I had awoken, with a gasp, crestfallen, and forsaken;
Mulling, over countless tomes of forgotten lore;
Seeking answers, irritating, disquieting riddles;
When I heard a hard knock upon the shutter;
I opened it so…
Nothing… The wind it must have been.
Returning, to the endless questing, mulling over tomes;
I sat restless in my studio;
Repeating to myself it was nothing;
But perhaps rock, embraced by godly wind, that guided it upon the casement of humble abode.
It must have been this! And nothing more.
Oh! So, I remembered the bleak and somber dream I had;
A city burned, looted, and pillaged;
Despair of which the likes no mortal had ever been seen before;
And from the distance, a voice commanding, no, crying out “Come and see!”
Not a moment had passed;
I heard a knocking, rocking of my chamber door;
A moonless night, and the candle-oil running thin;
Who could it be? Knocking, at this hour upon my door?
I opened… And nothing…
“It’s…”- Not too soon had I spoken, I heard a whisper the silence breaking;
“Come and see” - I heard it muttered;
Terrible, incomprehensible horrors infected my soul;
Locked eyes with the hall were the voice had come;
Not to move dared I;
“The mind playing tricks, perhaps? There is nothing at the end of this hallway for me to see…it must have been the wind…”
Not sooner had I muttered those fateful words, had I stuttered,
I heard a stirring, horrifying sound at the end of the hallway;
“SHOW YOUR SELF! Who in this night seeks to entertain me? Are you thief, or are you, guest?”
The hallway remained empty, silent, dark and bleak.
To the door of my home did the sound I chased;
The candle vigils already gone from the streets;
And in the darkness nothing to see, or feel;
“It has to be nothing” - said I, with a tone half-disappointed,
“It must be nothing” - I reinstated with more conviction and hoping.
I had reiterated, half-hoping, no, begging for another sign;
The wind played with the tree leaves, the crickets sang their song in the twilight;
Not a ray of light pierced the elunian night, not a whisper could be heard above the falling leaves;
“It… was nothing” - I asserted with the sigh, of one whose truth had almost been reached;
A silence unbroken descended on the square;
Nothing, Nothing everywhere I could see.
To the cathedral I headed seeking guidance, no, repentance, for a wish forlorn;
I had not taken a step into the solemn building when I did hear that voice;
“Come and see!” - Stronger, loud, and clear, it echoed in the night as I entered,
the blessed place;
And it’s echo was drowned out by that of the gate shutting.
“WHO ARE YOU!?” - with heart throbbing I shouted,
“ANGEL OR DEMON? SHOW YOURSELF!” - I once again asked, with hopeful expectation;
That drowned into a sea of silence.
The lonely altar, beautiful, and ghastly, did it glare at me from the end of the chamber;
Asking questions, confessions, not mine for me to give;
Not mine for me to give…
Silence had drowned all, once again;
Not a sound to be heard, not the wind rocking upon stained glass;
No company the small dwellers of the night gave me;
The silence forsook me, and embraced me;
Not even my footsteps the silence broke;
Little care did I give to this horrible truth;
As I had hinted a shadow following downward into the crypt;
And downward did I go;
Hungry, excited, mulling over truths no mortal had ever seen before;
The voice once again, “Come and see!” - uttered, this only served to feed my hunger.
I passed the macabre sarcophaguses, of heroes, and cowards that lined the walls;
Following further, onward, descending with it, in this elunian night;
The voice kept repeating, it’s horrible message;
“It can’t be nothing” - I gleamed with a fateful smile, and no gold nor trinket could ever take me from my task.
I kept descending when suddenly, the silence broken,
The night vanished, on a gleaming light,
The final chamber, was surely one to behold;
I knew this from before leaving my chamber door;
Here was I at last,
To see truths, no mortal had ever seen before.
Rubies, sapphires, jade, gold, the chamber decorated in these across the walls;
Darnassian blades, and thalassian spears, they all made a home along the chest at the end of this holy place;
My goal, my hunger, my greed, all to be sated by it’s content;
Not a moment did I wait, not a moment did I rest;
The chest did I threw open with all the strength I could have ever muster;
Nothing there… Nothing for me to take…
“It was nothing, Nothing more.”
“PROPHET! DEMON! EVIL MONSTER! Why do you torment me so?
By the light we both adore, please tell there is not nothing here after all!”
My knees, the sand of the crypt did they hit,
In despair, and forsaken.
“Come and see!” - The voice repeated,
I looked and I saw, the seal broken, and behold a white horse:
and he that sat on it had a sword;
and a crown was given unto him:
and he went forth conquering, and to conquer as he had done a thousand times before.
And from his horse he exclaimed;
“He that lies with me, shall know the symbol of truth.”
A double-headed eagle, bathed in blood, and darkened by the deeds to be done.
Darkness, and then light, blinding, irritating, light;
The dream was over;
The nothing turned into something;
I saw it, the standard prophesized lay there on the deepest circle,
I saw the cross, I saw the eagle, and I saw the shield;
And finally, my journey rewarded,
The truth I had looked for, a tome;
“You have been chosen not to save them,
But lead them through the darkness.
Voice of the divine, Frinkls.”
I had… been chosen.