A tall, middle aged man was leisurely walking down the cobblestone street. Today was a good day. The sun was bright, his wife had kissed him goodbye as he left after breakfast; without being asked, at that. And life was peaceful. After all, three years had passed since the demons’ lust for death and destruction seemed to have been sated.
That didn’t mean that the fear of demons didn’t disappear, nor that the peace was eternal. The man knew that in the hidden corners of his mind; the demons would likely continue one day.
And that was the endless debate that kept making an appearance from time to time, this time overheard from the conversation between two young women who passed the man in the opposite direction.
Demons.
The man sighed. It had been ten years since they first appeared in this world. A sudden, unstoppable force. Many cities and a few countries had already fallen. The city the man lived in had likely been next on the list of cities lost – if it wasn’t for the fact that the demons stopped, seemingly without cause.
If one went uphill and passed the markets, the wealthier districts and passed the northern gate out of the city, one could climb the last mountain in the mountain range. Once climbed, one could observe the lands to the south the demons had already conquered.
That land had once looked the same; an uneven plain covered with grass and trees. People hadn’t realized the effect demons had on the land itself – after all, they had been forced to repeatedly retreat, battle by battle, step by step. Even the battles where they managed to stand their ground and hold onto a city, it didn’t take longer than a year until a new attack came. And even if they didn't attack the city again, they had become isolated. Combined with the increased casualties with each attack, those cities were eventually abandoned. If they were heard of again.
Now, the land inhabited by demons was turning barren. And every year the wasteland was spreading, inching ever closer towards the city. The unnatural border between the living and dead land could be seen from the mountain, some 20 kilometers away.
It was only now that the people of different countries and races had the chance to band together. And that was the source of the debate – what should be done? Should they form a defensive line? Should they push further ahead and attack the demons? Would the wasteland’s advance cease?
And the leadership of the different countries’ had the most different opinions. The closer the country was to the demons, the more they called for a united front. But even their opinions differed on what a united front was.
The man didn’t know the answer. He didn’t bother much with it either, for he knew he could flee with his wife and children if the demons advanced once again. He knew how to read, write and count – and could do it well, thanks to the efforts of his beloved late mother. Wherever he went, he could find a new job and support his family.
But a tinge of fear remained, from the stories he had heard from the refugees that had been pouring in a few years ago. Stories that kept being retold. Although the man had never seen a demon himself, nor witnessed the atrocities they committed.
The man had always taken the words of others with a pinch of salt, after all, no matter the circumstances, people would always exaggerate. So lest he saw with his own eyes, he had a hard time taking things to his heart.
And perhaps that was the reason for his fear. Not knowing, yet imagining. His mind painted a dark picture with each story told, only for it to be discounted by the fact he didn’t know if it was all true, and that he was painting a worse picture than reality was. But he knew they still had to hold a hint of truth. After all, the evidence spoke for itself.
He felt similarly about the tales told by the church, who claimed that there was a divine being that ruled their world from a silver city in the heavens that protected and cared for them. Yet there had been no evidence in their case, making the church’s proclamations even less believable.
Those priests. The man snorted in his mind. We pay taxes to them, yet what do they do for us? Nothing. All they do is talk about an imaginary protector and take our money.
The man’s thoughts were interrupted by the tintinnabulation of the bell that resounded through the city streets. At first the man thought it was the church bells – but they sounded different; sharper and faster paced. And came from behind him, rather than from the direction of the mountain. Bells that hadn’t rang for a long time. The bell from the southern guard tower.
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Upon realization the man was paralyzed by fear. All the scenes presented in the stories he’d heard of the demons rushed through his head as he spun around and looked to the south.
Is it the demons!?
I have to get my family!
We need to run away!
But what if we get caught out in the open?
I knew it was a bad idea to stay here!
We should’ve fled to the other side of the continent! No, we should have fled to another continent altogether!
However as he looked past the wall surrounding the city and the guard towers to the clear blue morning sky, he noticed the reason why the guards had rang the bell.
“What is that?” the voice of a younger man behind him uttered. The street was crowding with people who exited their homes to find out what was going on, many with fear on their faces. That was until they followed the others’ gazes to the south, upon which their expressions changed to confusion.
A curtain with a golden sheen to it was rising towards the sky in the far south. Had it been winter, and had it been dark, and had it been another colour, it could have been mistaken for the northern lights, by those who had seen it. Except that it was also too close to the ground. The faint border of the curtain kept rising, the light below gaining intensity until it shined like a golden moonlight.
It didn’t take much imagination for people to realize it was related to the demons. Anyone could guess that curtain of light rose at the border of the wasteland.
The middle aged man decided to get home as quick as he could, but the street was getting crowded as people were trying to find out what was going on or making speculations with each other on the event they had seen, slowing his pace as he had to zigzag between people.
“…is it the demons?” “…is it the gods?” “…are we saved?” was what the man kept hearing as he brushed past clusters of people.
Many soon had the same idea as him, and before he was even halfway back home the street was filled with movement. For the first time the man was regretful for the location of his family’s residence by the main street.
As he got close enough to finally see his home behind a sea of moving hair, hats and scarfs, a burningly hot sensation filled his body, and his eyesight momentarily blinded by a flash of light. The man stopped dead in his tracks as a bell rang through his head. He had heard bells from the system before, but this time it wasn’t a single ring. The bell kept ringing. After what felt like a few seconds it stopped, and the heat disappeared from his body just as fast as it had appeared.
In front of him was a familiar blue screen. How people perceived the system differed greatly, commonly merely a voice in their heads, but also like what he was now seeing.
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