Another Short Story my Friends

DARK VENGENCE

BY

Maul Twilight


Seeing himself in the mirror, was a lot different to what he had just been told.
It had started so innocently and simply, turning quickly into a nightmare of epic proportions that he felt his fingers reaching out of despite the centrifugal force tugging him free of reality and into madness.
He could feel the weight of death sinking in and knew with all certainty he was a doomed man, a man who would not die as was what he knew he wanted now, but suffering a moment of realization that could not be taken back for as long as he was living.
It was a terrible fate.
Something he thought no-one deserved.
But this in fact was something that he could do nothing about, for the reason for this sudden term of despair was in fact an old one; a reason that had surfaced a long time ago. And as we all know; the past can never be undone, for what is written; cannot be unwritten.

Eighty years ago…
******
A semi-rotted wooden hut loomed in front of him, Kameron Gator; son of Henry Gator stepped up to the roughly made door.
His thick brown hair waved in the breeze of a coming storm.
A mass of black, raven like birds flew hurriedly from the angrily swaying forest.
Knock knock! “Hello, is anyone there?”
“Yes yes come in Kameron, I’ve been expecting you”
Kameron stepped inside the rustic cabin hidden by a mass of Celtic style sticks and mud brick.
What awaited his gaze was a small one room house with a sink, a bed and a drop toilet in the corner, a second hand shower curtain had been used to seemingly hide the awful smelling toilet but several large tears in the curtain made it useless for even such a simple task.
Kameron made sure that both his hands could not be seen beneath the long black robes that he wore. Always facing the rickety old man there, never turning his back in case the old guy felt suspicious and tried to defend himself.
The large outdoor fire cast a glow of heat onto the small hut keeping the cold winds approaching from effecting the old man, but Kameron wasn’t at least worried by the winds, he couldn’t even feel the skin draped over his useless shell.
The only real thing that remotely reminded Kameron of civilisation was the pot-belly stove that sat in one of the vacant corners, on top of it was a rustic old kettle filled with the old man’s trademark home made tea.
WHAM!
Quick as a flash Kameron rammed the knife home.
It slid into the man’s shoulder with no resistance to the old frail flesh, entering his heart from the top stopping the blood flow and creating a detour for the blood: Out onto the faded white shirt of the man.
Almost as quickly as Kameron had attacked, he withdrew the knife from inside the man’s chest, listening to what the average man would regard as a sickening squelching sound.
Blood was leaking out everywhere now, and the old man fell to the ground gasping, he was still barely alive, his soul gently slipping away from him, but he struggled to hold on for a second later.
“Why did you do this?” The man whispered feebly with his last gasping breaths from his position on the floor.
“I didn’t” Kameron replied.
Then quick as a flash Kameron’s form shifted…it seemed as if the whole world had just entered negative colours, as an almighty shockwave radiated from Kameron in all its energetic glory, simply burning down the walls of the hut, sending great sparks of electricity flying everywhere.
Without the hut to protect them, the vicious storm lashed down at them, having finally arrived and begun its assault on the ground.
Heavy rained instantly soaked the men standing there.
But Kameron still stood there, as if nothing had happened. Next to him though was an exact replica of Kameron, his real mental occupant during the sequence of events that had occurred that afternoon.
“I suggest that you make yourself scarce Kameron” the replica said without a hint of explanation to whom or what he was before hurriedly running off into the woods, disappearing from sight.
*****
Kameron gave heavy chase.
He had suddenly re-gained his senses, realising that another man had been controlling his actions for the past day drew him to the conclusion that he needed some answers right away.
The rain and occasional flashes plagued him, the trees were alive with movement, their rapid swaying and unpredictable shuddering meant that Kameron’s caution was defiantly not foolish.
He ducked, weaved, clambered and ran through the thick swaying shrubs, chasing the rapidly escaping shadow of his copy racing away at a crazy pace, seeming to melt through all its surroundings. Kameron had to think on the run what he was chasing, was it some kind of Wizard or modern day warlock?
Was it a ghost? Why had it made him kill the old hermit that lived on the edge of the village?
Right now it was all just stabbing wildly in the dark, but Kameron was determined to find out, besides, as soon as the news of the hermit’s death reached the village then they would quickly link him to the murder knowing that he had been paying him a visit.
FLASH!
