Among the Fallen: Resurrection

by Ross Shortall

  “A chance at what?” she said fearfully. “Am I dead?”

  The creature’s eyes glowed furiously and silently as flies buzzed around its tortured and painful body. The Blind turned and stared at Alex blankly before turning her head and gazing upon her master, awaiting his response to the frightened girl in front of her. Alex gradually backed away as the ghost grew closer and closer, its mantle breaking holes in the fog and slicing through the floating rain and debris.

  “Why do you humans fear death so bitterly?” the creature said sharply, leaning towards her as its reflection cast over her black eyes. Alex stood mystified and terrified as she thought about the Wraith’s question without finding an answer.

  “Please, I must know!” she sobbed with a plea of desperation.

  “Yes, Alexandra” it mumbled as it straightened up to full height. “You are what you would call dead, but you stand before us more alive than you ever were before”

  The creature’s cape flowed around the headstones charmingly yet erratically and random, wrapping and choking headstones as it flowed defiantly through the rain. Alex just stood wearily and defeated, waiting for the creatures to just kill her, or do whatever they had planned and get it over with, but strangely, they seemed to keep their distance. Its eyes glowed brighter before dimming again; it’s cold and dark body standing as still as stone, controlled and fearsome. Alex turned coldly as the Gagged just mumbled and walked off into the darkness, wandering the graveyard and amusing itself.

  “You stand here for a reason more important than your life ever was!” it said creepily. Alex lowered her head without taking her eyes off of the sinister looking creatures around her. Her lips quivering in fear, her body shivering as she fought back the tears; her mind flashing back to a life she once took for granted as the ghosts dismissed it completely without regret.

  “What purpose?!” she gasped acrimoniously as she tried to avoid eye contact with wraith, yet her undying curiosity and fear compelling her to do otherwise. A long cold silence aired across the putrid landscape of headstones, lanterns and monuments, the rain suddenly continuing to batter the stone reminders that had been left to rot by the sands of time. She could hear the Gagged man at her side, chewing down on the strap that cut into the sides of his mouth, his eyes hidden behind his stretched skin, thoughtless yet obedient to his caped master. The caped creature stood staring at her, completely focused and not even phased by the twisted cloak that danced around them all.

  “Like you, we do not wish to exist here, our worlds have come together and a series of events have been set in motion” the creature whispered. The gruesome demons merely stood silent for a few moments as the rain hammered down around them. “You are a key to those events, events that are taking place and events that must come to end.” the creature said almost freely without fear or emotion. “Your death and life are no longer important, but my world and yours are being pulled together by greed and the hungry, and there are some of us that do not want this event to happen.”

  Alex pondered briefly, her mind taking in the bizarre words of a creature that just stood emotionless like a statue as its henchmen stared on, listening intently and quietly.

  “What’s it got to do with me? I really don’t understand! What events?” She said confused and edgily. “What worlds? As in Earth?”

  The wraith looked down at her almost as confused as her, yet her ignorance to the real facts almost entertained it.

  “Your world’s knowledge is almost simplistic in the way it thinks, Alexandra. There are Heavens and there are Hells, they sit separately, passing souls back and forth for eternities past, some we keep, some we give back and some pass us right by, until now.” he scorned with bitter regret.

  “Why until now?” she asked sceptically with a feeling of dread that she could almost feel crawling under her skin. The ghost turned and walked over to an angelic monument, frowning in difference at its perfectly carved face. The other three froze and turned to watch their master as he scowled into the angel’s pretty face. Suddenly, his cloak wrapped around it covering it tightly as they all watched on, silent and emotionless. The cape dropped revealing the angels new image, a Demon clutching its own heart and its face carved in pain. The creature turned to Alex abruptly and looked down at her, its empty skull-like glowing eyes glaring in the rain.

  “A human seeks to merge our worlds for self-gain, and you Alexandra, are going to stop it!” it said expecting Alex to either agree or simply obey.

  “Why me?!” she said puzzled. “I don’t understand?”

