The Ashen King

 I haven't posted anything up on this blog for awhile and that's mainly due to me attempting to write a few stories to bind together as a hard copy and send to a few people as gifts, and the gift wouldn't be that good if they've already read the stories, and i think only people i have and will never meet in America and Germany it seems read this or those close friends, so that's why nothing on here is really edited or complete.

Saame goes for this story, here is the first draft, the more completed version is a bit longer and more defined with a bit more mystery and darkness but that version will be available in time.

Two stories from my proposed binding are fully complete, editing and all, 'A mothers Love' and 'The Fall of Moit', but then there is others that just need editing like 'The Ashen King' and 'Blood lust', and then there is another one which isn't even finished being written yet that will be a part of it, and will also be a part of the S.O.B. universe titled 'Highly evolved'.

Then could possibly do an edit of 'Police Interview' then i think that would be enough for me. There is a good mix of dark categories and fantasy in those stories.

The Ashen King

Ashen

1. (of a person's face) Very pale with shock, fear or illness.

2. Literary of or resembling ashes

- Oxford Dictionary 2012.

"How much did you say it was again?"

"€1.50 please sir"

"Aah yes, I remember when it was only 50cents for the old folks like myself" Conversed the old man to the bus driver whilst he looked down into his palm at the collection of change he had pulled from his pocket. Looking at all the gold euro coins he still was unable to figure which one was which, they all looked the same and that's even if his eyesight was good (which it was far from by any means).

"That was on the old buses though, you remember the yellow ones? The ones there used to be? Not these green or blue ones we have now, no, no, no."

"Yes I remember sir" patiently replied the bus driver as he looked at the ticket a young man was holding up to him as he stepped onto the bus past the older gentleman and made his way down to one of the seats towards the rear of the vehicle.

The old man had given up on trying to choose which coin was needed and had gotten to the point where he had forgotten how much he was actually looking for, and held up his hand for the driver to see the palm of change he had.

"Could you help me?" Asked the old man as he fumed under his breath and cursed himself for his deterioration in not being able to complete a task which at one time would have been as simple as waking up in the morning and opening your eyes. Two things he felt he also wouldn't be able to do for much longer.

The bus driver took the required coins from the man and showed them to him briefly before putting them in his coin tray and printing off a ticket and handing it to the old man with a polite smile only those people who work in an industry that deals with large amounts of people on a daily basis, and are well trained in these types of situations could pull off.

"Thank you very much"

The old man made his way towards the very back of the bus, not because he had chosen to sit there exactly, but more because he couldn't decide where to sit and the action of doing so seemed out of his reach and was only achievable once the choices had ran out for him and made up his mind. The bus driver had  looked at him in the rear view mirror and hadn't begun to drive until he had sat down, although waiting was a slight pain and some of the people on the bus may not be as patient as the driver, it was far more preferable to wait a minute or so for the gentleman to sit himself down then to go than to begin to move before he was seated and end up having to call the ambulance as he had been thrown across the aisle onto the floor, hitting his head as he landed.

The man's name was Bernard, and he sat there with a slight feeling of excitement at the back of the bus by himself on his way to. . .Where was I going again?. . . It didn't matter, he would remember once he saw where it was out the window, he wasn't that far gone just yet.

The road took a steep dive towards the bay and the bus' suspension was put to work as it hit the trough of the dive and bounced until the road veered back up again to a sharp ascent as the road made its way out of the valley that housed the bay and the small town that resided in it.

Bernard looked out the window and was amazed to see that the bus had grown wings, airplane wings the same colour as the bus itself, and the road around them seemed to have extended to allow for the now speeding bus with its added wings to fit without hitting any of the buildings that ran on either side. Even the interior of the bus had changed and had become narrower, circular, well not circular but what could best be described as a long tubular shape that of an overly large hollow frankfurter or  one of those bullet trains you see on television. . . with wings.

To his amazement the plane Bernard was travelling in suddenly took off from the ground and the houses below him began to shrink and become nothing but a distant thought as the new scenery was a mixture of pearly white clouds and a crisp baby-blue sky that gently caressed the now white plane - with its dozen or so seats and small handful of passengers inside - through the brightness of the morning light as if he was being taken up towards the sun itself.

This didn't frighten Bernard one bit, and why should it, as the years went by and death had become an accepted part of living long ago, it was best just to enjoy the ride, and as a younger person would freak out at this point and run straight to the nearest asylum to commit themselves, Bernard couldn't remember if this was supposed to happen or not, and most the time he was trying to think when looking out at the clouds, he found it hard to even remember if he had gotten on a bus or a plane anyway.

The bus seemed to bend and began it's descent back towards the ground.

"Must be almost there"  He thought to himself as he shuffled to the side of the back seats and looked out the right hand side windows to the world below.

