Them

“Parry left! Parry right! Now thrust!” It was nighttime in Shadow Creek, infamously named because it seemed to always reside in the shadows of Starpike Mountain. His father was drilling him in the arts of combat. Darrow executed the tasks perfectly, as if he’d done them 1000 times. It was something that him and his Pa did very often. His Ma strictly forbade it; she said that he had to wait until he was 12 to hold his first sword, but that didn’t stop them. “Again! Again! Again!”

They practiced for what seemed like days. Darrow - a scrawny boy of 11 who wanted to become a knight. And his father - 6 feet of muscle even at age 50 who was one of the most well-known soldiers in all the land.

But Darrow soon realized that something wasn’t right. All the small houses and shops, the main campfire where all their meals were cooked, even the well, their only water source, was gone.

“Come on! Don’t slack off!” Darrow turned around to look at his Pa, but he wasn’t there, almost as if he turned into an insect and flew off into the night sky.

“Pa? Pa? Where’d you go?” Darrow turned to run, but a wall of fire blocked his escape. He started the other way, but the same thing happened. It was closing all around him now, with no exit. 

“This is the end,” Darrow thought. The smoke smelled thick in the air as the beautiful orange flames danced their lethal dance towards him. They were overwhelming him, getting ever closer. Darrow closed his eyes and sat there, waiting for the fire to overtake him. 

Darrow woke up. He was sweating, and the pile of straw that he called a pillow was soaking wet as well. 

“It was only a dream. Just a bad dream,” He thought. It was bright out. “Morning time. I’ll go get today’s water.” 

He dragged himself out of bed, grabbed the bucket, and went to the door. It was then when he started to suspect something. He touched the iron door handle, and immediately pulled his hand back. 

“Yoooowwch!” He exclaimed. The iron was hot, almost as if someone had taken the entire sun and stuffed it into the door handle. “I must be dreaming,” he thought. Still half-asleep, he turned around to go back to his bed. That’s when he saw it. A thick, hazy smoke peered into the window and aimlessly drifted into the room. 

“Has something gone amiss with the campfire?” Mother and the other girls would be tending to the fire by now, but never has there been something wrong. He went to look out the window and what he saw would stay with him for the rest of his days. 

The whole town was burning. All the houses, the shops, the armory, the forgery. All of it devoured into flames. 

Without thinking, Darrow grabbed his sandals underneath his bed and dashed to jump out the window. 

But it appeared in front of him. It stood in front of the window. A huge, cloaked figure that had to be at least 10 feet tall, walking on the air like it was the ground itself. In it’s gray, bony hands it carried a tall, red staff that had to be as tall as Darrow himself. It turned to look at him, and that’s when he saw Its face. He saw himself staring directly at two narrow eye slits that looked as if they were hollow. The creature had no nose, but It’s mouth more than made up for it. A large, menacing grin with pearly, white teeth that stretched from ear to ear smiled right at him, and it laughed. It laughed a loud and terrible laugh, the kind of laugh that a bad guy in a PG-13 movie would make.

Darrow knew he had to do something. Dropping the bucket, he kicked the door down, and ran outside. “Gods be good there’s more of them.” Three other ones were also walking on the air, staffs in hand. 

It was them who were terrorizing the village. They would walk around for a bit, then when it looked like they got bored they would lift their rods high and a blast of flame would shoot from them. 

It was too late to go and save them, Darrow knew. The townsfolk, his friends, his family. All of them gone, burned to nothingness by them. 

All of a sudden, one turned its ugly face and looked at him. They made eye contact, and just as soon as it turned its head they were gone. A blinding white light had appeared right where they had been standing, and they had vanished. Poof! Just like that. Darrow couldn’t believe it. 

It was too good to be true. He started running away, farther and farther, faster and faster until he thought he was in the clear. He thought for a moment of the peculiarities that just happened. He could think of no other explanation than “I’ve made it out alive! Gods have mercy I’m alive!” He went down to 2 knees, acknowledging the moment, when all of a sudden the same white light appeared before him, and there they were. They were all around him now, staffs pointed directly at him. He knew what was about to happen. So he did the only logical thing that he could think of. Darrow ran.

