Prayers of Ruin: The Hollow Hymn of Revenance

Darkness swallowed me. All that life offered now was a dark void that offered my soul no source of solace. There was absolutely nothing to be seen. I could feel the cold ground beneath my bare feet. The blocks of stones that paved an unseen path were sharp and tried to cut against my callused heels.

Walking was not necessarily hard, but it was a struggle nonetheless. My hands were outstretched from my sides and aimlessly sought to find a surface or a wall to hold onto. With a mind of their own, they flared anywhere that they could reach but found nothing except brisk chilly air in a state of stagnant discomfort.

Moving in a straight line was the best course of action in such darkness. I was weary about sidestepping, even if it meant that I wouldn't find something to grab onto, but it was better than a worse alternative. Who knew what would happen if I were to fall?

“Hello?” My voice was deep, monotone, course, and grim. At the very least, I expected to hear a reverberating echo shout back, but I didn’t even get that. All was still.

My nostrils breathed in the freezing temperatures, and pain stabbed like tiny blades in my throat and lungs. It was painful, but not unbearable. I couldn’t place it, but I had a gut feeling that I had experienced worse pain before.

There was a thickness to the atmosphere like fog or a clearing smoke that held me close to the floor. It weighed me down from my shoulders and set a heavy pressure on my naked chest.

I took another careful step, allowing my toes to feel the ground before I committed to moving myself forward. My head and shoulders trembled with uncertainty and worry. I had no idea where I was. My mind was empty, void of thoughts and memories. There was only now - this one single moment in time.

I felt fear, yet I was unable to fully process what that entailed. I knew I was lost and beyond that, my mind was as blank and dark as my surroundings.

“Hello?” I called out again. A foolish act, indeed, after getting no response the first time; but, I didn’t see the harm in shouting again. Sooner or later, I was certain that someone would come. “Is anybody there?”

My foot touched down on the stone, once again. The texture was different now. The cold had given birth to a thick, wet, warmth. The substance stuck to my toes and wrapped around my foot like a blanket the more I shifted the weight of my body against my leg. A single step was all it took for the oily liquid to get the best of me.

My foot slid across the stone, losing what little balance I had. My body jerked back in reception at the abruptness of how quickly my situation had gone even further downhill than I had anticipated. A sudden gasp escaped from my half-frozen lips, piercing the stillness of the air like a rock being thrown through a Cathedral window.

“The time is nigh my son,” a voice spoke from within as I plummeted through the darkness.

I expected nothing less than to smash my skull against the stone, but I never did. Seconds lingered into minutes as my body plummeted, forever downwards, until flashes of light blessed my peripherals.

Stagnant no longer, the absence of breeze turned into savage winds. My body twisted and spiraled without compassion or sense. Grey filled my eyes as I found myself falling through layer upon layer of dark storm clouds. Thunder blasted my ears like the angelic trumpets of Celestial Heavens and strikes of lightning brought painful warmth to my cold flesh.

I grunted and wheezed through the nausea as I plummeted to what I knew would be my demise. Forward and backward my limbs betrayed me as the wind overpowered my own strength. Every which way, I was tossed around like a ragdoll; fearful that my arms would tear off at any moment from the sheer force of Mother Nature’s undying fury.

By nothing more than luck or coincidence, I narrowly avoided wandering strokes of lightning. That’s when I heard it. Through bursts of booms and cracks, came a shrill voice begging for help.

The screams were high-pitched and ear-splitting. They were hellishly loud, even through the gale, yet the echo that carried behind each shout made it seem like it came from so far away. “Help me, please!” The voice strained in horror. It bounced, unsteadily between octaves like a King’s unsynced royal choir. There was no mistaking the emotion behind those pained cries.

My blood froze at the sound. Her shattering roars shook the earth and skies with as much force as the thundering storm. It was so deeply unsettling that it almost didn’t sound real. I feared, for a moment, that my mind had made it up. But the fear these noises had instilled within me was all too real to be dismissed so easily.

My body spun too fast to get a clear view of anything, but I made an effort to find the distressed damsel. Even if I couldn’t save myself, I could try to save her. My search proved useless until I broke through the last layer of brooding clouds, and my spiraling body thrust downward in a singular motion. Head first, I swooped toward the earth like a flaming arrow across an open battlefield.

It was then that the rain hit.

Just out of reach, I could see her through the haze of the night. Her thin arms reached out in desperation, but I couldn’t grab hold of her hand. “Help,” she begged.

“I can’t-” was all I managed to say in response. There was hardly any air in my lungs. The wind was too sharp, and I was falling too fast. I tried to grab her. I reached out as far as I could, but our fingertips only grazed one another’s.

