Literary: Actions and Consequences
The plains were a war-torn field.
This wasn’t the only one. Countless others dotted the world, born from anger and bloodshed, as humanity warred with itself and the forces from beyond.
Over the centuries, armies met and fought, while their kingdoms dabbled in politics. When words didn’t work, actions had to be done. Swords were drawn, arrows were nocked, and spells were cast. Blood was spilled, bones were broken, and flesh was burned.
In the end, only bodies were left behind. And yet, armies and battalions come here again and again, under different banners and uniforms, fighting for various kingdoms and causes. And again and again, their broken corpses continue to feed the earth, lying to rest by the many, many bones of their predecessors.
As the warriors of the kingdoms fought on the front, magic has been called upon to assist in the wars. The sheer weight of otherworldly forces drawn into the same spot – the same fields ¬– time and time again has changed the land over the years. The unnatural might of magic turned the earth beneath into a furious, loathing soil, churning as more and more corpses are piled upon it.
What was once a verdant, healthy sprawl of life has changed into a twisting miasma of blight and decay. The bones of the fallen served as a warning to man’s folly: what nature creates, man destroys. The world’s health became worse and worse, becoming sicklier as the centuries passed. The end, it seemed, was near.
It was only a matter of time before nature struck back.
It started with a drifting breeze, followed by a cold. First, a single person possessed it. He thought it was just temporary. And then they were four. And then a dozen. A score. Half a hundred. Hundreds upon thousands, all in the span of a few weeks, plaguing every city, every town, and anywhere mankind lived.
Symptoms kicked in. Migraines flared into skull-splitting aches – even trying to think was agony. Bellies ceased to function properly – digestion took place too soon, too late, or not at all. Bones started to creak and groan – movement was near impossible. Breathing became labored, vision became blurry, and hearing became erratic. Old wounds started to bleed anew – what once were scars suddenly reopened, pouring out blood once more.
And then, the screaming started.
When the majority of humanity was afflicted, the sound came from everywhere. It was a shriek of pain. It was a keen of sadness. It was a roar of anger. It brought back memories – memories of loss, of betrayal. It was the memories of friends and family they lost, of people they held dear, now gone forever.
The visions became stronger, clearer, intermingled with the screams of the living. Faces and figures flitted in and out the corners of their vision, faces that they once knew, yet also faces that they have never seen before. With a stench fouler than the pits of chaos, the ground beneath them churned and twisted, warring with itself as things started to claw their way out of the earth – things born of flesh and of earth, of the past and the present, of pain and of anger.
They were humans. They were beasts. They were fractured. They were whole. They were real. And they were angry.
The screaming grew louder and louder. It sent fresh waves of agony through the diseased – it was the agony of corpses worming their way into skin, piled higher and higher than what the flesh can handle. It was the pain of loss, as thousands and thousands of lives are snuffed out, day by day. It was a sense of bitterness, with the knowledge that those who you gave life repaid you with betrayal.
As the screaming reached its peak, it stopped. Slowly, the vision crept away into the earth, bringing with it the madness and stench of plague. Slowly, the sick passed into sleep, never waking again. Slowly, most of humanity passed away in silence.
Years later, the remarkable happened. A single shoot sprouted from a desiccated wasteland. Miles and miles on end, made of nothing else but blighted ground and decaying rock. And yet, and yet, something natural, something so full of life found a way to grow on a dying earth.
Barren fields slowly, oh so slowly grew new life. Wildlife that was long thought to be lost started appearing again. Razed country sides became healthy farmlands. Desolate areas slowly gave ground to life. For every wound the world endured, life healed tenfold. For every life taken, dozens more took its place.
Nature repaired itself, reclaiming what mankind’s destruction took away. With it, humanity will be reborn anew.
