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Laurence ran. He didn’t know where. He only knew away. Away from this hellhole. It didn’t dawn on his mind that the portal back home, if he were to ever find it, was broken or the fact that even if it wasn’t he’d have no idea where it would spit him out. He just wanted to be away from here. Anywhere would be better than here.
The Nether was a place of suffering. A bunch of crazed, fanatics, driven half mad running a cult trying to bring a dead god back. Forcing random innocences that they took by any means necessary to become husks of what they once were and slaves to the cults name. Strapping them down to burning altars, chanting curses to imbue the transformation upon them, spilling their blood with an unsettlingly cool knife and pressed golden idols into twitching, spasming hands, their eyes rolling back as their humanity was purged from them. Though Laurence was different, in some regard, for the reason that he’d chosen to stay behind letting others flee this place. It’s better for two people to survive instead of all three of them dying, right?
However he knew the consequences, knew what would happen once he was found. What they would do to him.
Once he was captured, he didn’t make it easy on these people. He yelled, punched, kicked and screamed; clawing at the ones that dare to come close to him, snapping his teeth at the people near his face, clamping down once or twice. He knew what he looked like, a feral, deranged animal, but couldn’t find the nerve to care. He wasn’t going down without a fight. That would be cowardice, and he sure as hell wasn’t a coward.
But even that resolve would be put to shame by this place.
After the initial transforming curse he was left sick, weak and pale. Almost immediately throwing up any food he was given and beaten like he was nothing more that a back alley street dog. He was routinely dragged back to the altar again and again because the curses just weren’t working on him, weren’t manifesting correctly, weren’t sticking to him as intended. They wanted him to give up, so it would work properly. But he never did. No matter how much he was beaten with the malice, or rage, or carved into with a vicious blade or tortured with the fury of a thousand suns. He wouldn’t give up, and for once he could attribute his ungodly stubbornness for something. He was going to prove them all wrong. Prove he wasn’t like them. He’d done this to save someone he loved, and he wasn’t able to let that thought die. It was the flicker of hope that kept him alive, the only thing that kept him sane.
Except there was one glimmer of hope even down in a place like this. Another person just like him, Vylad, thought undoubtedly he’d been here much, much longer than Laurence. But he was a good man, definitely a fair bit younger than himself with messy dark brown hair and a deep, emerald scarf that covered half his face. His holding cell was joint next to Laurence’s and he was rarely let out of it. He felt somewhat sad for Laurence, at least that’s what he thought, because the young man would often slide extra food for him through the bars and patch up his wounds best he could with the scraps of linen they gave him. Reassured him that he knew a way out and they both could escape if only they held out for a little bit longer.
Though Vylad looked at least marginally healthier than Laurence did. Something he never quite understood, but it wouldn’t have been a surprise if the higher ups played favourites here. He on the other hand looked terrible. Once long, fiery red hair had since dulled and become matted and straggled down his back. His bright viridian green eye were ringed with purple bruises and lack of sleep. Dressed in ragged remains of clothes they were so generous to give him. When he was left only for once, he could easily count his knuckles, the knobs of his knees and run his boney fingers over every single one of his ribs and raises of his spine. Yet common knowledge, the saving grace that it was, told him that it wasn’t normal for people to be this ghostly pale and greying with the ends of his extremities slowing turning red. He was covered in a patchwork of bruises, ranging from fresh purples to sickly yellows and greens, as well as small scrapes and cuts. Littered with bandages desperately trying to hold the crimson flood of his own blood from spilling onto the dusty floor, wounds from the countless times they scored into his flesh for some twisted form of fun.
So Vylad was either extremely lucky in this place or Laurence was extremely unlucky.
But one day or night, those bastards had forgotten to lock his cell properly. And he bolted.
His slender feet pounded along the red brick ground, his blood pulsing in his ears as the metallic tang invaded his mouth. Pushing his frail, weaken body through all it was worth, striving his limbs further than he ever intended before, this was the only time he’d ever get, every step counted, every breath, every moment
, every single jolt of his body. He couldn’t pause for even a moment otherwise they’d catch up to him. This was his only chance. He needed to escape. And the thought only served to spur him on.
