Sarkophagus

A short story I wrote for my friends album. It is in short chapters, each of which was made into a different song from which the lyrics have been composed. Explores madness, humanity, civilization,rel

              1

    I woke up in the castle that day, like every single day of my life, feeling like there was something wrong with the world. I always pushed these thoughts out of my head. If something was wrong, surely I'd know...  This castle is the pinnacle of engineering. A juggernaut structure of steel and stone, the impenetrable fortress in which I live and my family govern from;

it’s terrifying massive cannons a deadly symbol of the great machine of our times.

 I left the castle's safety to walk the metropolis. Amalthea, my maid and carer all my life, came with me. This great sprawling urban dwelling, the correlation point of all the creatures in this vast world. From the supremely rich to the broken and distraught poor, none of whom I'd seen or met before.

 I began to search and I began to see, but still I felt this wool over my eyes. I explored the vast city, eventually reaching its slums and darker corners. Knowing Amalthea would not approve, I crept down a decrepit side-alley while she looked the other way. I stepped inside a dark entranceway and once I was inside it dawned on me, I had stumbled upon an underground drug den.

This is where the lowest of the low dwell, I thought to myself. Harsh fumes and toxic smoke permeated the air, thick and stagnant it drifted deep into my lungs. My final thoughts were of strange creatures more animal than man. I see a spectre who sits in the corner, ever laughing, with many arms and a mask upon his face. I see a woman whose face glows with a radiant light, a bolt of lightning cradled in her arms like an infant child, all this and more I see as I slip into the void...

... All becomes clear, my sight clouds over.

                                ***

                                 

                                  2

 I walk, calmly, with a purpose. The edge of a vast forest spreads slowly across my vision and stretches endlessly away into the distance. 'Did I walk here on my own? Did someone guide my path?' I look to my left, notice Amalthea keeping pace beside me... 'Here we are my young master, does this satisfy your curiosity?' she's slightly out of breath. I don't understand what she means.

I look back to the forest...  

Without thought I begin to walk again, calmly...  with a purpose...

 Just as I move, Amalthea grasp’s my hand, begging me not to leave, tears glistening in her eyes as she speaks. I stop walking, hesitate for a split second. Then my decision is made as I start running, some unknown force is drawing me ever forward. Tearing my hand from her's I cry  'Let go of my hand, i’m well able to fend for myself!' One final scream escapes her lips as I enter the forest's shrouded mists. I think 'Do not try and follow me' In my heart I know i’m not coming back.

 Inside now. Into the dark depths; the forest is not what it seem's. It twists and turns, like vine's leaching trees. Shadows dance upon the extreme edge of my vision, the devils advocates are at play in my mind. I see a man, he blocks my path through the woods. As I approach him, indescribably, he appears more real. Like seeing solidified truth before me.

 The spectral man creeps forward, drawing me ever deeper. Beckoning, laughing, he whispers strange parallels and evil thoughts, he tells me that this is the playground where my demons dwell. I am not afraid of the darkness, only the hidden world that I have begun to uncover.

 This man of shadows and truths slips from my vision at each corner, guiding me through this treacherous forest. He stands halted, on the edge of a tangle of vines, just slightly in the shadows. The sun doesn't appear to hit him directly as the shadow of his body waves back and forward, alive and dancing, driven with a mind of its own.

                                  ***

                                     3

 I felt all the time that some other world existed, below all that I could see and hear... something deeper, something darker. We emerge from the trees into the strange multicolored glowing lights of a new city. A very different city to the one I know...

 I walk, dreamlike, through this city's jagged framework. Immense towers creep upward, reaching towards a dark  purple sky, edged on its horizon in jagged flames of red. As I look the towers begin to change. I see colour I have never seen before, that I never knew existed. Then no colour at all. No light. Like a black hole, I’m dragged towards the dismal abyss. I tear my eyes from the sky and wish I hadn't.

 I am almost deafened by a thunderous racket, created by hulking machines that only now are noticed. Gears grind off one another, huge cogs spin, churning, oozing black liquid and sulfurous gas. Its a vicious cacophony, a terrible melody that echoes through my thoughts.

 Animals and people, screaming and laughing. Most of them wear nothing, caked in mud and filth. They're changing colours as the sky and city are. Grotesque demon's parade through the streets, the oil that fuels this great machine. I feel their black and red eyes staring hungrily, as if ready to feed. Beasts searching for their next meal, bloodthirsty creatures. The human-like creatures begin to change before my eyes, like the walls of this place they morph crazily through their terrifying forms.