The plane began to slow down and neared closer to the land, and Bernard began to notice than where ever they were landing definitely wasn't the same place in which he had taken off from. He had gotten on the bus at the Ashby bus stop which was beside a field (by field I mean a sandy patch of unused land) that was filled with nothing but Cacti, wild Flax and small (yet very fast) lizards that darted from shade to shade around you as you waited. The place where he was now looking down upon, the place in which the plane seemed to be about to land upon was lush and green, the hills rolled for as far as the eye can see and the grasses seemed to him like a luxurious blanket of comfort and warmth as the sun's rays brushed down upon it and basked all the life with warmth.

It looked like a heavenly place, a place he could not ever remember visiting or even passing on his travels around the island. He still couldn't remember where he was going, but he was pretty sure that this place wasn't it, but he made a promise to himself that he would come and visit this place at some point when he could remember, maybe he'd just ask a taxi driver to take him directly there. . .or directly to the airport and then catch the plane.

The plane continued to descend as a normal plane would, but Bernard began to think that it wasn't pulling up as plane trips from his memory usually did at this point in the journey. Instead of descending flat and parallel to the ground, this plane seemed to be heading nose first straight for the rolling green hills below him. A small dash of confusion spread throughout his body as his mind seemed to relay different messages to what his eyes were seeing and for the first time in this trip he began to worry that something wasn't quite right.

Looking at the other passengers in the plane however, he saw that they were calm and seemed to not notice anything wrong in the situation like Bernard had felt, so his fears subsided and although his confusion remained he put it down to his senile mind playing tricks on him like it had done so many times before, and as before, if the people around him seemed fine and contempt with what was going on then he would be also.

But then there was the plane which continued to nose dive towards the hills, the ooh so lush heavenly hills below the clouds.

The plane continued to dive and as Bernard's attention was taken away from the side window and he began focusing purely on what was happening in the front of the plane - a view he was granted by sitting in the middle and looking down the aisle - he saw that the ground was only mere metres away from the nose before the two made contact suddenly and almost viciously. I say almost because Bernard saw the plane as though from a third person perspective. the nose of the plane hit the ground and the plane itself was undamaged even in the slightest, and began to spin end over end through the long green grass of this new land he now found himself, until the plane after a handful of spins snapped in half cleanly and disappeared in front of his eyes.

When Bernard returned to his body and was now viewing things through his own eyes rather than via a third person perspective, he saw that he was sitting down cross legged amongst the green grass. Looking around he saw that the grass spread out for miles and was pure green, no flowers, no brown parts, just luscious leaves of healthy green grass which -although not as long as originally thought in the plane- was about a foot long in length.

Bernard sat there taking in the scenery around him and was reminded of the children's stories he remembered reading to his grandchildren -did he read to his grandchildren? Did he have grandchildren?- all those years ago of how the children would run away from the monsters and find themselves lost in the meadows where they skipped and played in the sunshine that never ended until they reached a point where they wanted to go home, yet the meadow was endless and home was nowhere to be seen and they became trapped walking the endless miles through the long grasses, beautifully scented wild flowers, and the smiling array of colourful, friendly insects that greeted you a cheery "hello" whenever you past them by on your unending voyage. It seemed like heaven at first, but the children soon realised it was all a lie, a lie that could never be told and would never end.

Bernard continued to sit there for awhile longer as he tried to remember where he was supposed to be and became angry at himself again as the feeling of uselessness began to sweep over him and he became increasingly frustrated at his own inability to do simple tasks and even remember simple things like where he was going and why he had taken the bus in the first place. I mean plane not bus.

Dammit!

He sat up suddenly - well as suddenly as an elderly senile mad with arthritis could - and as he did the grass around him shrunk so that it was not longer than an inch in length, and the green had faded away so it was now a pale yellow colour which looked sick and unhealthy, and was even bare in some places  around the meadow. The comforting feeling had disappeared and replacing it was a feeling of worry and anxiousness. He was in a new world he had never been to before and now found out this world wasn't as friendly as he once thought, and like the children he used to read about in the stories, he had discovered it was all a lie.

He began to walk forward and as he did, the hills themselves seemed to flatten out until was walking along land which was nothing more than a rugged, desolate plane. Wait, not desolate, he could see someone, no two people, a few people. There were people appearing in a group in front of him and all of them seemed to know him and that feeling of comfort returned. He recognised a number of them almost immediately.

There was Daniel Peters, his friend from down the road when he lived over in Wales, who had died of Prostate Cancer about four years ago now. There was Nana Marge -not his actual nana- who used to give him and his friends cookies when they were a lot younger, god knows what happened to her. There was Mark Johnson, Lee Macabre and Justin Roberts, all he thought were dead long ago from one reason or another. Yet here they were, alive and well.

