Narrator of the Winds

He stood maybe less than five and a half feet tall, yet despite his height he looked plenty intimidating. The man wore a long coat, draped on him like a cape on a magician. The sleeves were far too long and looked like he repeatedly exposed them to a blender, or the gnashing jaws of a wild dog, or the doubly sharp gnashing fangs of death itself. Their deterioration had reached such a point that it was almost useless to have them, as there was more skin visible than if he had simply worn short sleeves. This skin was not that of a human, but the tough, pale skin of a vampire, or some sort of corporeal specter, both of which would explain the soulless white eyes with the slightest hint of red around the pupil, so slight in fact that its presence screamed morbidity even though it was hardly seen. Wrapped around his wretched mouth was a sort of scarf made of the same heavy material as the coat. The rest of his coat, which was quite clean aside from his sleeves, was left open to reveal a plain, tight shirt, which showed a muscled figure. His legs were covered by a simple pair of dark-wash jeans.
I sat at a distance, watching as this man lifted a knife from his side, smoothly and without noise as the blood had freshly been its bathwater, and would soak into it as a reminder. This sort of knife was not one to rust, exactly, but more to eat. A horrendous sucking sound was evident of this, and it added a slight fear to the scratchings of my pen on the paper in front of me, detailing this whole event.
It started exactly as I had written it; a man in shaggy yet intimidating dress entered this small office of post with nonchalant eyes that seemed to have already quenched a thirst for blood and were somehow peaceful because of this. In truth, this event was far more chilling than I could ever describe due to the actual beauty in these eyes of his that had seen such wrong committed. This man was Nicholas, a pale-looking person with less of a story than a recognizable face. The first was about to change, where the latter was a particularly useless detail.
The knife at his side sang as it passed into the musty indoor air, exactly as I had detailed. He walked to the front desk with the sort of manner you’d see in a bored child, though this was not a boring spectacle. A short man with death dripping from his eyes is far from boring. He broke his careless stride only for the purpose of emphasis, receiving first a strange and (justifiably) terrified stare from the clerk at this one office of post. Of course, the clothing that Nicholas wore was indeed cause for alarm in this time of times, simply because of the hidden face with the death-dripping eyes. Not to mention the torn up, useless sleeves of his. Satisfied that the clerk at this office of post was thoroughly afraid, Nicholas continued walking towards the desk. He procured from somewhere within the ragged sleeve a letter, marked with an encircled N as a sort of seal, stamped clumsily in what was roughly the center of the envelope. Saying nothing, Nicholas simply tossed this letter at the man and raised his knife, which glistened with the fury of fire, though it bore no particular color. On the ground he carved a series of intelligible symbols, and then cut his arm with the last of these same symbols.
This blood of his dripped so elegantly to the floor, as if in a calculated tumble that would bring it to its greatest performance. This performance was nothing, merely an absorption of the performer into the scarred floor. That was clearly not the end of this confusing blood’s performance, as the symbols glowed and then miraculously swallowed up Nicholas in a fury of light, the likes of which was never seen more than once. This was the light that one saw when one was killed. This was the light that ripped the soul from the innocent clerk at this office of post. This was the light that sucked this office of post inside-out, that which corrupted the very core of the land and defiled the hearts of all, the seal on Nicholas’ letter of death. This place would never recover; this place was gone from the world; this place would be a shrine to the suffering everywhere; this place was the seam from which the rest of the world would rip; this place was the baton in my orchestra of emotionally betraying literature. I am the author of my own world, and I am the messenger of God on this Earth.

