Lucian

A crackling fire burst into high flames as the heap of hundreds of crossbows lying in the middle of the courtyard was set ablaze. Heavy black smoke rose towards the grey skies. Chained humans writhed and screamed as black clad guards hurled them into the hellfire to burn for their crimes. Liam was among them, and so were all the humans Lucian had given gold to, all crying and kicking as the guardsmen lifted them above the flames. The fire crackled as they fell into its heart, roaring as it fed on live flesh. 

Lucian watched with half dead eyes as the humans writhed within the devouring flames. It was a scene like the stories he read, about the devils and the sinners, where their god would burn them for eternity as punishment for their sins in a place called Hell. This was Hell. And it was eternal...

"Lucian Nordstrom, you are accused of wasting castle treasury, financing humans, supporting the rebellion, and sinning with a human. Do you deny these charges?"

Lucian didn't answer. He didn't even look Bernard's way. He was not sure anymore if that was all real, if his whole life had been real. He did not feel anything, that he wondered if he was even living anymore. He could hear loud side talks. He could see crowds and faces around him, watching him... Bernard glaring at him with ice blue eyes, Alina crying, Vilfred standing quiet, Hans not there... But none of it mattered. None of it seemed real. None of it scared him anymore.

"Lucian!" He heard a distant call. He turned where Alina was watching him, her face twisted with anguish. Don't cry... he wanted to tell her.

"Do you have something to say, my dear wife?" Bernard turned to her.

"Y... Yes!" Alina stepped forward. And this time Lucian's heart started to race. Not in fear for himself, but in fear for her. "I... I would like to call for an appeal."

"An appeal? You want to call for an appeal for a traitor?" Bernard shouted.

"He is not a traitor! He did not support the rebellion."

"Then how would you explain the missing of more than one thousand pieces of gold and the creation of hundreds of crossbows?"

"Anyone else could have stolen the gold!"

"Right, anyone else who is as dimwitted as Lucian, which I do not think exist. Now Alina, let me ask you this question one last time. Had Lucian been going out to the city while we were fighting in Grytia?"

Alina remained silent.

"Alina!" Bernard shouted. "Did he or did he not go to the city while we were fighting in Grytia?"

"Yes, but –"

"Thank you. You may step aside now."

"No!" Alina insisted. "Please! You cannot charge him of being a traitor just because he went to the city."

"I said step aside," Bernard said before he turned back to glare at Lucian. 

"Lucian Nordstrom," he called. "You are charged with stealing from the castle treasury, financing humans, supporting the rebellion, and sinning with a human. All those present here have witnessed your crimes. Therefore, as a punishment fit for the crimes of theft, adultery, and high treason –"

"No!" Alina cried out.

"I Bernard Nordstrom, Lord of Nordenvania, guardian of the North, sentence you to die."

***

The skies were painted in a muddy dark blue, and Lucian could not tell if it were evening or dawn. He must have either slept or passed out, for he found himself lying on his side, his body shivering against the cold grass. He listened carefully and he realized that no more crowds surrounded him. There was also neither the crackling of flames nor the screams of burning men. It could have been a dream, where the sinners burnt in Hell before his eyes. But it was not a dream. He could smell the heavy smoke still hanging in the air, burning his chest. Lucian raised his body slightly, his blurred vision not of much help in the dark, but he could tell that he had been moved to a different place.

He was no longer in the courtyard. Trees surrounded him. He could hear their leaves rustling softly with the cold breeze. He tried to rise, but the clanking chains reminded him that he could not. His heart hammered as he took another look around him. Squinting in the dark between the tall dark trees, he could vaguely make out the forms of menacing gargoyles that surrounded him in endless rows like an army of ghouls. A wave of horror washed over him as he realized that he was chained in the middle of the gargoyles' graveyard. He wondered if he were killed already and that this was only his soul out here, wandering with the dead. He cowered over the ground, his arms covering his head. He was so scared...

Not very far from him, he heard a rising sound of constant clanking and thudding, adding more horror to his ominous surroundings. He would have brushed the sound as merely some tree branches hitting against the gargoyle stones, but the thuds were too steady, sounding rather as if someone was patiently trying to break something. Lucian brought his hands over his ears while he buried his face into the ground.

It was sometime during the day, when the clanking stopped. Although he dreaded it, Lucian longed for death. He was too scared and too tired to keep awake any longer. He didn't care if it hurt. It would only hurt at first, but when his soul leaves his body, there shall be no more pain.

Noise was rising in the distance, and Lucian could tell that crowds were gathering again, this time at the gargoyles' graveyard. The next moment, two black clad guards appeared before him, and his heart pounded hard against his chest. My time had come... He looked up frantically as the two guards closed upon him, grabbing him by the arms and raising him to his feet.

