So... This entire story went in a different direction than I thought, but, well... The more you flush-out your characters, the less control you have over them and honestly, I'm kind of OK with that... Not entirely, but... I want to finish this story up soon, and a downer/cliffhanger ending is not what I'll settle for.
I'm giving everyone their happy ending eventually... Even if the journey hurts to continue. But I'll continue nonetheless.
Enjoy!
- Chapter 11 -
Eleven years, eleven months, and thirty days before the barrier is broken...
On the day after the world was silenced.
The sun is setting...
Adrian rode miles through the northern wasteland alone, calling out for anyone who could still be around.
"HELLO?! ANYONE?!" He cried out to the colorless, lifeless wasteland that was the northern world.
He squinted his eyes to make-out a distant structure - barely making out it's outline.
. . .
Adrian approached the structure before him; a wall.
The wall was stained with dark grey shadows. As Adrian studied them, he noticed their appearance. Adrian adjusted his position to get a better view or understanding of why the shadows were shaped the way they were. He raised his arm to block-out the sun-light from his eyes, and if by accident, his shadow aligned perfectly to one of the shapes along the wall. He continued walking down the wall to observe the other shadows, all of them prostrating themselves, escaping something. Near the end of the wall, Adrian saw a shadow holding two smaller shadows; one held to it's chest and the other by it's hand, fleeing. All of them humanoid in shape.
Adrian walked backwards from the shadows of the wall, bumping into a pillar of stone. He turned around to observe the pillar; holding no roof and supported by nothing but the ground it was planted in.
Adrian observed his surroundings; The ground before him littered with stones and gravel placed into circular patterns. Remnants of destroyed framework stood fragile in square floor patterns in square architecture. Wherever there was anything left resembling standing construction was covered in shadows similar from those from the wall.
Adrian took a moment walking through the area, realizing where he was; the middle of what was once a city.
He heard it again; the uncanny chorus of screams, cries and shrieks of terror from the day before.
Adrian turned to look, but nobody was there. Then Adrian heard crying.
"Hello?" He called out. "Is anyone there?"
But nobody came. After the crying, Adrian heard whispers.
"I'm scared..."
"Where's my family?"
"What happened?"
"Where am I?"
"Is it over?"
"Ma, where are you?"
Adrian turned again to look, hearing whispers upon whispers in the aftermath of the destroyed city. He turned around in circles over and over to try to identify the source of the noise.
"Hello?" Adrian called out.
"It's him!"
"He said he wanted to end the war"
"Is he the one?"
"He did this."
"He did this to us..."
Adrian's heart raced. From the shadows adorning the multiple walls, he saw figures not emerge, but rather, resemble what was only fractions of seconds before those shadows came-to-be; disintegration dust of Souls momentarily trapped within their own shadows within moments of time;
Souls of soldiers, souls of warriors, souls of noblemen and peasants, souls of poor, rich, slave, free, mothers, daughters, fathers and sons. Every soul of the city, trapped in the eternal shadow of a single moment.
"This... This was not what I wanted..." Adrian whispered.
"This wasn't what I wanted!" Adrian repeated himself, almost yelling in reply to the shadows whispering.
"He wanted to end all wars-"
"To end our conflicts-"
"For us to throw down our weapons-"
"We threw down our weapons..."
"The world ceased it's sins..."
"Because the world ceased to be..."
"I... I just wanted all the fighting to stop... I didn't..." Adrian's heart started to weigh heavy... Then in the shadow of a distant tower's framework, he saw a smiling mask of two cracked eyes attached to a shape-shifting mass.
"You pressed the button..." A stray whisper made clear.
Adrian eyed the shadowed mask in the distance.
"You... tricked me..." Adrian bottled his emotions, walking toward the mask attached to a black blob, only for Adrian to be stopped by a garrison of translucent soldiers blocking his path; the expressions on them and souls were haughty and prideful.
Adrian halted, confused by the image.
