Chapter One: An Encroaching Darkness
Disclaimer: Everything you recognize, I don't own. Please don't sue. You'll get a crappy recliner and an empty potato chip bag.
Logan tossed and turned in his purple and red bed, hands clenching tightly into the sheets. Sweat dotted his forehead and at his temples.
Tiny whimpers escaped a thin mouth that had a scar through it.
He was remembering the night he entered the Auroran cave and came upon such evil that he lost an entire squadron of well-trained men.
It went how it always did: He went into the darkness, at this point in time, knowing what was coming. But no matter how many times he tried to escape the clutches of the inky blackness and the evil that wielded it, the dream ended the same.
Everyone in it died, including him. The Crawler always saved him for last though. Logan had never hated nor feared such a thing before as he did this malevolent being.
It couldn't be reasoned with, it couldn't be halted, it couldn't be killed. The only thing it wanted was the world's total destruction. How could anyone fight against such a creature?
No, the only thing to do was to destroy everything before the Crawler did. He didn't want to destroy everything his father built, but he had little choice. The blind seer hadn't really given him much of one after all. It was kill or be killed. He didn't have the time to play nice. Not with Albion at stake.
It was either tyranny or death. He was doing this for the good of all people, everywhere. He just wished he could tell someone...show them that he wasn't doing this to be cruel...but because he had to. If he had to keep it to himself then so be it. He was more than prepared to forge on ahead alone. He just sometimes wished he didn't have to.
The dream sequence suddenly shifted and warped around him. Logan blinked, finding himself floating near his brother's sleeping form.
The King looked around, his fear rocketing up a notch. This had never happened before. It had always been him and his men in the cave far away in the desert. His dream had never showed him his little brother before.
Logan whirled around at the skittering sound of many feet pattering in the darkness. The curtain fluttered and he turned towards it. The sky was pitch black; there were no stars in the sky. The inky blackness he came to dread was everywhere and yet it hadn't touched the bed or the figure in it. From ceiling to floor it rose, covering everything and drowning it.
"Such innocence. Such light." came the voice that made Logan freeze where he stood. He slowly turned around and what he saw would the fuel the nightmares he had for the rest of his life.
The Crawler himself was standing over his still sleeping brother, all six of the creature's dark malevolent eyes focused on the bright white light that enveloped his younger sibling.
The thing moved in closer, but was shocked and angry when it was rebuffed by the glow.
It let out loud angry shout and Logan covered his ears in pain.
Prince Liam opened his eyes and Logan expected him to scream in terror at the sight of the Crawler looming over him.
He was therefore quite surprised when his brother glared up at the entity, tattoos that he hadn't noticed before standing out starkly against his skin as they glowed a very bright whitish blue.
Before he could really register what was going on, Liam suddenly took out a sword and charged the creature, a bright orange fireball in the palm of his other hand.
"NO! LIAM! NO, IT'LL KILL YOU!" Logan screamed at his foolish sibling.
Logan tried to reach out and stop him, but his legs were stuck and he couldn't move.
He could only watch in horror as his brother faced off against the evil that tormented his mind daily.
At first, the battle seemed to be tipped into Liam's favor. Liam would hit the Crawler with a fireball which seemed to cause it immense pain if it's shrieks were anything to go by. Then he would swing his weapon through it, causing deep wounds that bled inky darkness everywhere like billowing smoke.
He was too stunned to register the fact that his brother had their father's abilities...
But then, coming from the darkness were the Crawler's shadowed children who surrounded Liam. Logan watched as Liam battled through them, but no matter how many he killed, the damn things kept coming. For every one Liam sent back to hell, four more took it's place.
It was a battle Liam was going to lose. Logan cursed his strategic mind. He didn't want to know Liam's chances of failure.
Liam was too busy fending off the shadow children to stop the Crawler's attack.
Logan watched in horrified fascination as the Crawler tilted his brother's head back roughly, before shoving a large black bolt of pure darkness down inside of him.
Liam screamed.
Loud, agonizing wails came from his brother's throat as he collapsed to his knees, sword falling from limp fingers. Liam's natural smoky brown/blue eyes were now overlayed with the darkest black that Logan had ever seen. It was pouring out of his mouth, his eyes, his nose, his ears….it was coming from everywhere; trying to conquer the now small florescent light still shielding his brother.
"GIVE ME YOUR LIGHT!" The Crawler screamed in his brother's face. Liam shook, his body trembling in the hands of the creature before him. He looked like a marionette with it's strings cut...
"I...won't...surrender..." Liam somehow choked out.
"You are like the rest of them now. Tainted. Broken. Join your friends and family in darkness!" The Crawler was relentless with it's words.
Logan could do nothing but watch as his brother slowly faltered under the continuous onslaught.
"You can do it, Liam! I believe in you!" he shouted. He didn't know if his brother could hear him or not; but that wasn't going to stop him.
The Crawler took it's eyes away from his brother to stare at him.
The creature grinned at him. There was no other word for the large grotesque smile it bore that was too big for it's face.
"Oh...the King has come to play my children!" It laughed loudly and horribly. The shadows hissed in amusement at him. Logan felt the snarl grow on his face.
"Do you like what you see King of Nothing? Do you like what I have done to him?" It laughed again and Logan fervently wished he could cast a fireball of his own so he could lob it in the hateful thing's over sized maw.
The Crawler had spent so much time paying attention to Logan and not enough to the captive in his grasp.
It was therefore shocked when a massive fireball lit it's face on fire. The monster roared in agony and madness as it twitched and writhed upon the ground.
Liam, having been dropped to the ground, coughed out the liquid like darkness in his body; gasping and choking on the wrongness.
The Crawler had disappeared, taking it's evil children with it. For the moment.
Logan found he could move again and he rushed over to his brother's side.
He reached for Liam.
Only when his hand touched his brother did something happen.
Liam's body jerked and he threw his head back and screamed. Black tar came from everywhere at once, bypassing Logan who was right to next to the Prince. Logan tried to reach for his brother again, but he seemed miles away even though he was right in front of him.
"Your light! I WILL PUT IT OUT!" came the thunderous roar.
Liam continued to scream, raking his fingernails down his face leaving blood trails. He was still managing to scream despite choking on the evil invading his body.
"Make...it...stop...I can't…." Liam pleaded.
"LOGAN!" Liam screamed and then collapsed face first into the dirt. (When had the scene changed? How had he not noticed it?) When the darkness dissipated, Liam's body was nothing more than a husk. The pure light that protected him had vanished. The Crawler laughed in triumph.
"He's one of us now."
"LIAM!"
Logan abruptly woke up, face covered in sweat and tears; his body was trembling uncontrollably and his he was having trouble breathing.
He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed and planted his feet onto the carpeted floor.
He put his head in his hands and took several deep breaths. He closed his eyes and wished the fragments of his dream away or tried to.
After several minutes had passed, Logan felt more like himself again. He was still rather shaken over his dream, but it wasn't an all encompassing fear any longer that paralyzed him.
He could actually think rationally now.
And his mind was telling him to check on his little brother.
That dream had been too real...so terrifyingly real...he just needed to make sure.
He would give himself this indulgence. In the wee hours of the morning when no one would see his worry or his fear. He needed to know. He needed to see.
It was safer this way. For everyone.
But especially for Liam.