World Of Lysandus #4: The Tides Turn (1/2)

I arose from the dream and once again smelt the death of the town in my nostrils, so pungently, and so powerful. I had to get out of this death cloud I was in if I was to find Evil. I could save the souls I missed some other time, but first I needed to stop him before he got any stronger. The only way I could think of to get out of this death cloud was to somehow fly in the sky above. The only problem was, I didn't know how to fly in this world, only the skies of Aspimiria. The thought of Aspimiria gave me another idea.

I pulled the gem out of my hat once again and asked for a door to the Gallow world. At first I thought that there would be no answer, that there would be no help left in the other world. Then the door slowly appeared, as if it was hard to maintain the breach between the worlds. Finally, the door was solid and I was able to touch the doorknob. I opened it up, and then something stopped me from walking through. The light pouring out was a dark red, instead of the light blue of Aspimiria. Perhaps this was a door to a different world. Then I heard the Gem talking to me. "Come Lysandus, Do not fear us. We have been waiting for you. We can help you Lysandus, all we need is a little favor from you first."

"What kind of favor," I screamed into the open void, "and who are you?" Before there was a reply, I felt the gem slipping from my grip. I held tight, but the force I was fighting was too strong and it flew from my hand into the void. The light from the void beamed out and became a bright red. The explosion kicked me back away from the door and I fell to the ground. Then the door slammed shut and I suddenly knew who I was talking to. It was the Dark Gallows, and they had just taken my last hope for survival in that world.

As the world on that side of the void changed for the worse, so did the one on this side. The sky became pure blood, and the ground began to shake. Cracks began to appear and magma came pouring out as if the world was a blood soaked sponge, being squeezed of all it's juices. Mountains of ivory shot up through the cracks and I had to constantly keep moving so that I wasn't overcome by the mutating world. I jumped onto a nearby rooftop, but just as I did, the house began to crumble beneath me. I jumped to a mountain that was being erected nearby and clung to the tip. I was elevated to the clouds and was out of reach of the stench, but not in the way I wanted to be. Looking down I could see the world being ripped and stretched into something new, something horrible.

I could hear the crumbling of what was once my town, and something else. I listened closely, and it appeared to be the sound of someone laughing at me. The sound grew louder and louder, and that voice must have been Mantellan, for he had finally recovered every last one of the Gallow's Gifts, giving him complete control of both this realm and the other. Just when I felt like things couldn't get any worse, the piece of rock I was clinging to crumbled and I fell towards the magma river below. On the way down my head hit the side of the mountain and I fell unconscious.

My sleep was a riddled diagram of death and decay. I saw flesh being ripped from muscle, the splatter of blood, the sharpening of a blade, and heard that horrible horrible laughing, then a shriek of pain. Through all of the pain and destruction I saw a light for a brief moment, and then it was gone. The dream faded and I was laying on a concrete ground, staring at the bloody sky. I was unable to move, unable to blink, or even breath. I could hear someone taunting me, telling me that he was taking me to my death, that I was too weak to fight back. I fought back the only way I knew how, I tried with all of my strength to move my hand. I finally broke free from dream state fully, and sat up. Rubbing my head, I looked around at the new world. It looked as if there were jagged bones sticking out of the dirt, surrounded by a river of blood. The sky was now pitch black, yet everything around me was still brightened as if it were the edge of dawn. The ground around me was a circle of blackened rock with a path coming off of it, leading somewhere. I had no choice but to follow it.

I heard a shriek from some sort of bird in pain and looked to the skies once again. There I saw a giant monstrous bird in flames swooping down towards me. I rolled forward to dodge it, and it flashed by me. The wind of it's motions knocked me off of the path I was standing on and I started to fall towards the magma below. I grabbed onto the edge with barely enough time to spare. The rocks I grabbed started to crumble, so I pulled myself up as quickly as possible. I looked behind me and saw the rocks plummet into the burning liquid, and immediately disintegrate into nothing. The bird circled around and started to go after me again. I ran on the path towards whatever I was being led to. The fire bird got closer and closer to me and I could feel the heat from its breath on the back of my heals. I did a backwards leap and landed on my hands, just as the bird passed by me and scraped onto the concrete path. As it skidded to a stop, it screamed a death cry, and fell over into the lava. I kept walking and then I heard another shriek. This one was louder and seemed to echo, and last longer. I looked around and saw a whole flock of those fire birds coming towards me.

I darted down the path as fast as I could and their screams got more fierce and hungry. I finally reached the end of the path, another circle of rock like the one I woke up on, only much bigger. On the other side of the circle was Evil Lysandus, and he stared at me with ferocious hate. I could tell he blamed me for the transformation of the world, and the disappearance of the rest of the fresh untouched souls. We ran towards each other and the battle began.