But as the shadow once again crawls across our world...and the stench of terror drifts on a bitter wind...people pray for strength...and guidance. They should pray for the mercy of a swift death. For I've seen what the darkness hides...
Leah
Hellmouth
Deep below the desert of Caldeum, some rocks shifted. Deep, as in a few kilometres. Not that far at all really-many people travelled twice that distance on a daily basis. Yet few had ventured that deep, as opposed to across the surface of their world. Light did not touch it, whether it be the light of sun or Heaven. Nothing but darkness and stone existed in the cool depths of the earth.
The rock started to shift. Slowly, but surely, defying all geophysical knowledge. This was not a natural event of the earth. There was nothing natural about it at all. But if one was to consider that the chain of events had been set in motion for this event twenty years ago...perhaps it was natural after all that it had come to this.
Within seconds, a hole miles wide had opened, changing the landscape and inadvertently changing the lives of thousands. For some, this was a change of fate. For a select few, this was what they had expected. For many, this was the beginning of the end. They were as good as dead already.
And thus the Demonic Hordes of the Burning Hells marched forward.
Rationality gave way to raw instinct. Survival first, then the survival of friends and family. The streets were choked with the panicked living, fated to be filled with no longer panicking dead. Thousands fled, only to be cut down. The battle lines were absolute. Leaders were paralysed, unable to comprehend this supposedly mythological foe. A wake-up call, but few would sleep again bar that of the eternal kind. A great truth, but one forced upon Man rather than achieved through intellectual means. Such was the price of self-induced ignorance.
And as the demons surged forward, Caldeum would pay an even higher price.
A/N
Two major pieces of inspiration for this drabble, one being the Diablo III beta. The other stemmed from a recent village to Christchurch, having seen the effects of the earthquakes that struck it in 2010 and '11. Kind of put two sets of imagery together, what with the earth deciding to 'shake things up' in both settings.
Poor pun, I know. :(