Chapter 482

The old world was gone. The celestial choir was silent, its harmony replaced by a cosmic stillness that gnawed at the edges of sanity. Obadiah, a man whose skin carried the hues of the earth, felt the silence as a physical presence.

It was a weighty blanket suffocating the very last of what they called hope. The tales of the final war, a battle that spanned all that was known and unknown, had been recounted, almost with a dull sort of detached acceptance, for what felt like an eternity.

They spoke of a fallen deity and the entity that usurped the seat, the Devil, the antithesis of what was once light, had done just as the prophecies had foretold. It was a strange relief, that he had been correct, the prophecies correct, about this very grim and brutal ending.

It always came out that the prophecies had been right; there was very little, in the very grim nature of human history that could prove otherwise. He stood amid ruins, remnants of structures built with beliefs and faith he no longer possessed, because they were lies.

He had no family, the sickness had stolen them from him years ago, one at a time. Now, the plague of despair, more profound, had infected what remained of the world.

He existed in a hollow place of constant quiet, his breaths the only noise within his small realm, like the sound of waves crashing to shore, before they all vanished. Obadiah's daily task had become nothing but survival; finding food, seeking shelter, and desperately attempting to maintain what little sanity that he had managed to somehow procure for this horrific end.

These acts did little to calm his spirit and nothing at all for his nerves. He had seen death enough in his years and yet each time it seemed it found new ways to upset the core of his being.

The sunsets had lost their splendor; they bled across the sky like fresh wounds. Once vivid and powerful colors became muddied and murky.

Even nature had changed her spirit; twisted and bent like some sick joke from the new master above. Obadiah couldn't help but wonder what the old one would say if he saw the condition that his garden was left in, not the very end of the world.

He often returned to what was left of the library. The books, ravaged by time and indifference, were scattered among the remains of their shelves.

Yet, within the faded pages of prophecies and ancient folklore, he looked, and still tried, to glean an understanding of the new, awful reality. The one thing they never explained to you in those ancient scriptures, is the deafening silence; there was never a description for the sounds and effects of silence.

He came to find he spent most days talking to himself now, a slow, desperate descent into the confines of what they had always said was foolishness. The very edge where you teeter on the cliffs of the great dark abyss.

In one particularly isolated moment he looked around the small library to make sure nobody could hear his soft tones. "Will it always be like this? How did they just give up when he just willed himself to this new power? Is this all?"

The quiet response was only another reflection of the echo he'd made with the world around him. He had never felt so alone; with only the spirits of old now to bear witness to this pitiful scene that seemed as though the new power wanted for them to see.

One night, the quiet shattered, not with any sound he understood, but with the cessation of all sound. There were no wind, no wildlife noises; just an unnatural vacuum.

He raised from his sleep with great suddenness, an ache in the depths of his back, almost as if the air was weighing on him. He moved to the small window of the library and peeked through the boards.

The moon, once a silver disk, hung a sickly red, casting long shadows that seemed to have life of their own. The feeling of being watched settled upon him like a heavy shroud.

He moved away from the small opening to find himself near an old and damaged table. With slow precision and an aching in his old joints he lit a small, fat candle he had carved some weeks prior; trying to find solace in what light he had.

In the light, he studied the old marks on the table, it almost appeared to have moved at some point, some old relic pulled aside to reveal something long ago forgotten. Obadiah felt drawn to the symbols that carved the old wood.

They looked very old; archaic but they called to him with a tone he had known, a kind familiarity. They were like an old lullaby.

He touched one of them, a swirling shape that seemed to pulse, and a vision, sharp as glass shards, ripped through his mind. It depicted an unending void, broken only by the image of a being with eyes like burning coals; it sat atop the celestial throne as its crown was wrought in human bone.

He fell back from the table with great urgency. He pulled his head into the comfort of his small arms, knees against the worn out, rough stone, "Leave me alone; I did nothing! I never had faith!"

His voice carried out throughout the halls like a child scared in the dark and soon there was only that eerie silence, once more; his desperate plea seemed to simply bounce off the cold air. The vision left an imprint of deep seeded unease that went to the core of who he was.

