Glass

For a brief second, there was noise, horrible putrid noise reigning across the battlefield. Each beat, step, scream, cry echoing and rattling through Mahon's head. And then there was silence, everything grew numb spreading through his senses like a disease, the splitting pain through his chest, each centimetre breaking and tearing apart with searing pain. Gallons of blood pouring down his lips stopped the slight tingle of liquid pouring from his open mouth. The taste of iron that flooded his mouth disappeared, his vision clouding and growing dark…

The familiar bitter taste of death was the only thing that remained, the sensation he had felt thousands of times. The terror vanished, the pain disappeared, the shock, the horror, the worry. Everything just faded. The red curtains shutting on this era, this life. Like every other year, centuries, millennia. It all ends.

It should be peaceful in this darkness, waiting patiently for my life. There should be a sense of hopelessness, but the last two times… He only felt pain, sadness and wanted to scream into the void, cry into the abyss. His mind breaking down and tearing up.

"I was too late last time, how long will it be now, how long… has it been, are they dead? Am I alone again? I'm always alone… everything leaves me."

Images flashed through his decaying mind, the horrifying sight of Leonidas, the comrades he had spent time with, all limp, dead corpses, their rotting corpses used as a platform as that thing is left to kill everything.

"So? Are you just going to sit there?"

The voice span through the seemingly everlasting darkness, the all encompassing void that stood before him suddenly illuminated by a small glimmer, the melodious voice ringing from a solitary white flame shining a small spread of light as the figure stepped forward.

"You're pathetic, you complain about being used, about dying, and then what do you do? You go right back to being a useless warrior. That's my friend out there, the man you have shrugged off, who looked after you for someone he hardly knew, and you just lie here pitying yourself."

"I don't want to be like this, I wish I could've d…"

"But then, you wouldn't have met her, you would not have spent time by your king's side, with Adora and with the countless others you have met. There is always dark in the light, and as with this flame there is always light in the dark, You are not a hero, not anything grander than a soldier, so fight."

Mahon's eyes flashed open, the pain surging through his veins like energy, thrusting his body up and stumbling with weakness. He reached out his hand, snapping his fingers, and the blood stopped flowing, the hole through his skin burning and searing closed. He lumbered forward clumsily, dragging the sword from the sand and pushing forward, through the terrifying, blinding pain that rushed across his body. Despite that every movement he made felt like his last, he pushed forward, staring with tunnel vision at the one thing, Poseidon. His legs scurrying across the sand and pushing him towards Mahon, the sand splatting across the battlefield again the blood-red sand the second orb of water shimmering before him, Mahon stared at him, his eyes glowing and his body burning the ground underneath erupting into brilliant red-hot flames, glaring and shimmering with the light of the sun, Poseidon flashed forward the jet of water smashing forward and disappearing at the slightest contact with Mahon's skin. He pushed forward towards the crab leaving a trail of crystals and glass behind his footsteps echoing across the light ground, the clattering and shattering of his footsteps made the monster recoil, his body pushing away from Mahon and retreating to the sea, but the water just disappeared too.

The wraith stared up at Mahon, his hand hovering out towards his head, shaking and bursting with lightning.

The water around began to spin and move, swelling into thousands of clumsy orbs that fired off like arrows, desperately trying to push Mahon away. Smashing into him and disappearing, warping and air around.

"Tell your god, He will be next."