by N. P. Martin
At the end of the fresco, another figure came into view, faded but obviously lighter than the depiction of Erebus. In what appeared to be the final scene, Erebus is seen plunging his fist into the other figure’s chest, holding the figure aloft as if in triumph. It didn’t take me long to work out that the other figure was me—the supposed savior—suffering a nasty defeat at the hand of darkness. My blood ran cold as I looked upon the featureless depiction of myself. Was this really to be my fate? It was hard not to think that it was, especially since the coming events had been foretold so long ago, which only added further weight to the possibility that I and everyone else was fighting a losing battle against Apep and his dark forces here in this world.
I almost felt like I couldn’t go on, but I knew I had to, and not just because there was so much at stake. Despite feeling defeated, there was still something inside me that made me want to carry on. Call it faith or just plain stupidity, whatever it was, it made me tear myself away from the depressing fresco and walk toward an open doorway leading into a short passageway, at the end of which I could see a sort of green luminescence emanating from somewhere. As I stood looking down the passageway, I knew I had reached the end of my journey to find Erebus. Even though I couldn’t see him, I knew in my bones that he was in the room at the end of the passageway. All I had to do was walk down it to meet him.
As I took my first step forward, the lighter in my hand finally ran out of fuel, and I snapped it closed and put it back in my pocket as I kept moving forward. I no longer needed the lighter to see by anyway, for the green glow beyond illuminated the surroundings as well as any light would, though it made everything seem alien and strange, almost as if the stone itself was not of this world either. What kind of place was this? I wondered. More to the point, what am I heading into?
The question remained on my mind as I slowly entered a massive room that seemed like it had been roughly cut out of the rock itself, like a huge cave almost, and just as cavernous. In places on the walls there were more sinister symbols, these ones much bigger, and painted on in some unknown reddish substance that glowed eerily in the sickly green light. An air of dread and horror hung in the air, the likes of which I had never felt before, probably because of its source, which was a huge hole in the middle of the room, out of which the glowing green light emanated, accompanied by a low humming sound that seemed to vibrate through my bones and accentuate the horror I already keenly felt. I kept my distance from the hole and the strange energy that came from it, choosing to walk around the edge of the walls as I explored the cavernous room. The heat down here was almost intolerable, and my clothes were soon glued to my skin from sweating so much.
I expected to find Erebus in the room, but after walking right around it, I saw no one. Yet despite the room appearing empty, I thought I could still feel a presence in it, sometimes moving behind me, sometimes in front, but always there, invisibly watching, deliciously anticipating.
"I know you’re here," I said after my tour of the room, my voice echoing ominously as my words were carried away toward the impossibly high ceiling. "Show yourself." I began to walk slowly again, closer to the pit and its ghoulish emerald light this time, as I watched carefully for signs of life. "I came to talk. There’s no need to hide."
Stopping, I waited on a response, but there was nothing but the noise of the strange humming sound in the room.
Until a voice spoke. A voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once as it echoed off the walls. "Do you think I fear you, Savior?" The voice was deep, youngish sounding, the accent curiously flat and almost impossible to place. It was also scary in its quiet insouciantness, as if the speaker was concerned with nothing at all, least of all my presence here.
"No," I said after swallowing dryly, looking around for the source of the voice. "I don’t think that."
"Do you fear me then?"
I was about to answer when a black shape suddenly emerged from the wall beside me, causing me to jump back in fright. As the figure walked forth from the shadows and into the green light, I saw it was a man with caucasian features, but with skin the color of tar. The whites of his eyes stood out against the abnormal darkness of his skin, and within those orbs danced a fire of some sort that was strangely hypnotizing. I could only stand still as he came close to me, a good head taller than I was, and much broader. As physical specimens go, he was almost perfect, which didn’t surprise me at all. He stood for what seemed a very long time just staring at me, his eyes roaming over my entire body before he began to walk around me like a farmer inspecting one of his livestock. "You didn’t answer my question," he said, his voice seeming softer but nonetheless threatening at this distance. "Do you fear me, Savior?"
At that point, I did fear him. How the hell could I not? He was as intimidating as anyone I had ever met, and I had met some intimidating fuckers in my time. This guy was intimidating without even trying, though, which is to say nothing of the massive cock hanging between his legs, an appendage that was intimidating in its own right die to its huge girth and nearly abnormal length. Clearly Apep had wanted his son to walk proud here on earth, to be the envy of all men, which he probably would be if it wasn’t for his incongruous black skin, which made him look like he’d been painted with tar. "Do you want me to fear you?" I asked him.
The question seemed to throw him for a second, and then he smiled slightly with pitch black lips, showing just a hint of teeth that weren’t white. "By rights, the whole world should fear me, but the fact is, it will never get the chance to."
"Because you’re going to destroy it?"
He nodded slowly as I suddenly became aware of strange, black shapes that were fluttering around him like butterflies, only these things, whatever they were, were not butterflies, or even like anything else of this earth. What their purpose was, I have no idea. "It is what I was born to do," he said. "It has been prophesied long before I was ever created, after all."
