WHAT DWELLS IN THE RUINS
The sun was dying on the horizon, and the shadow of the ruins lengthened over the withered plain. Cairn, the barbarian of the northern lands, advanced steadily among the remains of a forgotten civilization. The cyclopean walls were covered with cracks and rotting vines, as if the earth itself was trying to bury the past.
But Cairn knew that something still beat in the heart of those ruins. He had heard the stories in the nearby settlements, from the women as they nursed their children or from the trembling lips of superstitious elders. A perverse sect had taken over the ruins, holding dark rites by the light of dying torches, invoking an entity that should never have awakened.
Cairn sought neither glory nor fortune. Only to rid the world of a terrible evil.
Worshippers had ransacked a village in the valley. Women and children disappeared into the night, dragged to this very spot. He felt their screams could still float on the wind.
With the edge of his sword at the ready, Cairn descended the stone steps, hidden in the shadows. What he found in the subway sanctuary made his jaw clench in fury.
The place was alive with the glows of unholy torches that glowed without fire. The walls trembled with the guttural chants of worshippers, men and women with crazed faces, wrapped in tattered robes. And in the center of the temple, an abominable creature stood upon an altar of blackened marble.
It was a shapeless mass of dark flesh, writhing with impossible limbs. Its skin glowed with the sickly glow of something that should not exist in this world. Eyes opened and closed along its body, and its claws dripped with a blackish substance.
But what infuriated Cairn the most was what was in front of the creature. The villagers seemed to have been controlled by means of dark rites and were also part of that macabre rite.
-Damn this scavenger cult! -Cairn roared, rising from the shadows.
The chanting stopped abruptly and the worshippers turned at once, their eyes wild. The monster looked at him too, with a mixture of surprise and… despair.
Cairn didn’t wait for explanations and jumped into the fray. The first heads rolled with a single slash of his steel. Blood covered the altar steps. The worshippers screamed, but the barbarian was a gale of destruction.
One of them tried to throw a dagger, but Cairn cleaved it in two with his bloody blade.
The survivors fled, and then, only the barbarian and the creature remained.
The monster moved awkwardly, extending its many limbs as if trying to stop him. But Cairn was not about to listen to the whispers of a cursed spawn.
With a savage scream, he leapt upon the altar and plunged his sword into the being’s flesh. The creature roared in pain. The temple shuddered and the walls began to crumble.
Cairn rolled down the stairs, covered in the monster’s dark blood.
He rose just in time to see the shrine collapse in on itself, burying the abomination in oblivion.
Tired and bloodied, the barbarian spat on the ground.
-Another evil exterminated.
And he left without looking back.
Time had been cruel to him. He had been a scientist. A protector of his own.
His city had been a beacon of wisdom in a world devastated by war and misery. A paradise of steel and crystal, where people could breathe the pure air and wise men unraveled the mysteries of the universe.
But everything fell. The world became cruel. Gangs of looters destroyed its walls. They burned its laboratories. They slaughtered his children. Only he survived.
Some of the compounds from experiments that were never completed were used on him. They gave him a new body, a new purpose. He would be the guardian of the ruins. He would be the last reminder of the glory that once was.
He waited centuries. He waited until new men came to his silo. They were not wise or powerful. They were just simple men who remembered nothing of what had happened. Humanity had survived, but the price had been great.
But they came without fear, without greed. And surprisingly also with devotion. And he spoke to them.
He showed them what had once been his city and asked for their help. Together, they would restore the laboratories. Together, they would bring the light of their people back into the world.
And they vowed to do so, for they considered him a god of sorts and that place their temple.
But then, the assassin arrived. A savage barbarian. A beast without law or knowledge.
He entered the sanctuary with the fury of a blind god. The faithful tried to speak to him, but he answered only with the sword. Men and women, fallen in seconds, their screams silenced by the power of steel.
And then, the beast turned to face him.
He tried to stop it. He tried to explain. But the barbarian saw only horror where there was hope. He saw only a monster, and the steel sank into his flesh.
The suffering was unbearable. His blood covered the stairs of his own home. He thrashed about in pain, shattering the foundations that still remained. The walls came crashing down, and all that he had protected was lost forever.
As his body crumbled, as his essence was extinguished in the darkness, he uttered his last words.
-You did not understand…
And then, all that knowledge of ages past died with him.