The soldiers expression of pride melted away, replaced with terror. They threw down their weapons and ran past Adrian. As Adrian turned to look, he saw the cause of the shadows; these people's *SOULS.
They were running, panicked, screaming. A mother, holding one child, dragging the other behind her only for their shadows to capture their last moments...
Adrian, after observing the sight turned back to the smiling mask.
"Give them back..." Tears formed from his eyes.
"Give them back their lives..." Adrian cried to the mask; it's mass black as night.
"*RESET IT!" Adrian's voice commanded.
"UNDO IT!" Adrian shouted, trying to approach the figure.
"GIVE THEM BACK-" Adrian slipped on his feet, face-planting into the brick and gravel that was once a road.
Laying prone in the center of the ruined city square, He raised his head with his nose bleeding; seeking the figure with the mask with the cracked eyes, but it was already gone.
"I'm... I'm so sorry..." Adrian wept.
"I didn't...
"I... I did this...
"I didn't know it would be this..."
Adrian's own soul felt heavy, then it began to feel brittle as if being hollowed by a cavity.
"I'm... so... sorry..." Adrian's soul wrenched, cracked and darkened underneath the burden placed on his heart. He bawled-into a fetal position in the middle of the remains of the city square lying still, weeping within that city; One city among countless others among the world north of home that all share the same bitter, horrible fate.
The north winds howled and cried, the northern earth and plants changed from colorless to shades of black from sins before and sins present; becoming cold, bitter, unforgiving and unpleasant from all that happened- much like the *SOULS of the people that once lived in it... But above all...
*Nobody Came
. . .
Eleven years and ten months before the barrier is broken...
South Shore, along Green Gold's South-Western mountain range near a fishing village, one hundred and fifty meters away from shore.
King Adrian, his wife (and unborn child), and Lord Gael stood on a small fishing barge. Adrian held the metal box tightly in his grip, standing beside the Starboard rail of the ship. He and Gael exchanged glances. Adrian took a deep breath, closing his eyes.
The power to end all wars... How did it feel?
It was as if the box itself was whispering in his head the same way the shadows did. Adrian's demeanor firmed; his back straightened, struggling to pull and hold himself together.
"I was an idiot." Adrian blurted.
"Pardon?" Gael asked, raising his head.
"If the world was that easy to change, if peace was that easy to achieve - just the press of a button... The flick of a switch... A single, simple act that required so little thought... And just like that, the world would never fight again... I would've never needed this box... Would I?"
Adrian turned to look at his family, continuing.
"If it was truly that easy... The world, for the last two-thousand years... Anybody could've already pressed the button and halted the path the world chose on it's own accord - of it's own freedom..."
Adrian's grip on the box tightened, his eyes sunk, almost hidden into his blonde hair.
"I thought this box would strip those people from their choice to attack, hence ending the wars, saving countless lives and saving the world... But in the end..."
Adrian inhaled, releasing the air within him with a sigh.
"It was a monkey's paw; a lie... A false dream that I took the lives from so many to see come true, only to see the truth too late... But even if it did... If the dream came true..."
Adrian turned back to the box, gripping it tightly with both hands. His teeth gnashed, his eyes shut.
"It would only have put the world at the mercy... of anyone who hadn't been striped of that choice- stripped of their..."
Silence, only the noise of the rocking boat was heard. Adrian continued.
"... Do you realize what I'm saying?"
Gael stood silently in his place.
"My dream... Would've left countless people at the mercy of anyone with any intent to harm or kill...
"My own dream... would've left the entire world enslaved by the worst beings imaginable... And in a world where one could view others so little... Little more than numbers..."
Gael cringed hearing that last bit.
Free execution points
Those words - those horrific words from so long ago echoed throughout Gael's mind; understanding all-too perfectly that alternate world Adrian could only describe in mere words.
Adrian opened his eyes softly, his gaze drawn into the horizon, deep in thought.
