The Way Things Are

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Darksiders or any characters from it. I do not own my friend Pam or her horse Shiloh, or Shy as we call him. I do however own Dixie, Yay I own something.

A/N: Here is the long awaited fan based story. Yes it is the end of the world but it does not in any way follow the game plot, everything happened as it should have and the end of the world has come in its own natural way. Hopefully everyone enjoys it and if not oh well. Happy reading!

A/N: New content since I am going back and editing a lot of my stories so that I can tweak a few mistakes and help the plot flow a bit better.

Katie turned her big red horse around to face back down the trail. "Hey Pam are you and Shy going to catch up or what!" She yelled back down the trail to the dark haired girl and her white horse. Pam and she had been friends longer than she could remember, although both of them were in their mid-twenties now. She watched her friend fight with her horse to get it around the mud hole on the trail they had been riding just off the dirt road leading the back way to her house.

"I don't know what has gotten in to Shy; he has been acting weird lately." Her friend said as she got to the spot in the trail where Katie and her horse, Dixie, were waiting on them. "I know what you mean. Dixie has been acting crazy lately, really spooky." They continued up the trail towards the road when suddenly Katie stopped her horse. "Hey Pam come look at this, it wasn't here when we came in was it?"

Pam approached the spot her friend was standing with the horse stopped at and looked in the direction her friend was pointing. There hanging from a tree was a cross held together with vines. Upon closer inspection it was actually vines that were shaped into a cross. "That wasn't there before and honestly it is a little bit freaky. Let's head for the house." Katie nodded and turned her horse towards home. They had just reached the end of the trail when suddenly the ground shook violently. The horses started whinnying and rearing up and she fought to calm her horse.

After settling her horse down she turned to see her friend getting up from the ground. "Are you alright Pam?" Her friend nodded and climbed back into her saddle. "Yea, Shy just threw me. I'll be alright." They started towards home again and the ground rumbled for a second time and this time the horses did not spook as badly. Suddenly Katie got an over whelming sense of dread and danger. She kicked Dixie into a run, slapping the reins on her neck to urge her faster. She looked once behind her to make sure her friend was following her.

Finally they arrived back at her house and the sun was starting to set but everything was dark. She slid from the saddle and tossed Pam the reins. "I'm going to get the generator started and we will get some coffee going, I do not like this at all." She watched a moment as Pam led the horses over to the corral before heading for the utility shed that housed the generator, among other things. She fought with the generator a few minutes before it roared to life and the twilight lit up around the house. She came back around the house and noticed Pam had left the horses saddled, just in case. She nodded her approval as her friend met her on the porch.

A little while later and the two of them were sitting on Katie's front porch with cups of coffee. She lit up a smoke and sat staring towards town, 2 miles away. The rumblings in the ground had slowed down drastically. "I wonder what is going on." Her friend broke the silence. "I don't know, but I don't like it either." Her friend nodded slowly. A few minutes later the tornado siren went off in town and the tree line appeared to be on fire.

She looked over at her friend, "Looks like we are going to go see what's going on." Her friend started towards the truck. "No let's take the horses; we can get in and out easier if we need to." They mounted up on the horses and headed towards town in the deepening night. "What do you think we are going to find?"

"I don't know but I want to know what is going on." She told her friend. "I hope everything is okay." She nodded and turned her gaze forward to the road. As they got closer to town the horses began prancing sideways nervously. They could smell the smoke and hear explosions in town. Katie also noticed the fact that there was no traffic on the road tonight. The only other sounds nearby were the clop of the horses hooves. Suddenly they heard a roar from the direction of town and looked at each other. "I wonder what that was and why there isn't any traffic on the road tonight."

Pam shrugged her shoulders at Katie and they both got quiet, Pam taking the lead from her friend who had always been the leader. They approached the city limits and the horses began dancing sideways with nervousness as the smoke thickened. Every once in a while a person or group of people would run through the smoke in panic without even noticing them. Katie looked over at her friend, the shock clearly showing on both their faces.

Suddenly the horses reared up and spooked as a large shape moved through the smoke and Katie could have sworn it had feathers. She calmed her trembling horse and looked around cautiously. "I don't like this. Let's get to the police station and see if they know what is going on." Pam nodded to her friend in agreement. They continued to move carefully through the smoke. Suddenly a shape, something about the size of a horse, started towards them. The horses began stomping and prancing as it grew closer. The creature showed its face through the break in the smoke with a strong gust of wind and Katie bit back a scream.

It had a large body with skinny legs and a long serpentine tail but what had her attention were the rows of sharp teeth in its mouth. She wheeled her prancing horse and bolted back down the road. She could only hold on and pray the horse didn't falter or slip on the black top. Pam rode up beside her on Shy but Katie knew the smaller horse couldn't keep up with the long legged race horse she was on and the creature that chased them was gaining ground on the open road. "PAM! TAKE OFF FOR THE WOODS ON THE RIGHT AND I'LL GO LEFT! WE WILL MEET BACK AT MY PLACE! GO! NOW!" Her friend turned her horse off to the right side of the road into the woods and she pulled hers to the left, trusting the horse to not stumble.

The beast stayed behind her but it couldn't catch the faster horse through the tangle of trees. Unfortunately the horse was growing tired but they were almost back at the house. Katie could almost see the lights to her house. As the horse jumped over the creek that was close to her home she knew she had to do something when she looked back and saw the creature almost upon them.

She looked back again as they broke through the woods and into open ground. The beast had gotten even closer than the last time she had looked and Katie slapped the reins against the horse's neck, urging her faster but the mare had given all she had. Suddenly she was yanked from the saddle and her left side burned as if it were set on fire. She landed on the ground gasping for air, the claw marks burning into her side like a hot iron. The creature paced around her, snarling and ready to pounce. She closed her eyes and prepared for the last attack.

The attack never came but instead a pain filled roar made her flinch from her position on the ground. She opened her eyes to see the impossibly broad back of a man covered in silver armor with a red hood covering his face. In his hand was a huge sword and at the point of that sword lay the beast minus it head.

He turned to her when she made a small sound in the back of her throat and his glowing blue gaze met the soft gray eyes of the terrified human woman. She continued to look up at him for a few more seconds until the blood loss and shock took its toll and she collapsed. War picked the woman up carefully cradling her to his chest and looked towards the house with lights burning brightly in it. Surely he could seek aid for her with her own kind.