even children, for no apparent reason, rushed into fervor of battle and fought for life and death with each other, smothering and cutting each other's throats until not a single living being stood on the cobble-stone surface which now was completely covered in blood and corpses, still wiggling and twitching in their post-mortem spasms. The macabre image induced such horror in my soul that I could do nothing else but stand behind my window as hell unleashed before my very eyes. This sad and terrifying spectacle repeated itself in an almost monotonous manner throughout the whole city of which gruesome view I fortunately was not implied to witness with my terrified eyes. Screams of madness, pain and insanity resounded throughout the walls of our cursed city, once a proud capital of a prosperous country and now the epicenter of a plaque of death unleashed, of that I am more than certain, from the very depths of Hell. I, the only living being who had witnessed the terror inconceivable and lived to endure pain of that gruesome memory, now sit in the darkest corner of my room and weep for the mercy of our Lord. Day by day, I slowly begin to envy the people who died on that sadly memorable day, for they have left this world for eternity and I still remain to endure my misery, my soul threadbare and my mind in deep, inevitable delirium that spreads like cancer through every nook and recess of my consciousness. The evil that had before spread through this country seem to have left, having left behind its mark on those troubled lands of misery and decay. I crave for forgetfulness for the memory of its doings that day, the blood and gruesome deaths of mass murder but most of all it is the knowledge of its mere existence that so ferociously haunts me every day in my endless reverie and every night in my darkest dreams that bring once more horror to my heart. Every day I seek to scream of my pain and despair but it is then that I realize the grave truth, in my personal hell there is no one to hear my plea but Lord, yet Lord, oh he listens to my pleas not.