A land blanketed in darkness and swollen with the shadows of death lingered in the air like a wraith. The presence of the foreign kingdom ignited a chill whenever anyone spoke about the Nether Kingdom.
It was corrupt in its ways, society there was heavy with oppressive and cruel lifestyles. The wealthy crushed the vulnerable in their fists like sand, the king was permitted to do what he pleased because not an ounce of goodness could be found dwelling in his heart.
It was where King Athros not only lived, but thrived. His eyes held dark circles around them, and even then, his orbs held a completely black shade. Devoid of emotion, lifeless, soulless. Empty. Dead. Nothingness.
Was there a soul living in there somewhere?
His skin was pale, creepily so. It was an unnatural pale which brought out the black color of his neat, short hair. His jaw was strong, his body was tone and his height was terrifyingly tall and sturdy.
Some would say he smelled of death.
He was also the bringer of death as well.
He was hauntingly beautiful, though. Gracefully placed upon his throne in a room that bore the whispers of the dead and cloaked in the blanket of death he sat. The sun shone through the darkly stained glass windows behind him, painting the room in an eery and dark yet alluring light.
Gothic-style arches hung above him, opening up the room with a lavished elegance and a sight that was pleasing to the eye. The ground was made of stone, cold stone that matched a body in death.
A man drenched in darkness, he no longer could hear the cries of his people. If only he would step down from his throne and fall to his knees and humble himself as king.
But the dark thorns blocked the path of redemption. He could only look ahead and travel deeper into the charred forest so that those very same thorns wouldn't wrap around his legs and strangle him. Because if he dared to stop, doom would grab him by the legs and drag him down to the darkest depths of hell.
What he didn't know was that hell was waiting for him at the end of the forest like a patient predator.
His people were slaves to the land he reigned over. To the land he had selfishly sacrificed half of his male population for. And though an ocean separated himself from all of the other kingdoms, it didn't stop the other nations from fearing his next move.
A dozen soldiers suddenly marched through the open doors leading into his throne room. A loud clang of armor echoed through the air with each organized, synchronized step the soldiers took. Not a beat out of place.
In their hands, they held long spears. Their faces were painted in a blank look and the armor in which they were clad in boasted of a shiny steel color. Devoid of emotion, they stood before their king.
Perhaps they were as heartless as the one who they served was. Or perhaps they suppressed all of their thoughts and emotions since every aspect of their lives were controlled. From their looks, their emotions, their words, their clothes, their food rations, their thoughts, and even the items that they were not permitted to hang in their own homes. One wrong look, one wrong word, one wrong action, one wrong appearance, and their lives as well as their family's lives could be snuffed out.
This is what true oppression looked like.
After all, it was easier to control a kingdom full of sheep than a kingdom full of wolves.
They all, at once, lifted their spears and slammed the end of them against the ground, eliciting a throaty, deep cry to announce their presence to their king.
He always was amused by the spectacles of power.
"You are permitted to speak to your king." He spoke, voice low and swift.
"My king," The young, pale-faced lad spoke, "We have the prisoners chained up outside." His tone was even and strong.
Weakness was not permitted in the kingdom of Nether.
"You placed them outside of the kingdom gates, correct? On Skull Hill?" The king questioned.
Skull Hill overlooked the kingdom and sat at the entrance of the Nether Kingdom. Every traveller dreaded passing by the hill because it always boasted of the king's prisoners - dead or dying in gruesome, torturous ways. Crucifixion was the king's personal favorite choice, but so was skinning alive and boiling.
"Yes, my king." The young man spoke again.
The king nodded in appreciation, rising to his feet. He towered over most people and became the monster that haunted everyone's dreams when they closed their eyes.
"Escort me. I believe we have an execution to attend, do we not?"
* * *
The four prisoners stood side by side. Heads hung low and as naked as the day they were born. Their ankles were chained together and their hair was matted and dirty. Their bare bodies bore the harsh treatment they had endured all of their lives - skinny and scarred. Ribs pushing through their tightly stretched skin that wrapped around their skeletal frames horrendously. Deep and raised scars adorned their bodies as well as fresh wounds and bruises they had received in recent beatings in their time in captivity.
Dirt was washed up their legs and arms, their hands were torn and bloodied from forced prison labor. All four of them were young, too young. Their families and most of the kingdom encircled them, forced to watch the death of their people.
The sky was gray, the wind nipped at their skin and swept their dark hair across their downcast eyes. Destined to die.
They were simply slaughter-stock.
One of the four, around the age of fourteen, was shaking profusely. He feared death tremendously and knew that his last breath would end in agony.
The king saw this and smirked.
He ran a hand through the boy's hair and ruffled it in an almost gentle way. The boy resisted the urge to flinch and cower away, tears brimming to his eyes in fear and stress.
Softly, the king placed a hand under the boy's chin and tilted his head up to look at him. Large, brown eyes framed with long, dark lashes stared back at the king. Full of fear and glassy. The depths of his soul housed the king's reflection, he could stare back at his own royal face in the boy's orbs.
