Puppet

Master

The music still played, the applauder still applauded, the dancers still danced, and yet the musicians, still very much long dead, played each note more erratic than the last, until finally, the loop had been broken completely, and the musicians, in their frenzy, played notes never before heard, each striking into my soul with more depth than the last.

With every quickening note I was wakening, the strings controlling me, and the others, snapped, with each screaming, warbling, damned note, one by one, we fell to our knees, each confused and disorientated than the last.

The dead musicians were no longer smiling, the applauder no longer joyful, with each ferocious strike of their instruments, bricks and mortar exploded, filling the chamber with dust, the dust gathered, as if collected by invisible hands, and began to swirl around the musicians, who were no longer seated, they were standing, hands no longer touching their instruments, and yet the instruments were still being played by unknown forces. Bricks continued to explode, dust continued to swirl, the notes continued to build speed, and I looked on in horror as they two dead men's heads snapped back, their heads raised to the starry night, the whites of their eyes bulged as their backs strained, as if their very spines were about to snap. The chamber filled with a sordid blend screams and music, as one by one, the stars above blinked out. The natural light of the chamber fading by the second, until in the pitch-black darkness the two musicians and their instruments stopped. All falling to the floor at once. I crawled in the endless dark, bumping into the others, until without rhyme or reason I was no longer in the dark, no longer in that blasted chamber of torture, no longer a puppet.

The sun rose to its zenith in a matter of seconds and at first blinded by it, I soaked up its warm comforting rays, and rose shakingly to my feet. A hand helped me to stand, and I cursed and almost fell backward back into the dirt I had risen from. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I noticed two silhouettes stood before me, their backs to me, looking out over the valley below.

All around us was the debris of the great hall that I had called home for god knows how long. "one thousand years." A voice standing beside me whispered, making me jump. I turned to see the puppet master himself smiling at me, his golden glowing eyes fading by the second until his pupils were not golden exploding suns but just green, albeit greener greens than I thought humanly possible.

"Wh..."

"Be silent and watch." He removed his finger from my lip and pointed at the two on the cliff edge.

As the sun's rays embraced them, I noticed that they were far from the dried mummified husks they once were. Their skin now alabaster, no longer blistered and cracked, their hair the darkest black, silken, no longer dried, brittle, putrid. Their muscles gleamed with perspiration and an innate excitement began to build in the very air itself. Their instruments lay to the side discarded, no longer pristine, nor gleaming and yet they still hummed with power and wicked desire. The musicians may be finished but the instruments had other desires, I could feel their pull, their call. I would have picked up the blasted and damnable instrument if it wasn't for the man, I once called master restraining me with all of his being. The two turned to leave and the master still holding me at bay spoke.

"What about them?" He said pointing his head at the instruments. "You can't just leave them like this."

The two men turned to face us both and the look they gave us was enough to entirely dispel the call of their wicked instruments. It was a look that warned of complete and utter oblivion.

"They don't care about us." They spoke in perfect tandem to the point I genuinely didn't know if both were speaking, or neither.

I was about to speak, when all of a sudden, I was completely alone. Gone were the musicians, the instruments, my master. Only the debris of my former eternal prison and the sun above me remained. I stepped closer to the edge, to witness this world, to fully be birthed anew in its embrace when a loud crash happened behind me. As if the earth itself had birthed a great and terrible beast in its rage.

I turned on the spot, betraying my former agility from untold years of dancing and held in my breath at the sight that stood before me.

At first what could be mistaken for a tree quickly pulled itself to its feet and stretched its back, the branches groaning as it did. A wooden colossus in humanoid form, and it was sneering at me with rage.

"You!" it pointed a long petrified and groaning finger at me, and I took several steps back my heart racing in tempo just as that horrible but hauntingly beautiful song did that woke me. And just like that, I was no longer a man but a bird.

I was flying, flying down, falling. My new world just couldn't wait to meet me it seemed like the ground was positively racing to meet me. I fell, and like, the great lucifer from my upbringing, embraced the fall, laughing as I plummeted to the earth below.