This is the first story I wrote about the Void Keeper, and this story was the foundation of the concept. Originally, it was the Void Keeper, as he appeared on my Warhammer story, who was supposed to do things that GEK does, but then I realised that would really make it a mary sue/marty stu...
Enjoy!
The Void Keeper Chronicles – Hellraiser
Short Story
There was a dark room with no doors. It was just there without an entrance. Yet, it was not pitch black within. There was a source of light, subtle but unseen. The room was neither large nor tiny. It looked spacious as there was almost nothing in the room. Almost. There was one object lying on the middle of the floor. It was a small box. A black puzzle box encrusted with gold. The strange and beautiful patterns of gold, seductive in its own right, encased the puzzle box, gently beckoning someone to try the puzzle.
Suddenly, a child, neat blond hair and deep blue eyes, wearing simple clothes and typical shoes for a child, stepped into the room from nowhere. He looked not more than 5 years old yet there was strange calmness rarely seen in children. The sex of the child was ambiguous but it seemed fine despite it. The child made certain, but gentle and light steps toward the centre of the room, toward the box.
The child simply stood there in front of the box, as a truly child-like smile appeared on his face. As if practicing his expression, the child paused every few seconds, perfecting the child-like image. Then he stared down at the puzzle box. A blue spark appeared on the circular golden face of the box. The circle turned slowly. Then the part of the box lifted up, moved around and went down. It took a while for the box to change itself into an oddly coloured grey diamond shape. It looked as if the box has been squeezed into the shape. A few seconds passed and something began to happen in the enclosed room. The walls began to shake and they began to crack. The wall facing the child split it half and it opened like a gaping maw of darkness.
There was silence.
A footstep.
The sound of footsteps began to ring louder and louder, closer and closer toward the child from deep inside the newly formed portal. A blue faced man, with hundreds of nails stuck to his head, wearing long black leather suit, stepped out from the portal. His clothing bore six holes in the front where his bare flesh was revealed. The bits of flesh that were exposed held long gashes, which looked freshly made but no blood dripping. He also had a few cruel-looking knives of various kinds. There was serene reverence in the footsteps of that pin-headed man. It was serene but it bore such apathy. His expression was almost empty, except for a tiny bit of anticipation. Anticipation for a new prey. Following close behind the Pinhead were other creatures clad in black leather. They were hideous and artificially deformed. They stopped and spread out to face the child.
Pinhead desired. He desire to inflict pain and pleasure to the new prey who just called upon him and the other Cenobites. There was much pleasure to be made from a fresh new body and soul. Yet, what he saw as he entered the real world, did throw him off for a single moment. A child with no apparent desire stood before them. He could feel that the child had indeed solved the puzzle box and summoned the servants of the Leviathan. However, it was not the hands that summons them. It was desire. They had felt a tremendous and powerful desire and eagerly followed it. They were baffled now. Baffled but not confused. They mission was simple and direct. If the child was the one who summoned them, then they will show him a very good time… of pain and pleasure that the child probably never even have thought to imagine.
The child spoke first.
"Hello."
It was so succinct and direct. Pinhead moved one step forward. He stared down at the child for a second and replied
"Child, have you summoned us? Are you prepared to feel the eternal pain and pleasure, insatiable and unquenchable thirst?"
The child answered.
"I have solved the puzzle box."
Pinhead smiled. The desires began to fill him up again. The desire to enjoy the child's flesh and mutilating the child beyond recognition and torturing the child for an eternity. The desire itself was so sweet and Pinhead greatly enjoyed it. Pinhead opened his mouth to declare his judgement.
"Then you belong to us now. We shall savour your flesh for a thousand years, and then your soul shall be next."
The child's smile faded and returned to the strangely calm look. It bothered Pinhead. There was something amiss. There was nothing this child desired. Pinhead had to ask.
"Is there anything you want, child? Any desires to fulfil? Your hell shall accommodate you much better if you had something you desired? Or are you here just to see us?"
The last mocking retort was uncalled for but the Pinhead enjoyed such sarcasm. The child looked up and met his eyes. Pinhead wanted to reach forth and pull out those calm eyeballs. The child was extremely disturbing to him.
"What I truly desire is much bigger than you, demon. It cannot be satisfied by you or even your master. It is beyond your imagination. It is simply beyond you. For now, however, I do have something I want from you."
The child's voice seemed to change. It got coarse and echoed. Pinhead shrugged it off as he was delighted to hear what the child desired.
"Then, what do you desire now, child. Tell us what you want from us? We will gladly hear what you have to say."
"I want your submission, servant of Leviathan. Serve me."
Pinhead was beyond surprise as it was such strange and laughable desire.