"And you believe in these prophesies?"
He stared at me a moment and then stepped toward me again, tilting his head to the side slightly. "Clearly you do not, or perhaps…you do. Is that why you are here, Savior, to talk me out of fulfilling my purpose, my destiny? If that is the case, I can assure you, you have wasted your time."
Sighing, I shook my head slightly as I was overcome with a sense of futility that made me want to sit down and give up, and to accept whatever fate was in store for me and the rest of the world. Shrugging off my backpack, I fished out my cigarettes, realizing I didn’t have a light, so I held up the cigarette and said to Erebus, "You mind lighting this for me, as you’ve seen fit to block my magic."
Erebus frowned for a second, as if he didn’t know what to make of me. "It was not I who blocked your magic, but this place. My ancestors used to populate this great city now buried under the sands. They may be gone, but their energy still exists. That is what is blocking your magic."
I nodded. "So can I have a light then?" After a moment he waved his hand slightly and my cigarette suddenly became lit. "Much obliged." As I stood smoking, I stared into the pit, its green glow almost hallucinatory in its intensity. "What is that?"
"A door to another dimension," Erebus said. "To my father’s dimension."
"Apep’s."
"Yes." He walked to the edge of the pit and peered into it, the fluttering creatures following after him. "I came here ten years ago when I could no longer tolerate being around humans. They did as my father commanded them, raising me, allowing me to reach my full potential if you will, to which need they did a good enough job. But I grew tired of their petty concerns, not to say sickened by their very presence. Don’t you grow tired of humans, Savior?"
"I wish you’d stop calling me that."
"Savior? But that’s who you are, is it not? The token Savior who will suffer defeat at my hands?"
I looked away from him as I tried not to seem pissed off. "Just Corvin will do."
He turned away from the pit to stare at me. "You don’t b
elieve you are the Savior, do you, Corvin?"
"I don’t know what to believe," I replied honestly. "Unlike you, I haven’t had a lifetime to assimilate. All of this has been dumped on me only lately."
"If I had the capacity, I would probably feel sorry for you."
I took another drag on my cigarette. "Don’t bother."
"You haven’t even met your real father yet, have you?"
"My real father?" I shook my head. "Cernunnos is not my father. Max Chance was my father."
He came closer, the winged creatures following him. "I’m starting to see why you will suffer defeat," he said. "Not only do you not have any faith, but you are all too human. You are supposed to be the son of a god, yet you don’t act like one. Your lack of belief makes you weak and vulnerable. I could wipe you from existence in an instant, right this very moment, if I so chose to."
"So why don’t you?"
"Is that a request?"
I said nothing as I dropped my cigarette butt and ground it out underfoot, realizing I had made a mistake even coming here. It was obvious Erebus’ mind would not be changed. He was a walking weapon of mass destruction, and he knew that well. He had only one purpose, and he was comfortable with that. There was no self-doubt or questioning of his existence, and that made him strong. Stronger than I would ever would be, I realized, knowing now that I would never defeat him under any circumstances.
When he came walking up to me, I just stared at him. "Perhaps I should just put you out of your misery now," he said, reaching out to place one finger on my forehead. Almost instantly, I felt the life-force begin to drain from me as my body went weak and felt like it was beginning to fold in on itself, the muscles and tendons no longer able to function as they should. But just before I collapsed to the ground, Erebus removed his finger and I knelt gasping for breath as my body struggled to right itself from the trauma he had inflicted upon its molecular structure. "But I won’t. Like it or not, you will face me in the Final Battle."
Crouched over on the floor, I stared up at him. "But why?"
The slightly shimmering creatures continued to flutter around him as he stared down at me, before crouching down himself. "Because that is how it has been written. The Final Battle must take place. My father insists upon it."
"Do you do everything your father tells you to do?"
He smiled at that. "You will never know the relationship I have with my father," he said. "You still think in human terms, and as such the bond I have with my father is beyond your understanding. We are forces of pure darkness. Perhaps when you finally meet your own true father, you will understand. In the meantime, he seems to have abandoned you."
Despite not feeling any connection toward my so-called real father, Erebus’ final remark still hurt somewhat. It stung knowing that he had had all the support he would ever need, whereas I’d had none. Erebus knew his true purpose from the day he was born, no doubt. My apparent true purpose had only just been thrust upon me, which I was expected to live up to, despite not knowing how. "This is all bullshit," I said sharply as I stood up. "You do realize that you’re just being used, right? That you’re no more than an object built for a specific purpose? That you have no value beyond that?"
For the first time, his mask of self-assurance seem to slip, revealing the merest hint of doubt underneath. "Those are human concerns of which you speak, and thus of no consequence."