Soon after the initial clank as he’d thrown open the door to his cell and ran, there was a constant drum of footsteps behind him, all those shadowy drones were hunting him down. But Laurence was fast, he was built for this, though that didn’t matter as a more sinister thought nagged at the logical side of him, that they were steadily gaining on him, as the drumming only grew closer. He couldn’t find it in him to care, he didn’t dare look back because he knew that, if he did it would cause the liquid fear to congeal in his bones and freeze him up. Though he didn’t need to outmanoeuvre the troop, only to outsmart them. Problem being he had no idea where he was or where he was running too. But he quickly found himself barging through a large gate and barrelling down the immense arches that span across the sea of lava below.
Outside.
He could almost kid himself into seeing the portal, perched high on the jagged cliff sides that crowded around the edges of the fortress. Made of black obsidian and oozing with powerful magic just waiting for the spark to light, tearing through time and defining all logic as it reached into another world beyond. He could almost see the purple haze it cast into the surrounding air, the gentle pulsing sound it made, it’s shimmering almost metallic like surface that rose and fell with an invisible heartbeat. Almost feel the coldness that passed over anyone who dared to brave it, like being submerged into the icy waters of the faraway Gul’rak region, yet strangely still being able to breathe. And could almost taste the staticky back of the mouth taste it left behind. Further than that, he thought he could feel the sun warming his skin, grass beneath his feet and carding through his fingers as he ran, even hear the gentle swaying of trees and the wonders of wind and bird song passing through his ears.
But the illusion rapidly fade. Once he caught sight of piercing purple eyes and the gleam of snow white hair in front of him. Sasha. Standing there posed and waiting patiently like this was nothing more than just another day for her, with her pale arms crossed. Laurence almost froze in his tracks, almost tripping over, he quickly caught himself as he tried to shake the memories that were starting to surface. After all she had been his closest friend, which he believed she never stopped being even after he saw her die in this hellhole. Not to mention that, later on it broke his heart to learn she’d turned into this, a shadow of her former self, but still he never gave up hoping that the real Sasha was in there somewhere. Just buried deep under a cacophony of rage, fear, sadness, despair and anger. The things that drove the Shadow Knights. Instead he sharply turned, speeding down an adjoining walkway, desperately trying to keep his breathing even and fighting the tears that were bubbling up behind his eyes. He wouldn’t lose. He just couldn’t. Not to her. Not here.
Pushing himself further, more so than he ever had in his life, he could feel himself falter. Whether it was because of Sasha’s intervention or sheer exhaustion, he couldn’t tell. But non the less he found himself wobbling on his feet as the knights only grew closer to him. The strain was too much. He was going to fail. Panic settled deep in his bones. He zipped along, through the crossroads and lone sentry towers, the world becoming a blur around him. He could scarcely tell the difference between where the bleak background stopped and the indomitable fortress emerged. Until he halted, and came to a skidding stop.
Dead end.
There was nothing on the other side of this, broken, crumbling aqueduct, than a straight drop down into the lava pits below. This was it. This was the end. No way they’d ever let him go now. The knights had blocked off the way he came, his only means of escape, crowding him towards the edge. Sasha now leading the charge.
She was talking to him, of course, her mouth was moving in vague word-like shapes, but nothing was going into Laurence’s head. He already knew the spiel she was giving him, it was the one he’d first heard when he got here and had heard everyday or night since. It was how great their cause was and that it would bring peace to the lecherous world in which they were scorned. That once Shad was restored, they would all rival the gods of old and finally be able to be taken seriously in the society that ignored them. But the only thing he could hear was the spluttering crackle of molten lava and the scuffle of the knights in their blood red armour. He knew he couldn’t rush at them and take them all head on, that and his previous guard training alerted him to the fact there were probably several archers trained on him, waiting with deadly accuracy. And he was never any good at dodging live arrows. So running towards was out of the question, it would only get him either more injured than he already was or caught faster, and he could only imagine the kind of torture they’d cook up specifically for him for his insolence. That only left behind him.
The drop down into lava.