The sky was alive, the trees swaying, Kameron’s feet danced.
He leapt a fallen log, coated with moss, at last there was a clearing ahead, where some of the harvesters went to gather wood for the proper fires back in the village.
Then suddenly, Kameron burst into the clearing, a solid kilometre long field filled with several hundred tree stumps.
Ahead Kameron could see the fleeing figure fading off into the opposite edge of forest, he seemed to knew exactly where he was going, but Kameron had never trekked this far out into the wilderness, there was no knowing what lay at the other side…
Violent lashes of water literally poured from the sky, lightening zapped the tree-tops frequently. It was truly the most furious storm that Kameron had ever laid eyes on.
BLAM!
The ground not too far away from Kameron was struck, the ground shuddered.
Kameron decided to keep running, despite not knowing where he was heading.
The hills were in sight now, the shrubs would soon be too thick to pursue the copy, but that meant the copy would also have nowhere to go, leaving a gap for Kameron to finally catch up and get his revenge on the mysterious replica.
Ahead, the tree line arched, rising up a steep rocky slope and eventually rising from the trees in a pointed precipice that overlooked the whole valley, upon sighting the mystery shrouded replica scurrying up the side of the slope Kameron gave heavy chase.
He wasted no time, latching onto the sharp rocks, tearing great holes in his soaking black robe.
He used anything as handholds, grabbing onto the trunks of trees, his hands bleeding from the rocky and unforgiving ground.
There was nowhere left to run, the copy had reached the peak of the precipice and now stood motionless, admiring the view of the rain soaked valley as Kameron stumbled along to join him.
“WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!?!” Kameron screamed with ferocity at the shrouded figure.
The only thing Kameron could see was a glint of metal, steel. Most likely the knife from earlier…but hadn’t that been covered with blood?
“WHO I AM IS NOT IMPORTANT, THE QUESTION IS KAMERON, WHY DID I CHOOSE YOU, THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE”
A few moment of silence helped build the tension of what the copy was saying.
“YOU DON”T REALISE IT BUT THE ONLY THING YOU DID TODAY WAS KILL YOURSELF”
he let the true deepness of what he had said sink in, Kameron not saying a word as the copy explained.
“A LONG TIME AGO YOU MANAGED TO BRING SOMEONE BACK FROM THE DEAD, YOUR MOTHER.
SHE WAS MINE AND ALL OF A SUDDEN YOU HAD TAKEN HER BACK, ELIMINATING HER FROM MY LIST…”
Kameron remembered, his mother had nearly drowned, but they had brought her back from the dead to live for another ten years before finally passing away from old age.
Suddenly the glint that Kameron had seen became more obvious.
It was a scythe, in the hand of a man wearing pitch black robes, and an unusual wisdom that seemed beyond this world.
“I BLAMED YOU KAMERON, CURSING YOU TO AN ETERTINY OF REPETED RE-ENCARNATION AS THE SAME MAN, REPETEDLY SUFFERING THE SAME MISREABLE DEATH, REALISING THE PURE HELPLESSNESS OF YOUR SITUATION ONLY A MOMENT TOO LATE AS YOUR SOUL SLID BACK AND FORTH”
Kameron sighed.
He knew what was being said was the truth.
He could never show his face back at the village again, he would soon become the old hermit, where the wash of time would soon consume him into a state of madness until the day finally came when his life was stolen by Death, only to be recycled into an ever present horrific loop that would torture him for the rest of his existence.
*****
Eighty years later.

James Tobias walked into his living room after a hard days work at the office, placing his briefcase down next to what was obviously an overdue book.
Next to it was a note: ‘Please return this to the librarian, he should be shut but you can find his house on the edge of town’
Tobias wasted no time, he swiped it up off the table and headed back out to his car, hurriedly starting it and chugging steadily down the wind swept road.
It was a book his wife had borrowed and promised to return on the given date which just happened to be today.
Houses sped past the windows getting fewer and fewer as the small dusty car reached the outskirts of town, headed towards the Librarians house.
As he neared the almost completely secluded property the houses began to disappear completely, thinning from a few every hundred metres to none at all.
The car lurched to a halt, crunching on the gravel, Tobias stepped out and approached the door, looking out into the thick overgrown forest that the Librarian’s house on-fronted.
Knock Knock. “Hello is anyone there?”
“Yes come in Tobias, I’ve been expecting you”
Tobias stepped inside the small hut with a grin to himself, his hand clenching into a fist as the door slammed closed behind him and he could feel a strange desire to sleep wash over him like he had just fallen into a pool of hot water.
Which in a metaphorical sense he had already done so; in another life a long time ago…