Bernard continued to walk forward and in amongst the group not saying a word to any of them, and none of them saying a word to him, yet all of them conversed in another, more distant form which Bernard could not understand yet enjoyed none the less. It was as though they were talking telepathically. They all seemed young, happy and full of life that Bernard didn't even question why they seemed to be rummaging through what seemed to resemble a crash site of some small plane amongst the dying grasses around them. It was as though they were making camp out of the wreckage in an eerie fashion that looked almost like they had all taken drugs. Their familiar faces had disappeared and all of them had smiles that spread from ear to ear and eyes whose pupils had completely taken over the eyes themselves leaving nothing but a thin line of white around the darkness.

He continued to move forward as the feeling that he was not moving himself, but travelling on one of those human conveyor belt things you find at airports began to seep into his mind. He looked down and indeed realised that he was not walking himself, he was floating about an inch about the ground below and although his legs wear moving, they were only taking tiny steps that would not move him forward as quickly and effectively as he was moving in reality. Looking back he saw that the friends he once knew had disappeared completely and what replaced them made him let out a gasp of fright as it appeared in his friends place amongst the smoking wreckage of what he could only assume was a plane, stood small fully black figures that almost seemed to be made of ash. They stared at him through eyes that were too large for their bodies and still contained that small white line around the overpowering black pupil in the centre. None of them moved, not even an inch, and as he looked at them it appeared that they had some sort of dark and unnatural smoke shimmering upwards off their bodies like the wreckage they stood amongst itself.

He turned around to face them with his whole body once he moved too far past them to see when just turning his head, and found that he was still moving in the same direction despite not facing that way or having no control to do so. He was on some sort of contraption that moved him along without the use of his feet, kids and their modern technology these days aye!

He turned again to face the way in which he was moving and suddenly found that on either side of him were a couple of what appeared to be cowboys from the great western films he loved so much when he was able to work the video player and the television for that matter. There were two on either side and although none of them looked at him, he felt as though he was in control of this small posse of outlaws and that he had given them the orders much in the same way he had talked to his old friends earlier through telepathy, before they had turned into little ash demons of course.

"They have gone this way" one of the cowboys to his left, the closest one, said. "They said they would set off a rocket if they got in any trouble, but until then we will look for them without the use of the rocket as once it's set off the others will know where they are also, and they may be closer"

Bernard wasn't sure who he was talking about, or who these 'others' were, but deep down inside he knew he had to get to these people, he knew he wanted to get to these people more than anything else in the world (this one or the last, or the last one before that as a matter of fact)

They walked on until they reached what appeared to be a gigantic cliff edge that reached as far as the heavens, not rising up in front of them, no way, this cliff was dropping down in front of them and it was they who were up in the heavens amongst the clouds looking down on a world which resembled his own and spread as far as his eyes could see below the sparse cloud line the settled a couple of metres below where the land he stood upon stopped.

"This is the end" one of the cowboys -this time to his left at the end- stated. "We can go no further in this world"

With the statement still freshly spoken, the cliff edge in front of them seemed to literally run away from them as trees and wooden huts that were painted with fresh cream colour rose upon its surface in the distance and created what appeared to be a small settlement amongst the maple trees around them, life had returned but he was in a different environment once again. The air felt cooler and thinner as though he was at a greater elevation than before, not in the clouds -which gave the sense that there was no such thing as temperature or elevation- nut on s mountainside somewhere.

He stood there contemplating where this could be with his own cowboy posse around him, when a red fire rocket streaked up into the sky in front of them. The people he was looking for were in trouble. It seemed to be in the far distance, maybe a mile away, but once Bernard started walking he remembered nothing of the journey through the trees except that he stood holding a wire fence apart whilst the rest of the group crouched through the hole until the fourth and last cowboy did the same on the other side and allowed Bernard to then pass through and join them.

They seemed to be deeper amongst the large Maple trees that now surrounded them, except for the one side of the settlement of two or three cream houses which was where the gigantic cliff top to the world below now reappeared, except this time there seemed to be metallic letters pinned onto the edge of it facing the other side so they were only able to see the tops of these letters and the rough side which he was sure would be different to the front the world saw. He guessed that they would see beautiful white letters that portrayed a meaningful message about happy living and hope, whereas from up here the letters were obscured and bare as though everyone who was here already knew the words were a lie, so there was no need to make them more glamorous or appealing as they were also already where the seller wanted them to be.

There was no need for a telephone company to give its existing customers deals if they are already giving the company money, Bernard thought metaphorically.

