The Harbinger

Looking up at him through the gloom, I feared that the man standing tall before me was more monster than human. 

“So,” He said. “you have returned to me.” 

His voice sent shards of ice through my very being. Deep and guttural, his voice belonged to a man who had known cold, suffering, pain. It was a voice filled with low, sardonic whisperings and yet, every word that rolled off of his tongue was like honey. Each sound was rounded and slick, as if there were a greater meaning behind the words he spoke and it seemed wrong, coming from someone like him. Looking up at the towering figure I knew so well, I searched for his face through the thick curtain of matted hair hanging across his face. I didn’t have to look hard to find his eyes beneath it all – I never did. In all the time we had been meeting this way, never had he looked upon me without the tangles of ragged hair obscuring his face and in the back of my mind, I wondered if it was because he wanted to hide his eyes from me, or enhance them. 

“I had no choice…” I replied, lowering my eyes. “I can’t stay awake forever.” 

His eyes never left me. 

“And yet, you try.” 

I didn’t reply, unable to stand against his unending gaze that left me feeling like a child each time I saw him. He continued to look down at me silently,  a chasm of mutual awareness separating us as large as an ocean. We both knew what was coming, but I wouldn’t be the first to say it. Water dripped down onto the stone beside me from the shattered ruins above, though I couldn’t have said where it came from. Never had it rained here before. Hopelessly trying to avoid what was coming, I stared down at the murky puddle forming on the floor, whispers of black ooze dancing in the centre like petrol. The water here wasn’t drinkable – I had learnt that the hard way.

The cold expanse of crumbling stone loomed all around us, closing me in with him like a bird in a tigers cage and through the darkness, I could barely even begin to imagine what this place might once have been. There was little trace of light, though the sky lay open above us. Not once had I seen the sun rise here, no light to guide me. I doubted it ever would. 

“You know what must be done.” 

His voice cut across the stone like a sword through water. I had hoped he would leave, but of course he wouldn’t. He never had – he never would. Slowly, I looked up at him. He had come closer; uncomfortably close. If I squinted, I could just about make out a tiny sliver of light in the corner of his eye, though I knew there was no humanity behind it. He stood as motionless as a stone gargoyle, towering above me and I felt his breath on my face, slow and steady. Prepared. Though I tried to show him I wasn’t afraid, I knew what he’d see on my face. Neither fear nor despair, but a mixture of both. I didn’t want to accept it, I never had. But it would happen, no matter what I did. I had been running from him long enough to know that there was no use in trying to fight it. He always came for me. He always found me. 

“Why?” I whispered dully. “Why do we have to keep doing this?” 

I didn’t know why I bothered. I had asked him so many times that I’d lost count. And whether I said it through sobs, screams or through my own bloody choking me from the inside-out, he never told me. He only said the same thing each time. Just as he did now. Just as I knew he would. 

“I would complete my set.” 

There wasn’t an ounce of humility on his face as he loomed over me, crushing me with the weight of his presence, though he never moved an inch. A thick tension stood between us, binding and connecting us together as if with an invisible thread of barbed wire and I stared up at him pleadingly, conveying every ounce of pain I could. I knew that it would make no difference, but I had to try. I knew what was coming. Pouring every ounce of fear and anxiety I felt into my gaze, I wished silently. I wished that just this once, it wouldn’t happen. That this time, he would just go. 

“You won’t.” I stammered, my voice thinner than I had intended. “You’ll only…send me back. I’ll wake up again and you’ll be nothing more than a dream.” 

For some reason, I had expected him to say nothing and just do it. But he didn’t. He smiled. My chest tightened as if a thick hand of ice had clamped around my heart when I saw it. I saw the whites of his teeth through the gloom as the inhuman smile spread slowly across his face, making him appear more animal than man with every movement. And it was dripping with cruel, biting malice. 

“Not a dream.” He hissed, his voice so low I could barely hear him despite how close we were. “But a nightmare.” 

His eyes bore into mine. There was insanity inside them. 

“And you cannot stay awake forever.” 

He lunged at me. Pain exploded behind my eyes as he wrapped his huge hands around my throat like iron vices and squeezed as hard as he could. Grabbing onto his arms in panic, my eyes went wide as I clawed at him desperately. I knew I wouldn’t escape, but fear lent me wings as it always did and I thrashed against his hold, needing to fight, to run, to breathe! Gasping and struggling to breath as I felt the air crushed out of me, a huge pressure began to build inside my head and my heart beat in my ears so fast that I thought it would explode. Baring down on me with all his strength, he pushed me down to the ground, all and every emotion wiped clean from his face. It was replaced by the same face I knew so well, twisted with cold, undiluted determination to watch me die. My legs crumpled beneath me and as I hit the stone, he fell on top of me with his entire body weight, slamming the last of the breath from my lungs.

His arms trembled with effort as he pressed down harder and harder and my limbs grew weaker by the second, numbness spreading out through the fingertips until I couldn’t feel them any more. Clutching pitifully at his arms, my hands felt heavier than they ever had and the last of my strength left me. My nails raked against his skin as I fought to keep hold of him, until finally, I couldn’t hold on any longer. My arms fell lifelessly to the floor beside me and the corners of my vision danced with swirling tendrils of darkness, growing larger and larger by the second. I knew this was it. They would consume me. As I stopped struggling, the world began to melt and blur. My heart began to slow down, my own heartbeat thumping weakly in my ears, growing smaller, slower, quieter. The world began to grow dark until there was only his strained face, looking down on me as he pushed. He wasn’t smiling any more. 

“Until next time." 

The last whisper of breath left me and the last thing I saw was a pair of sharp, hungry eyes looking down at me through a curtain of hair. And they were as black as night.