  The wraith looked upon her as its cold face stared down at her, its comrades waiting patiently in the shadows around them.

  “You were chosen!” he scowled bitterly, obviously disagreeing with the choice.

  “By who? What is it you expect me to do? I don’t understand! You said I was dead!” she said glumly.

  The creatures wandered the graveyard as their master stood still, his cape flapping around in air all around them. The thunder clapped in the distance and the trees creaked in agony, the chains that strangled the branches rattling gently in the unforgiving wind.

  The creature looked up into the sky and for a split second, the floating lamps shining a dull light over its skeletal face, bone-like with very thin tendons sprawling over it as thin muscle snapped tightly, struggling to hold it all together. It stood there solemnly like a pathetically fleshed out grim reaper, the darkness gliding over its face and hiding it once again as it looked back down at her.

  “Death is not the end, you transcend to different places and plains of existence. You can return to your spiteful humanity in a new form, move on to a higher existence or become one of us.” it said calmly and egotistical “there are endless options after death, countless realms, infinite worlds and possibilities, your case however, is very unique, and very deliberate!”

  “Deliberate?!” she huffed clearly confused.

  “A human has started an ancient ceremony to bring two very specific and carefully chosen worlds together to suit its own needs, yours and my own. What you see, hear and feel around you is nothing compared to what would happen if it succeeded. It needs to be stopped and impeded before it goes full circle!” it said harshly.

  “Who is it?” she asked as she stepped away from the wraith, looking over the demons as they frowned around her, they macabre a wilting bodies glowing in the fragile light.

  “We do not know” the creature answered as it turned and walked away. “The ritual protects it, whoever it is has its own protection, shielded by the Fallen and the chosen Judges.”

  “The Fallen?” she replied, rubbing her head in growing confusion.

  “We are the Fallen, your divided religions speaks of us in many forms, but who we are, is not important, your expansion of your knowledge does not alter the fact our kind must be stopped!” it growled abruptly.

  “Right!” she said with growing paranoia, her head throbbing, confused and disorientated. With all the thoughts flowing round her mind like a tornado she was finding it extremely hard to take everything in. The outlandish and far-fetched words were only solidified by the creature’s ghastly appearance and her own.

  “Five Fallen!” the creature grumbled. “Ghosts; Demons; Angels, whatever tags that exist in your world to help you understand, feel free to use.” the vile creature said almost condescendingly. “The ritual comes from a Bible found on your realm, the ritual has started but it needs to be fulfilled. If one human challenger takes on the Judges and wins by sunrise, the game stops; a flaw in our dogma that allows the humans to challenge the game!” the wraith bellowed with its empty emotionless voice, its words echoing all around her.

  “And who is this challenger and what’s my purpose in all this?” she asked in apparent denial. The wraith turned its head and peered into the polluted skies, suddenly looking down at her with its furious glowing eyes.

  “You are the challenger, Alexandra!” it scowled as its minions turned and gazed upon them.

&
nbsp; Alex looked at the creature for a few moments then went and sat on a tomb, its surface mouldy and soaked, the concrete smelling like wet sand as the lanterns slowly drifted away from her, almost repelled by her undead body.

  “It all sounds like a far-fetched fairy tale, what if I fail? What if I refuse?” she said defiantly, giving the creature the same rebellious look she often gave to her father on numerous occasions.

  “If the Sun rises before the final Judge has been defeated, our world wins by default, the fate of your homeland will spread to every corner of your world. Every human on the Earth will turn, will die, and the surge of death will send billions of souls at once into the sky, the Heavens will collapse, Hell will rise unto the Earth and everyone in it will be a canvas of suffering and pain” it said with a growing and impatient voice. “It may sound like a fairy tale to you, Alexandra. But where do you think your fairy tales and fables come from? They exist and they happen, your kind merely numbs the details and makes them more palatable on the ears of the ignorant.”

  Alex frowned arrogantly.

