The Eternall Flame

 

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Prologue

 The name's Vyth...Vyth Drydenn and this is my story.

 

It is now the year 4021, and everything we once knew and called our home here on Earth is no more. But, before I go into the details let me take you back awhile to where it all began to go wrong.

 

It was a sad day in hell nearly some 2000 years ago around the time of 1999. At that epoch mankind marveled at the dawn of a new age, technology was on the rise, medicines had eradicated much disease, as our overall quality of life improved. 

 

Though, most people then failed to realize this all came at a great cost. Most were all too busy within their own minds to pay close enough attention to the bigger picture of what was really going on. We fought wars for survival which instead got worse over petty things that could easily be fixed thus always trying to take advantage of one another. 

 

At the time most referred to it as Y2K then or so it became known. Everything then seemed almost perfect for some, yet others not so much. Those with deep pockets had the means to an end while anyone less fortunate struggled or panicked and hid. Human Life was very much consuming itself to a point of no return which ultimately bred war among chaos as something much darker awoke.

 

I recall it like it as just yesterday. In fact it was almost a year ago today. I know this may seem a little crazy but, truthfully I tell you it is and I'll get to that part in a bit. First, let me rewind to a place where I lived in Frederick, Maryland at the time. Weeks in, it was almost the end of August after going back to school. I came home, did my homework, chilled for awhile playing xbox til around dinner time. 

 

Mom had come home just an hour early and Dad soon followed thirty minutes later. They both had the typical 9-5 jobs. I was the oldest of 3 other siblings. I had a two sisters and a younger brother and growing up the struggle to be the perfect older brother was always real. My mom kept me under tight wraps and my dad on the other hand was a bit more relaxed and hardly there due to being an important person in the military. 

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Chapter I: A Glimpse of Darkness

It was a Friday and my Mom told had called to everyone that it was almost dinnertime for our family shortly after. I was starving of course, threw down my game controller, and ran upstairs after killing the television power. My room was in the basement which was great and away from the craziness upstairs but I still had to come up for air every once in awhile. I had just sat down to eat after hearing her call aloud and began filling my plate along with scarfing down a few bites up when a strange breeze blew in through an open window within proximity. 

 

At first things felt normal then the air in the room temperature grew to almost as if boiling water was being splashed against my skin and it really burned. Soon followed a quick change as I felt an icy chill as frost crawled down my spine like something grasping to pin me in place or seeking something here. What the hell is this I wondered looking around the room at my family wincing in utter pain I thought aloud. Finally, I began feeling rather dizzy, sick to my stomach, like something was trying to turn our insides right side out and yet somehow my body resisted.

 

I don't think it was just attacking us I thought to myself. I could hear people outside our home, our neighbors, our friends, maybe more. The girl across the street walking her dog, the guy jogging down the sidewalk a ways all screaming in bitter agony until they passed which I saw through the corner windows. Smoke began to fill and scent the skyline, loud crashes from cars and collapsing buildings nearby, something was indeed very wrong right now and then I think I must've blacked out temporarily.

 

When I awoke the rest of my family was still on the floor except for my Dad, he was nowhere to be found. Coughing and staggering to my a feet I began to search the house room by room when a loud slam against the front door forced it to bend inward snapping in two like a twig leaving an opening for someone or something to get in. Running downstairs to the front hallway there was a something standing in the hallway.

 

At first glance it appeared almost human, maybe animal, and then I realized it was some strange creature that had emerged between the girl and the dog that passed out across the street. It seemed as though something had taken control, mixed, and mutated their DNA creating a rather twisted, deranged with guts turned inside out. That explained the odd feeling I had earlier before passing out but, why wasn't my family and I affected?

 

The strange being definitely wasn't playing nice either lunging at me with an a spiked bone-netted arm. A glass-shattering shriek expelled from its lungs as it then snarled and howled glaring at me like I was it's next dinner. Another came creeping in the door but this one appeared more human-like with spikes protruding through the mangled skin of it's body and a pair of running shoes. And then I thought the worst again, it had to be the guy jogging earlier who apparently turned into something horrid as well. All I could think of at the time was how and why or who would do such a thing?

 

I had no choice but to fend for myself and my family rolling down across to the other side of the hallway tripping the first creature which then switching to four-legs moving faster at me. I had nothing to fight with other than a few karate moves and a baseball bat that was laying against the back wall swinging at the second creature then the first. That was up until my Dad reappeared shortly thereafter with a shotgun and blew the second humanoid creatures brains out of its head onto the wood floor in front of me as I threw up for a brief moment from the putrid smell but, we still had one to go.