"We do not serve anyone. We are simply here to give pain and pleasure. Leviathan is simply the source of the Labyrinth. Now that we have heard your pathetic desire, it is time to satisfy our desire."
Pinhead raised a finger. Six black chains with hooks flew out from the dark gaping portal toward the child. However, the chains went straight past the child as if the child had dodged it by a hair's width. The Cenobites were perplexed. No one has ever dodged the chains. The chains were the will of the Cenobites. For a moment they considered if the child was not human, but they all felt the stench of humanity on the child. The turmoil of emotions, though they were very faint even for an imbecile. Pinhead decided that the child, though human, had some powers which certainly made the child arrogant enough to think that its power could challenge the Cenobites. Once they dragged the child into their torture chamber, they child will be broken and they will taste his flesh.
For the second time, there were dozen chains coming from all directions toward the child, and they wrapped themselves around the child and tightened as if a boa constrictor would strangle its prey. The child did not seem concerned. Suddenly, the chains broke asunder and the pieces fell to the floor. The Chatterer moved against the child, his arms aimed at the child's soft slender neck. However, just as the Chatterer grabbed hold, the child seemed to explode in bright light. Pinhead shied away from it as sharp pain throttled his thoughts. This pain was unpleasant, and quite incapable of extracting pleasure from it. When the light subsided within seconds, the Chatterer was gone, and a dead blond boy in the husk of the Chatter remained in his place. The fat one stepped forward before Pinhead could stop him. This time, the child's shadow moved and expanded. It grew into tentacles of darkness and it wrapped itself around the Cenobite and entered it via the mouth. With a bang, the fat one split open in several pieces, and the shadow returned to the child.
Pinhead was not overly concerned for the lives of his fellow Cenobites. They were the servants of the Leviathan of Labyrinth, they could not die as long as their desires remained, and he could still feel the deep dark desires of the dead Cenobites still trapped within the vastness of the Labyrinth. The female Cenobite narrowed her eyes as she questioned the child.
"Are you teasing us, child? Did you not call us forth to enjoy the eternity with us? Why resist now?"
The child did not answer but to stare at Pinhead. Pinhead met the gaze with strange shiver down his spine beneath the black leather. The female stepped forward with a cruel looking blade in each hand. There was no handle on those blades and the serrated edge bit into her palm but such trivial pain did not matter. Before Pinhead could stop her, she stepped up to the child. She slashed at the child. The child merely smiled a strange smile. The female Cenobite screamed. Her scream was like a violin's song. It reached high and it pleased Pinhead, despite his understanding that this should not be happening. The child stopped smiling.
"I have no more patience to fool around with you. You will serve me."
The child changed. His shadow grew and it swept over the small figure in its dark cloak. The figure rose into the same height as Pinhead. The child was no more but a figure in black cloak. No face, no hands, no life. Then it moved toward the Cenobite. It began to look more human-like. Strange facial feature began to emerge from the hood of the cloak, and it was as if someone was moulding it from a slab of clay. The face was cold. It was hard like iron mask, but its features moved. Its tall, sharp nose twitched. Its thin lips moved to form a smile. From the sides came the hands. Not gloved hands but not human-like. The flesh, both of face and hands, seemed to be made of darkness itself. Everything was pulled into them. Black hole incarnated.
It spoke again, and this time it was no voice of a child. A hollow voice, full of life and death. Full and empty, filled with age so ancient but empty of time.
"Now, you will serve me."
Even as a demon, a powerful demon, Pinhead shivered, then he trembled, and then he shook violently. He enquired.
"What are you?"
The voice answered, and it echoed with eternity past and infinite future.
"I am the Void Keeper."
"And that is?"
"I guard all of Existence from the Void."
Pinhead still could not shake the fear he felt. He never remembered feeling such emotion, yet it was so familiar and so right at the moment.
"I do not understand."
"I am that divides all that is from all that is not. I have been here since before the creation of this universe and other countless universes. I have seen infinite number of universes being created and destroyed. I have seen all the universes and all their past, present, future and all their alternatives. I am the Scale, upon which the balance of good and evil is measured. I am the time before time, time after time, and time itself. I am space, both infinite and non-existent. I am that separates zero from one."
The Cenobite could not understand but simply trembled in the presence of something immense. This being was far more powerful and greater than the Leviathan. In seeing this 'Void Keeper', the Leviathan was a mewling infant compared to the whole of the universe.
"I will… serve."
Just as the Cenobite said it, there was something profoundly different. It was something new. New power filled him. A new purpose filled him. He was no longer passive. He no longer had to wait for his prey. Now he was filled with 'malice'. He wanted to hurt them. It was no longer simple gratification of desires. Unending thirst for destruction of soul and body was what he strives for from now on. His new master will show him the way.