 Faces begin to change, some remain static. Others mutate into repulsive demons, abominations… and worse. Its all too much. A skeletal hand grips my shoulder and a ragged voice whispers  'Follow me. To stay is to die...'  I look into the masked face of the specter. 'You have no choice..' He continues to laugh, that endless, almost mocking laugh...

As we walk a terror builds in my chest, a dreadful fear that grows step by step. The manic laughter slices through my head clearly as the first dry peal of thunder that shatters the nights silence....  As if he and I are the only one's there...

                                 ***

                                     4

The creatures begin to dispel. All fall silent. I stop walking, so does the masked man, even the shadow dancing of his body slows to a standstill. The demons morphing faces freeze in time. Something's coming but I don't know what.

Like the slight rustle of autumn leaves, it gradually builds from silence to a whisper. I feel it coming closer, closer. From all directions I hear the melody. It passes through me. Through every fiber of my soul. Through every rock and leaf, every humanoid and demon in this cursed city.

The most beautiful music, its shines through everything. We all feel it. We are all one. Intoxicated with happiness, depressed with wistful sorrow. I want to laugh and cry, but I'm frozen in time.It lasts a second, it lasts a lifetime. A harmonized hymn, raining down emotion. Almost religious, but more than that. As gradually as it appeared , the haunting melody withdraws.

Its called the Daemonlus. The symphony of life and death. I don’t know how I know this.

I do not see the man of shadow. The darkness again is closing in on me from all sides.' You should not have come here.’ I’m lost. Trapped in this city. I must survive. Constantly changing I look once more upon the sky.

                                      ***

   5

 The Moon shatters the dead black sky. Its a light in the never-ending darkness before me.. It is the celestial orb that shines upon my path; Obliterating the darkness with brilliant gold and silver beams.

 The road before me is clear.. I come to a part of the city that is shrouded in mist. The ground under my boots is grass frozen solid, it looks like glass. Dead tree's line the road, as the moonlight strikes their skeletal limbs they reflect the light, like a thousand candles sit upon each one. They too are coated in shimmering glass. Each one a lighthouse, guiding me onward. I have entered a glade, an oasis in this mechanical desert.

 I feel the moonlight upon my face and I stop. All terror has been quenched, replaced by feelings of acceptance and awe. I think of my home, my castle. I have never been so alone.

Amalthea...  I think of the one who has cared for me. Still I stargaze, the Moon, it calls out to me.

I hear her, clear and soft she whispers in my ear. 'I will be your light, your guide. I will be your protection from the evil here, and, you must know, this city is the root of all evil. Do not succumb to it...  Protect yourself...'

 Before me the glass has cracked. Light shines down upon it. I reach down, testing. It shatters. Almost three foot down, something shines like diamond. I take it out. The Daegis. A piece of metal.. no not metal, something else..  Cylindrical, no bigger than my hand. An Orb, a moonstone, light itself in solid form... shining with mystical energy. Tears shine in my eyes and I don't know why; they reflect infinitely upon the brilliant device.

 Once more that divine voice speaks to me.'You must continue, you will find the door. You travel down the stem. You find the root. Then you will dance with the devil. But that is to come.. tonight you are mine.' Trance-like, I speak. 'You are the moon that lights this ever frozen glade,  Amalthea, I will dance with you tonight.'

 As I leave the glades twilit tranquility, i’m smiling. Up ahead I see a shadow, it dances to and fro. A masked face, a ghostly apparition. The specter beckons and I follow. My smile has disappeared. His has widened...             ***

                                      6

  Darvaza, this city has a name. We delve into its forbidden depths. Into the deepest pit of the city I am led. A black ruin of rubble, it’s ringed in roaring flames. Is this where I will die?  “It's the only way out... Its also the only way in, depending on how you choose to look at it..” the words flood through my head but I barely see movement from behind the specters ghostly mask. 'When you travel to the core, trust no one but yourself... and even then..' his voice trails off.

A shadow spreads from all sides, it blocks out the moon with menacing tendrils. They creep from below, engulfing me in their deathly embrace. True fear; it has taken root within me...

  I feel panic, the need to flee. But its too late I have come too far 'There is no escape from me.' Horrible pain, twisting and burning. 'You should not have come here.' The voice is different, no longer the man of shadow's voice. Have I heard it before, is it my own voice? The agony is too much, I cannot think, I cannot tell.