It’s never a more bizarre experience than when one witnesses a small child perform something seemingly impossible to even the most evil of characters. Even worse is when that child speaks with wisdom and a sense of purpose, but that child’s voice is as deep as the chasm of their very soul (which, after witnessing the aforementioned event, must be unprecedented). Such a child cannot be born, only created, and it isn’t quite set in stone how that happens. Some believe that the characteristics are torn forth by a strange writer who often appears before tragedy, sitting at the spot of death in its hood and scratching away until the day torment breaks through. This writer, if it should hold such power, would be the sole parent of all evil in the minds of people. But no such being could write the story of existence, could they?
In any case, we follow the adult of one such child. The chills are no longer a surprise; the deep voice is somehow less demonic. But the evil is still there, and the evil still shows itself. In this case the evil is even uglier now than at the age of ten. Has the degree or the execution of it changed? Ask the head of an innocent carrier which dangles by its hair, gripped tightly in the hand of our devil-child, not cut, but torn. Have you found your answer?
Thumbing the back of my knife’s handle, resting faithfully at my side, I hid in the bushes as a shadow; the smirk I wore melding into its surroundings as well as the rest of my body, though it gleamed brilliantly in normal lighting. A trained eye could see the cause ‘fore the lips even parted; my teeth had been replaced by metal. In fact, every part of my body had some sort of shining apparatus for killing on it. That is the nature of I, The Assassin, The Karma, and The Redemption, titles torn direct from the papers of the people. I was a myth among men, the fear that was driven into the souls of men when wrongs were committed, left unpunished. I let no wrong go unpunished.
This leads us to the cause of my particularly thorny position, easily divined by now from the details. It was my cause, my calling, to destroy this man, the demon child that once hath murdered innocents without any form of provocation. It was his day to die; I intended to deliver the note of God unto this man.
Resting my fingertips upon the dirt I crouched above, I dissolved thoroughly as a mist. Drifting along through the mostly-clear air, I approached silently and effectively, seeking amorously my prize. Energy seemed to run thin just as I reached my target’s back, I’d have to physically kill him. Unfortunately, this meant that the situation was about to become messy. Taking my physical form, I placed my hands in order to snap the man’s neck.
How shockingly he put it, seemingly an all-sensing being, as if he knew I had been there from the start. How could this be? The man became… something else. Something unmentionable. It appeared as though he had flashed to the side, out of my grip, and put his large, strong hand over my face. His grip was terrifying, I felt a supernatural presence emanating from the tips of his fingers and sinking into my eyes. He merely chuckled and recited, “What man hath attempted my life shall pay me with his.” I saw, on his covered face, a movement so unnatural that God could not have had any part in it. The eyes went from snicker to sneer, and then to malice. Such pretty eyes, were they not so gruesome I would almost not mind having them forever as my last image before death.
Most expectedly this man kept his promise. The grip on my face tightened, but also moved to the back gradually. I wasn’t sure where his fingertips ended any more. The skin on his arm, partly covered by a tattered sleeve, had turned a hellish gray, the veins elevated and tainted with the same gray color that gradually faded into the natural teal. On my knees, he pulled my head forward sharply. Instead of coming off, the net of black fingers he had created passed through and ripped out the life force.

As I lay there dying, he hung the head he held by its hair,
Swinging the poor wretch before my face,
And I drew in the last, sour breath of air
That ever would grace me.

This world is decaying, falling into an endless spiral destined for a collision with corruption; in a sense, that is only the beginning of the deconstruction. The shockwaves will move on to tear the ground in two, toxic air erupting from the deepest deposits of filth humanity has left there, choking the remaining goodness until all is gone.
Whenever I close my eyes I see a new reason to hate my kind, but there is nothing I can do to stop them so I neglect to try. I see the shrouded man tear skull from neck, but whose skull is unclear; this knowledge is unnecessary however, as I only see events passed. Besides, which side is really the corrupt one?
I sipped coffee as this vision came, and for some reason this one was particularly memorable. The sky outside housed monoliths of grey which were broken by un-faceted crystals and cracked by fire, which burned its presence in one’s retinas just to make a point. The window beside me had been dirtied by years of shotty cleaning, similar to the rest of that worthless shop I sat in.
He reached out, hand experienced and completely still, towards the face of the messenger which was painted by fear. The cloak which denoted him as a runner lay torn beside him, removed in an altercation with the shadowy murderer. Fingers groped greedily around the messenger’s face, locking firmly onto it; somehow the grip extended beyond his fingers, some sort of energy securing head in hand.
Those around me probably think me lazy, eyes closed consistently and unbroken for extended periods of time. I am unknown to most, a simple businessman in a suit who parted his sips of coffee with contemplative meditation. If they had called me something, it would have been the Sight – instead I am not called. This is fine, I know them and they are scum stuck to the glass fish tank of this Earth. But I am no better.
The messenger closed his eyes and mouth and the dark, unnatural hand tensed; the sinewy arm bulged with muscle, and in a flash of lightning gave rumor of jerking head from neck.
I didn’t watch, I didn’t have to. Lightning was far more unpredictable, indiscriminate in its chaotic destruction. If you were struck, you’d have no target for anger but chance. With humans, killing always has reason. It’s so calculated, so boring.
Yes, I much prefer lightning.

I sometimes wonder if they ever knew me. They never showed much attachment to me, merely kept me around for my service. I think in a sense they feared me, feared the havoc I could wreak had I any desire to. I never spoke to them as I do to you… but then, such a thing would be improper.
I awoke hours later, unable to move but still very much alive. Or, at least, conscious. Sometimes these states can be ambiguous. In any case, I felt a heat on my face, feverish and hostile. It danced slightly on one side, light accompanying it though I could not see for a few minutes. In time the buzzing in my ears was replaced by a roaring, similar to the rumble of an earthquake. I opened my eyes somewhat, squinting at the contact of organ to air. They burned, and my head throbbed with an ache similar to that of a broken bone. What I saw was a sky robbed of stars, occupied by but a moon shining yellowy and full, like a whitened sun. I stared at this sight for what felt like forever, all the world waiting for a sound other than the roaring fire beside me.
My clothing was different, perhaps replaced. I felt an overwhelming restlessness in my legs as if I had been lying for some time. I made an effort to sit up, moving my stiff arms to support me on elbows; the body felt new to me, almost alien. I heard a stir.
A hand was touched to my shoulder, and I tried to turn to examine its owner but I was all of a sudden overcome with sleep.
“It is not yet your time to return,” I heard. Or I thought I heard it, the voice was so surreal that it could have been my imagination begging for an escape from this pained, strained consciousness.

