THE Prophecy
Friday, July 10, 2009
One by one… One by one… Man all over the world will start disappearing one day. One after another. The day will come when all mankind cease to exist. The dim-witted mortals who once thought themselves invincible… Will perish in the unavoidable catastrophe. The day will come, and no one will survive.
The horrifying words came out in a rasping whisper. Dry, cracked lips barely move to form the cursed words that signify that man’s downfall will approach before long. Pale, slender fingers reached out to feel the fifty-two words that have suddenly appeared on the whitewashed wall. Engraved on the surface of one wall, the dreadful words were a deep crimson red, the color of blood. “Finally, I thought that this day would never come.” A faint smile appeared on Aldric’s face. “It’s been far too long…” Time had either been too kind or too cruel to this man.
He brought his fingers to his lips and tasted them. It was blood, its salty taste lingering on his tongue. It didn’t take him long to realize: The words were written with blood. The malodorous tang of blood was starting to get too strong to bear.
Soft moonlight shone through an open window, casting its radiant glow on the young man. His skin was flawless, and smooth, like porcelain. Shoulder-length honey blond curls framed his face, a face that many would consider attractive. His eyes were a cold brown.
Yet, young as he appeared to be, he wasn’t anything close to young. He had lived for two hundred and seventy-three years, tortured by the fact that he could neither age nor die. It wasn’t that he never tried. He had more than once attempted suicide just to proof that he was alive; Yet, he had never once succeeded. If there was a section in the Guinness Book of Records for “Most Number of Attempted Suicides”, he would have held an unbreakable World Record.
He had spent more than half of his life trying to get himself involve in road accidents, deliberately stepping in front of cars just as the traffic light turned green, but this always seems to end with an enormous dent in the car bumper and he, once again, escaping from the clutches of death. He wasn’t being pessimistic, he just needed to feel the pain to proof that he was still alive.
Once, he had even bought a pistol to do the job. He knew that there was only one way to do it. Quickly. Raising the terrifying cold weapon to his temple, he squeezed the trigger. The bullet was fired, going straight through his skull, but he was still alive. There was only one explanation for it.
It was not possible for his body to undergo any changes. No matter what he did to it, not even a bruise will appear. Since his seventeen birthday, his appearance had stayed pretty much the same. For eternity.
For about two centuries, he struggled to put an end to a life that should have ended a long time ago. Until he was finally forced to accept the fact that he was now an
Immortal. A cursed being.
For around two and a half century, he had spent his life in this dark cottage, afraid to face the outside world. Fearing that people might take him for a freak when they come to realize what he really was. And also because, this was where he first realized that he was now an Immortal.
Friends that have grown up with him had aged and passed away a long time ago. The people that he once knew were all gone. He… Was alone in a world that he should have left long ago. He didn’t belong here.
Yet, now that the Prophecy had been spoken. Death had crept in and seize hold of his broken soul. All these while, Aldric had lived for this to happen. Only this instance, as his life slowly seeps away, did time finally start for him again, eventually catching up with him. The second hand on his watch starts to run again; For the past two hundred and fifty years, it had stopped at 4.44AM. Now, time was fast-forwarding for him, making up for the hundreds of years that it had paused for.
His initially raven hair slowly turned white and fell off like snakes withering in pain, shriveling on the cold marble floor before eventually turning into white ash. Like some kind of strange pattern, every single inch of his papery skin starts to wrinkle and liver spots began to appear. His stiff frame hunched over, giving him a bad hunchback. His legs slowly failed him, and he had to press his hands to the wall to stable himself, preventing him from falling over. His eyesight was deteriorating. Even so, there was something gleeful in his bright eyes. This was what he wanted.
“Goodbye.” Aldric muttered as the last of his strength left him. It was like the light of life in his eyes suddenly dimmed and died. His eyeballs rolled back into his head, exposing the milky white of his pupils.
He fell to the ground, unmoving, and he never will again. Where his hands came in contact with the whitewashed wall earlier, he left behind two bloody handprints.
Then, a hideous process began taking place. His body began decomposing at a paranormal speed. His skin started to rot away, exposing the muscles and tissues behind. A disgusting odor of decay and death started to fill the room. A minute later, there was nothing left but a white skeleton lying in an awkward position on the ground. Rags that used to be clothes hang loosely off its thin frame.
At this moment, the wooden door of the cottage was blown open by a strong gust of wind. And it was this gust of wind that caused the skeleton to fall apart and turn into dust.
Plop! Plop! Two bloody eyeballs landed on the floor, staring accusingly at nothing in particular. These were the only evidences left to show that a man called Aldric had actually walked on the surface of Earth.
In the background, an old grandfather clock continues ticking, silently mocking mankind. These ugly creatures will perish, soon. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Time is running out for the foolish mortals who did not even realize that their end is near. It won’t be long before all of them perish… every single one of them…
To be continued...