Lucian's body shook tremendously that he could not stand up. The weight of his horror stricken body was pulling him back to the ground, and he realized that even if he did not try to resist, his own body was struggling to pull away from the guards despite his will. Involuntary moans of terror rose deep in his chest, and he lost all control.

He had thought that he was ready to die. But he was not! He writhed and dug his feet against the ground, doing all he could to not get dragged by the guards. But his strength was no match for their power. His moans turned into sobs of horror, as they dragged him along, and all he could do was cry and scream and kick as his body was pulled despite himself.

"No! I don't want to die!" he cried, his voice hoarse and shrill with horror. "No!"

He was panicking. His eyes widened as he saw the crowds that stood in the distance. They were growing closer, and he realized that he was the one being dragged closer to them. But what terrified him the most was the large hole he saw gaping at the foot of a large monstrous gargoyle. It was freshly dug, mounds of damp earth and several shovels lay on either side, and he realized with horror that the constant thudding he had been hearing all morning was none but the sound of digging.

"No!" Lucian's body was sinking to the ground as the guards pulled him towards the hole. He cried openly. It was too deep and too narrow and too dark, and the gargoyle standing above it was staring at him with a dreadful glare. Lucian looked around him, searching the faces in the crowds, for anyone who could save him, but all he could find was silent despair.

Bernard stepped before him. Lucian looked up at him desperately, pleading with tear blinded eyes and tear choked cries. But all Bernard did was nod, his cold blue eyes not even looking his way, and the next moment Lucian found his body being shoved where it fell heavily with the weight of his chains, straight into the deep dark hole.

He screamed. Pain shot through his right leg as it hit the solid ground with a sharp snap. He lay on his back, his body writhing with agonizing pain and horror. His chained hands clutched helplessly at the surrounding dirt walls, in a desperate attempt to rise. But suddenly, a spurt of black mud shot into his face, blinding his eyes and gagging his mouth. He gasped and choked, spitting out dirt while his chained hands flew to rub his eyes. And next, an onslaught of soil was raining upon him as the guards shoveled the mounds of dirt down back into the hole.

Consumed by terror, Lucian cried out, struggling to rise despite his chains and his broken leg, but he only kept slipping in the mud, rolling within the small confining grave, the speed of the guards and the force of the hailing wet soil only pushing him further down. Beyond the clanks of the shovels and the thuds of the falling earth, Lucian could hear cries and pleas of mercy. He tried to raise his head, but just as he did, a heavy downfall of earth smacked his head back down into the ground. The heaviness of the raining dirt crushed his helpless body beneath its weight, pushing him further down into darkness.

Struggling to breathe while his body was buried beneath the pouring mud, he drew one final gasp of breath, but only dirt filled his nose and mouth, blocking his throat, forever. He could not breathe. He could not see. He could not move. More dirt fell over his already buried body. He could feel the weight growing as he lay choking down in endless darkness, burying him deeper.

He could vaguely hear the cries beyond the earth that covered him, ringing in dull low pitched echoes far in the distance, very far in the distance, as if they were coming from another world. Everything seemed vague. Everything seemed unreal. He was dying. Buried alive. Suffocating in a deep dark grave. The voices were growing more distant. But now they sounded strange and distorted, that he wondered whether they were real, or whether his dying mind started to make voices on its own. Until a distinguished deep voice echoed in the distance, a voice that rang so strong and clear amid the incoherent chaos, that his dying body shook with the force of its words.

"Lucian Nordstrom of Nordenvania, I curse thee, with the eternal sleep of terror."

As the words were spoken, a sudden disarray of dreadful sounds rang within his ears. Tremendous thuds of hammering heartbeats. Sharp gasps of horror. Shrill screams of terror. Desperate flapping of wings. Heartbroken pleas. Prayers of despair. Curses of resent. All hissing in chaos within his ears.

And amid the blackness he could vaguely see the monstrous forms of hundreds of gargoyles writhing around him, their gleaming green eyes staring at him in horror as they cried in agony. And Lucian was now one of them...

Struck with panic, Lucian screamed at the top of his lungs. But no sound came out. He struggled to move or rise, but he felt an invisible heavy weight crushing his chest. His heart drummed maddeningly against his ribs as he realized that he was trapped in a dreadful nightmare, fully aware that he was dreaming, but he could not wake up. No matter how much he struggled to move or turn, no matter how hard he tried to scream or cry, he would not wake up.

Except that he was not dreaming.

He was dead. 

His body lying cold beneath the earth. 

Yet, his terrified soul continued to writhe in endless terror, shaking and whirling violently, trapped within the confines of the monstrous gargoyle that stood above his grave.

Trapped in an eternal sleep of terror.

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