  “Make no mistake, Alexandra, if you fail, there will be no great battle, no great human prevailing, even united your whole race with its arrogant technologies and war-machines will collapse under the Fallen!”

  “And I‘m supposed to stop this?” she barked. “Look at me! LOOK AT ME! I didn’t get it right the first time!” she screamed impatiently “I don‘t even know how I died! I aint nothing - I’M NOBODY!” she shouted defiantly.

  The caped creature’s comrades gazed upon Alex surprised, the Gagged looking at her with a hint of disbelief, swiftly turning towards his master backing away cautiously, almost fearful of Alex’s disrespect. Within a second the caped creature appeared in front of her, its vice like grip holding her high by the throat crushing her wind pipe. The vile creature’s face squeezed up against hers, its abominable putrid breath poisoning her nose forcing her to cough and gag; its skin blistered and threadbare with muscle fibres that crawled up its face like webbing. She felt her body burning and her fear turning to an uncontrollable rage and aggression, her eyes beginning to glow as fierce and as red as the creature’s that strangled her slowly.

  “Can you feel that, Alexandra?” he barked. “Can you feel that anger and hatred that curses your blood?!” it grumbled.

  Her eyes glowed furiously and her teeth began to grind hysterically, her body suit starting to spread and leap around her body like boiling oil. She gargled and choked as it flowed down her throat and covered every inch of her body before thickening and setting as hard as leather. All three of the creature’s companions suddenly backed away as she began to change and alter, not from fear; but in a respectful attempt at giving them both distance. The creature let go and she dropped to her feet perfectly, her body and face masked in a putrid black hardened body armour, her now leather like body suit embedded with the same Baphomet symbols and chains, buckles and straps as the Demon that she stood before. Some hung loosely while others were wrapped around her limbs, her laborious steps rattling with clunking metal and creaking leather. Her face was black and slick, hardened like tarmac and slithered with stitching and seams. Her eyes were a glow with a fierce and spine chilling blood red and her mouth and nose hidden, her leather like armour glistened under the soft lamp light that beamed all around her.

  “That is our gift to you Alex, it will protect you, it is and will be your only ally and it will give you a chance to survive the night, it will help when you need it, and it will take over when you falter!” the creature griped as it drifted away slowly. “It will guide you and you will guide it, it stops your body decaying and feeds off the life of your enemies, it will keep you whole and regenerate your wounds when needed. But it’s limited in power!”

  “I don’t understand, I can hear voices in my head; what’s it saying to me!” she griped from behind the black leather as she rubbed her head. “It’s not English, it’s just nonsense!”

  “Your body understands it, your instincts will hear it when it speaks; it’s our language and it speaks to advise, not to converse!” he scowled as its cloak blew around it gracefully.

  “How do I use it?” she asked queerly, her voice muffled and echoing from inside her suit. The creature paused and looked back at her impatiently, its vast cape flowing around the headstones like blood.

  “You don’t, Alexandra, it uses you!” it replied before fading into the night.

  “If I do whatever it is I’m supposed to do, will I find out what happened to me?!” she shouted.

  There was a long silence as the rain poured and candlelight flickered.

  “Yes!” the dark miserable voice bellowed invisibly. “Help us and we’ll give you a chance to save your sibling and put your timeline right!”

  “Sarah?!” she shouted, her heart filling with that one thing she thought she had lost; hope. “What do I have to do?”

  “Stop the final stages of the ritual!” the voice growled. “Go home! Follow the signs we leave you!”

  Alex gasped and turned towards the graves meekly as the lanterns drifted silently into the air.

  “The game has begun!” the dark voice echoed around her as she stood alone once more.

  As vague as her task was, she had no choice if she wanted to save herself from this fate, but it wasn’t her she was thinking about. She was thinking about Sarah, she deserved another chance even if she herself rotted in hell. Alex held her hands out in front of her looking at the hard, cracking tarmac like armour that covered her hands like leather gloves. All of a sudden, it began to liquefy and flow back to its original form, her skin once again exposed and battered by the rain, her face visible yet again to show off her cold colourless face.

