/lit/ - Literature

Thumping, loud thumping, like drums, but without end.
“I’ve really messed up this time, haven’t I?”
I sat alone in a cave of flesh, up to my waist with fluvial grime and the rot of mixed meat engulfing my senses - sheep, ox, and the tang of unthawed fish - a butcher's paradise.
A little spangenhelm came floating by my side, thick steel, padded chain, and a big red teeth mark denting on the upper left side of the temple. I held it up to find a flimsy skull still strapped beneath - frozen in ironic laughter.
I grinned. “You and me both, friend,” I said.
The cave shook with a loud roar, drumming the walls with a vibration that crackled forth the pools of white slime like a bubbly sauna, my ears thumping as the octaves shook all the way up to the throat.
“We get it already! You're terrifying!” I yell back, by then I just didn’t care anymore. Out of all the things in the world, all I wanted now was a moment's peace, and I couldn’t even get that.
Sitting here all by myself, I guess there were better ways to go, I mean – he didn't crunch, though a small trade-off when starving to death or corroding in acids are the alternative opinions, but luckily for me when this night comes to an end, all I have to do is just start all over again-!
and again-
and again…
This time I got eaten - more like swallowed, really, by a huge, fire-breathing dragon that is of right now - razing an entire city full of innocents, mercilessly slaughtering everyone and anyone unlucky enough to cross it's wing-beaten path: fire, blood, explosions – and here I sat all cosy in his stomach waiting for my turn to die.
A great way to open up a story, huh? However, that’s where you’d be wrong. You see, this isn’t the beginning, and for all I know, this ain’t the ending either. Confused? I don’t blame you, there’s a lot of things in this universe that can be easily explained, but this story of mine is not one of them.
I wouldn’t blame you if you’re still confused. If there were a simpler way to say it, I’d say it, but if you sought a simpler answer then I won’t stop you from leaving. Good effort, even if fruitless in the end, will eventually yield something. You may not get what you wanted but you may just get something better – or worse, depending on how you see it. However, no matter what you do, I’m afraid this is going to take the both of us awhile. So just give me a quill, a paper, and by all means - an eternity through a never-ending loop of death, madness, and inescapable chaos and I’ll be your storyteller for as long as you’ll allow me, but I warn you now - if the beginning didn’t tip you off, this probably isn’t going to end very well. If you sought to be enlightened, then prepare to be depressed.
This is the story of my story – Cline Weaver.
Ahem.

I tried
Warning: It's fantasy, take it or leave it, but you knew what you were getting into.


I hate Goblins. Let’s start with that. They’re small, they’re weak, they stink, and you couldn’t find a shred of a heart in all heaven to fit inside these wee monstrosities. Goblins are the spawn of demons, the children of serpents and vipers. They have green, scaly skin, eyes like hot fire, and breaths of coal that steams even in the arctic cold. They’re raiders and pillagers, pirates and bandits, and at the worst – they’re the legions you’d find at the whipping hand of a power-hungry sorcerer. Goblins are fiends, they’re malicious, they’re vile, and if you had any sense of justice or holiness in this unjust and unholy world you’d kill them on sight.
Now let me tell you how I became one of them.
On one Saturday morning I woke as a Brother of the Flame, a holy order of Paladins dedicated to the eradication of sorceries and pagan sacrificial rituals all across the known world. Alcadia was our base of operations, where the youthful spring of the order first bloomed. The seed started as an off-shoot branch to combat heresies within the holy church, but as time went on and more members of the Alcadian royal family converted we evolved into a theocratic police force to keep the peace within the kingdom and by the limits of the law, of course. When magic and sorcery hit an alarming boom in thirteen thirty-four, the year of the lord, we had to hunker down and negotiate for more leniencies with the monarchy to be allowed legal rights to hunt down and turn-in these vile individuals performing the works of the Abyssal One.
Magic, you see, is as evil as Goblins go, which is meant to say – very evil. The otherworldly powers belongs only to Bruno, to God, our lord and ruler in heaven, but sometimes God allows evil to see if we righteous ones have the strength to put it down, to be tested so as to judge if we can bring about a greater good. And from the known records of our church’s history I can tell you straight, so far: we have. Magic practise has been decreasing by eighty-nine percent since The Great Cleansing, and that didn’t change on the Saturday morning I woke up as member of this great, illustrious order. And neither did it change on that same Saturday morning I became its enemy.
Dawn’s light was still cropped by the hedges at the time we were rushed out of bed. There was a great panic as my brothers rushed about in their silks and pyjamas to reach the armoury, pillows and feathers in flight.