Library:Darkness

This story by Zerowon was submitted as part of, but is currently unpublished.

Darkness
By Zerowon

The night was black, so black that Nomad felt as though the absence of light was a sign that the stars and the heavens had forever abandoned him in that dreary tract of forest. The trees, barely visible, seemed to howl as the cold night air blew between their branches, further magnifying the haunting feeling of desolation. For Nomad knew that no beneficent god would ever allow such a disturbing place to exist within the gaze of the righteous heavens and it was by that logic that Nomad knew he must be blindly trekking through the space between the living and the damned.

What to do? What could he do? The minutes stretched on for hours and the hours melted into days. There was no sign of life, no sign of the world he knew, nothing but cold and unrelenting darkness.

It was from within that primal part of Nomad's body that true fear unchecked flooded his logical senses. The fear grew into an unsettling feeling, so deeply rooted into the darkest pit of Nomad's brain that it paralyzed all of his thoughts beyond mere survival. It was within this darkness that Nomad encountered true evil — a lord undone, a life bereft of humanity, a creature so foul that it could only be perceived as a lich.

With steady speed the lich closed on Nomad raking its skeletal hands across his chest with fury. Nomad frantically tried to fight back, but it was to no avail. It became clear as the darkness crept into Nomad's consciousness that one could not encounter such menacing evil and hope to survive. It was in that blackened forest of evil that Nomad's candle was extinguished.

Trivia

 * Darkness was a runner up in the Scholars of Novia's "The Sisters Grim" contest.