Fears Uncontrollable

"Daddy?" The seemingly angelic voice of a young girl called again, knocking on the dark and cracked wood of the enchanted door softly. Kozmotis ran his spindly fingers through his dark sweat soaked hair, gasping for breath as he tried to ignore the voice as it called to him again to open the door and let the voice in. His hands were shaking weakly and his skin grew cold as the fears outside the door grew in power, drinking in their own king's power.

He didn't know why or even how it had happened, but his fears had grown too strong, overcoming the very man they had once followed with undying support. It had happened so fast that he hadn't even seen the fears turning until it was too late. They expected more from him, wanted more from him and he had barely gotten away with his life. But his beautiful daughter had not fared the same luck.

The fearlings had chased him throughout his own palace, forcing him to leave the fallen body of the young girl behind to be consumed by his once trustful soldiers, trapping him within the very confines of his own walls. Kozmotis cradled his head and let out a choked breath at the thought.

A low rumble filled the walls as the fearlings grew agitated. He flinched as he heard the dark voices throwing themselves at the locked door, black tainted tendrils of pure fear seeping in from underneath, wisps at a time through the cracks in the wooden structure that creaked under pressure.

"Daddy?" The voice asked confusedly, knocking again just as she once had. Kozmotis shook his head and buried his face deeper into his hands trying to drown out the voices that kept calling him to open the door. The wisps that had gotten through the cracking doorway had begun slithering toward him, growing slightly at the sense of the man's fear as he shook in the darkness of the secluded room.

He gasped as one of the dark tendrils finally reached him, snaking upwards and tentatively brushing the skin. It had hardly touched the shuddering man's slender hand before being absorbed completely, sucking itself into his pale skin.

Kozmotis gasped in surprise as a cold shiver racked his body, his tired dark circled eyes widening in shock as he recoiled from the black shadow's cold touch. He pulled back the golden sleeve of his once beautiful and god-like robes and watched in horror as the infected area of pale cold skin slowly began to turn a dark grey, seeping deeper until most of his once pale skin was tainted with the darkness of his own fears.

The king pressed his shivering body against the wall, trying to escape the other tendrils of darkness that slithered across the floor. He gasped as more fears began grasping the same idea, pressing themselves against the enchanted door to the point where they seeped beneath, whispering silent reminders of every fear they had absorbed from the children they had once infected and were now repeating back to him. Their master, the man who had controlled the fears, to help the young ones of the world.

"No!" He cried, stumbling over his long torn robes in order to get to his feet and scramble away from the spiraling clouds of blackness. He shivered as two ran up his legs, tainting the skin below his knees the same deep grey as his hand which was not beginning to shiver uncontrollably as fear began to consume his very being.

"Daddy!" An ice cold shudder ran up Kozmotis' spine, causing the man to double over in painful reminder, becoming even more vulnerable to the increasing shadows. He pulled back from the tendrils just as one began to creep up his right arm, consuming it in frigid stiffness.

The weakened king of fear practically clawed at the dark sleeves of his robe, tearing the fabric to shreds before gawking horrified at the darkened skin.

"Daddy!" The voice had become more desperate in its attempts to force the man into opening the only barrier separating Kozmotis from his ultimate demise. The king tore through his darkening hair, trying to remind himself it was only his fears, not her.

"Daddy!" He squeezed his golden eyes shut in pain. It's not her! She's dead!

"DADDY!" They killed her, she's not there!

The man was gasping for breath now, clutching his chest as the cold and pain began to spread throughout his entire body, making him shudder involuntarily. The dark room began spinning and the pain in his chest grew, as if his heart itself were being consumed by the darkness that had seeped through.

His now blackened hands tore frantically at his once highly respected robes, leaving his graying chest exposed to the awaiting shadows that had lingered, hungering for the chance to jump straight for the man's heart. Kozmotis gasped again, trying to shield himself from the fears that had clambered up to the ceiling and dropped cold frigid tendrils that seeped into his multicolored skin.

At this point, both hands, legs, and neck had gone completely dark. The darkness had seeped through his right arm and covered his neck, making it harder and harder to breathe with every wheezing gasp he took. The shadows dropping from the ceiling of the dark room had covered the left side of his face, enveloping the entirety of his left eye. Even the man's once brown hair had gone completely black.

