The Damned

Chptr 2: The Suffering

The Suffering

He continued to walk through the city of death. The ghosts of this town threatened to claim him, but they didn't. He had been marked, claimed by a more powerful demon than they could ever aspire to be. They knew better than to try and take the property of such an entity.

The sun was setting, and it cast an orangish glow on everything around him. There was no sound save for the steady plop of his feet and his own rapidly beating heart. To most, the silence would have seemed unnerving, but the man didn't notice. He was too busy fighting back the memories which threatened to rise up and drive him insane.

Then again, maybe he -was- insane. Ghosts, darkness, demons... surely such things did not exist in the real world? But the man knew that he had ceased to exist long ago in what he thought of as the 'real world'. It seemed to him that it had been years since he had lived in such a place, his memories of home vague and tied too closely with those memories which he so desperately avoided.

He had no idea how long it had been since he had started running. Time had no meaning here; it wasn't real. It was unsubstantial and irrelevant. All he knew was that it had been a very long time since he had known what the word 'peace' meant.

As he continued, he began humming a small tune. He hummed it quietly, barely enough for him to even hear. He didn't know where he had heard it, but he thought it had something to do with his-
-What are you doing!? Nathan, stop! Please!-
mother, or perhaps just a friend he may have had at one time. Or maybe it wasn't real at all, just another thing his mind created to try and keep it occupied, to try and stop him from thinking about what it kept trying to turn to.

Suddenly, he stopped. He lifted his head up and looked around with an expression of horror written on his face. He turned and looked back the way he'd come. There was nothing there on the street behind him, but that meant nothing.

He turned and began to run. As he did, sobs clenched his chest in heaving gasps. He sprinted away, looking desperately for somewhere, -anywhere-, he could hide. For he knew, without a doubt in his mind, that the demon was close.

And it knew it.