This was for a competition on DeviantArt that I didn't actually get to submit to. The rules were it had to be less than 5 pages, no character names from the book were to be used and it had to end with 'and the darkness rained upon them'. Enjoy!
It was a small city in Kerry, Ireland, in 1892 that first saw the creatures of darkness. They flitted through the streets suddenly one night, millions of them. Their large, black bodies were about the size of tennis balls and the sported things that could be thought of as limbs. Unsuspecting mortals and sorcerers alike, rested in their houses. A certain sorcerer with a powerful adept ability was awake when the dark ghosts passed nearby his small, shabby house. He had been planning a teleporting hotel and was thinking about the policies he would uphold while looking out the frosted window. He noticed the light seem to grow darker as the evil shadows flicked past. Daniel Quake stood up from his chair, swept aside the dark blue curtain of his window, wiped away some fog from the glass and looked down the street just as the swarm of darkness disappeared over a rooftop. Being the talented fighter he was, he grabbed an elegant coat from a hook by the door and walked into the night, locking his door on the way out, it wasn’t, as people may say, a friendly neighbourhood.
Daniel cautiously followed the odd, dark ghosts down the street. He leapt over a fence at the end and hit the soft grass on the other side. He looked around him. He was in an open area, a field. There were hills all around, then, in a flash, there was darkness all around. As Daniel saw them at a closer distance he noticed the dark mist were the remnants he had read about in his private library. Quickly, still keeping an eye on the remnants that were silently swooping through the hills, breaking apart and swarming back together like a group of bees, Daniel flicked out his slim cell phone and called for some backup. Now, this wasn’t extreme backup, like informing the sanctuary. Daniel just phoned an old friend from his war days (Some Regret), a person who he didn’t know well but was good with a blade and in the country from his villa in the outskirts of Meath (Crimson Fissure) and a builder who was, at the moment, checking the status of St Peter’s church in Drogheda and had been helping with Daniel’s plans for the Midnight Hotel (Selfish Remembrance).
The back-up arrived quickly, first Some Regret, his friend from the doomed group he was in during the war. Regret silently followed Quake as they, in turn, followed the Remnants. The hateful creatures were descending once more on the town when Crimson Fissure made his appearance. He quickly ducked into the shadows behind a skeletal tree and luckily the Remnants ignored him as they separated again and started flitting through the houses.
“Well?” he asked expectantly when he had jogged up the slight incline towards them. “What are we doing about the weird spirits?”
“I’m not sure.” Daniel Quake replied quietly, “From what I have read about them, I cannot think of a way they can be destroyed … Not in this form anyway.”
“What do you mean this – “ Crimson began angrily but as he started saying it, he found out.
People with black ringed eyes and black veins down their cheeks were smiling with black lips as they walked towards them. Their unhurriedness was probably what scared Quake the most. He was used to attacks that used every possible opportunity, yet these creatures were so confident they smiled as they planned their approached. Quake soon knew there was no plan to their approach.
“I think it’s time to draw swords.” Crimson Fissure stated.
“Agreed. Raise weapons and prepare sorcery.” Some Regret continued. “And release evils.” He added for Daniel.
It was at that moment that Selfish Remembrance decided to show up. “Whatever you guys just said.” Was all she said.
Then Fissure’s blade whipped out of its scabbard with alarming speed and he was racing towards the first of the possessed with the same speed, Regret’s shotgun was firing after being unlocked from a sheath across his back, Remembrance was hurling hot fireballs and Quake’s anger and cruelty manifested itself from his chest in a humanoid gist. It was war.
The black lipped and eyed creatures were strong. Their mortal vessels were vanquished faster than their sorcerer ones and when the vessel died, the evil ghost did too, as Quake discovered as his partially look-alike gist sliced through two at once with its sharp claws. There were so many though.
“Did they take over the whole village?” Fissure yelled over the angry snarls from the mouths of the possessed.
“I think so!” Regret replied, and then they were occupied with the fight again.
At some point in the brawl, the four sorcerers found themselves back on the hills over the fence, breathing heavily, partly injured but alive. Crimson’s sword was held weakly in his tired right hand and he flipped it to the left. Some’s gun had been lost in a hand fight and he was relying purely on sorcery. Selfish looked pale but she was still standing and wasn’t too injured. Daniel’s gist was back inside his body and he was resorting to hand-to-hand, at least for the time being. The possessed kept coming at them, slowly. Then the group saw, over the village, like a thick, dark cloud, remnants without vessels swarming, regrouping, then flying into the standstill.
Crimson Fissure was the first to go. The thing flung itself at his face and he rolled on the ground in an effort to get it off. His throat bulged grotesquely and he stopped rolling. Fissure slowly picked himself up off the ground and looked at his former friends. Dark veins cascaded from his eyes and his lips turned black as he smiled. The other three ran, taking Quake’s lead over the fence and into the country-side.
Quake looked back at the Remnants, they were flying faster and he knew they would never outrun this. They would be lucky to get away with their lives and conscious intact. He stopped and the others stopped too, realising the sad truth. The remnants were almost on them and the three remaining allies, Daniel Quake, Some Regret and Selfish Remembrance, shared a look of fear and determination. They prepared to fight once again and the darkness rained upon them.
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