'This is the place where MY demons dwell!' I scream until my lungs give out. Silence follows closely. It surrounds. I look around, all is dark, where I am I do not know. The burning desire to live, spreading like wildfire through my veins. I will make it, I will not yield to this nightmare.

No! I cry. This is not where I will die! I have made my choice, inside my mind, not here, not today. I explode with anger! Just try and stop me, whoever you are! I claw my way up and I walk away...

                                     ***

  7

This part of the city's different....

Cold , devoid of all emotion. The frame of this place crawls. The very fabric of the walls come to life. Walls blackened with age, terrifying spiars stretch towards the heavens. I trace them upward with my eyes until..  a roof? It cannot be?! I have been outside all of this time.. when did I enter this ruin? Greasy coils of ivy, green and black with purple flowers, rip up the sides of these monstrous columns. I judge them to meet the roofs great mass leagues above me. Like some vast deathly cathedral. A temple of woe and misery.

The enormity of this place, the sheer unending vastness has chilling effects upon me. A haunted feeling creeps unseen in the dim shadows where no light penetrates. Shivers stretch down my spine.. The feeling that I am being watched. Dripping water and the occasional crumbling of rubble. These are my only companions. Dust covers the ground... Human remains from eon's past.. or remains of something else...

I walk alone. Ever onward. Minutes become hours... hours stretch on. No time exists here. How long, months? Years? I walk, I rest, sometimes I try to sleep but sleep has abandoned me to this place. It never ends...

I feel drained. Physically, mentally emotionally. Apathy abounds. Indifference threatens to take me, its grip is strong, shackles, holding me in place. I am a walking corpse, no wants or needs, I no longer care. My senses feel dull in the extreme. Memories slipping away, into the void. Dreams and plans forgotten. Inner turmoil, external torture. The undeniable attraction of eternal bliss, reached through relinquishment of all determination. I am in its clutch, sapped of the energy to escape. I want to give up... to fall to the ground and never move again... There is no hope left in me...

   ***

8

  Eon's have passed in grueling slow motion... or perhaps its only been days... I think I will never know. What has happened to me, here in the darkness. What events have led me to the infinite path I walk, the boundless earth stretching ahead, matching step for step the downward spiraling descent into madness. I fear the ultimate relinquishment of sane thought, the perpetual stench of stagnation... stagnation and... rust? That is different, I don't recall it being there before. I stop walking for the first time in.. how long? Where time does not exist, every moment is infinite, every step taken; eternal.

  I breathe in slowly, the smell of rust rushing into my nostrils. I begin to use my senses... Its been so long I had forgotten how. It is then that I hear it... a harmony.. an echoing sound. Crystal clear notes ricochet in this vast tomb without hope. Tinged bittersweet with raw energy and brightness. It stirs ancient memories within me. I see light... my eyes seek out its source...

There is something in my grasp; with the renewed use of my senses it has appeared. A rusted object of metal, from another age, another life. .  The Daegis, its come to light.

How long did I hold it clutched in my hand, where dead and frayed senses held it hidden in plain sight. Its slicing core of brilliant light wrenching the darkness aside. I feel free! I feel truly alive again! The Daegis is shining brighter and brighter, illuminating the way before me...

Lost in ecstasy and euphoria at my regained rapture I have not noticed the increased rhythm and flow of the siren call...  The eerie nostalgia of the melody fills my soul with a certain disquiet.

I have arisen, regenerated from the other side... Resurrected!

I am awakened now, by this song, as if from a dream whose beginning is forgotten forever.

Or a nightmare...  I have begun to remember...  The Daemonlus...

9

Its name trickles into my mind, lithe and quiet as the first drops of thawing water that flow slowly down the sides of mountains in spring. Growing thus inside my mind, the torrent flows now, steadily tearing through barriers that once held back its tide. It has reached its crescendo as!

Shimmering chaos beams and bolts of light spill maliciously from the Daegis, retribution upon the cold grip of shadow and dust. The black cobwebs covering my mind incinerated! I will tear down this evil sanctum, this abomination! I feel true power again over my own souls damnation. I will not succumb... I walk in the path of the light one last time..

...An unrelenting beastly mechanism looms forth from the black and shadow...

 Ahead I see the Daemonlus' source... a machine of black and silver metal, twisting away into the depths and great heights.. the central column of this twisted city. The final obelisk. The Zenith.