"So you’re happy to be nothing more than a weapon in the hands of your father and his disciples?" It was my turn to move slightly toward him for a change, a small action that nonetheless appeared to put another crack in his confidence. "You’re happy to destroy an entire world to satisfy the insane desires of a handful of people? Despite what you say, you are still part human, just as I am. Your mother was human, as mine was. Your father might be a true force of darkness, but you are not, Erebus. You were even named after someone else, after a god that no one but another god could relate to. You aren’t a god, Erebus. You’re just a human being who has been corrupted by dark forces that don’t give a shit about him, at the end of the day. Take a look around. Look at where you’re living—in an abandoned city underneath a desert, all alone with nothing but a selfish god to whisper lies and deceits in your ear. You talk about destiny, but what you don’t seem to understand is that all this isn’t destiny, it’s enslavement. Is that what you want to be, Erebus? A slave?"
The fires in his eyes burned fiercely, and the creatures floating around him fluttered madly as if in tune with his rising emotions. For a being unconcerned with and supposedly far apart from humanity, he was certainly coming across as human now. Likely no one had ever questioned him, always worshipping him and telling him what he needed to hear; what the forces controlling him needed to hear. As such, he had probably never questioned himself, his existence or his motives. To have me do so now seemed to cause him mental anguish, as if everything I said was conflicting with his carefully constructed belief system. For the first time, he seemed lost for words, which to me was a positive sign; a sign that I might be able to break through his wall of conditioning to the human I knew still existed inside of him, however deeply buried that person was.
But before I got a chance to continue, the humming from the pit suddenly increased in intensity to the point where I couldn’t stand it. Blood soon began to pour from my ears and nose as it felt like my head was about to explode with the great pressure being out upon it by the vibrations emanating from the pit. Not only that, but I also felt another presence in the room, one which was much, much darker than even Erebus’, and I knew immediately that Apep himself was reaching through from another dimension in order to crush me before I could corrupt his progeny any further. Dropping to my knees, I clamped by hands to my head and began to scream with the pain running through every inch of me, the sickening vibrations threatening to break apart my every molecule and wipe me from existence.
It felt like this would be the case until the vibrations stopped as suddenly as they began, and the humming sound died down to its former low level. Filled with relief, I fell forward onto my hands and stayed that way until I felt able to focus again. Then, with blood still seeping from nearly every orifice in my body, I looked up at Erebus, who was now standing over me looking deeply concerned, as if he had a great problem that he didn’t know how to solve. "I take it I pissed off Daddy," I said after spitting blood onto the ground.
"Your words offended him," he said, sounding somewhat shaken himself, though not, I suspected, because of what just happened, but because I had planted seeds of doubt in him which had seemingly found fertile ground, though he was clearly doing his best not to show it.
"That’s very human of him."
"Don’t. He will eradicate you next time."
"And what about the Final Battle, huh, Erebus? What of your great destiny?" I shook my head as I laughed to myself, then spat more blood onto the ground. "This whole thing’s a fucking joke."
Erebus stared down at me like he didn’t know what to say. "I think it’s time for you to leave," he said eventually.
I stood up and brushed myself off a little before staring at him. "What’s the matter, Erebus? Are things cutting a little too close to the bone for you? Maybe a part of you knows how ridiculous this whole thing is, but you’ve been too scared to admit it to yourself. You’re afraid of what Daddy might say, is that it?"
A growl left his mouth and he suddenly rushed toward me, his hand wrapping around my throat as he pushed me back against the wall, his face coming to rest close to mine, his eyes boring into me. "Why did you have to come here?" he growled. "We were never supposed to meet until the Final Battle."
"Destiny doesn’t alway go the way you want it too," I said, my fear of him now diminished in the face of his unsettled demeanor. "Don’t you see, Erebus? None of this has to happen. You can be your own man, your own god if you want to be. You don’t have to listen to your father or his disciples. You can put an end to all this right now by—"
His hand s
lamming into the wall next to my face soon shut me up, the force of his blow crushing the rock under his palm. "Enough!" he bellowed, his eyes now staring madly at me as his he breathed heavily, the strange, tentacled creatures now forming a dense cloud around his head like fluttering black moths. I knew I’d pissed him off, and for a moment, I thought he was going to kill me and be done with it. But then something caught his attention, and he shifted his focus to the wall near where his hand had hit. With the same hand, he seemed to pluck something from the rock, and then stepped back with it in his palm. When I looked down, I saw it was a tiny weed of some sort that must’ve been growing in a crevice in the rock. How any life existed down here—beyond the other-dimensional life that is—was beyond me.
And yet, he held life in his hand, the bright green of the small plant standing out against the blackness of his palm. For the longest time, he seemed fascinated by this tiny semblance of life, perhaps wondering like I did how it had managed to grow so far down in the darkness. Then, as I watched with equal fascination, I began to notice his discomfort, followed by something approximating pain in his face. It was as if the tiny plant was burning his hand, or perhaps countering his darkness somehow, I don’t know. I just knew it was doing something to him, and that after a while he couldn’t stand it. He eventually covered the plant with his other hand for a few seconds, and when he took his hand away again, there was nothing but ash left in his palm, as if he’d incinerated the tiny plant. When he was done, he looked at me and let the ashes fall to the ground, as if life itself meant nothing to him. "I know what I am," he said after a moment, his former self-assurance now back in his voice. "I am the bringer of death; the destroyer of worlds. Can you truly say what you are, Corvin Chance?"
