The Revelation

                                                The Revelation                 
                               

                                                Chapter One


                                              Afraid of the Dark

                                     
                                               


           I awoke. My eyes were clouded and hazy as I lifted my head from the cold, hard floor. I listened. I listened, and I waited. Through the darkness the only sound that could be heard was the small dripping of water and the slight rippling of wind in the far distance. I looked around as my eyes adjusted to the thick, black darkness.


         Where am I? How did I get here?


         My mind was a raging tempest, it’s fury blinding and dominant.

    I stood and surveyed my immediate surrounding. All of my clothes were black. There was some sort of vest of protective material covering my torso. I recognized the material as Kevlar almost immediately, but how I knew that was yet another question. 

    I reached down and felt the hard, firm grip of cold metal. I took it out and gazed upon its complexity. It was at that time the strangest thing happened. Almost by themselves my hands clicked a part of the pistol and a cartridge fell from the bottom. The loud, audible sound of metal falling on the ground echoed through the darkness. My hands reached to the back of my vest and pulled out another clip from which many employ the word “nowhere.” It was slightly heavier than the one before. My hands loaded it back into place, pulling the upper part of the pistol, creating a quiet clicking sound.

         I sat down against the dark stone wall and looked at my new weapon. It had a large tube at the end of it; I could only assume that it was made to make the bullets fly soundlessly through the air at their target. I was astonished, almost proud of myself for reloading it so quickly, with so much precision and perfection. I was curious to see what else my hands could do by themselves. I twisted my wrist in a sweeping downward motion to which the pistol spun between my fingers. My hands fell quickly to my sides, holstering the pistol in its original position.

         I stood there, almost with a new feeling of resolve and purpose. Purpose. That word rang through my mind like a hammer smashing a brick wall, its continuous echoes ringing through the tunnels of my brain. I was still unsure what I was doing  in this forsaken place, this pit. I started walking forward, doing the next thing that made sense.

        It was quiet. I could almost hear the cold air escaping my lungs and out of my body. I began to feel the blood rush through each of my veins and to each of my fingertips. I heard the subtle sound of wind blowing in the distance, the same as before. Strange, though, that I could not hear my feet when they touched the ground or even the slightest sound of body movement as I walked forward.

         I started to run. Wherever I was going I planned to get there faster. After running a considerable distance I stopped. I’m still unsure of how long I ran, or how fast I did it, but this I knew: I did not feel tired. I knew that nothing ahead of me had given any hint to any sign of light or way of escape. I knew that when I was running I could not hear my feet when they touched the ground or even the slightest sound of any possible movement. So strange and cursed this place was.

         I continued forward, curious to see what lay ahead.

                                  Stop.

      My body threw itself instinctively against the dark wall almost without a sound. It was like a reflex, like something that I did without even thinking. I waited. My mind was sharp, almost too sharp. I heard nothing, no sound, no voice, yet I could feel the energy pulsating through my entire body, its energy radiating around me, driving me to a point of super human hearing and mental precision. It was a new, dangerous power, like a tiger learning that he had claws that could rip through enemies in half without even blinking. It was then, in the bleak darkness, I noticed a figure moving ever so slightly.
         
                          Get the gun out.
         
        I looked down at my belt to see where the pistol lay but instead I found nothing but darkness. I looked back at the figure and in my surprise I discovered that the pistol was already in my left hand, drawn and ready. My hand must have pulled it out when my body decided to throw itself against the wall.

         It had gotten darker as I had proceeded into the small space. I began to take complete note of my surroundings. Judging from the distance between the two walls, the floor and the ceiling, it appeared that I was in some kind of hallway or tunnel. I continued moving. It was almost pitch black now. The figure I had once seen was now gone. I slowly crept forward to make sure it wasn’t there, reaching out in front of me with my pistol. I started to wonder if my mind was still playing games. I put my pistol back, waiting for even the slightest movement ahead.

         A voice rang through the dead silence.

         My head shot directly in front of me.

         Again the voice thundered through the hallway.

         I looked behind me, positive that it was…

         The piercing voice hit me like a wall from all directions at once, but really not any directions at all—it was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I looked frantically for any movement. I began to panic, completely afraid of these voices. Then there was a long pause. No voices or any other sound could be heard, with the exception of my arm shaking violently with my pistol drawn. After awhile my body calmed down, and I was able to control my breathing once again. Completely lost of what to do next, I just sat against the wall, staring blankly into the immense darkness that imprisoned me. 

         I don’t know how long I sat there. I don’t know how much time has passed. I stared with anticipation into the darkness ahead. My judgment of time has been completely lost. Still, however, many of the obvious questions remained. Who I was, or more importantly, why I was here continued to plague my mind like the small dripping of water on my head.

         I tried desperately to concentrate. I put away my weapon and tried to make myself comfortable. Comfort. A word almost unthinkable in this world. I closed my eyes and tried desperately to remember. My mind was rewinding, moving like a violent wind. Pieces, fragments, and images flooded my mind like a raging storm until everything was soaked up in one, single picture:

         The night started with the sound of dull, quiet breathing. The kind of breathing that is only heard when one is sleeping. But there was another sound that could barely be heard, moving ever so quickly, moving ever so quietly and carefully. It was the small, soundless tap of feet hitting the ground. It was the slightest movement of the hands and feet moving swiftly without a sound, making as little noise as humanly possible.