 

Whatever it was it looked like a disgusting flesh-beaten human-dog head. It was horrendous as if the apocalypse was here and zombies existed with a touch of demons from the hellraiser movies I had laughed at as a kid thinking nothing of them. As I exhaled the air froze still right in front of me and I watched my breath fall to the floor. The ground shook briefly and I then had a feeling another creature of some sort was making its way and almost here. Where in the hell are these things coming from I questioned aloud but Dad said nothing while firing the shotgun again and again but missed as it dodged him.

 

Next thing I knew we were running around the corner only to discover 2 more creatures trying to break in through the back door. We hit the dinning room in a matter of seconds and Mom was on the floor partly cacooned and festering with giant blood-filled sacs that were sitting where my siblings were last seen. She wasn't fully mutated just yet but, it was clear as day something would happen soon. She reached out to me telling with a her crooked arm that was starting to bend and stretch. Dad pulled me back and the last words I heard out of her mouth was how much she loved me nodding to Dad as he shot her in the dead-center in the head.

 

That was the last time I would ever see my Mother alive. Dad was obviously in a hurry for a reason while yanking on my arm dragging me to the top of the stairs leading to the basement. I cried for a brief second and choked down my emotions as the stirring of something more began to echo outside the windows of our home. It was obvious something more was headed for us and there was no time to waste as I looked at my Dad and noticed his hand began to fester up really badly. I didn't realize he had been nicked and his skin was red with some strange infection but he pressed on anyway.

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Chapter II: The Fayde

Silence spread calmly through the house for a brief moment but, was then shattered again by the strange grueling sounds getting closer and closer. The ground shook again and again. It felt like an earthquake but, we had to continue and down the stairs we went. I believed my parents were meaning to tell me something sooner but, could not, and for a good reason or so I had hoped.

 

My father shuttered for a minute as we moved quickly down the stairs. I could not begin to even fathom what in the world might be going on I thought to myself and for a split second. I thought heard my father respond you’ll know soon enough son inside my head but I was pretty sure it had to be my self consciousness trying to make sense of things. I recall looking upon my father staring at me then as well but again there was no response. 


He seemed to have lost his sense of direction and all I could hope for was that we'd make it out of the house alive. His arm began to flex but, somehow by a godsend he was in some some sort of peculiar trance that prevented him from turning on me as the flesh-wound on his hand spread up the back side of his arm.

 

As we hit the bottom steps his hand abruptly extended out against the wall at the foot of the stairs and he began uttering strange words I've never heard him speak before. Nothing happened, a long silence broke through the chaos echoing above us and a strange symbol of light began to fold outward twirling around us faster and faster dicing the first creature into nothing as it leaped down the stairs at us.  It was some sort of magical shield.

 

Time had stopped, the wall in front of us remained blank for a few seconds then began to move and I felt my dad drop to the floor next to me as the bones in his legs cracked loudly and started to bend and twist backwards over him. The infection has spread very rapidly throughout his entire body.


 With a last effort he shoved with one hand his shotgun into my arms, mumbled something I couldn't make out and a strange string-bound sheet with some things things wrapped tightly inside it appeared. Take these now I felt him oddly speak inside my head just locking eyesight one last time and he fainted but, I think that was probably the glass of wine I had earlier talking to me.

 

As I turned back around towards the wall in front of us that was moving there was an odd pulsing sound followed by a loud rumble. An opening began to grow with an emanating glow largely surrounding the edges amidst the wall in front of us and then the whole section of it disappeared. The odd opening stirred and blurred with a blue light as a scar tore open out of nowhere in front of me. 


In a bright gleaming white light a dark hooded man with a flame-coated sword stepped out before me cutting off the head and splitting down the decay of what used to be my Father and then he turned to me, the blaze died out and he put the sword away at his side. I was wrong, I was the only one who somehow was not affected but how is this possible I asked myself.

 

He nodded at me to follow but, I was too startled and lost at what was going on. I started to question before doing anything and the hooded man eyed me for a moment mumbling more strange words that spoke to me. 


I thought I understood for a second there when I heard sleep and then I must've partially blacked out. All I recall at the time was being thrown over his shoulder and stepping back through the estranged tear in space and time which then closed behind us.

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Chapter III: Into Avalorre

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Chapter IV: The Unfolding

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Chapter V: Alpha & Omega

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Chapter VI: Legendra

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Chapter VII: Blood of Valor

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