"That's not anyone's dream... It's a nightmare... A nightmare I dreamed of dooming the world to suffer... Can I even call myself human?"
The king took a couple steps back, holding the box at his side.
"No one should have that kind of power..."
Adrian raised the box, twisting his waist, readying his arms.
"May no one, EVER, have to live with this sin scarred into my conscience!"
Adrian yelled as he hurled the box as far as he could, tens of meters away until the metal box finally fell into the sea. The company watched it's splash, witnessing the box sink without as much as blinking until it's last ripple. Gael nodded his head, understanding.
Adrian took-off his crown from his head; a golden circlet forged to resemble the crown his father was buried with. Adrian held it to his chest, whispering.
"Father... You always taught me never to be cruel... Never be cowardly... By pressing that button - regardless of what I thought would be... I failed in both. I failed as myself, I failed as a king, but unforgivably... I failed as your son..."
Adrian wiped away the liquid gathering from his eyes with an empty hand, holding his crown at his side.
"May the true king of this land be someone that NEVER would push that button!"
Without a second thought and tears down his eyes, Adrian cast his crown far into the sea- farther than even the metal box.
"I am no king..." Adrian whispered to himself.
Footsteps came from behind Adrian, and from behind, he received a silent embrace.
"Catherine?" Adrian recognized the soft hands that wrapped themselves around him. Speaking softly, the Queen spoke.
"Once upon a time, there was a girl who worked at a stable. She would listen to the stories of knights, soldiers and nobles as she worked with the horses..."
Catherine's voice was like a quiet river flowing from a pond; soft, relaxing, but peaceful above all. Adrian listened further.
"Some days, only the horses of those people would return; the only indication of what happened to their riders be the weight she could see underneath their eyes.
"Every story they told ended in kill... or be killed. That was the outside, scary world that little girl knew of, and was not ignorant toward.
"But... One strange day..."
Catherine gently turn Adrian so she could see his face, putting her hand on his cheek.
"A little prince came to the stable, and told that little, scared, afraid girl that he was going to end all of it."
Catherine wiped away a tear running down Adrian's face.
"That prince gave the little girl a choice; stay in that stable in fear of a brutal world, or join him in their own story to change the world...
"So no more children would ever have to be as afraid as she was- or hurt and scarred as the prince's brother."
Adrian teared-up, confused.
"Catherine... I don't understand."
She smiled, continuing.
"The world I grew up knowing only gave people two choices; Kill, or be killed...
"But you, Addie... You refused to give into that. When the world demanded vengeance, you tried to bring Justice...
"Where they were bitter, you were kind."
Catherine continued.
"You repaid indifference with patience, and when cowardly weasels tested you, you responded with honest courage..."
Catherine herself had a tear drop, but she continued.
"You did all of this for four long years, putting up with that world, but do you want to know what the greatest thing you did was?"
Adrian still couldn't understand.
"What did I do, Catherine?"
Slowly, Catherine gently kissed Adrian on the forehead.
"For four long years, bearing witness to the worst things that can be, in the middle of a world determined to bring you to your knees... You defied it - You persevered...
"Don't you see, Adrian? Where any one else in the world would've fallen to despair, you conquered and rose above."
"... It doesn't change what I did... It was all still wrong."
"Addie... The world told you- no, it told everyone it's kill or be killed, but you told the world to stop - you gave the world a choice! You didn't make one."
Catherine continued.
"You pressed it because they made their choice... And yes, the consequences of it are horrible and the world is in ashes as a result... But from ashes and embers, Adrian... We can be something better from it... We can be better than this."
Adrian stood emotionally and physically vulnerable. Tears of comfort down everyone's face.
"How do I do better, Catherine?"
"How you've always been, Addie; persevere... Be our leader. Our king."
...
Never be cruel. Never be cowardly.
I'm re-writing some of the short stories (while leaving most of the chapters alone), so if you notice anything missing, then well, here you go.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for your time.