That was pure madness but Laurence was desperate. Besides he figured that dying a hero was better than the monster they were trying to turn him into. He shuffled backward so that his heels were just scraping the threshold. Sasha, as clever as she was, took his backward movement as fear and opted to speak simple calming words to him like he was merely a dumb, simple animal, imploring him to come with her. Foolishly thinking that their previous friendship held near as much weight as it did then. Good. Laurence might’ve been foolish in the past but Sasha was too different now for him to ever consider that. He wanted to help her but that wasn’t worth risking his life.
So instead he took one final deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment and stepped backwards.
Immediately, the sound of air gushing flooded his ears, he heard Sasha scream as she lunged to catch him but it was too late and he was dropping like a stone. The dry air burned his exposed skin and ripped through him, he was little more than a bur trapped in a hurricane’s wind, drying his throat as he rapidly tried to force the leaving air back into his scorching lungs whilst he only plummeted faster and faster. But nothing in this world could’ve ever prepared him for what happened next. Instead of slamming into a gory mess on top on the lava sheets like how he’d expected, quick and relatively painless. He sunk. Enveloping him in an all-encompassing blazing heat, lighting every single one of his nerves alight in a pain so extreme he thought he’d never even felt true pain before, it trivialised everything he had ever experienced. He felt his skin start to turn into large angry welts, blackening and cracking into deep, flaking channels, blood flowing like makeshift rivers. His body involuntarily screamed against his interests, forcing the thick, viscous lava down his throat, choking him and moving the blazing fireball of pain to spear deep into his gut. Burning him alive.
Soon after crossing the filmy barrier that separated the air from bubbling lava, the immense bodily strain quickly turned his world black.
The next fraction he remembered, was only semiconscious, the world moving in snapshots around him, blurry people slid about him, talking in slurred words. But one thing was clear, he was dying and somewhere in the back of his mind he realised he’d only survived so long because of the curse. It was just too weak for him to be immune. Instead his skin had harden into a dark flimsy mess that was slopping off in great chunks, revealing the bloody, twanging muscle and sinew below. Black blood oozed out of the gaps, thick and clumping as soon as it touched the dusty air and fell onto the floor. The pain was a dull thud flowing through his veins, ever present, as the lava had destroyed most of his nerves. He could hardly feel anything, not the floor pressing uncomfortably into his charred back or even his own disintegrating skin. It was almost a state of peace before death. But his pulse was thrumming erratically in his chest, causing what little was left of him to twitch and spasm, firing his mostly unresponsive nerves in painful twinges.
Quickly a hazy white halo and unblinking purple splotches in an otherwise smooth pale and black blob, moving into his field of view, but he would recognise her anywhere. Sasha. Laurence reach out as much as he could with his blacken arm, his fingers splayed out like dark spindles. Immediately she grasped onto his hand, he ignored the throb of pain that creeped up, he could see yelling at someone out of view, a blood red gash appearing and disappearing, before turning back to talk to him. But all of it fell on his deaf ears. He could hear nothing but ringing, drilling into his head.
Suddenly a surge of motion came to his limbs, violently spasming and contracting, powerless as he could only gasp for breath, like he was trying to tread water in the violent storm of the sea, desperately trying to keep his head above the water. Rapidly, someone shoved Sasha out of view and he grappled with the loss of a familiar face, a strangled noise barely concealing itself as human, left his body. Forcing a bottle filled with some vile concoction to his cracked lips and poured it down his twitching, gasping throat. He spluttered as someone, somewhere tried to sit him up, causing the unknown liquid to dribble unflatteringly down his chin. Soon after his own blood flooded his mouth, choking him with its bittersweet metal taste.
Unidentifiable shapes of people moved back from him, dropping his convulsing body hard on the ground, even they knew there was nothing they could do now. They’d tried everything.
This is how it would end.
But.
He didn’t want to die.
