The Death Squad: Chapter One

Life is an abomination against all that I believe… it is misery that ends in death. Life is a gross misunderstanding pain… pain that causes no pleasure. End now, the mind screams… end Life that I might die in peace. Still, is there something worse than life waiting for me in the afterlife?

What awaits us when we die? Is it a place called Heaven? Is there a place called Hell? What about this place called the Void? Will I end up there when I die should I take my own life?

Serpents coil around my brain and choke the essence of my existence from my mind. Memories begin to tatter into fragmented shards of who I used to be. Indeed, who did I used to be and who does that make me now?

Perhaps I am already dead… maybe there is some truth to this numbness that I feel. Dead, decaying like an apple at the bite of the worm. Worms that slither through my body rest quietly within my darkened grave.

There is no tombstone that marks the dead body’s final resting place. No blood is left within me to be spilt. Perhaps my blood was drained and consumed? Doubtful and yet, I am certain of my own demise. Now, I pray that I only stay this way…indeed, I long to stay dead.

Chapter One

Fast moving clouds against a blue sky force the heaviness of the winds to blow about the desert sands. Only the howl of the wind can be heard. A howling that sounds almost as if it were beckoning me from the grave. Howl you evil wind! Howl and do no mourn for me for what right, have you to speak my name?

Plucked from the grips of the grave, my body fell endlessly towards the rolling sandy waves far beneath me. Indeed, I feel nothing as I fall to the tidal waves of the dry storm far beneath me.

Who has plucked my rotting corpse from the grave? Who dares to crush me as though I dreamed to high? Is there no rest for a man that longs to be dead…to stay dead?

My body crashes to the ground and yet, I feel nothing of it. My eyes stare up at the sky, never blinking… dull and grey with the stench of death. My skin is so pale… ashen grey, the color of the dead.

Suddenly, a form appears. A crimson glass cloak partially hides the face of a creature, black as onyx but also formed of crystal. Who and what this being is would remain a mystery to me. Indeed, it was a new mystery to match the old mystery of who I was.

The glassy form knelt down and touched me. The howling wind prevailed over anything the creature might have spoken. Within the moment, the humanoid male crystal stood up and in a flash, we both disappeared from the sand that had begun to bury my body once more.

Was this creature the cause of my death? Was my body a trophy he wished to display? So many possibilities to be imagined any yet; nothing I could have thought of would prepare me for the truth that had yet to reveal itself.

My lifeless body reappeared in a castle room made of black glass. Windows were adorned with fireballs that burned endlessly in the center, simply floating and burning as if by magic. The bed I lay upon was some kind of red crystal gel… firm yet, forgiving.

Standing over me was the creature. I wonder if he knew that I was aware of him or did it even matter? Indeed, I was aware of him and my surroundings but was he aware of… me?

I wondered how cold was the room, seeing that I could not feel it and yet, I …no… he brought me here to bring me back to life. I just know that I’m right. “Leave me dead”, my soul silently screamed never to be heard.

Out the corner of my eye, I could see his hand approach my head. Suddenly, a light engulfed me and … I could feel it! I felt the pain of what he was doing to me as it shot through my head. Why must it be pain? Then again, what is life but pain?

Again, the sparkles of light radiate from his touch to my head. Another wave of pain shoots throughout my head as my soul is called forth from the abyss of the Void. Neither a Heaven nor a Hell… just endless existence of nothing and yet I would gladly choose the Void over life.

I watch as this humanoid creature carefully places drops of some kind of liquid into my still open eyes. This is a new sensation from the pain I had felt before and yet, this too was very painful as the liquid burned hot. Just as the burning began to calm, the creature closed my eyes and were it not for the pain rushing through my eyes and head… I would have sworn I was dead again.

Another wave passed through my head. This one was less painful. In fact, it seemed to dull the pain to some degree and actually felt … good? Was I becoming a sadist? Was pain becoming pleasurable to me? No, that was not the case. Instead, I realized I was being healed of the pain as it continued to subside.

I began trying to force my eyes to open again. I needed to see. Who was this creature that had brought me back to life and who seemed to actually be helping me? So many unanswered questions lay waiting for my host.

My eyes fluttered as the brutality of weakness fought desperately against me to keep them shut. Like a butterfly caught in sap, my eyelids fought to open against a force that held them tightly shut.

It was a hard fought battle for something so simple but in the end, I won and my eyes began to open slowly allowing in the colors of reflected light as though rainbows were born in my eyes.

Soon enough, the rainbows faded away giving place to watery visions of what lay around me. However, the creature that stood to my left of the red jelly-like bed was what I was most interested in,

Mustering the strength of ten men, I forced my head to turn towards my host as I tried to speak. “What…what are…you”, I asked in a voice so weak.

My host neither smiled nor showed any look of expression. Indeed, he looked like an Orc made of black glass. “I am Legion, lord and ruler of this castle”.

Again, I fought to speak and asked him, “Legion… what are you”?

Legion looked down at me with eyes dead as red ice and answered, “I am Legion, a Black Crystallin. Tell me, who are you”?

His question struck my mind as though he had stabbed me with a steely knife straight into my brain. ‘Who am I’? Before now, it didn’t seem to matter so long as I was dead but now… now the question meant something.