"Daddy?" The voice called, it had gotten louder, echoing throughout the entire palace. "Daddy! Daddy! DADDY! WHY WON'T YOU COME OUT DADDY?!" The door was shaking now as the fears banged up against it, more and more dark tendrils seeping into the room. Under normal circumstances, the door would have burst by now, allowing the fearlings to consume the dying man entirely.

Kozmotis had to think fast, his body was beginning to give into the darkness. The man looked down in desperation at the torn shreds of cloth in his hands before running at the wooden barrier in last attempt to block out the fears that tried to consume his soul. He blinked away tears of pain as the shadows lining the bottom of the door leapt at the hands that scrambled to shove the tattered robes between the crack underneath the wood.

Kozmotis froze, pushing the last of the torn cloth between the gap, closing off any access to the room from the fearlings. Silence filled the seemingly empty hallways of his once prosperous and respectful palace, now diminished in shreds of darkness and hardly a trace of the beauty it once was… much like the king that had ruled it.

The shriveled figure of what once was Kozmotis Pitchiner struggled furiously to suppress the urge to gasp for breath as he listened to the seemingly dead world outside. The smallest hint of a smile began to creep upon the man's face, a smile he had once shared with his daughter. It was over, it was finally over.

"Daddy?" Kozmotis froze, breathing in a sharp pained breath. She was here. A cry of despair escaped the man's lips as his raw throat let out a choked sob.

"Daddy? Why won't you let me in?" Another sob racked his body and the tears began to well up in his eyes.

"No." He whispered, hugging his blackened arms close. "Please no." He just wanted it to end.

Something pounded itself against the door and Kozmotis curled up against himself on the hard stone floor, his knees curled underneath him as the man pressed his forehead to the ground in pain, just wishing the voices would go away. Leave him in peace.

"Daddy, please." The door shook again violently as if someone were beating against it. "Daddy?"

The fallen king pressed his ice cold hands to his ears to suppress the sound. But it didn't stop him from hearing the echoing voice of his lost daughter as his own soldiers used his fears against him, invading his mind and torturing the man relentlessly.

"Daddy!" The pounding became louder, matching the rapid beating of the man's heart as it tried to beat itself out of his grey chest. "DADDY! LET ME IN!" She was inside his head, shouting out to him. A place not even he could escape.

"NO!" Kozmotis shouted, his throat choking upon the sobs and rawness. "Please! NO!"

"DADDY! DADDY! LET ME IN! OPEN THE DOOR DADDY! OPEN THE DOOR OR THEY'LL KILL ME!" The pounding became faster and louder with every beat. The darkening man's breathing became rapid until individual breaths could barely be identified from one another.

"No! You're dead! Leave me alone! Please!" He sobbed, tears racing down his face as his hands practically clawed at his ears, causing dark blood to run down his graying neck and lodge itself into his black and splitting fingernails.

"I'm not dead Daddy." The voice said calmly, the shaking and banging of the door dying to a soft rattle.

Kozmotis' eyes flew open. "No." He whispered to himself. He couldn't give in.

"Daddy. Open the door." The voice of his loving daughter practically whispered to the door. She was all the king of fears had to keep him strong and now she was gone. It's not her, It's not. He reminded himself as he shook his head feverously.

"But it is me." The voice called, reading his thoughts and using them against him. "Daddy please, you need me."

Kozmotis choked on yet another sob. The only thing that had kept him tethered to his human-like state had been his beloved daughter, the only thing that had kept him from shriveling into the darkened husk of pure fear that he was falling into now. And his fearlings had known that. They had killed her so that he would had nothing left to lose. Nothing left to hold him back from unleashing his full potential.

The children. A voice in the back of his head reminded him. The children need you. They need you to protect them.

"What have the children ever done for you?" The fears asked, snapping the man back to the shaking door, becoming agitated with his last undying strength.

"The children don't want fear Daddy. They hate you. They don't appreciate you!" The voice became louder, echoing throughout the room. "You don't need them. You need me. You can't survive without me! OPEN THE DOOR!" The wood pounded again, making Kozmotis flinch in his fetal state, his darkening forehead pressed into the floor as if trying to absorb himself away from this place. Trying to escape this prison.

The dark king's breathing had slowed now, becoming heavy and strangled as if a pair of cold hands were wringing his neck, his body was no longer fighting the darkness, it was accepting it. "W-what do I do?" He whispered in defeat, knowing what the answer would be.

The voice giggled happily. "Just open the door Daddy."