He didn’t want to die. He wanted to be home. At home in his realm with his loved ones, just wanted to feel their presence and soft embraces. He wanted his sister, his loving older sister. The one who could make the pain go away. When he was little, she would stroke his fluffy hair and cradle his small body against hers. So he could hear her heartbeat to lull him as her soothing voice coaxed him to sleep. He tried as hard as he could to imagine he was back there. To put himself back into a happy place before death could draw him into its cold arms. However he found he couldn’t remember her face. Her soft, sweet, gentle face. Just a fuzzy vague, warm candle feeling like, blur. How the hell could he forget his own sisters face, even more so he couldn’t remember her name. He couldn’t be this stupid, right? It was the simplest thing in the world. He couldn’t forget. He wouldn’t let himself. Because then he’d forget himself. And if he did that, then… there was nothing left of him. He’d be a husk. Exactly what they wanted. Tears welled up in his bloodshot eyes, but they didn’t fall. He couldn’t even cry properly. He was a failure. Everything always had to blow up in his face, didn’t it?
Maybe they were right about him after all. Maybe it would be better for everyone if he just let go. If he just went limp. It would all be alright then. That was the only thing that make even a inkling of sense. Right?
Laurence’s vision swam, steadily spinning into darkness, as all of the pain ebbed out of him. A shadowy figure engrossed his limited view. But he couldn’t feel anything. And could find it in him to care. He was loosing his sight, he was fading into black.
Nothingness.
. . .
. .
.
. .
. . .
For a moment, Laurence felt like he was falling. His body feeling nothing but blank temperature-less air.
But that quickly started to change, his feet found solid ground. At first smooth and cold, like glass. But as he moved forward, it shifted to the softness of grass before turning into the methodical crunch of a beaten dirt track.
A whistle of wind passed by him, heard a flutter of birds, a cry of geese over head.
Soon he could see too. The world piecing together before him.
A small wood cabin, emerging from a cloudless sky, atop a small swell of a hill, besotted with tiny white oxeye daisies. Overflowing flower beds sat around the foundations of the little cabin, creepers steadily making their way up the walls blooming with pale lilac flowers. Wafting the sweet smell of fatheaded flower buds down towards him.
It’s well-loved oak door, swung seamlessly on its old hinges.
Inviting him in.
. . .
. .
.
. .
. . .
Abruptly a sharp ring shocked his ears, forcing a gasp out of his lifeless being. A distinctive crackle rolled through his body like thunder. He jolted up, eyes wide, looking down to see a grey, disintegrating totem in the palm of his hand. Horrified to see his own skin staring to return to its original colour. Shifting from charred and flakey to soft and tinged with pink at the joints, how it was before he’d ever set foot in the Nether. Watching with a kind of morbid curiosity as slabs of skin slowing reknit themselves together and forming anew. The uncanny sensation of feeling his throat heal like nothing, how bit by bit he could feel the strength returning to his once weary muscles, flowing through him like a renewed vigour.
Before an overwhelming exhaustion shrouded him and pulled him into its depths. He was out cold.
Once he was able to open his eyes, a fatigue hung off him trying to draw him back into unconsciousness with its sleepy tendrils, but there was nothing but darkness. So dark and yet so very cold. Cold? Why was it cold here? Of all places. He was in the Nether, the hottest sealed realm. Right? He tried to move his arms, only to find them pulled harshly towards the ground, same as his legs. He was stuck. Held steadfast to a point, somehow, somewhere. Slowly coming to his sense as soon as the initial panic of waking up in darkness again, washed was over, something clicked and he realise that the ‘coldness’ he was feeling was due to large iron manacles. Bound tightly around his wrist, ankles and neck as well as thick, heavy chains coiled around his chest. Holding him back. Whether they came from behind or in front of him, he couldn’t tell. But still it was clear: There was no chance of running now.
Soon a seam slit its way into the room, which with the reddish light, was revealed to be a tall light-well of sorts with the domed top covered with shifting black shades and sharp yellow blotches. But he recognised the scarred face, that appeared beneath a vast hood, immediately. Icy blue eyes that haunted his worst nightmares, a sick warped smile that stretched too far across his face and wrapped in a dark cloak that trailed behind him with gnarled, claw-like hands stuck to his sides. He’d know him anywhere. Gene. That bastard. He made his way with his signature limping gate over to him. Leaning down and gently tilted his face up to meet him. It made Laurence want to scream.
“I’m sorry we had to put you in this vault.” His voiced sounded all too far away and too close at the same time, too loud and too quiet, too harsh yet too breathy. It hurt his head to even keep up. To even begin to understand, was out of the question. “But it was a necessity, Laurence.”