"What is your crime?" King Athros asked, despite knowing the boy's crime.
"I-I took too much of the s-soldier's rations, m-my king." The boy whispered back, searching his ruler's eyes for even a glitter of mercy.
There was none.
"My soldiers need to be strong in order to fight well for my cause. What you did was treason in my eyes, which is punishable by death. You dishonored your kingdom because of your own desires."
"I-I'm sorry." The boy answered back, shaking his head, "I d-didn't know." Tears gushed from the corners of his eyes.
The king nodded his head. "Shhh, shhh, don't cry. Just learn from your mistakes, ignorance is a sin." The king whispered, wiping the tears from the boy's eyes in a caring and comforting manner.
The boy nodded and the king released his touch upon the boy, who immediately looked down at his bare feet once again.
The king went to each of the men, stopping to ask for their crimes and ridiculing them for their behavior. Everyone watched on in silence, the air was cloudy with solemn. The people were callous to brutality and bloodshed, however, because they knew death was an escape.
In a twisted way, the people knew that by their death, would come life and freedom for their persecuted souls.
"Soldiers, march them to their places." The king commanded.
The criminals were unlocked from their chains and thrown onto the ground roughly. Forced down onto their backs, their arms were each laid upon a single, long cross-beam with their palms faced up. Their wrists were tied tightly around the structure with rough, thick rope that cut into their skin.
Thick posts stuck out of the ground above them and the prisoners were covered in the shadow of the beam which fell across their faces. Eyes tilted towards the sky, focusing on anything but the agonizing pain that would pierce their hands at any moment.
The youngest of the bunch couldn't stop his lip from quivering as he focused on the sky painted in gray. All his life he had wondered what the color blue looked like and yet he had never been privileged enough to be graced by it.
Such a simple thing that he had longed for.
He suddenly panicked.
He closed both of his hands into tight fists. The guards kneeling beside him forced his hands back open and he cried out a pitiful, sorrowful cry as he tried to fight those who pinned him down and attempted to break the bonds which held him.
"Please, let me go...." He pitifully begged. The king sighed. It was always the younger ones who were so much more resistant. They hadn't learned their place, they had so much fight left in them despite the condition of their life.
But it was no use.
He felt the sharp tip of a thick, rusty nail touch the open skin of his palm.
Time seemed to freeze.
Then there was a whooshing sound. A clang. A cry.
And the nail was hammered straight through the flesh of his hand. Blood immediately boiled forth and he wailed out, his cry mingling with the prisoner's cries of pain around him. Another clang. Another cry. Then another. And another.
The process repeated until the flat head of the nail barely peeked out of the palms of their bloodied hands. Tears fell from their eyes, their chests rising and falling in agony as they took each breath.
Then they were hoisted up by ropes - crossbeams and all, and latched onto the poles, completing the cross-like figure. The raw wounds of their hands dripped blood down their outstretched, slightly raised arms, and their bodies tremored in anguish. It was hard to breathe in such a position, and the king watched as all four of them gasped for air for the next seven hours.
All but one slowly suffocated to death on the cross.
When the crowd had dispersed and most of the guards were sent back to their duties, the king waited. He sat on top of the hill, watching with fascination and satisfaction as the men met their brutal end.
The boy was the only one left alive, a puddle of his vomit soaked the ground, and his tear-streaked face held eyes that could hardly stay open. His chest heaved up and down heavily and he placed much of his weight on his exhausted legs to stay alive and breathe.
The king saw this.
"P-please....e-end me..." The boy gasped, begging for death.
"Oh, so now you want death. Greedy boy. Very well then." The king mocked. He loved toying with his prey, he loved dragging out the death of others with glee in his heart.
He was a twisted individual.
"Break his legs." The king commanded the guard standing nearby. His voice was frigid.
The guard unlatched a mallet from his belt at once and swung the end of the mallet into each of the boy's shins. A sickening crack - then two - was heard, followed by an anguished cry from the boy's throat.
The boy turned his eyes to the king as he gasped for air for the next few minutes. With his legs broken, he could no longer support his weight on them to breathe.
He was left to writhe and suffocate in agony during the last moments of his life.
King Athros watched as the life drained from the boy's eyes and his open mouth spilled his final breath. His eyes stayed wide open in death, a look that would haunt the guards for the rest of their miserable lives.
But as for the king, he thrived in the gory sight of death. He would get off to it, filling his mind with fantasies and rubbing his crotch at the sight.
Then he remembered his plan. His glorious plan.
Excitement lept in his heart. It was almost time.
But just as the sun rose and fell in a timely matter each day, so would the kingdom built on sand.
Only foolish beings would build their kingdom on top of the sand, only to witness it wash away and disintegrate with the coming rain.
And a storm was coming.
A storm was coming indeed.
A storm that would extinguish the kingdom built on sand.
Because in a place thought to be void of light was a light shining somewhere, flickering in the distance. And that light came in the form of golden rays that would touch the ground in the form of a fallen crown.