What We Run From

The Dark Lord crept slowly through his chamber, toward the stairs. The Phantom-Chains weighed heavily on him this morning. It had taken him an hour to wrestle himself from his bed. As he shuffled toward the staircase under labored breathing, he sang. If he knew he was singing, or what it was, it was impossible to tell. Perhaps it was some ancient lullaby his mother had sung to him eons ago in their cave, trying to soothe him to sleep on some long, stormy night.

But he no longer had such memories of those eons long passed. He could no longer speak the language he sang in, if it could even be called language. No. He was so far removed from that life, he could no longer smell the fire in his cave, taste the meat of the great tusked beasts that no longer roam our Earth, nor could he feel the fur of the wolves who huddled close for warmth and food. But still, the Dark Lord sang what may have been his mother's song as he carefully stepped down the stairs, like a child learning to walk.

The Dark Lord knew a fall would be meaningless, he wouldn't even feel it, the body he had made for himself was invincible. But the phantom-chains, if he fell it would be an hour before he could walk again, and today he could not afford to fall. They had found a candidate for his task, and they had brought the boy to him. The Dark Lord hobbled to his throne, his song ended. He steadied himself as the boy was led into the dark hall. The Dark Lord took a deep breath and his eyes crackled with light.

The boy was young, barely a teenager, but his hair was shining silver and his eyes shone like the Dark Lord’s, a brilliant scarlet. He was a Dhampir, the half-breed spawn of a vampire and a human. This Dhampir was bound in iron chains, held tightly by the Dark Lord’s formless servants, called upon from the darkest depths of unimaginable realms that only he could harness.

“Who is this child?” The Dark Lord asked, his voice was far from the commanding thunder the boy had expected, instead, it was barely a whisper, hardpressed, trying to catch a breath from the weight of the invisible chains that weighed on him.\

“Who is this child?” The Dark Lord continued, “I told you we required a great vampire for the ceremony, not this bootless half-heart,”

“My Lord,” the formless darkness croaked, “You are all the vampires that remain in this world, this boy must suffice,”

“Where did you find him?”

“He surrendered himself to us-”

“You killed my mother!” The boy cried out in rage, blood-soaked tears of red streaking down his ashen face, 

The Dark Lord ignored him and turned to his servants,

“Perhaps overseas one remains,” He instructed,

“We have scoured the Earth, my lord, we know you are all who remains, this boy will suffice-”

“We cannot use the boy,” The Dark Lord sighed,

“His blood will work, Sire-”

“I will not use the boy,” The Dark Lord waved his hand and the formless shadows of his servants sank into the cracked stone floor with a sizzling pop. He lowered his head into his hands and the prisoner boy looked around in confusion, now alone with his target.

“You may remove your chains, Dhampir,” The Dark Lord sighed without lifting his head, “We both know they will not hold you,”

The boy broke the chains with ease and stood up, staring at the armored covered mass of the man before him, he had expected a fight to the death, to face an unstoppable juggernaut of necrotic force, not this dour, sunken man before him. The boy stepped forward, definitely, drawing a dagger from his cloak, wiping the blood-tears from his cheeks.

“I am Elijah, son of Ursula,” He held the dagger in a shaking hand, “You killed my mother!”

“I did not kill your mother,” The Dark Lord met Elijah’s eyes, “She was mortal and she died,”

“You could have turned her into one of us, she could have lived forever, with me, with you!”

“It was impossible,”

“Liar!” Elijah stabbed at the seated vampire, who did nothing to stop him, letting the silver dagger sink into his shoulder, boiling his blood into a sizzling red mist, “Fight back! Why aren’t you fighting back?”

“I did not kill your mother, boy, and I could not make her immortal,”

“Why couldn’t you?” Elijah shouted, his bloodied tears returning to his scarlet eyes,

“Because I loved her,” The Dark Lord wheezed,

“If you loved her you would have saved her!”

“I had to let her die because I loved her,” He stared into the eyes of his son, “She didn’t want to live forever, child, how could I force her? She did not want to endure the pain of never fading away, watching her loved ones decay around her, unable to join them in the world beyond. I begged her to let me save her, but she refused, she said life is not living without death, that without death, life is only a collection of events, things happening to a husk, a soulless body. There was no meaning to the memories she collected if they were not finite. Don’t you understand?”

“What about me? Why did she leave me?”

“Because you were supposed to have me to take care of you, for all time, and I abandoned you. Blame me for that, for it is my only crime, but do not tell me that I did not love your mother!” The Dark Lord rose from his throne, slamming a fist onto the armrest of his chair, the sound echoed and Elijah staggered back, “So end me if you must, boy! But then you will still lose! For if I die you shall be truly alone and I will finally be reunited with your mother!”

“You’re selfish! You both are!” Elijah pointed the dagger toward his father, “What about me? You bore me into this world, you knew what I would be! You both did! You both knew that I would be eternal, like you! Why did you allow me to exist? Why did you curse me to be alone while you ran away and she left me behind?”

“Do not sully her memory, insolent child! She bore you because I asked her to! Because I desired companionship, a family, normalcy! She did not deserve to be cursed with eternity, do not place my crimes onto her!”

The Dark Lord grabbed Elijah’s knife hand and held the silver dagger to his chest, daring him to thrust. But Elijah simply fell to the ground, his pale cheeks stained pink by his tears of blood. He hated the man before him, the man who did not save his mother, how selfish of them both to not think of their son, to think only of their own needs. He wanted to scream, he wanted to take his revenge, but he could not bear the thought of being alone for all time, of wandering in darkness after the sun fizzled out and Earth turned to lifeless stone, he could not face eternity by himself. Even if the only option he had was this wretched creature before him, he would rather have hatred than have nothing at all. He lowered his dagger and he gave up, sinking into the darkness of loneliness, just like the man he had sworn to kill, and the invisible Phantom Chains wrapped their way around him, weighing Elijah down and claiming another victim of eternity.

“You’re heartless,” Elijah felt the weight of the Phantom Chains pulling him into the ground,

“I am,” The Dark Lord sat upon his throne, “My heart died when she did,”

“What is this feeling?” Elijah asked,

“The Earth is trying to reclaim you. We are children of the Earth, she is our umbilical cord, she feeds us, gives us life, and eventually, she reclaims us. But those like us have cut their cords, we are free from our great mother. No matter how hard she pulls, no matter how much she desires us back in her arms, we can never return. These Phantom Chains are the reminder that our freedom comes with a price, it is no gift, it is a burden,”

“I,” Elijah struggled to breathe under the weight, “I never felt it before…”

“Because you never desired death before, because, until now, you have never wanted to return to the cradle of the Earth, you have never desired to sink into the cold ground and cycle yourself back into nature… but now,” The Dark Lord laughed, not an evil cackle or triumphant boom, but a melancholy, empty huff, “Now you are like me, trapped in chains we can never break, weighed down by our own existence, unchanging, untouched, alone together, unable to run. The world is our playground, but we are her prisoners,”

“Is there any way out of this?” Elijah begged, gasping for air,

“That is my quest,” The Dark Lord waved his hand and his formless servants rose from the shadows of the cracked floor, “And now, you will join us and we can finally be free, we can finally be with your mother, we can finally return to the Earth, and we can stop running,”