That made his blood boil, just by the way he said his name, every, single, syllable and drenched in condescension. He wanted to nash his teeth, writhe like hell and escape, somehow. But instead, as he felt for a moment the blood pool in his mouth, he had another idea. It wouldn’t get him anywhere but he spat dead in his assailants face.
Instantly Gene recoiled backward, dropping his smirking face. But only paused for a moment, wiping the mess from his face with a disdainful flick of his hand.
“Clearly. Because of you insatiable temper.” He stated before leading back towards him, a scarred hand threading itself like a wreathe of thorns into his hair, holding the side of his face. “But I suppose you’ll still make a fine addition to our family.”
It was a sickening line, and tilting his head this way and that as if he was inspecting him, like some prized animal. It was demeaning. Dehumanising. He wasn’t even a person anymore to these monsters.
Gene didn’t move, holding onto him, staring him down. As his voice lowered to a spine chilling drawl. “Oh, and don’t you even think about escaping anymore. Because well… it would be a great shame to lose someone with such capabilities as yourself. I’m only trying to help you, dear~”
A new pain ricocheted through Laurence’s head, steadily replaced with a live throbbing pulse, drowning his thoughts with it’s continuous flowing waves. His head jerked to the side, blood splattering from the new wound slicing up from the bottom of his jaw to the crown of his temples. A clean cut through his ear. With the budding tears in his eyes, he stared back as hard as he could at the creepily smiling man in front of him. Blood dripping off his clawed, needle shaped, hands. Laurence seethed through his teeth, breathing as deeply as he would allow himself to. He couldn’t risk anything.
“Otherwise, they’ll hunt you down.” He said, intoxicatingly sweet. So sweet it hurt.
A small rumble cracked through the quiet air. Shattering the paper thin silence. Laurence hadn’t even realised the deafening stillness until now, beforehand there had always been some kind of faint background noise, the drumming of the knights pacing around their patrols, vague voices chanting spells or curses, the bubbling of the lava flats far below the fortress. From the shifting shadows cloaking the ceiling, a small mound emerged, it’s shifting black skin pulsating with an intense internal pressure, before it rapidly expanded. Tumbling downwards to Gene’s bloodied outstretched hand, Laurence could see lumbering shapes, clambering over one another to reach quicker. Their bright sickly yellow eyes like pinprick stars in a never ending moving night sky. Until one of the shapes reached out with thin boneless fingers, the blackness dripping upwards into the mass above it. But once it stopped, hanging in the air, the crowd never stopped pulsing as they continued to move over one another, disappearing back into the mass, before pulling itself back out. Over and over again. The other things hand moved over his like it was unsure, however it got over its nerves quick enough once it smelt blood. Its eyes widened into suns as brought its skeletal face down, thin see-through grey skin stretching abnormally tight over the things widening black jaw. A snake nest worth of tongues slobbered a dark muck over Gene’s hand as it lapped up Laurence’s blood. The thing made a noise, nails scraping down a blackboard, an ear grating noise, like it was finally happy, satisfied even. Before the mass went tumbling back into the ceiling, the surface rippled like a stone hitting a lake. The quiet rumbling ceased abruptly, like nothing had ever happened, back to thundering silence.
“They’ve tasted your blood, after all.” Gene said with a teasing lilt to his voice. He turned on his feet, his cloak moving in the stagnant wind, and left the light-well. Closing the door firmly behind, leaving him once more in the dark with the undulating pulses of the black ceiling creatures above him, their eyes being the only sickening yellow light source in the whole room.
Laurence was still for once. He’d never even seen those things before, heard about them, sure, but never had the displeasure of seeing them with his own eyes. Shadow Souls. The crumbling husky shells of what little remained of dead knights. The term floated about the fortress, as if they were some hushed secret weapon, especially when referring to troublesome captives such as himself, so he was privy to what exactly these things were. They were feral things, that only existed to prolong the lives of those fallen by inhabiting unfortunate creatures bodies. Human or animal, they weren’t particularly picky. But he’d never even considered the possibility that they were used as the cults guard dogs. They were the only things capable of slipping through such a weakened link between the realms. So he thought they were used for reconnaissance missions, trying to rebuild their cult in the outside world. But now, after seeing that spectacle, he realised that they were far too deranged to even do that.
