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"Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die..." Peter Tosh

The boy led Clara through the woods, towards the location where she defeated her sister and banished a dark cancer that had festered and destroyed her family.

Clara stared at the druid stones, she expected to feel immense power radiate from them, instead, the only sensation she felt was the cold chill of the autumnal breeze.

The boy watched and smiled as Clara's frown became prominent.

"Whatever is the matter, dear Clara?" He smirked as he turned and sat mockingly on the druid rocks.

"This place felt powerful to me as a child..." She paused.

The boy nodded and sprung to his feet.

"Yet this hallowed area only feels mundane to you now, doesn't it?"

The boy continued.

"The power you once felt is merely sleeping and waiting for evil to cross its path, after all, what use is a trap unless it remains hidden."

Clara crossed her arms and nodded reluctantly. Her age rejected the very notion of someone trying to teach her anything. However, the boy was correct.

"So, I'm guessing this is the part where you show me what has altered and changed."

The boy smiled, Clara shuddered. Every time he smiled she was certain his iris changed color to a subtle darker shade.

"Indeed. However, this change is less obvious and will require patience."

The two stood in silence, waited and nothing happened. Clara waited for over an hour before she finally gave in and cursed.

"Well?"

The boy sneered and pointed at the approaching figure.

Clara held her hands up to her eyes to ward away the suns blinding rays, as the figure approached Clara took several steps backward, the boy had resumed his seat on the rocks and looked very pleased with the whole affair.

A lumbering child approached, disheveled. Her long hair covered her face, but Clara instantly recognized her younger self. She walked without purpose or attitude. Head down, she walked, but not as any human had walked before her.

Clara screamed and ran towards her, upon hearing crunching leaves the girl stopped walking and slowly tilted her head upright.

Clara skidded to a stop as she was met with nothing but cold and dead eyes.

The boy snapped his fingers and her younger self, resumed walking. She paid no heed to Clara at all. Clara was frozen still with shock, even more so when the dead girl walked through her as if she was nothing but air.

"In this distorted realm, your father returned from the grave... unlike your sister, he loved your mother the most and so it was she who died screaming in the woods. You and your sister barricaded yourselves in your cabin but your father returned the next night... This is the result."

Clara was speechless.

The boy continued with glee.

"The evil was not banished by the light and the neighboring town slowly fell to the darkness also."

He clicked his fingers once more.

Reality popped and both were now stood on Main Street.

The town held a population of two hundred when she was a child, but not a single human could be seen nor heard.

The mid-morning sun shined down upon them both and all around them was silence. Not even a single solitary animal could be heard in the distance. They were standing in a Ghost Town.

"I think you have made your point..." She hissed with rage.

The boy chuckled.

"Have I really?" He asked with contempt.

Clara remained silent and instead shot her own look of contempt at him.

"Very well..."

He waved his hands over the scenery and it was erased from both reality and time itself, the buildings, streets, and other human landmarks all faded into non-existence. Soon they were stood once more with nothing but natures garden around them.

"I have revealed to you why you were tasked with banishing the darkness but I have one more revelation for you... A choice if you will."

Clara clenched her fists and waited.

"You know the darkness has once more returned... You asked me to destroy it. However, that mantle has already been passed to someone else..."

Clara stood defiantly with nothing but rage in her eyes.

The boy chuckled.

"Relax... It is not you, you could not withstand the ritual of banishment... you are far too frail."

Clara had to remind herself that the boy was incorporeal or she would have fruitlessly tried to throttle him for calling her such a demeaning word as frail.

"Who is it?" She asked still more than irate from the jibe.

The boy sighed and snapped his fingers once more to reveal a hand mirror.

He passed it to her; she looked down at it and laughed.

The boy was non-responsive.

"Him? You have got to be joking... He is the one who caused all this..."

The boy glared at her with a sternness that reminded her of her father.

"Cause and Effect have no realm in the schemes of darkness. Darkness is the agent of chaos; it does not make plans but unravels them."

Clara crossed her arms and turned her back on the boy.

"You said I had a choice to make..."

The boy grinned and two doors appeared out of the ether, one was as black as shadow the other was so white that it hurt her eyes to look at.

"You can wake from this realm where the gods slumber or you can stay here forever and become one with your ancestral spirits..."

Clara laughed and placed her hand on the white doorknob, both doors had a Latin word carved into the doorknob, Clara knew her Latin very well and had chosen the word Vitae over the black door which branded the word Mortem.

"I'm old but I'm not quite ready to abandon living just yet."

The boy nodded and walked closer to her.

"Life is never ready to truly die; even the tiniest microbes scream and beg for a continued existence..."

He continued.

"Before you make your choice I feel that I should be forthright and not omit anything at all."

The boy placed his hand on hers, she felt a probing force far greater than anything she could imagine and knew in this moment what the boy really was. Clara's eye's dilated with fear, before her very eyes a series of events had begun to transpire and unravel. To the boy or any other onlooker, it would have looked like merely a microsecond had passed before Clara stopped screaming and wiped the tears from her face. But to Clara it felt like an eternity, she saw what had already transpired and what was yet to pass. Most importantly she saw Adam or what was in control of him and saw the omens of death all around her granddaughter. She now understood what was truly being asked of her and why he was finally being kind to her.

She had indeed on last battle to fight.

This would be her last... Clara released his hand and walked over to the black door of death and clutched the doorknob more tightly than necessary. She looked at the boy and smiled, a child was a fitting guise for him, now she knew who he really was, everything about him made perfect sense. She could not imagine him acting or looking any other way. She patted his head before she whispered.

"Who wants to live forever anyway..."

And opened the door...