A life as an outcast. A life as an exile. A life of agony.
Darius glanced at the falling sun and sighed, yet another night of his life was on its way and with a painful movement he rose and wandered back to the campfire. The gloom that lasted outside of the ring of luminary made his guise almost eerie. The black leather boots plowed through the sand and with his simple leather attire against his body, he embraced the warmth of the fire.
The nights was the worst, he had learnt this the hard way after years in the wilderness, surviving through stealing, by living like this he had found out what a gruesome world he lived in, if he could call it living, he just barely survived. The camp in which he now laid in, he had had for three days now, an extraordinary long time according to him, too long even. The closest village was only a day’s ride from there, but he was not yet ready for what awaited him there. Although he had done this for years there still lingered a sting of worry within his mind.
Something was not right in Hamsley, and not within the villages either, the people was not like the ones in its surrounding countries. Darius knew this, although the infinite number of villages and cities he had traveled through, none could lead him right, where ever right was. The earlier village of Minya was the worst so far, the decay that plagued the land seemed more dense here, you could smell it, you saw it in the people, you saw their rotten smiles that only told you one thing:
You’re next.
Years had past since he left his one and only home, desperate and half mad by grief. Following tracks that were slowly fading, misleads had slowed him down and he was now far behind. He was no master of tracking, but Darius had learned a lot during the years that past, more than most men learn during all of their lives, combined. The tracks had lead him through countries and lands far from his home, and wherever the tracks where, mischief and misfortune followed closely. Villages had been rampaged, all telling the story of a man mad with bloodlust who seemed to enjoy his killing as much as the devil himself.
Soon the villages on his road was deserted, apparently people had heard about this new merciless killer, following the a path which no one knew, Darius scavenged these villages for any supplies he could keep for his continued travel. Not much was left but whatever was left, was his for the taking.
Villagers who didn’t get away, was turned by what Darius called “the Plague”. A dark stench which infected the men who stood in it’s way. The Plague was light at first, a few villagers in every other village, but soon they grew in numbers, the further Darius traveld inlands of the country. Minya had been all out infected with it, every man, woman and child had been plagued, the grains were poisonous for all other then the plagued and Darius didn’t wish to get like them, he had yet to figure out what caused this so he had no time to risk it, he was running low on supplies. Now as he closed in on a new village, he was struck with fear, what was the new degree of the Plague? What happened as the plague thickened?
A desert wind woke Darius from his thoughts, or it wasn’t the wind itself that woke him, but rather what it carried with it. Whispers. It wasn’t unusual in these parts, many men had wandered off into the desert in search of the Whispers, to eventually become a part of them. They were called the Whispers of the Dead, but the dead wasn’t the only ones Darius heard this night.
"Help me."
Darius flinched at the voice, that seemed to whisper in his ear, he could feel her breath against his cheek, he knew that voice. His child, his little girl, trapped within the claws of the ones who still haunted his mind. He glanced around; she couldn’t be dead, could she? But what other explanations were there? The Whispers of the Dead was the voices of lost souls, but she couldn’t be dead. Not Rhonda…
"Pappy, help me, please Pappy"
Tears overwhelmed his eyes, for once in a very long time he let his mind pass through the walls of his mind that kept him up, his mind traveled back in time, to that warm summer night when it all started. Ten years but he could still see it as if it was but a second ago.
