Prologue:Darkness

My hands. I stared at them in sheer horror. They were stained with blood. Her blood. Again I watched as her life slipped away. Again, her eyes clouded over as she was taken into death's embrace. Her lips parted slightly, as if asking, "Why?" "Why didn't you save me?" she had whispered in her final breath, a tear rolling down her cheek. Her eyes, once full of spirit; her lips, at one point moved as she spoke her many words; her cheeks, one day long ago they had a rosy glow to them. Now, her face, her beautiful, strong face, was ashen with death, her life pooled around her in a crimson lake. Why didn't I save her? Why did I cower in fear at the sight of that… that monster?!It was my fault my beloved had met such a gruesome demise.

I heard a shriek, that demon's wail, and the dissonance echoed in the surrounding darkness. Its laughter mocked me, strangling me, shaking me to my core. I lifted my face to where the sky was, but instead I saw the beast towering above me. It sneered, knowing my cowardice. It stood upon the corpses of my fallen comrades. It trampled upon the remains of my beloved. It delighted in their slaughter, rejoicing in its victory.

The fiend turned towards my wounded form. A crooked grin spread across its monstrous features. Reaching its arms skyward, it began to fabricate an orb of darkness between its terrible claws. It hurled the sphere into the ground before me. The earth shook and split apart, its gaping maw engulfing me.

I was plunged into darkness, falling for eternity. Its cackle, its mocking guffaw, resounded in my mind, telling me just how pathetic I was. I descended into darkness, swallowed by the shadows.