40 Days In The Desert

Prologue - Walking In The Dark

West Berlin, Federal Republic of Germany, 31st of October 1980

There is no doubt that this is the darkest night of the year. I don't need anyone to tell me I might be astronomically inaccurate, because I know what's going to happen, as I've always felt so many things before. This is the night when I will remain alone.

"Gunde, listen," my father kneels down in front of me, holding a small chest in his hands which are covered in the blood of the dozen of dead bodies spread through the room of our attic. "There's no time."

I know there isn't. I can see clearly the large red stain soaking his tunic in his own blood, almost like a grotesque assortment with his victims — the gang of evils who broke into our house with the intention to kill us.

"More will come soon," he sighs. "I just want you to have this. Guard this pendant like your life depends on it, because it does. And not only yours. The entire humanity is relying on this object, and, now on you."

"Dad," I say, almost irritated that he decides to give me such an important task all so suddenly. "I can't carry the world."

"No one can," he coughs, and more red stains appear on his hands. "But it is the hope that we carry, not the world. So many will perish, but as long as a drop of hope will still exist, the world will never be lost. This is exactly what I'm giving to you now, Gunde, a glimmer of hope."

He opens the box and unveils a tubular pendant hanging on a thick silver chain. The object seems strange and in no way beautiful, nor hope-bringing, yet I don't dare to question what my father has told me. It's the first time in years since he talked so coherently and not possessed by the alcohol which he uses to annihilate his extremely powerful senses. And, it's sad to think that, if my own instincts are correct, my first actual conversation with my sober father will also be the last.

"Promise me you'll guard it," he says putting the strange-looking thing around my neck. "One day you'll understand what's in there and you'll know exactly what to do."

"But what's in there?"

He laughs because I was always the curious type, eager to know everything, even if it was going to scare me or haunt me for the rest of my life. I'd rather live in fear of what's about to come than of the unknown. Yet I know that my father won't unveil anything to me tonight.

"Not now, Gunde," he smiles. "There's no time left. You have to leave."

His words are confirmed by more shouts. As my father told me before the fight started tonight, the evils are coming after him and they won't stop.

"Run with me," I say, dragging my dad by his hand. "Please, come with me."

"Gunde," he sighs. "Go!"

I don't move. Not even when our room is filled with tall hooded silhouettes with yellow eyes and skinny hands covered in red vine-like veins. I still don't find the will to leave my father behind. I'm in a lot of ways varying from impertinent to annoying, but not a coward. I know that for sure.

The moment I jump with my dagger and kick one of the silhouettes down and slit its throat, making the black blood gush out of the wound like a volcano, I feel how I'm regaining my power. My silly mind even believes that I can fight all evils who are now flooding the room and help my father who's visibly outnumbered.

"Dad!" I scream the moment when a man puts his sword through my father's abdomen, making him fall on the wooden floor along with the bodies. "No!"

It's too much for me too handle. My scream makes even the evils gathered around me stop for a moment and, when I resume fighting, I do it ten times more eager to kill everyone.