Necromancer's Moon

Prologue

The provinces of Nephilir clung to the edges of the barren sea, fear spread as if the plague within its detestable innards as rotten corpses littered the streets by the thousand underneath an endless veil of frost and gloom. But more chilling than the winter winds was the demeanour of life draped over each town; a call of desperation loomed in every inhabitants eyes – as if all sense of purpose was lost. Leaving them suspended to a soulless, hollow, meagre existence.

There was no finer a place for such a miserable, decrepit orphanage to exist, where orphans were commonly thrown to the rats. Hence it came to no irregularity when the tears of a defenseless, disowned newborn and five year old boy were dropped before the doorstep of the desecrated ruin. Drenched by the oncoming storm as they were drenched by their endless tears. It was not until soon after, that old frail arms welcomed them in. Yet the lack of hope within these walls only chilled their spines further. The senile woman in possession of the orphanage gave them immediate disciplinary measures without remorse. The children were shoved to their windowless, confined rooms to that of a prison cellar. Spending their following years of childhood malnourished, beaten and tormented by this nameless despicable hag.

It had taken years of torment for the despondent brothers to have any glimpse of understanding to life. Their years of development in poor health, nutrition, education and morality gave them twisted conceptions of reality; as if they had forgotten the world beyond the walls they were incarcerated in. They were only given the privilege to be called by their names after their tenth birthday – the younger child named Icarus and the other named Darcus. The older kin had reached fifteen years of age, and his heightened curiosity provoked him to sneak out of the orphanage at nightfall. Often times to scavenge petty and meaningless trinkets from the carcasses. Shortly after one night's venture Darcus had returned, proclaiming in glory to his brother in retrieving a mysterious book. However the old woman caught his grin in the corner of her eye and scornfully stormed over,

"Pestilent boy if I see you smile in this building again I'll cut your lips off so that you may never smile again!" She spat at the boys, watching them cower,

"Why are you so controlling?!" the older disgruntled teenager broke out in frustration, but the woman grabbed Darcus by the scruff of his neck and struck him across his jaw, leaving a swelling and developing bruise,

"Shut your insolent face boy." She snarled, gritting her malformed, rotting teeth.

Silence filled the room briefly, the younger brother stood in shock without a trace of response,

"...Where is it?" The lady demanded, Darcus shook his head in a blatant attempt to deter his thievery. But she threw him aside and reached under their bed to reveal a sack of the accumulated trinkets aside the unnoticed book. The horrid lady shrieked in disgust and promptly confiscated the stash to later burn. She grabbed Darcus by his hair, tearing at his scalp as she dragged him away immediately after. Leaving Icarus to hear his brother's scream slowly merge into the cries of the forbidden upper floor of the orphanage, that housed psychotic asylum patients.

Darcus began flashing in and out of consciousness as the senile lady continued to haul the boy to the upper floor of the orphanage. The deranged twisted cries of the clinically insane resonated deeply into his skull, tormenting his head for many moons to come. He was viciously thrown to the floor, chained to the ground in shackles like a dog and beaten mercilessly into submission until barely conscious. The malicious old lady ruthlessly striking direct blows to his bound limbs and head with various blunt instruments. The old woman then grabbed the boy by the throat, tightening her grip as she spoke, watching him choke and splutter on the blood that began to spill over his lips,
"Do you think that you are above my command boy? I shan't tolerate your petty antics any longer!" She spat into his face, "Should I find you absconding from these doors again, I will personally see to it that your legs are battered in - permanently - so that you may never walk again. You pathetic excuse of life"
The woman left, dropping the boy to a bloody heap on the floor as he slowly bled out.

Hours later Darcus returned with countless open flesh wounds over his body and face, limping pathetically. His younger brother sat up to his attention, only to receive Darcus's grim smile as he uttered,

"She's going to become bedridden soon you know..." the teenager sat at his bunk chuckling, wiping blood from his mouth, "..and then she shall be the one begging for mercy."

The brothers continued their despondent lives for the following few months until Darcus one day introduced Icarus to the ominous book he had secretly retrieved, named The Necronomicus.

"I can't read..." Icarus muttered,

"No matter. It will not take long to learn, let us read it together"

Darcus had acquired the book from a robed corpse he had pillaged and hidden away. The book detailed the uprising of an ancient brotherhood, and their worship to an unfamiliar god. Believing that this was a writing of religion, they agreed to further their lives with its tenets and rituals once they were old enough to leave the orphanage. It gave them a sense of purpose and hope to their otherwise desolate, and confined existence. The biblical work was largely centred on pleasing an omniscient and supposedly all powerful being known as Dägon. The brothers aspired to these customs having no knowledge of the outside kingdoms and provinces.

It had only passed another year of misery before Darcus had planned to permanently escape the orphanage, and although it was only 6 months before Darcus was considered an adult and thus able to leave, he did not want to leave Icarus behind as they could pursue their religion further together. At this point Icarus was turning twelve and still needed guidance. Darcus had all plans set in place, but before they would execute their escape, Darcus stopped his sibling,

"What're you doing?" The younger brother asked,

"I need to tie up some loose ends..." He said with a devious smile, "Wait here."

Darcus stormed through the orphanage to the now bedridden old lady's room, as Darcus entered she cursed at him bitterly. Without hesitation he muffled her with the force of his hand and drew out a blunt knife. He spat on her face before muttering, "For everything you've done?...", He gritted his teeth with anger, "I'm going to carve a hole in your face." He then stopped and smiled, "But first..." Darcus scrunched the lady's lips together and slowly began tearing the jagged blade across her lips until she let out a horrendous scream. Blood began spewing over her exposed gum line and now partially severed tongue. He then proceeded to mutilate the helpless old lady, who was too frail and weak to even shudder or squirm as he gouged her eye sockets in with the full length of the blade down to his knuckle, before continuing to deconstruct her face by shredding off her nose cartilage, and took great extensive pleasure in continuously mauling her face to shreds with the blunt instrument. No facial features remained except for chunks of flesh that floated in the gushing cavity of blood that swelled from the remainder of the ladies disfigured face.

Promptly afterwards Darcus took Icarus from the sanity forsaken walls, and would spend the next 3 years aimlessly in search of more enlightenment from this mysterious bible. As they grew together, Icarus saw for himself the true actions that his older brother committed. Instilling suffering into the lives of innocent families at knifepoint for food or information, all for the selfish benefit of their own survival. Yet some instinctual part within Icarus knew that these actions were immoral, despite their isolated upbringing. Deeply, he was not convinced or swayed by the writings of the book, but simply followed his older brother as travelling alone would spell certain death with such little knowledge or experience of the outside world.

As they became more involved with the cult they had pursued, Icarus spent years watching his older brother destroy all life around him, filling the boy with an inner resent towards Darcus. To the extent of knowing that he cares next to nothing about his existence. Their brotherly bond gradually sank into oblivion as corruption and blind ruthless ambition consumed Darcus. Icarus knew he could never overcome him, so he waited – hoping someday that his brother would deservedly suffer and die.