Degraded to simple, mindless, hunting slaves.
Just like him.
He’d turn into once of those things one day, it was only a matter of time. Solemnly he hung his head, the reality of his situation was crushing him. He was never getting out of here. Nobody was coming from him. Nobody ever would. Even Vylad, the sweet boy that he was, couldn’t reach him in here. If only he’d stayed put, when the opportunity for freedom was so tantalisingly laid out in front of him. If only he hadn’t jumped in the lava, his only feasible solution in the raw heat of the moment. If only Gene hadn’t revived him…
If only.
If only he hadn’t been born in the first place. It had always been one misstep after another since then, hadn’t it? He hadn’t been admitted to the guard academy till the middle of the second year, where all the other kids his age were. Didn’t even pass the entrance exam till the third try. Even then he was always a skinny kid, and even when they’d started him out in the first year class, though he’d be rapidly bumped up to his proper place, the kids there were taller than him, more so in the second year. Academics were never going to be his strong suit but he’d tried his best and still fall short, the high level classes just out of reach for him. Hell because of home life it wasn’t getting much better. Sure he was a Lord’s son. Adopted, at that. But this was Meteli he was talking about. A piss poor, back alley village that nobody in their right mind would ever care about. The kids at the academy where dicks about it, the heads of the whole damned place waved it off as ‘boys will be boys’ and ‘there just a bunch of kids, just like you. Give them a break’ and if it really bothered him then he should just leave.
Just a slow downwards spiral. And for fuck sake he couldn’t even be normal. He wasn’t normal, not by a long stretch. He knew of what people thought about men like him. Disgusting inhuman people moving around in a roughly normal way. But the cracks still shone through. They just had too, didn’t they? Because he happen to have fallen hard onto the stone cold ground of reality for another man who barely acknowledged his existence. It was torture.
Laurence took a shuddering breath. Even his frightening resolve was crumbling, his ungodly stubbornness. He was failing. No… He had already failed. He failed as soon as that portal snapped closed in front of his face. As soon as he stepped foot into this accursed place. And he did something he’d been holding in since the beginning.
He cried.
Not the pretty kind of a few tears rolling pleasingly down your face. This was hot, fat, ugly tears, cascading down in never ending torrents. Scarring white tracks through the rusted dust that clung to his skin. Heaving sobs racked his thin frame, screaming from his lungs, most likely tearing his vocal cords to shreds. Trembling through his limbs and chest, they force their way against the cold metal binding him. At this rate he’d end up with some major bruising, but he didn’t have the ability to care at this point. Couldn’t care about the way he looked, how pathetic he seemed to the knights surveying his cell. His world as he knew was crashing down on top of him, he was sure a few tears were warranted. Another wave rolled over his body, as he choked back more tears. But he couldn’t. He just let each wave come and go as it pleased, shaking him over and over.
And after so long, it started to feel cathartic. So long of holding this in, of being so afraid of looking weak, it felt so good. Words couldn’t even begin to describe how great this feeling was.
He began to laugh.
It was madness, but he felt like he was being driven mad from the start. It was manic, laughing whilst the tears still caked his face. And it wasn’t even the normal way he laughed. It didn’t even sound like him. It was as if his sobs had evolved into something else entirely with a bittersweet feeling tacked on. Something that warbled and hissed under his breath. He leaned forward as they cackled from his chest like great tremors. Things felt like they were stepping away from him, as if they were starting to be scared of him. The world was shrinking away from him. Even the shadows on the ceiling, drew back from him, opting to cluster into the curve of the well furthest away from him. The potential burst out of him like lightning, sparks igniting in the motionless air, crackling like the beginnings of a violent storm.
He was loosing it. That much was certain. And he was on his way to becoming what he fought so hard to avoid. The Laurence that the people knew him as back through that gods forsaken portal was slowly being drained away, replaced by whatever the Order shaped the pieced of him into. A creature of their own design. The more beast than the humans they once were, creatures they let loose on the unsuspecting world.
A fully fledged Shadow Knight.