This is my first attempt at a fanfic. Any and all reviews are more than welcome and I hope you all enjoy!

Year: 1908

Devil's Tower, Wyoming

USA

Roderick heaved his leg up over the top of the ledge and began to pull himself up. Despite the chalk he brought with him for the climb, his hands were still sweaty and the grip on his knife that he had dug into the top to anchor himself was slipping. "It's night time, I shouldn't be sweating this much!" he thought in frustration. It was then that he realized that his rucksack was beginning to slip off. He only had a moment to choose which he could save, himself, or the bag. With a final desperate heave, he rolled over the top edge as the bag slipped off his shoulders. He spun himself around as quickly as he could and made a mad grab for the bag, but it had already fallen out of reach and vanished into oblivion as the wind picked up and swirled around the mountain top.

"No dammit!" he heaved…. "My robes, the candles, and incense were in that bag…" he then silently thought to himself. A slight pang came to his heart as he realized that the robes, which he spent his entire life in the church earning, were lost forever to darkness. "No matter, I still have the book." Roderick pulled his knife out of the ground before walking across the flat tower to its center. He knelt down and felt along a tight chord that he had tied around his waist and followed it down to a book that was tightly secured and hanging from it.

His fingers fumbled around in the dark as he untied the book and brought it up to his chest in an almost loving embrace. It was quite large and should have been very heavy, but it was nearly weightless. However, whatever kind of strange metal that it was almost entirely made of was ice cold. He knew exactly which page he needed so he flipped the book open and laid it down on the ground. He would have to wait for a break in the clouds so that the moon could shine on him. But it was pitch black out and the wind was becoming more and more intense as, what he assumed were storm clouds, rolled over head. It didn't look like the moon was going to be seen at all tonight and Roderick became desperate.

He had spent the last fifteen years studying the book with the other Iscariot scientists. It took him his entire career just to be given access to the book. The Iscariots had made much progress in deciphering the books strange writings. It was rumored that members of the science team had made a deal with the Devil himself in order to comprehend the vastly complex language, but there was never any proof….or investigation. It was believed that this book was too important to be left untouched and that it may have answers concerning God himself. But Roderick wasn't sure. He also didn't care. There was only one passage in the book that he was concerned with….Resurrection. The entire section was clearly labeled as far as he could tell and was fairly easy for him to memorize. He knew that there was a ritual that was to be performed atop a place of high spiritual energy during a full moon. And tonight was a full moon… he just couldn't see it.

Forgoing propriety, he pulled out the knife he had used to climb the tower and quickly slashed his wrist. Then, before he lost all feeling in his other hand he took the blade in it and quickly slashed his other wrist. He couldn't see it, but he could feel the warm liquid flow like water down his arms before it fell onto the rock. "Emily, my love, my life, my light…. The church forbade us, the world would have shunned us, and even God sought to take you away from me. But tonight, I spit on all of them and take matters into my own hands! We will not be denied our love!" he cried at the top of his lungs. The blood was flowing out of him very quickly and he was starting to become light headed so he was going to have to be quick. He recalled the first word in the incantation for the ritual and in a desperate cry he shouted it out into the darkness, but he couldn't hear his own voice. Instead, he could hear a rush of whispering and a loud screeching as if metal was being drug across metal. And after the last syllable left his lips, everything fell silent.

The wind had stopped entirely now and he just knelt in darkness, bleeding. He was about to utter the next word but a dim glow caught his attention. The book that lay before him in darkness started to glow a crimson red, revealing that its pages were now blank. A red light started to envelope Roderick and the tower and he looked up to see the moon glowing through the clouds. It was very distorted, but it looked almost as if the very moon itself was bleeding. He looked back down to the pages and felt his stomach turn at what he saw. As he looked at the pages, it was like looking into a lake of swirling blood and flesh. The words to the incantation were no longer visible, but it didn't matter; he had the entire thing memorized. Mustering his courage he looked back up to the sky and uttered the next word in the incantation. But again he couldn't hear his own voice, all he heard was a shrill scream as if a young girl were being torn apart. The terrible whispering continued now even after he finished the word this time and now he was truly afraid.

"My God, what am I doing?" he silently thought to himself. He could feel something now. Something terrible. It was as if an immense weight were bearing down on his soul. But he had come too far now to turn back. There were four words left to the incantation and he tried his best to shout them as loud as he could. But not once did his own voice ever ring out. The sounds of shrieking and whispering were overlapped with more terrible noise with each word as the book glowed brighter and brighter, the pages swirling violently now as if blood and flesh were about to burst forth from them on to the ground around him. And when the 6th word was finally uttered, everything fell silent again and all the light went out. Roderick sat in silence, the darkness turning cold around him. He wasn't sure if he was cold from blood-loss-induced shock, or if the temperature had dropped. Either way, it felt like dying. And then, like a knife through his very being, piercing his soul, he heard her voice from the darkness. It was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard, but at the same time, it felt like it was killing him.

"Now what am I doing here?..."