“I… I don’t know”, I answered.

By this point, my vision had cleared to where I could see more… notice more around me.

Legion grinned wickedly at me and remarked, “I figured as much. You have amnesia probably caused by the head trauma you’ve suffered”.

“Is that…what killed me”, I asked in a still weakened voice.

Legion’s face returned to its normal stony look as he answered, “I believe so. Whatever hit your head must have killed you. It is only fortunate for you that I found you when I did”.

Something about what he said bothered me. I remembered him appearing next to me in the desert which meant he knew I would be there negating our chance encounter of him, ‘finding’, me. Still, I was in no position to question the matter but it still left me wondering what angle he was working.

“Thank you”, was my more simplistic response. Sometimes, it is always best to play it cool.

“You are welcomed… Now then, lay still. I can see the pain in your face”, Legion pointed out.

I lay there quietly as more sparkling light shot from his hand to my head. Something about that magic calmed the pain which ultimately cleared up my vision.

Feeling better, I tried to sit up on the bed only to feel the weakened rush of death’s touch force me back down. “Ugh! Still too weak”, I complained.

“Take it easy, Commander Blytz”, Legion remarked… he knows who I am.

“Commander Blytz? Is that who I am”, I asked of him.

Legion smiled a wicked grin again and replied, “Yes, you are Commander Blytz of The Death Squad”.

“The Death Squad… doesn’t sound very friendly”, I admitted as I mused aloud.

“No, The Death Squad is anything but friendly… However, all that is about to change, Blytz”. Legion applied his healing magic to my head once more before stopping for the day. “You need to rest…maybe focus on moving around a little but try not to overdo it. In the meantime, I’m going to find out why you were killed”.

‘So, I was dead’, I thought. “How did you find me and better yet, how did you bring me back to life”?

“Nothing enters this desert, dead or alive, without me knowing about it. So, it was very fortunate that you ended up here first which, I will come to explain later once you’ve healed up more”, Legion explained at length. “As for your second question… it’s called Mystica, and again, you will learn more about that later”.

“One other question, Legion… why did you bring me back to life”, I asked him, candidly.

Legion sat down on the side of the bed and answered, “I brought you back to life for several reasons but the main reason I did so was to give you the opportunity to be free of evil”.

“How so… I don’t understand”, I asked of him.

Legion reached over and turned my head from side to side to check my wounds for healing before replying, “Blytz, before your years of service as the Death Squad Commander, I know nothing of you but I’ll hazard a guess and say that you were a good man. Nevertheless, had I not brought you here and saved your life, the evil that created you would have and nothing will have changed”.

“What makes you think I want to live”, I asked him, coldly.

Legion moved his hand away from my face and looked me dead in the eyes. “Blytz, it is reasonable to assume that had I not saved you from Emperor Saxton’s vile clutches, you would have returned to his services”.

“Why do I get the feeling that my amnesia is more than just the wounds I’ve recently suffered”?

“That is a question I cannot answer. I can only tell you about what I know, Blytz and I’m afraid that isn’t much.”

I tried sitting up once more to get a better look at my host. At first, my head began to swim but the sensation quickly cleared up and I was able to hold myself up. “Tell me everything, if you would”.

Legion stood back up, rubbed his chin which made a chiming sound of glass rubbing glass and answered, “You’re the leader of the Death Squad, a group of unmerciful killers in allegiance to Emperor Aramis Saxton. The people of this world dread and fear The Death Squad. I hate saying this Blytz but once you leave from the protection of these castle walls, you will be hunted and hated”.

“I’m curious but why do I have to leave here. Wouldn’t it be better if I stayed”, I asked him.

“No, you cannot stay here, Blytz. You have a journey that will soon take you across many countries and to many places but you will always be welcomed and safe here should the need arise for your return”, he explained.

I reached up to rub my head and could feel just how weak I had become. Dying really does take it out of a person. “So, had you not brought me back to life…someone evil would have”?

“Indeed they would have. Still, I want you to rest while I seek out more answers that might would explain your body just appearing in my desert”, Legion remarked as he headed for a large crimson crystal orb that split in two, upon his approach, to reveal a passageway.

After Legion was gone and the door had retracted into the orb, I sat up on the side of the bed. I knew I had just come through a great ordeal but I also knew I was not in the best of company. Legion seemed nice enough but there was something peculiar about him that made me feel like I needed to run away as quickly and quietly as possible.

Slowly, I stood up and tried to stand beside the bed while propping myself up. Slowly gaining my balance, I knew I was not ready to leave the castle. Was Legion manipulating me with his stiff warning regarding my safety and the outside world? Perhaps but somehow, I felt like he was telling me the truth about everything even if I still didn’t trust him. Maybe I was just being judgmental since I had no recollection of any encounters with a Crystallin.

I finally forced myself to stand up straight and started to take a step forward but I was still too weak even for something as simple as walking. Instead, I dropped to my knees as I quickly grabbed onto the side of the bed for support.

It was then that Legion appeared and helped me back into bed. “Blytz, this bed is specially designed to help strengthen you. Therefore, stay in the bed and build your strength slowly or the next time I’m leave you on the floor”.

“Yes, sir”, was my simple reply. His words cut me but then again, something about him bothered me anyway.