A/N: One more chapter left guys…
Alexander walked in the woods. Though immortal, he still remembers this place of his childhood.
Back then the woods were bright. There wasn't as much dense foliage to make the place dark. When he was young and played in the trees there was grass, wildflowers and singing birds. Older, he used to hunt the deer here on the hunts. It was still beautiful.
Now many, many years later he was here in the grove. There was the Old Oak where he climbed. It was now old and gnarly with graying bark. He used to have picnics in the grass under the sun. Now the grass was dead and mossy, the trees shading the place from the sun. He used to listen to the birds. No birds sung.
The forest was thick with vegetation and branches, the trees towering over them. Darkness reigned with green shadow as the red man stood in the middle of it all.
And all hell broke loose.
Alexander fell to his knees, the demons of darkness thronging around him. The red cloaks, fashioned from his living life blood swayed around him with trembling outreached claws.
Kill for us…make love for us…please! They whispered words only demons know.
"Never. My captors and deceivers shall gain no triumph with me." He spoke in the tongue of their kind…of his kind, for what he was fashioned was done by they.
The Darkness swayed back as they tried to penetrate his mind. It was closed tightly to them, for now Alexander understood how he was used. He had brought these evil beings to the earth and he had been their vessel of control. He had let them cause such destruction.
If they are evil…then they must know that this world they are destroying truly…truly…
It must be good.
His eyes widened as he realized thus. How the control, how the revenge and the mockery of it all had plagued and made him do horrible things…that he thought was right.
Falling to his knees, the Darkness swarmed around him taunting and trying to take him over in his weakened state of disbelief.
But he could not let them. He could not let them refashion the world to evil and destroy the real purity of this world. The beauty of the trees and the land…all would be destroyed if they fully took over his mind and body.
And his love would be ravished to death under such hideous circumstances.
"Never…Never!" He cried to the sun.
The Darkness cackled around him.
He did not care how this sudden repentance affected him.
"OH GODS!" He cried.
They will not answer…there are no gods…only darkness…
"That can't be true! It was the Gods of Death that created me, another god!" His fingers dug into his own scalp.
YOU are the natural...there never were any gods of the unnatural to command you! We are the evil…and you will be the evil…They churned in a vicious circle, the blood robes turning into red mist in their shadowy bodies.
"I will never fall. I will never let her become a slave to your lusts. I will not taint this land the immortal color of blood."
Brave he stood, looking up at their shadowy eyes. Inside the hollows of their shifting shapes they had nothing but a pit of nothingness. Of absolute chaos.
"Blood is the life. But it will not be the death of life."
He stood up with new strength. The King still had the ambitions of his past. It was still his present. And he was still immortal and strong.
The Darkness would not have this.
In the swarm they came, down into his head. Alexander cringed and hissed in pain as the demons went into his head, attacking his brain, trying to get through his strength to take over.
Alexander would not let them succeed.
Pain and pressure. The Darkness prodded and pushed his mentality and tried. Darkness and chaos threatened him.
He rolled to the ground, screaming in agony! It felt like his mind was being ripped in two, his head split open, and his own life at stake…
And he had to fight them.
"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" He roared.
The Darkness formed into one being, one form that they were before. Their power was no longer separated but condensed to strike harder at his mental defenses.
I cannot lose…for my love…for everyone…He thought.
He would not lose. Not to them, not to the world. He would forever be lost with the world as they destroyed it.
The Darkness felt defeat as they clawed at his mind. His mind had unlocked something powerful, something bright like heaven. Like goodness, like sunlight. The demon as it thrashed and screamed knew the death of itself would happen if it did not withdraw and hide back to the shadows. The power, the force and pressure of the phsych threatened to overtake the altered energy of life.
With pain, physical pain, Alexander screamed as he toppled to the ground, holding himself and concentrating. Forcibly, he was pushing the Darkness from his head. The dark form was disintegrating into the earth, fleeing the immortal…now the mortal, mind.
The Darkness had lost. It wailed unearthly as it rose high and plunged into the soil. The grass died as the ghoulish specter went back to the realm from which it came.
He relaxed, weakened, and looked around himself.
There was a mist of red, of the blood he had given them. They had left it behind, the blood from when he was first changed.
The mist attacked him, toppling him as he writhed. The pores of his skin and his mouth were filled with his real blood. The blood that was his own went back into his veins.
He lay still, almost unconscious as his heart beat moved not the elixir of dark energy, but blood, through his vessels.
And he felt so very, very old. He felt warm, he felt…feelings.
The Darkness had left him. He was now a mortal again, once more.
He went to his feet, a bit unsteady. His hands were not changing into claws at will. He felt, in his stomach, hungry. He felt a bit tired, and his skin was warm as the veins pulsed with life blood.
And he knew now that he was going to age till his death.
He looked back at the spoiled ground the Darkness fled into. He knew that, because they no longer had the strength of their possessed, they had to return to their own realm to survive.
And now he was finally free.
He could die, and be wounded. He had no power except over himself.
Alexander knew he was not needed. He knew that the new world that he had inadvertently created would not tolerate The King.
But they will follow The Queen.
Alexander, formerly The Red Death, began his walk through the woods till he would find the perfect home for his solitude.
And the world will heal in his absence.
A/N: R&R.
Shoys.