The Tomb

It was so cold; even the sky was like ice. It was this cripplingly gigantic, swallowing sea frozen over in place over a landscape that was mockingly pristine. There was no heart in this place, no sign that anything had ever lived her. The silence was the kind that could suffocate you, crushing ever so slowly in on your shoulders. And the sun was this limp yellow orb that looked sadly on the blanket of snow that had chilled the green in the world, choked out all the life. The world lay still, nothing more than a grave.1

The castle was the only thing you could see for miles, the only thing that broke the silence and the stillness. From a distance, it was nothing more than a gray blur against the blue. Even once you’d reached the courtyard of the castle, it was still in ruins, an ancient place that had seen better days. No one had lived here for so long, that you could smell the death that lingered here. The little wooden crosses the marked the burial places of the previous occupants were all but destroyed, as was the arch that you passed through to get to the courtyard.2

There was a walkway leading up to the castle, but most of the stones were torn away, or carted off by someone when they’d fled from this destitute, forsaken place. Gargoyle figurines grinned toothily down, and some were portrayed to be crushing the spines of grown men in their teeth.3

The stairs that led up to the massive double doors were in remarkably good repair. And, on top of the staircase, in the midst of this quiet, lifeless atmosphere, dwelling in a world that much resembled a tomb, there was a pile of rags that moved. The pile of rags belonged to the old man. The old man that had lived here for some years, in a world that every one else had forgotten.4

But he still remembered. He still kept the secret.5

“To forget,” he whispered. His voice was dead as everything around him. Those eyes, those stormy gray eyes, had gazed at a place ruined and forgotten for so long that there was no more life in them. “To forget is death. This place is death…but I remember. And I live…To forget is death. And I live yet.”6

That, or something similar to it, had become kind of a prayer for him. That is what he said, over and over to himself as he sat on the staircase, looking over a land that never seemed to change with the passing seasons, in a land that had for so long never seen anyone to move but him. For years, it seemed, he had said these words to himself, so many times the vehemence that was once behind them, the incessant, pressing need to imprint the memory in his head, had left. They were nothing more than words, now, words that sometimes conjured up a memory.7

Usually, the memory the words brought to him was such a faded, shattered memory.8

This time, it was sharp and clear. So frightening that his heart began to thunder in his ears, that he began to rock back and forth. Back and forth, back and forth, with his head spinning, and his whole body screaming. And his limbs jerking. Not breathing. As the memory, began to sweep over him like it had not done for so very long. 9

[Unfinished...obviously]10