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I think I wrote too much and I hate some of the words I chose but I really want to rewrite it again ^-^"

A Shadow in the Ruins

A glowing orb shines above the night’s shroud illuminating the looming walls of ancient stone, weathered from wind, storms and time. Broken walls and remnants of towers lay forgotten and in disrepair as though they were simply built then left for eternity to do as they wished. The trees sit, naked in the cold of winter as wind blows and snow falls coating the ruins and taking what was left of summer and throwing it away like so many of the golden brown leaves of autumn.

A sudden smashing the crash of steel, a battle rages ever near, the ringing singing of the blade, calls to us this dreary day, this ever-night. Yet I must wait my turn, I mustn’t be hasty or I will give myself away, though I thirst ever so much for even a taste yet we wait and wait, the time passes as slowly as snails asleep yet moving never changing. Now they’re near we hear them fleeing the plan goes true. The ringing stops and gleaming forms shining in the moonlight approach our ruins, the smash of steel on stone as they seek refuge, yet safety is but an illusion for them, they are in my world now and they will feel my bite.

A shadow flits across the starlit sky, yet I’m the only one who seems to notice, the others seem just to want to get away from that slaughter of a battle. Our lord told us it would be a simple fight, a few peasants not the many mobs of enraged villagers armed to the teeth with everything they still possessed. Now we lurk in the lair of the demon yet we have nowhere else to hide. They seemed to know we would have to go to this place, riddled with legends of hundreds lost to it’s mysterious need for more of us of them, of souls. The shadow bounces from trees, sometimes in front other times nowhere, always giggling, whispering ever softly of our own demise, yet the others still do not hear it. I stop and ask, “Can’t you hear? The ancient’s here!” Yet they laugh and call me a paranoid old man, but I know better than them what has happened here, they haven’t been around long enough to have lost anyone to this mysterious night.

I lust for the warmth that I know is just out of reach I stretch and pull and finally we give in. We watch for a moment then slither and squirm ever closer, one moves away from the rest, he is ours. We streak like a beast of hell, delivering death’s knell, we drink deeply then must retreat, we’ve only just began to feed yet we must hide or never again will we taste that which we crave. I notice a place to wait, at the tower’s peek; we wait, watching over all, appearing as the gargoyles of myths long lost.

One of the young ones has separated himself from the group, we move on yet only I know that he is gone, the others say he is just lost, he will return but still he does not appear. A beast! I see atop the tower! But what is this? It vanishes like the mist. An illusion? Or Him, the one you tell the children of so they behave, the monster of our nightmares. Now only two remain…only two! Where has the third gone? I know the answer yet I cannot face it. I must escape. I run into the night away from these accursed ruins.




We love the fear; it’s in the air so thick we can taste it. We let one flee the others are ours. The sheath of mine so cold I must leave it I plunge unto this ones heart, the pulsing beat is part of me it slows, and slows, and stops, the liquid flowing over around, the other screams and starts to flee, we are separated myself and my shadow, I fly through the night, born on wings of wind and snow, he cannot escape me, I reach him and dig and burrow into him halting us both, the body lays in the snow, the snows changes, from white to crimson, and spreads. Now I must return with my shadow, myself, my own, we seek the one who lives, that one may go yet we must know, yes we must know.

I’m feeling elated I’ve nearly escaped, I’ll be able to leave this hell, to see my family again. Then my blood turned to ice, as cold as all that surrounded me yet not as frozen as the heart of that which was before me. The shadow twisting and warping, not really there, yet as real as everything that had happened this night. It moved so close I could nearly feel it then a whisper, like that of many voices, whispering all at once, yet all of the same thing, “We are grateful to have met you, we will not taste you this night, but you will not return, so we wished to give you a gift.” The voices echoed throughout the ruins as the hand held forth an object, small and shining. I reached forward and it dropped into my hand, a small knife, shining crimson in the light, twisted in form and function, as it touched my hand a wave rippled through my body as I felt an endlessly powerful voice nearly screaming through my mind, “You are ours,” shrieked the voice as the shadow moved towards me and into me as I lost vision I heard a weak whisper, “Thank you for joining us, we did not wish for you to leave, we would have missed you so.”

We move to the center of the ruins and into the tower. Inside the door is a pedestal with a single beam of light hitting it, the shadow places the knife on the altar. As the light hits it, it reflects off the room, bouncing off of mirror after mirror until the entire tower in shining with the light and in each mirror, a soul, each one piece of the shadow, each one piece of the whole. And at the top of the tower a mirror has a new reflection. A man in armor, glistening in the moonlight, fearfully trying to escape, forever left to rest.