“Can’t - die - alone,” is what I thought I heard the woman say, but I couldn’t have been certain. Her voice was soft now, calmer, yet even deeper in despair.

She looked at me, with caring blue eyes that glowed against the hellish haze of the night. Her long black hair was wet and sleek, covering parts of her face. The rain splashed against her body like a hail storm, but it didn’t look like water.

Drop after drop poured down on her, splattering her skin with red and marking her with insecurity. I looked down at my own outstretched hand, only to find that I was the same shade of crimson. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Nothing made sense. Only moments ago, I was lost in darkness, and now I was falling through a blood tempest.

There was no sense. There was no control. I had no idea where I was. I couldn’t even remember my own name, let alone the events that took place to lead me to where I was now.

I was going to die. Against my better judgment, this thought pierced itself deeper and deeper into my heart and mind - penetratung its way into a soul, I wasn't sure that I even had. I was not ready to die, and I was not prepared to let this stranger die either.

If only I could reach further, maybe I could grab her. I grunted through the discomfort of stretching my back and twisting my muscles to elongate my body and propel myself through the air faster. If I could simply grab her hand, and flip her on top of me, I could shield her with my body before we hit the ground. All I could do was try. There was no reason not to.

“Grab on!” My voice was angrier than I had meant for it to be. “Grab onto me!”

She struggled. Her arms flapped and moved with open and closed hands until our fingers finally intertwined. Against the better nature of gravity, I pulled the woman up towards me. My body curved, and I spun onto my back, pulling her up onto my stomach. “I won’t let go,” I assured, but, with the slippery blood rubbing between us, I had my doubts.

I wrapped my arms around her as she buried her head into my chest to find any sort of peace and tranquility in the harsh and undying moment. The salty smell of ocean waves soon overpowered the brisk metallic stench of blood, that I had barely taken notice of before. Sounds of watery war followed in pursuit of jagged rocks, attacking at the earth with forces from every direction.

And then suddenly, we crashed. The nerves in my spine festered like a flock of stinging bees as the sharp rocks ripped apart my flesh. My head lashed back and my neck popped as my head smashed against the crooked rock pillar. The raw brutality of the ocean waves ripped the woman from my arms and sent her falling into the dark waters.

I slid down the side of the rock, unable to hold myself up from all the blood and unable to see against the wrath of the night. Another wave came crashing from the rock’s other side, throwing me forward into the sea. The salt burned at my wounds, eating away at the exposed muscle like acid as my body dipped beneath the waters. All became impossibly more black.

I opened my mouth to scream but closed it just as fast as my lungs filled with an unholy cacophony of salt water and blood. I couldn’t see anything. My body sloshed around in violent thrusts as I tried to bring my head above the crashing waves, but it was all in vain. The storm was too strong.

My body began to sink faster the more I let my mind spiral out of control. Out of all the ways to die, drowning had to be one of the worst. It was slow and painful. Falling from the sky and dying on impact would have been much more preferable.

Then there it was, after an eternity of struggle and strife - laid preciously into existence came a siren song breaking through with harmony against the force of nature. It was soft, yet triumphant, delicate and fierce, whistle notes and low octaves that commanded the sea's wrath. Through the ghostly melodies, the waves calmed and became still.

There was a conviction to the rain as the downpour of blood testified against the vile winds, becoming reduced to a light sprinkle in the majesty of the hypnotic voice. The rocks began to crumble, like elden statues turned to dust from the sands of time.

They splashed into the water all around me as an unnatural force began to pull me closer to the voice. A bubble, mystic and unnatural, formed around my head as I pulled through the water at terrifying speeds. I could breathe. I had almost forgotten how, but I wasted no time inhaling, coughing out the bloody water in my lungs.

The sound of the singing voice and the ocean were muffled and muted within this bubble. It provided an uncanny sound of quiet, not unlike that of the abyss I was in mere moments ago. However, it didn't last long.

Sand filled my wounds, clotting the stream of blood that dared to leave me dead. I could see the sky, and in that moment, I was thankful to be alive.

"I knew that you would come back," called a voice. Her accent was heavy and hard to understand, especially with such a clouded and unsure mind. "You always come back with the Tempest."

It took me a minute to gather the strength to move, or even turn my head to take note of who it was that was speaking. But, once I did, I saw something that I was not expecting.

Naked, adorned with dried kelp and beads as necklaces, stood a short woman with black skin and scars. Her eyes glowed a heavenly blue. Matted tails of hair fell in beads at her shoulders, and a fat nose had been stabbed with two metal rods.

In her arms was the girl from before. The strange woman had her by the throat, with a small knife pointed at her throat.

Her mouth opened to speak again. "The Spirit of the Crimson Tempest has been born anew."