[Prologue] Epithmia Cloaked in Red
"One’s soul is, instead, something that is risked in battle and lost in death. Alternately, it is what at the time of death departs from the person’s limbs and travels to the underworld."
Part 1; Scarlet Death Cloaked in Red Locusts
Souls, illuminating nights with blue hues; crying out in pain, despair, angst, and vengeance; seeking a guide to the underworld. To stray from the path is to remain lost, forever searching for its body, but to be caught, manipulated, and fractured the soul faces a fate worse than death. Out of the ashes of a long-forgotten city and in the hands of an ominous force was a fragmented spirit.
A calamity taking a form of red locusts thrust itself upon Epithmia, a city of great trade in Greece. Red locusts swept across the city, penetrating the shops, theatres, homes, inns, and mausoleums, leaving no cobblestone untouched. Overnight, Epithmia went from a simple commercial city to an immoral wasteland, wrought with crime, exploitation, addiction, and lust. Temples dedicated to various deities, gods, and goddess were destroyed, and in their place, sanctuaries were built blessing a new deity known as Mors, a demon more powerful than most gods of the land.
Scarlet Death veiled in red locusts remained in Epithmia, becoming the sole ruler almost overnight. Epithmia grew, drawing the attention of criminals, prostitutes, tax collectors, incessant gamblers, and petty fools. Thus, the waste of society became citizens and worshippers of Mors, but the thirst for control did not stop and sanctuaries began growing outside the city like wildfire. The demons influence devoured the western region of Greece.
Not many had seen Scarlet Death, for it presented itself as a cloud of red locusts, but of those most devoted, they described the being to be cloaked in red, as if to mimic blood of those murdered. A black curse mark cutting across the length of the dejalls face alongside a pale frame made it seem like broken porcelain. Although Scarlet Death was a demon, followers thought of it as almost beautiful. Of course, Mors was no rival to Venus, the curse mark ensured that.
Beautiful; is that what Mors’ citizens thought of them? The dejall found their body almost hideous, rather than an ornate piece of jewelry, the dejall saw the ruins of a once happy being with an ill-fated body.
Yearly, like clockwork, Mors floated across the city, like a fog, cloaking it in darkness, leaving remnants of sorrow in its wake. At the far end of Epithmia, near the border of central Greece stood a sizable temple, with grape vines snaking around magnificently carved pillars. Mors settled each year in the temple, never seeming to grow tired of the journey. Pale feet would strike the marble floors, reverberating footsteps across the great hall of the temple. Epithmias people gossiped that the temple, when visited by the demon, seemed to groan from its presence. Reaching the altar within the temple Mors would stand, gazing up at a statue of a gorgeous being, enveloped in long curls, wielding a bow and arrow. People of Epithmia found it silly that a powerful demon worshiped an Armenian god but never verbalized their concerns, for to anger the being would damn oneself.
Mors found herself outlining each letter of the god’s name. Beginning with “A” the demons long, blackened nails snaked across the marble. In the dimly lit temple, under the whispers of onlookers, ‘Scarlet Death’ spelled A-N-A-H-I-T.