One day I encountered a strange man. His eyes were full of some emotion, possibly sorrow. They shone brilliantly like a beacon of knowing, and seeing this man I had a strange feeling that I’d seen him before. He told me that I would learn in time, and to stay wary. Little did he know, I learn more every time I close my eyes. He could not have meant what he seemed to mean.
The rain outside had turned to snow, the previously grey skies having become a sickly white; paler than the flesh of an ill child. It should have been beautiful but the white purity was stained by the city smog.
It was days like these that drove me to stay home, working still in my pristine black suit by force of habit. It was ever more impossible to relax.
I see a man, or something that was a man but had now become something else—something better. His eyes were shrouded in shadow, but the rest of his dark face looked at me directly, sternly. His mouth spoke silent words, desperate to be interpreted by my mind but they instead bounced off of the black and eternal walls of nonexistence, the realm within imagination.
People can be so ill-mannered. It is this fact that has caused me to abandon politeness and adopting instead a tone of uncaring. That way at least they do not know that they bother me, that they’ve achieved their offensive goals and let me know that they are but another stain on the already-rotten face of humanity.
The dark man’s body was revealed gradually, and he wore a hooded sweatshirt and regular jeans. He could have been wearing an expensive suit; his posture whispered elegance. His height made him imposing as a tower, his expressionless face none but a conduit for sound and sight. His true face was his entire body.
I saw up close again, and he repeated his words: “You will learn.”
The snow outside the coffee shop had melted already, returning to the corrupted rain, its purity too weak to withstand the temperature. Another sick child snuffed out by evil.

A train rumbled by me presently and I awoke, a frustrated man with fractured mentality. It is possible that I shouted and waved my fist angrily, but such an act was disregarded as much by me as by everyone else. I was just common, then.
The cold metal of the virgin spots of bench soothed my eternal headache for a time, and this aided me back into my dream. I did not understand this broken timeline for now, and I hoped that in time I would see its conclusion.
A dream is a world, you see, no matter how distant it may seem in waking hours. It stays and exists, persists over all time. Its events may not be understood by the dreamer, but the dream has a course to run and its interruption is harsh and rude. These characters seemed so tormented, so interesting. So unlike any other. What really perplexed me was the manner in which they acted—the assassin was a man of sophisticated tongue and archaic weaponry, the businessman far more modern.
And the Writer. I knew his face. Something irked me about not knowing who exactly he was. Was he entirely my mind’s creation? Could I create somebody so bizarre, such a paragon of strangeness, one whose literature was truth? This character fascinated me most.
So I dreamt on, slipping out of one consciousness away from the truth of this cruel world. They disregard me anyway, and so it is no matter. When nobody acknowledges you, it is impossible to exist. I do not.
Dreams are to me what television is to most, but instead they write the story of a struggle more important than the world entire, the tale of three characters faced with destruction who must throw away their beliefs in order to save a race whose lives may not even be worth the struggle. They are now engaged in a battle against nothingness.

The Changing Tides

The man stared at me harshly, loathingly. His gaze inspired discomfort for unfounded reasons; I knew him not. The difference between him and, say, anybody else was that he wanted me to feel such discomfort.
“So you think me unsettling?” he boomed, his voice black and threatening. He relied on its chasm-like tone to try and intimidate me.
“Yes,” replied I, rather plainly, “there is something unsettling about a strong-looking man in a hood staring with the gaze of an aggressor.”
He continued his stare, digging into my skin with his eyes which bore deep into the chasms of my own, the kind that scratch at you, make you squirm. The sides of his mouth curled up slightly but still he looked displeased. “Perhaps,” he said more calmly, “you should consider why I know that about you, and why I stare at you as if you were my enemy. Somewhere you know why, you know who I am, but you can’t place a finger on it. You can’t isolate it. I know you and have for a long time; my only advantage is that I remember. We both know, though. So when you remember what I speak of, remember this also: you cannot do it again. Not alone.”
I blinked. I should have been more surprised by this monologue which seemed unprovoked, but somehow I was not and that was in itself surprising. He took out a notebook and pen and began scribing rapidly as if his notes were something he would forget in seconds were he to write too slowly, and I walked away by force of impulse.
Somehow I felt that even if I wanted to turn back, I’d not have been able to.