The king was missing from his throne. The throne room lay dormant and empty. In fact, not a single light could be seen inside of most of the castle. Inside the castle where children and mothers and the weak and frail waited in the silence for the end to come.
The castle was a fortress. An impenetrable palace that had been built over lifetimes. It had held for thousands of years. And today would be the end of that.
Day? The sky was pitch black without a single star in sight. That was how it was for everyone on the continent. The rest of the world could see the sun and stars in their respective parts of the world. But over this continent, over this kingdom, over this last bastion hung a cloud thick with a promise of the end of all things.
Death.
The only lights visible were burning pyres on the walls of the castle. But one by one they blew out like candles.
The quiet halls of the castle suddenly filled with sound as doors were pushed open. Figures ran inside, screaming and limping and shouting. Fear and hopelessness ran rampant amongst the last of the living defenders. Soldiers and knights slammed the doors shut behind them as the enemy crashed against the wood and stone.
Loud sickening thuds could be heard. The sound of bodies being crushed again and again. Then the doors began to give.
The strongest and biggest men of the lot rushed forwards to help keep the castle doors shut. There was shouting. They needed a barricade- they needed-
Boom!
Something large and heavy hit the wall next to the doors. The castle wall shook.
Men and women, soldiers and knights and civilians who took up arms backed up and stared in terror.
“Oh gods- is it one of them giants?”
“I don't want to die- I don't want to die!”
“...my children. …they'll be after my kids next.”
“Layla, my love… I'm sorry I wasn't stronger.”
“Please… oh please gods and goddesses… please hear our prayers… please…”
Many different voices spoke, cried, begged, pleaded, and said their farewells.
BOOM!
The wall cracked.
Someone shouted above them all. “For the kingdom! For the king!”
It was just one shout. But another soon followed.
“For the king!”
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“For the kingdom!”
From the depths of their fear and despair. They managed to bring out one last bout of courage when the castle wall exploded inwards.
It wasn't just in one singular spot. Multiple places in the castle walls were besieged and destroyed. And in the gaps of stone and wood and gold and sandstone came the dead. A few shambling figured pulled themselves into the castle interior.
Rotting faces. Skeletal hands. Eye sockets that should have been empty were filled with a pale cold green light.
Men and women shouted as they met the dead with sword and steel. A knight cleaved a zombie at the midsection. Its entrails spilled out onto the castle floor, black blood pooling at their feet. A guardsmen swung a mace and crushed a skeleton's skull into pieces.
The dead met the living with rasping moans and groans and silent screams as they began to pour inside. Faster undead pushed and pulled their way inside past the slow zombies.
Something large and pale shoved it's way through one hole and curled around the lip of the opening… it was a giant finger made of ivory! It clenched and pried and pulled the wall even further apart as stones crumbled and wood splintered.
The living fought the zombies and skeletons hard. Only few of the living were brought down by exhaustion and mistakes. Then the larger undead began making their ways into the castle. A hulking abomination of sagging and stitched flesh with too many faces leapt from an opening and crashed into a line of soldiers.
Metal cut and pierced into the flesh only to reveal more flesh underneath. The behemoth of rotting skin whirled and swung an arm the size of a tree trunk into the armored bodies of the living. Soldiers went flying. Their formation broken. And zombies poured into their lines, attacking the living from three sides instead of one.
More behemoths crashed through the walls… five… twenty… fifty…
Something gave in as an entire wall collapsed in on the dead, crushing them in a mess of debris as a large hand of bone the size of a carriage reached inside the castle before slamming down into the ranks of soldiers and knights.
They were overwhelmed. In minutes there were too many zombies and other rotting things… the living had to fall back. They had to run. Because over half of them couldn't run. They lay on the ground as the dead walked over their bloodied and ruined bodies. Their red blood was still warm as it mixed with the black on the floor.
Vacant gazes and fixed expressions stared at nothing in particular. Then the fallen soldiers began to get up. They rose into the endless swarm of the dead and joined in the attack against their once friends and families and allies.
With each soldier that died was another soldier for the dead army that rampaged deeper into the castle.
Where was the king?
The king was bleeding. He leaned against a door in the royal suites of the castle. A deep wound in his side bled down his leg and into his boot. He wore no crown. That had been lost in the fighting. His golden armor was battered and torn… it looked more like crumpled paper maché that someone had painted gold. A shoulder piece had been crushed, the metal stabbed right down into his skin. He held a broken sword in one hand. His other arm was missing.
“You killed them… and you're killing the rest…” The king spoke through harsh and labored breaths. “My friends… my dearest… you've killed them.”
Another figure stood at the end of the hallway outside the royal bedrooms. It stood in the darkness, hidden from view… but the king knew it was there. It knew he was there.
“I watched you kill them… you made me watch… my witch… my lady… my mentor… my people…” The king winced and tried to stand but he just felt so… weak and tired. His body shook as he forced himself to move. It was so hard… it was so hard. His body was practically begging him to just close his eyes…
The figure in the darkness merely scoffed. “Human… I've come for no speech. Only your lives.”
The king said nothing more. What more was there to say? Everyone was dead and dying. At his back lay a door where a woman lay in bed through all this destruction and fighting. His mother. The king's friends were already gone. His kingdom was no more. The last of his people were dying below.
All that remained was his mother behind him. And the monster in front of him.
If the king fell… his mother would die next. Then the rest of the world would soon follow into the grave right after. The king knew this for a certainty. If he fell… the rest of humanity would fall too. The world would fall.
“Why?” The king croaked as he raised his broken sword. “...why?”
“Death has never needed a reason.” The figure shrugged and stepped forwards; his posture relaxed. “Death never needed a reason for my people. Why should it need a reason to take yours as well?”
A monstrous figure with pale green skin took another step towards the king. A mouth full of sharp and pointed teeth like knives opened as it continued to speak to the human king.
“Death has never needed a reason. Not for anyone. Not ants and worms. Not men and women. Not kings and queens. Not even for gods. They can't help you. For they too are praying.”
Such confidence. Such arrogance. The monster took another step, and his sword seemed to gleam in the darkness. This was where it belonged. The monster and the sword both. They had been born in their own darkness; it was all they had ever truly known. Not unlike the human king.
The king of humans still had some light left in his blue eyes. His golden hair might as well have been a crown of its own. One last drop of blood fell from a stump. The droplet hitting the floor without a sound.
“...the gods have never aided me before anyways.” The king sighed and at last he began to relax. The bleeding had stopped. He was dead… he just hadn't realized it yet. Bright blue eyes stared into the empty abyss before him and the king met the monster in the darkness. One final clash that caused the upper floors of the castle to shake.
And then there was only silence.