This wasn't like anything else he had ever felt or experienced in his life. This was deep, this was personal, it was too profound for the small being of a man.

He could not explain to even himself what it had all meant or why he seemed so touched by what he had experienced. The next day came like some tired man walking from far away, a small glimpse of gray as it started on the far off hillsides and brought it self to this once colorful area.

The air had taken on a sickly yellow hue. It coated the landscape, the ruined cities and homes.

With a grim outlook, Obadiah started his trek out of the library. As he moved he felt those burning eyes of the vision again, they pressed themselves upon his mind, even the memory made his skin boil and churn.

He had felt as if that had touched him personally and for the first time ever, he was afraid of death itself, or rather what awaited him afterward. He had thought he had overcome the great fear of the unknown but instead found it to just get more specific and personal.

His small trip would carry him through the broken husks of homes he could remember; places that held life and children now nothing more than vacant structures with very little more. There were no other forms of life about; none.

Not even those pesky creatures that picked at the bones he could no longer get. Nothing.

This lack of noise and life had caused more unease. As he wandered about he looked to find nothing at all changed from the usual, this deep discomfort he felt became even more bothersome.

It was like an ant bite that had become the very least of your concerns. The silence reached an ungodly height and suddenly, a crack; and like some large door in the cosmos it tore itself apart in a display that carried with it all things old and horrible.

He looked about at the destruction as he came to realize, his surroundings had been completely changed as well. Buildings began to decay at an unnatural speed, their structures twisted into jagged mockeries of their past designs.

The ground cracked as it seemed to give up the life it carried as though its old god had asked. The change wasn't merely an effect on things that had happened previously, but as if something had arrived to continue it as well.

As though there was an old wound that was ripped open to bleed again. A low sound reached Obadiah's ears, a kind of deep rumbling noise, almost like the very earth had began to churn in it's rest; coming closer and closer until it felt to Obadiah, as if he himself was vibrating with it.

Then it spoke. He heard no sound and yet the words seemed to pierce through the fabric of reality.

It entered not though his ears, but it made itself very real to the deep center of his being; an ancient form of telepathy he had read about many many years ago. "Obadiah. You, who questioned, doubted; You, who have survived, you will see me in the fullness of what I am now. What you were destined to feel."

The landscape continued to be changed and manipulated into shapes and designs that seemed to play off the idea of the old world as well as his own psyche; buildings morphed into giant eyes that stared down on him, the remnants of what had been homes transformed into grotesque mockeries that laughed out loud at him and what remained of his spirit. This was no act of chaos, this was personal, cruel.

The land contorted and groaned as if in labor as a great tear in the sky broke wide, as the entity the being showed its great stature; an infinite display that sent chills that went right down to Obadiah's very bones.

His appearance shifted like water reflecting the lights and stars from afar, at one moment regal and glorious, then it would instantly contort into something horrendous and demonic, something pulled straight out of Obadiah's nightmares.

He could tell what was real in what the figure showed, that it was as though he wanted to see this vision. Obadiah sank to his knees as the landscape beneath him started to melt.

This entity that had taken the place of god radiated such a foul and dark force. This being, this dark god was not the bringer of peace and joy and all those wonderful things that man had written into all those books.

No, he was death; he was chaos. "Why? What do you want?"

A twisted grin touched the being's features and it changed, once more; this time to the very form of Obadiah's recently demised wife. Her voice, but changed and layered with ancient torment, resonated through the nothingness they now shared together; like they had been pulled from the world.

"Did you really think there would be solace after what they called death?" The figure then moved as it extended its cold, gauntleted hand out to Obadiah.

It continued, its layered and twisted voice echoing off of the very soul, "There is only servitude here. There is no comfort, no end. Only my power that grows now at your expense."

The ground gave beneath Obadiah, the ground had come completely undone as a chasm opened up before him; a vast unending depth to a void that was made just for him; he did nothing as he simply let the new hell embrace his old bones; knowing he did this very final step all alone.

He watched in quiet terror as the landscape around him finally folded onto him and pulled him completely into the depths below with no signs left he was ever there, swallowed by the entity as it began a reign of torture for those trapped within.