         To make it simple, this was a show and I had the best tickets in the house: front row, center.

         The scene shifted to the different rooms. The first was the sight of a mother and father quietly snoring in the night, side by side. The room across the hall was the children’s room, in which two children were soundly sleeping. They were young, innocent.

         The assassin moved with pride and victory. He knew exactly what he had to do. This was it. This is what he had been trained all this time for; this is what he loved. It was his passion, his life. It gave him a sort of pleasure, and energy, a feeling of purpose.

         He moved like the wind outside, soundless and deadly. He positioned himself where there was little light in order to further hide his appearance. Even if you were to look right at him from a few feet you would have not even the slightest idea of where he was. He made no sound. He moved only when he had to and only at the perfect time. That’s exactly what he was: perfect. To say the least, he was merely a shadow. A shadow lost in the night.

         The first bullet flew with purpose and direction.

         The second shot rang through the small house with an iron resolve, its grasp draining the life of its target.

        They were all dead, the third and forth shots ringing as an exclamation to everything that had led to this point.

        The deed was done, the day was over. The Shadow was nowhere to be found. 

                                          000

          I awoke once again. To tell the truth, however, I had been waking in and out of sleep for a while now. I could barely stay awake. There was definitely something wrong with this place. I didn’t understand why but I could feel that something wasn’t right. There was something about this place that sent shivers down spines of steel.

      I looked over to my left, and to my surprise I saw a small, insignificant sliver of light cast on the ground. I squinted my eyes and started crawling in its direction. As I got closer the light began to draw simple, faint outlines of walls and tunnels. I stood and began to slowly walk forward.

      The light illustrated the end of the tunnel.  I could also see that light was being reflected off a surface below the tunnel. I reached the end of the tunnel and looked far down into the glaring, black pit.

      There was absolutely nothing. No sound, no voices, no movement—only the dull  void of darkness. I suddenly felt so small as I looked around the room. I noticed that it was huge, so massive that my eyes could not tell me where the darkness began and where it ended. If I focused my eyes I could barely see the faint outlines of other tunnels above me. They were of considerable distance from my location and I knew that I wouldn’t have been able to escape. 

        I looked behind, back in the direction of the original tunnel only to be met with more darkness. I wondered if I would ever escape this place.
       
        I sat down on the edge of the stone, black cliff. Below me was a pit of darkness; above me were more tunnels, perhaps even more light.

        I noticed a rock not far from where I was sitting. I picked it up. It was round, with smooth, hollow edges. It was almost weightless, yet it felt perfectly like a rock should feel. I looked down and threw it into the deep, dark hole. I wished that I could leave.

        I looked behind me to—there was a man point blank from my face, his eyes staring blankly into mine. I was so shocked that I lost my balance and began to fall.

                                                    000

        The wind blew easily on the cold, dark night. The large tree waved its lifeless branches freely in the air, its last leaf falling solemnly on the ground. One man stood still on the uneven ground. He was thinking of the world around him, of how it came to pass that he had become such a great killer, and why he had done so, of why he had in him so much hate. He thought back to the beginning, of how he first became the killer he was born to be.

         Men are not born of demons, but neither are they born of angels. But nothing is still to say that this particular individual is indeed human at all. Yes, there is a reason why he is like this. Perhaps a long series of unfortunate events had turned him to make him like he is. Perhaps he had suffered from a freak accident that had left him scarred, and thus turned him evil, gifting him powers above that of a normal humans.

      Perhaps he suffered from dual personalities and thus was completely unaware of his evil counterpart, or perhaps he had suffered from a single tragic event that had made him this way or perhaps he grew up in a diminishing, abused childhood or perhaps, or perhaps it was all of these reasons. Or perhaps it was none of these reasons at all.

         But of course none of the beginnings of his time mattered now. He knew his mission; he knew his plan, and he would gladly die for it. The lonely man on the bench stood. His dark black suit was slick, clean, and perfect. No one would ever find him. He was just too good. Without any evidence, without any proof there was nothing they could do. After all, no one had ever seen him. He existed only in what some people believe to be a myth, a useless book of folklore and fantasy. Still, it gave him strength.

        Victory reigned through every fiber, through every strand in his suit. Like a virus it spread all throughout his body, making him complete and whole. He could feel it; he could feel the victory, feel the power it gave him. It was his life, his purpose—his passion. Without it, he could not exist, for it was his purpose, and without purpose, we cannot exist. 

        Surrounding him were a sea of stones. Their composition was of many different shapes and sizes, but they all held a common theme. There was something that held them in their purpose. They were all gray. Gray was his favorite color. Well, except for black.

         It was cold that dark, red night. He wandered among the stones of death. On one of them was a rose. It was a red rose, full of love and vitality. But he was not of love, no. He stood proudly at the opposite end of the spectrum, gazing at his glory and strength. The stones were plaques, emblems of one's existence on Earth, their entire lives summarized of two dates: life, and his most particular favorite, death. He knew all of them, every single last one of them. Beneath the surface of each of these stones lie the fallen men, all of which he knew most intimately. After all, how could he forget? He had fought for all of them. Most of the time he had won, claiming their lives as a prize to his victory and a token of his greatness. It was his purpose, and this was his sanctuary.