He sprinted back to the village at superhuman speed, thinking only about his survival. He could hear the same terrible laughter coming from all three of them, running after him like they were 4th graders in a foot race. The flames kept coming. He saw a blast of flames come at him on his left, he saw another one on his right, one even got a little bit of his hair, but Darrow kept on running.

After what seemed like years, he finally reached the burned husk of what Shadow Creek once was. 

“This village has been standing for 500 years. If it's been here for that long, it can stand through anything,” his father used to say. Apparently he didn’t account for large creatures with the power to harvest fire.

“I do wish Pa was here with me now. He’d know what to do.”

Darrow turned around just in time to see a blast of flame coming at him. He dodged right but he wasn’t quick enough. The blast of flame took him right in the arm and sent him tumbling to the ground. He rolled down a small hill for what seemed like hours. When he reached the bottom, he realized that he couldn’t feel his left arm.

Now they swarmed all around him, all 4 of them now. They stood in a circle around him, staffs raised high. 

“Now I am surely a dead man,” He thought. He lay down on his stomach, awaiting his fate, when something poked him in his good arm. He reached down to find a long, slender, one-handed blade. “Maybe there is hope after all.”

He jerked upwards and took them by surprise. The blade impaled one of them right in between its 2 eyes and immediately exploded into black dust. All that remained of it was its staff which Darrow could now see was blood red with a fire emblem on the top.

“I’m not going down without a fight.” He turned around to face the other three, only to see a bright flash of light appear before his eyes. Darrow knew what was coming. 

One appeared behind him but he turned around wildly slashed at it. It managed to dodge and disappeared again. The next one appeared about 5 meters ahead of him, staff pointed directly at him, but Darrow stealthily moved aside and stabbed him in the guts. “Two down. Two to go.” 

The next attack seemed more carefully planned. The one who seemed to be the leader, the one that he first glimpsed in his bedroom window, appeared behind him while the other one appeared in front of him. He thrust the point of the sword at the one in front of him, aiming for its forehead but it disappeared. He turned around just in time to see a bright flash of red headed straight for him. It hit him square in the chest with the force of an elephant and sent him flying backwards. A red gash now appeared on his chest; a scar that he would have with him for the rest of his life. “I must keep fighting.”

The last of the minions appeared before him, about to deliver the final blow. It twirled its staff above him, but that was all the time Darrow needed. He forced himself up and pierced it on the side of its stomach. It disappeared in the same cloud of black dust as the ones before him.

The final creature stood before him. Darrow could see now that it was a good three feet taller than the other ones, with a flaming meteor on the front of the staff instead of a small fire. It made eye contact with Darrow and smiled it's smile with all its pearly white teeth showing and laughed it’s evil laugh.

Darrow slashed right, left, up and down but it made no difference. Its staff blocked all the attacks, and when Darrow left even a small opening, it’s staff found it and pressed against him like a hot iron. Darrow still kept on fighting.

The strategy of the cloaked figure was clear. Tire him out, and then go for his good arm, hoping that Darrow would eventually drop his sword and admit defeat. Unfortunately for it, Darrow soon saw this. 

He let it hit him and then immediately fell to the ground, playing dead. The point of impact still hurt him, but not so much as that he could still wield his sword. The blade dropped from his hand, but not too far away so he could still grab it. 

It laughed. This time Darrow could almost make out words. It seemed to say “I’ve finally got you! I’ve finally got you!” 

“Maybe it's just my imagination.” He thought. It didn’t matter now. With one last burst of strength, Darrow thrust the sword into its belly.

But it didn't explode right away like the other ones. Instead it pointed at him and talked. The thing could talk! “You- you don’t know what you did.” It said in a hoarse voice as it croaked out its final words.  “They will be coming for you. They will ALWAYS be coming for you.” It lay down, accepting defeat, and perished into a cloud of black dust.

Darrow stood there and dropped the sword, almost unsure of what just happened. He paused there for a moment, processing what just happened through his 11 year-old brain. “I must go,” He thought but he couldn’t. He couldn’t leave this place that had been his home for his entire life.