  She took one last look back at the stone statues and bowed her head in shame, her eyes tightly shut for a few moments before opening them in the hopes that it was just all a sick nightmare. With her arms hugging her chest in a vain effort to keep warm, she began to walk through the morbid landscape slowly, looking around at the monuments and the painfully upset expressions on the faces of stone angels and concrete children. As she walked through the water logged grass she gazed up at the blood red sky in awe, no clouds or birds, nor planes or even flying insects. It were almost like there was no natural life left on Earth and she was permanently lost in a world that were not her own.

  Eventually she came to some big iron gates at the edge of the graveyard, huge rusty giants of elaborate steel and iron tinted by the red sky. She walked slowly to the edge of the graveyard and noticed the long drop into a foggy abyss that seemed to be limitless, the edges around this bizarre cliff were littered with ghoulish branches and roots that had somehow broke free. Thousands upon thousands of silent skulls and old wooden coffins were embedded all the way down the cliff face and vanished into the dark depths below, each telling a story of pain, death and intense suffering.

  Below in the distance was a city, silhouetted on the red burning sky. Fires blazed and smoke bellowed into the heavens, cracks of silent lightning lit up the bleak landscape which was followed by the slight rumble of thunder. The city skyline was outlined in oranges and yellows as the infernos lit up the land, the heavens scarred with crows as they circled the ravaged capital. Alex simply stood and gazed at her ruined homeland, her mind empty of thought. She stood watching as she heard the faint familiar sound of church bells in the distance, the very church bells that woke her up every day in her living life; a life that seemed such a long time ago, a distant memory of happiness long consumed by her untimely death.

  “That is your city Alexandra, your home! That is where you must go!” the familiar voice whispered behind her. She turned her head and spat rain from her mouth fearfully, wiping her eyes as she stood in front of the apocalyptic backdrop.

  “What has happened to it?” she asked, almost scared of the answer that was bound to follow. The caped creature drifted and stood next to her as she looked up at its morbid face as it too glanced upon the miserable and deformed city. Th
e creatures eyes flared up then dimmed again as the urban skyline burned, tormented by silent and sudden forks of lightening.

  “We happened to it” it said as it looked down into the abyss. “Your city is dead and fallen; it turned on itself, it’s nothing more than an arena now, a place where your game is played.”

  “What about the people there? My Father?” she whispered, looking up at the ghostly being as it stared silently into the red night. Alex looked in bewilderment as the creatures cloak danced around her, teasing her as it played almost as a child does. She reached out and touched it and it glowed and shimmered on contact. Suddenly the creature’s voice interrupted her.

  “Don’t burden yourself with emotion, Alexandra. Your people are still there and they still walk the streets. But they are far from your concern, find the Fallen and finish the game before sunrise.”

  The creature looked down on her, his face blank and glowing in light as the fires burned furiously below.

  “You still aint explained what these Fallen are, surly I have the right to know?” she mumbled as the creature watched on. “Ghosts; Demons; it tells me nothing!”

  “The Fallen are what we are, labelled by your Bible of lies, our Bible too calls us the Fallen; Judges of the damned. Whatever you choose to call us, Alexandra, is your choice, just win the game, it’s all we ask of you!”

  Alex frowned and stared off towards the apocalyptic distance, haunted and tormented. The suit whispered in her mind as she closed her eyes, listening to the inaudible chatter, her instincts suddenly changing.

  “How will I know where to find these Judges? What do they look like?” she asked inquisitively. The creature turned and walked away from the cliff edge and Alex watched as the cape left her side like a punished child.

  “They too wear our suits, they look like we do. The markings you see on your armour and on us are to stop your living Earth repelling our bodies. We do not belong here, we shouldn’t be here! Look out for the writings that scar their bodies and flesh. If they wear the same symbols we do, then they are your target! Ignore everything else, do not waste your time with anything less.” the creature sulked.