I will destroy it. This is my final intention. I walk with redoubled energy and a renewed vigor.  

I am confronted then, at its base, by true insanity, in the form of a man with a masked face..

He is ever laughing.. twisting cogs and rotating dials, at its center he stands, the Daemonlus, the death organ of true evil. It is the spectral man who plays.

He takes off the mask..

I look at myself, twisted and laughing..

I play the death organ..

I am the shadow specter...

He speaks through smiling teeth 'This is the place where your demons dwell.'

                           10

Eventually I walk over. He speaks to me, or rather I speak to myself.

'You have been guiding yourself you should know' seeing the look on my face '... to the evil here, in this machine that bends the will of all the beings in this city, with religious fever, crushing and inescapable. Bending all to its will. Such is the way of the world.'

'You see the parallels of this world and yours. They are the same, yet opposite, just as you and I. They are both good, they are both evil. You see this machine? The Daemonlus that rings out its masters call to all followers.. Yes its master is evil. It is the evil of society, it is the evil of rape. It is the evil of murder and the evil of insanity and incarceration. It is the evil of blind religious worship and following, of abandonment, dangerous stupidity and true dependence on a failing system.'

“Though the system is broken, there in lies the truth of life. There is a system, and no matter how terrible, how truly awful and vile it may be, no matter how many wars are fought and people die, without it there would be nothing... only darkness. The darkness of eternity where there is no life, no joy no happiness or light or time. You have seen this for yourself. You know it to be true.”

“Look upon this great evil machine, it spirals upward into oblivion, its arms claw outward and upward, but, it is the center, it is the monolith, the central piece'... 'Do you know what it holds up?...' the masked version of myself asks.

 

  'EVERYTHING!' He screams the word. 'Every piece of the city, every road every person. Every shop, every school every piece of paper, every idea. It is the structure. The blackness you have struggled through, that is the price you pay.” He smiles again, not unkindly “ Its the price we have paid. Do not let this blacken your heart. Do not let these experiences turn you against what little love and light and hope there is in this world. The Daemonlus is the key to life, the rhythm it run's by is beautiful and terrible in equal amounts. Such is life.” I feel I have begun to understand. His words make sense, have an air of truth... inner truth.

“This world may not be true and pure as we would like... but there is a world, friend”

  My fury has been tempered by his words. A peaceful acceptance of what is has begun to take form within me. It grows into a blinding happiness at being alive. The Daegis shimmers once more.

“Ah yes the next piece” The spectre of myself states “The Daemonlus, the machine that is life and death must be played. It needs power that can only be given willingly. We all add to the machine, in the hope of a better life.” I stand in front of the machine. There is a breach in one of its organs. I take time to think.

  I know the correct path, I have walked in the darkness and come through unscathed. I know the difficulty of following this path, through dark and light, good and evil, life and death. I do not know what will happen when I place the Daegis into the machine. My contribution... But I do know what I feel is right.

  I step forward and as my hand reaches out to place it into the hole my hand is gently stopped. “We all face these challenges. The trick is to overcome them with our integrity and want of life intact. You have shown this quality, but you are still young. This is not yet your task. It will be one day, but for now, life is yours, teach the next generation, choose your own path, above all enjoy the ride, my friend' He winks at me and before I make a single movement he has placed a shining piece of metal into the fissure. The Daegis is still in my hand.

He has stepped back now. The entire machine glows with an inner light.. it spreads up and up, light blazes from all corners. It is beautiful. The specter first smiles, then laughs with joy. His body begins to disintegrate slowly from head to toe before my eyes. He expresses no pain but speaks one final thing “Death is only the beginning, without it there is no life and without evil there is no good. Always remember these things. Now, play the organ. Live, and die.”

I begin to play the organ. I close my eyes and I hear the most beautiful music. I smile, I begin to laugh.

I hear the Daemonlus.

Epilogue

I open my eyes.

Sunlight streams through a stained glass window. I'm smiling yet something bothers me slightly, like  a dream whose beginning is forgotten...  

or a nightmare.

As I say, I wake up feeling the same every day, like something is wrong with the world...

Author's Note

Having some problems with writing in first person present tense. It was my first time trying it. Any errors etc I would like to hear about, and an overall critique of the themes, and any feelings people had about it in general would be greatly appreciated.

(Also, the word Grasp, in the second chapter, second paragraph, 'Amalthea grasps my hand' Im not sure about that. Any ideas how it should be written?) cheers