1.) That Fateful Night

It all started on the fateful night that the ground was violently torn apart, all forces of evil pouring like a massive, poisonous flood from the cavernous fracture in the earth. They plagued every household and ran over the unsuspecting villages, killing everything in sight. Their leader was a monstrous man by the name of Demise. And his rusty blade cut through the most victims. The thousand year war with the surface had begun.

Ghirahim's eyes snapped open as he bolted up in bed. He listened carefully, sure he heard somebody screaming. His wife woke next to him and sat up as well, alerted by his stirring. "What's going on? Are you okay?" she asked him, wide blue eyes poring into his with a scared curiosity as she rested her hand on his shoulder. Ghirahim shifted his legs over the side of the bed, slipping on his shoes. He turned to face her and said, "That's just the problem, Fifi.", then pulled a red cloak over his shoulders, fastening a clasp at his throat. "I don't know what's going on. But I'll go outside and check." He leaned over, held the side of her face and tenderly kissed her. "I'll be right back." With that he left the bedroom, closing the door behind him. His footsteps faded until Fi heard the front door squeak open on its rusty hinges wind screaming as it was let into the warm house. It slammed tightly, stopping it in its tracks.How curious, she thought to herself, he's usually such a heavy sleeper. Outside from the normally peaceful, quiet village came disturbing,peculiar noises. She jumped at a muffled scream, and then at a clattering noise that grew louder each second that passed. She detected the slight hint of smoke somewhere and, worried, decided to check it out. She lightly jumped out of bed and gracefully tread to the window, throwing open both sets of shutters. Her eyes grew wide and she gasped in horror at the horrible sight that met her eyes; fire blazed through the village as people frantically ran to escape the terrifying beasts giving chase. There were living skeletons clattering through the streets spearing her friends and neighbors, and these fat, red beasts waving wooden clubs around, smacking people against buildings and beating them to death. She backed away from the window in shock and ran through the house, throwing open the front door, its hinges screaming in protest as she stepped onto the threshold. Way in the distance there was a massive wall of fire spouting from a wide canyon in the ground, floods of monsters pouring out by the minute. She frantically looked around, eyes searching the wrecked, burning village and checking every face that ran by. Where was Ghirahim? Had her husband ran outside to fight!? "GHIR!" she shouted for him, "GHIRAHIM WHERE ARE YOU!?" she yelled hopelessly, he was long gone and far away from the house by now, probably trying to help. She was about to turn around and try the back door when, out of nowhere, a dead white face appeared in front of hers, with fire burning inside its black sockets, a spear raised in its bony white fingers. She screamed and backed away, tripping and falling over the doorframe and landing on her back, the wind rushing from her lungs. The creature came closer and raised the weapon higher as she backed away, a hand raised in a weak attempt to defend herself. With a gasping breath, she screamed for her husband once more before her voice was cut off by the impact of the spear in her stomach. To shocked to react, she sat there with her mouth open in a silent, pained scream as the skeleton man shrieked a raspy victory cry and sauntered off, bones rattling inside his disproportional armor. She looked down at the weapon embedded in her midsection and a muffled cry escaped her lips as she tried to tug it out with little success. Soon she lost all the strength that she needed to sit upright and awkwardly slumped to the ground, curling up on the cold wooden surface. The cold seeped into her bones, the pool of her warm blood hardly shielding enough from the icy wind biting her skin as she slowly lost consciousness, the harsh colors of the world bleeding together, fading to a gray nothing.

The fight was hopeless now. Ghirahim had tried to ward off the monsters, to resist, but their forces had become too strong, their numbers too great. The fires blazed on, devouring the village with its greedy flames as he ran home, prepared to take Fi and run to somewhere safe. He stopped once to help fend off a monster attacking his neighbor, only to have it knock her in the face and turn on Ghirahim instead. He hacked his knife at it, blocking each blow from its club with a muted metallic thud until the monster paused, drawing the weapon behind its head as it prepared for a final strike. Seeing a chance to run, he flicked the knife into its eye and ran away at full speed, long past helping the people around him, for he was just as helpless as they were against the vicious demons. He rounded each turn, cutting across dirt roads and leaping over dead bodies. When he finally reached their little wooden house, he threw open the back door and went from room to room calling Fi's name, all the while evaluating every available place to run to in his head. He grabbed a blanket, throwing a book and food provisions inside and tied it at the top, throwing it over his shoulder for easy carrying. "Fi?" he called moving quickly to the front of the house, "Fifi, there are too many of them out there, we have to-" he stopped walking abruptly once he reached the front door, the sight that met him twisting his stomach into a hard knot. Fi lay curled on the floor next to the doorframe, a spear shaft jutting out of her stomach, her crimson blood pooling in around her. Her blank eyes stared at some fixed point in the distance and a trail of blood leaked out of the corner of her mouth. The makeshift bag fell from Ghirahim's loose hands, landing on the floor with a muted thud as he dropped to his knees beside his dead wife. He tentatively lifted her body from the ground with one hand, and with the other he swept her jet-black hair out of her pale face. "No….." he choked, "No no, Fifi…..don't leave me…." When she did not answer, he pulled her closer into his arms as if his embrace would change her fate. "Fi, please!" he sobbed over her shoulder, "This shouldn't have happened, no, please…" he sobbed harder, rocking her back and forth. He pulled her away and shook her body like a rag doll, shouting to her deaf ears, begging her to stay with him, and then pressed her cold, limp hand to his cheek, blood trailing down her arm. He wrapped his arms around her again, pressing her dead body close to his as he sobbed into her hair. He held her tight like this for some time, grief beyond words overtaking his existence. But soon it turned around, evolving into something dangerous."No….NO." he angrily said to the world outside, the fire reflecting off his wet, brown eyes as he glared out the front door at the burning world. "This… THIS SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED!" he yelled. He let her body slide to the floor as he stood, storming out of the house. He pulled his knife again, screaming and hacking it at the air, but it was all in vain; the monsters had moved on to slaughter the next unsuspecting village. They had left a trail of fire in their wake of chaos, the smell of death still lingering in the air. He stopped, head thrown back as tears flowed down his face, and dropped the knife at his side. He buried his face in his hands and slowly dropped to his knees in the coarse field grass, letting everything go, and then looked to the heavens. "DAMN YOU HYLIA!" he cursed the goddess, "YOU LET THIS HAPPEN!", then he struck the ground with his fist in anger, producing a crunching sound as his hand broke. Yelling out in pain, he sobbed even harder and curled into a ball on the grass, not caring who saw, because they were all dead anyway. His friends and neighbors were long gone, the one truly important person to him gone as well. There was no point to his life anymore. A cold rain began to pitter-patter on the ground, making the fires hiss with every drop. It ran its icy fingers down Ghirahim's back as his spirit crumbled inside him.