It had been a brutal reckoning. The terrible aftermath lay strewn across the street, a macabre semblance of celebration, as though a party had been thrown, and the decorator had gone mad, painting the muddy crevices of the narrow cobbled roadway in blood and limbs, the walls of the local houses and shops, in entrails and ichor. There would be no records at all of the events of that night, if not for the presence of a single survivor, a girl in her early teens who had been on her way home for the night when she decided to shorten her trip that evening by cutting across the bad part of town. Of course it would be years before she was willing to talk in any great detail about what she'd seen, and even then her story was scarcely believed, and certainly never recorded before my accounting.
Convincing her that I would listen to what she had to say, indeed, that I would believe what she told me, was no easy task. Had I not once seen them myself- the Demigods of Calan'aly- certainly I would have ignored her story as well. I have recorded every word she told me, written it into my mind so that not a single syllable will be lost, and then written it unto the records so that, should something happen to me, there will be some memory of what I've learned. This is her story, as cleaned and organized as I could make it. For the original transcription, with no interpretation from myself, see the tome Remnants of Calan'aly, pages 323-379. The only current copy is in the Great Retesian Library.
I was late coming home that night, though I scarcely remember why. Perhaps I had been out shopping and gotten distracted by the dresses in the windows along the boulevard, or perhaps I'd stayed too late with my best friend, gossiping about boys, and planning a wedding night that wasn't destined to be. I don't recall anymore what it was that kept me so late, but I do remember my decision to take the back streets home, in hopes of appeasing some of the anger of my parents by arriving as quickly as possible. I have looked back on that night many times, that decision to take an unfamiliar route, and wondered how my life would have been different had I taken the normal path. Would I be married now? Would my family still speak to me without averting their eyes? Certainly I wouldn't be what I have become, an outcast, pariah, a mad woman.
I have been told that what I saw was not real so many times, that I don't know if I believe what my memory tells me anymore. I would gladly erase it all from my mind, but I cannot free myself from the visions. They haunt my every dream, twisting hope into a spiraling nightmare from which there is no return. I was not a bad girl. I did not deserve this. Sometimes I wish that I had died with the others. At least then my life would have simply ended, and I would not see the blue lights every time I close my eyes. I would not need to know that monsters are real, and that they can breech our world at any moment.
The streets were alive with activity. The night had brought out its own denizens, creatures of the back alleys, conducting their evening business in the shadows. I passed through them quickly, only too aware of the warnings of my mother and father, warnings of things that men do to young girls who are caught out where they shouldn't be. My heart raced in fear, though I knew nothing of the word then. What did I fear? Certainly I knew nothing of what those men might have wanted from me. I was too young. Still, I feared some menace whispered about by my parents, and that consumed my young mind as I rushed on my way. I did not know that I was minutes from learning that “fear” could be something far more powerful then I'd ever believed possible. Even to this day, knowing the exact nature of the warnings given by my parents, I would have gladly taken such misfortune to avoid what I have seen. An injured body may recover, a scarred mind may heal, but those things written upon my memory will never go away, and having seen them I will never be accepted amidst my peers who believe me a liar, or at the best, mad.
The whispered voices of shadow-lurking men, and the patter of hurried footfalls filled the moon lit world, the sounds of a living city, asleep, yet teeming with activity. A low whistle sounded from somewhere ahead of me, changing and shifting like the song of some strange bird. I barely noticed that haunting melody at first, though it grew louder as I walked. Quite suddenly it exploded around me. It wasn't that it got louder. It was as though, instead, that it was coming from everywhere, originating from every object and person on the street. Everyone on that quiet road froze, looking all around. I met eyes with a young man who had been, seconds before, rolling dice with others his age. There was a fear in his features that I only realized, at that moment, must be reflected in my own. That song was like terror given a tune, and it wrapped its fist about my heart. I remember collapsing to my knees in the center of the street, even as others collapsed against walls, or stood shaking in place, some trying to cover their ears, some babbling to themselves to shut out the whistle that wouldn't be ignored.
The ground shuddered beneath my knees, the stone of the street reverberating with some great drum beat, and I looked up to see what horror might sew so much fear that even the ground would tremble. That is when I first saw one of them. It walked on two legs, as though it were some kind of man, but its movement was so smooth that it seemed as though it didn't touch the ground. It was a dark shape, tall, narrow of frame, with long arms that hung down to its knees. I don't know if it was wearing clothes, or whether it had some type of fur, but dark strands hung from its body, wrapping the true nature of its shape in a bizarre mesh of flowing scraps that seemed to tussle as if on a breeze. Where its face should have been, was only darkness punctuated by two blue eyes that shone like the hottest part of a cooking fire. All about the figure the air shimmered, again putting me in mind of a open flame, and the way the air ripples away from it.
As it walked down the street it peered over its shoulder, as if looking for a follower, and sure enough another figure soon appeared. When I say it “appeared,” I mean exactly that. It seemed to step out of nothingness, as if the worst of all imaginings had just spontaneously given birth to itself through the sheer tenacity of its malice. It looked much as the first did, maybe slightly larger.
The rippling effect around the first creature intensified, expanding out from its body. That rippling passed over an onlooker who had the misfortune to be standing close to where the two things had appeared. His body exploded, his torso shredding apart as though it were being sliced by a thousand perilously sharp blades. A gout of the foulness splashed me where I stood, though I was far removed from the two creatures.
I screamed, finding my voice for the first time since the strangers had appeared. I was not the first to give voice to my protest. I tried to push myself to my feet, but my legs were shaking so badly that I couldn't make them straighten. Suddenly people were running in all directions, screams filling the air. They died. As they raised voices in protest of the madness, their bodies began to split and rip, their heavy throated screams turning into gurgling protests of bile and blood spilled over ruined lips into a beautiful night turned vile and grotesque. I knew I was dead. I kept screaming, waiting to fall apart, waiting for the horrors visited upon the others to swallow me up as well. I watched the two things that stood upon the street as I counted the remaining seconds of my life.
The first creature was gazing about the alley, the wavering air had expanded to fill the entire street. It was all around me, that terrible whistling song dancing all about my body, through me, burning itself into my mind. I seemed that I could feel it inside my skin, behind my eyes, and I wondered if that was what it felt like before you began to die, before the quiver in the air began to cut you into pieces of dead flesh, obliterating the frail humanity that only minutes before had seemed so permanent.
A screech sounded from the first monster, a foreign sound. I couldn't begin to comprehend how such a voice was produced by a living beast. It seemed like the call of an animal that had never existed, and should never have been born, and yet I knew, without understanding how I knew, that I was hearing language.
The other creature responded in kind, and it raised its arm, a long, hooked claw pointing at me. The creature had only three fingers, I noticed, though I wasn't sure why I bothered to take in such a detail. The first creature screeched again, and then it turned to face me. It walked in my direction and I felt my bladder give out, though I hadn't been aware it was full. As my certain death drew nearer to me, I pieced the darkness and glimpsed its facial features, stark white and angular, almost like a mask carved of bone. Every step it took in my direction was accompanied by a metallic clank, but those blue eyes were alive, feral... My terror overwhelmed me and I lost consciousness.
She awoke in a haze of death, and though she told many people her story, none believed her. She insisted on her version of events for so long, that she was deemed insane. No better explanation ever came to light, but her retelling was simply beyond the imaginings of the town's people. I knew different, however. I still do not understand why she was left alive, as I do not understand why I was left alive. The only thing I know with any certainty, is that the Calan'aly's Demigods have not truly vanished from the world, but what does their presence signify, and why have they appeared to lowly humans? I fear this portends dark times.
