章 1: Dark Absentia: Blood Infernal - Prologue
I'm going to tell you a story. One that you may be inclined to believe or not. The true nature of reality doesn't require you to think about what I'm about to tell you. But what I can tell you is this: the world we know, the world of science and reason, with all its rules and calculations, it's only a tiny fraction of the broader picture. What lies beyond the fabric of spacetime, where the laws of physics are merely trivial and insignificant, is where true magic unfolds.
Some things in this world lack the necessities for humankind to believe. Humanity asserts that the facts of a truth need validation to exist. This is one of those situations. No matter where you live or where you stand on faith and hope. Those are qualities that you will come to know. You may believe in a god or a higher power. Or you may not. However, I'm here to tell you that despite what we've been taught and led to believe, there is more to this world than meets the eye. That there is something out there, beyond the reach of man's understanding, that is much greater than we can ever imagine. Something that is beyond our mortal minds. A magic beyond belief. But before I begin my tale, I must ask you to listen closely. Hear me out, without any doubt and with an open mind. Be prepared to believe the unbelievable.
I will tell you a story about a calamity that is unraveling the world as we know it. It affects us all. Every last one of us. We all will face this undeniable threat face to face. There is no escaping the destruction that is coming. The air itself will burn, and the earth itself will be scorched. We will all be forced to confront our deepest fears and our darkest truths. And it will be a day unlike any other, a day when the curtain of lies and delusion is pulled back to reveal the truth. There is no escaping the wrath of the dark absentia, no hiding from the shadow that is falling over our world. The darkness has come, and it will consume everything in its path, leaving nothing but ash and ruin in its wake. It is now time for it to claim what is rightfully its. Nothing can be done to stop it. Nowhere can we outrun it. Because this is a threat that we will all face, whether we are alone or together. And it will be a day unlike any other, a day when the curtain of lies and delusion is pulled back to reveal what's hidden in the darkness within.
A threat that shakes us to our very core and challenges us to overcome the fear that has kept us from seeing the truth.
A threat that forces us to confront our own mortality and rethink the way we live our lives.
A threat that will either destroy us or bring us together in a way never thought possible before.
And on that day, when the sun rises, sets, and the world is bathed in a fiery glow, the truth will burn its way into our bodies and souls like an inescapable flame, and there will be no salvation from its blinding and purifying light. Our governments, our leaders, the ones we put our trust in, will have told us to stay calm and not panic. They will say we can hide from the devastation and protect ourselves from the coming storm. But we will know, deep down, that they're lying to us. The truth will be in our bones, the air we breathe, and the ground we walk upon.
It is an unrelenting certainty that will come to us all, like all things that eat away at the core. This started small, almost insignificant to notice. You could blink and miss it. First, as a tiny murmur, like a distant breeze on a hot day. Nothing but a whisper in the back of our minds that we didn't acknowledge, no, we didn't want to acknowledge. We told ourselves everything was fine, that there was nothing to worry about, but that is what those who do not know do. They pretend all is right with the world, but false hope cannot best what is to come. Like all evil things, we ignored it until it was too late. The dark absentia lurking just behind the veil stalks humanity as if we were indeed nothing more than prey. We were too weak-minded.
How could we have comprehended the coming darkness?
How could we have prepared when we couldn't fully conceive of its all-encompassing presence?
How could we have imagined what awaited us on the other side of the veil?
How could we have known that our lives would never be the same?
That everything we knew and loved and valued would be stripped away and cast into the void?
How could we have ever anticipated such ruin?
We were ignorant.
We were blind.
We were weak.
And because of that, we fell prey to a horror unlike any other.
We were like children in the face of the incomprehensible, mere ants beneath the feet of a giant.
We saw it as just another trend, another scare tactic meant to keep us in line and from stepping out of the norm. The truth was much darker than we could have ever imagined. The darkness was absolute, and it was hungry. When the shadows grew taller than the tallest buildings, the world around us grew cold and gray, and even the strongest of lights refused to shine, we were forced to acknowledge the truth. And by that time, it was too late.
Then, in our darkest hour, it would begin to fill our ears like the gentle rumble of the sea. The darkness had already wiggled its way into the deepest parts of our minds, body, and soul. But eventually, it will grow and proliferate until it has taken over everything you hold dear. It refused to stay hidden within us. It couldn't remain within us. Every moment would feed it until it was a towering monster looming over us all. And when it comes to our dreams, it will be as if it is real. We would all feel its teeth sink into our flesh and our souls. We would feel the world around us coming undone. Until finally, it would come for us all, not in our dreams but in reality, like a roar of thunder heard far off in the distance. You won't be able to find refugee from it then. You will be trapped, helpless, and hopeless. This is what awaits us all if we do not act now.
The story I will tell you didn't start with my brothers and me. No, like everyone else, we were caught in the web. Each of us in our own way. It began for us, for me, in my home State. This was where the beginning of small things grew into not-so-small things. Little things that I dismissed as chance or coincidence. It was all so innocent. It started with the tiniest changes in media, things that wouldn't have been out of the ordinary any other day. War, violence, and mass riots had desensitized our minds, but we chose to ignore the underlying cause of that chaos.
But these strange nuances kept building and building until we couldn't ignore them any longer. Something wasn't right. We dismissed the lore spreading across our social media and the internet. Still, we believed it to be nothing more than the newest horror fad. Something the young folk told to pass the time in whatever part of the world they lived in, to scare family, friends, and lovers. I suppose you could even call it a bedtime story. And so I laughed, as so many of my fellow members of humanity did, at first. I, like others, brushed these anomalies aside as nothing more than a mass mind virus. We all did. But as the day turned to night, a strange thing happened. The rumors and the stories became real. The things that went bump in the night, which many of us wrote off as nothing more than fiction, turned out to be more than just stories.
We laughed at the thought of strange tales about creatures lurking in the woods or evil spells that caused houses to shake and candles to fizzle out. We thought it was all made up and there was no truth behind it. All is good when the horror that scares you at night is nothing more than an urban creepypasta. That is how many and most saw the world. The danger was always out of their reach. But they were wrong. How wrong they were is a mere understatement. These small things became more and more relevant. Small things like the rumors of strange creatures roaming the streets.
Of strange lights in the sky. Of even stranger things happening in the nearby woods close to our homes. But these things were nothing more than whispers and rumors. But the longer we heard these stories, the more real they became. Rumors and whispers became sightings and reports. The strange creatures became known as cryptids; the strange lights became UFOs, and the strange things happening in the woods became sightings of Bigfoot. Then, people began seeing a dark figure, a mere shadow in the distance, growing larger and larger with every passing moment until we could no longer deny it. The legends were true. The rumors were true. Still, our leaders made petty excuses. Our media under-reported the danger lurking just beyond the veil. So many kept their minds in denial. But again, we were wrong, as this was the time to fight, not turn and hide. Like small children, we did not know what the signs truly meant.
Until one night...
Until it all came together…
Until it all unfolded around me like a twisted puppet show…
And I was left with no choice but to face the truth when the whispers in the back of my mind became screams.
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