Looking around Bernard noticed that the four cowboys who were with him on his journey over here were frantically moving around what appeared to be a couple of black rubbish bags that you see every morning outside people's houses when it is the day for the bin men -that mysterious group we seldom see and deal personally with- to come and collect our discarded waste and dispose of it for us. Bernard moved closer to the bags which lay in between two of the small, cream coloured wood houses and roughly a hundred metres away from the edge of the cliff itself, he had to move around an old and neglected washing line as he did so (one of those folding square ones you can pick up from the supermarket and stick in the middle of your already tiny back yard next to the rubbish bins that waited impatiently until it was collection day)

The urge to open the bags grew inside him incredibly, and that feeling of knowing what was inside swam back inside of him so suddenly that he almost broke into a run. Yes! An actual run, he felt younger and move rejuvenated than he had ever felt in his entire life and his body moved with such grace and ease and as his eyesight returned to a crisp, perfect clarity he noticed that the rubbish bags were not rubbish bags at all, they were simply a couple of objects around six foot long and wrapped in what appeared to be black cling film.

For the first time in this entire journey, Bernard felt the feeling of panic and fear take over his body in a sudden wave that would have knocked him off his feet if he was still the old, senile version of himself. He knew what was inside the 'bags' now, he knew.

Pulling up beside the bag to the left he knelt down between one of the cowboys, the one who was standing on the far right when they walked and had said it was not possible to go any further in this world - Or the world before?

The solemn cowboy handed him a knife, the largest knife he had ever seen in his life and this one was the real deal. It had a wooden handle carved so that it had what appeared to be a crow on the handle, beautiful and extremely detailed even to this day after also looking that it had had a long and arduous life. The blade itself was sharpened to a fine point that could almost make it have an appearance of transparency.It was hypnotic and carried him away to another place.

'That crow, the crow on the maple leaf, I've seen that before'

His mind began to wander and although he knew what was inside the 'bags' were in dire need to be released, he allowed his mind to be taken and carried away by the crow on the knife until one of the cowboys (who now appeared to resemble a carpenter now more thaan a cowboy) spoke up from the other side of the bag with his back to the cliff.

'Now is not the time, we shall explain everything later, you need to hurry!'

Bernard was snapped back to the real world -well, this world at least- and began to cut open the bag that lay in front of him, he knew what was inside and he cut at an incredible pace with much ease due to the knifes sharpness, but he also knew that who was inside would long be dead after suffocating at the hands of the 'others' who had wrapped him in this cling film before they got here. He began to know all this because they knew all this.

An incision was made that grew with every second as another layer was pulled away. There seemed to be over a dozen layers wrapped around the body and as he cut away and began to see skin that did not move he was more than certain that he was already too late. The four members of his posse were kneeling or standing around the bags looking at him as he worked saying nothing at all, and then finally the upper part of the body was free and lay there looking much like a butterfly must look when it broke out of its cocoon and began its new life in this world.

"Hello brother"

"Hello Bernard, long time no see"

Bernard's eyes began to well up as he looked upon the face of his brother who he had not seen for over twenty years. The last time they had spoke was when Bernard had moved overseas and his brother had stayed with the family to finish education and they had planned to meet up at the end of the year to travel together around South-East Asia, but that didn't happen. It all ended so suddenly and Bernard had lost his brother, he had lost his best friend and he never really got over the loss even to this day. He returned home and stayed with the family before they broke apart also and he was left by himself unable to cope in society with the happy go lucky day walkers that filled up the world around him.

"I miss you brother"

"I miss you too, I always loved you, and you mustn't blame yourself for what happened, it was no one's fault" With this Bernard began to cry openly and hugged his brother tight while his lower half was still wrapped in the cling film.

"But I miss you so much, I miss you so much" Saying it as though his brother may become fully wrapped up in the cocoon once again at any moment.

He had completely forgotten about the second bag and after his tears ran dry he lifted his head to find that both the second bag and his brother were now gone and he was laying there beside two tombstones, a bunch of dying flowers in front of each. One of roses, one of Lilies. He knelt there and wished he could cry more but was unable to, he was finished and as his thoughts came back to him he also realised that the cowboys had also disappeared and the sky had become a mix of deathly patterns of black and blood red and standing all around him creating a circular wall were the ash people he had seen before creating their homes amongst the wreckage of what he only assumed was a plane - why he thought it was a plane he could no longer remember.

Their eyes black with the white line around them still hanging on although all would seem lost were staring at him, hundreds of them. They had no other features other than these eyes and they resembled shadows more than actual beings. What appeared to be black smoke whispered off of their upper body and what appeared to be a black cape waved in the nonexistent wind around them, other than that none of them moved.

He knelt there as though he was about to pray to the shadow people for some time without sound, movement or any form of communication until the colours in the sky began to whirl more rapidly and in a panicked chaos and as Bernard looked up he saw him.

"Hello Bernard, it has been hard work getting you here" said the man, the ash man, through gritted teeth that -other from his height- separated him from the rest of the ash people, somehow having teeth made him seem more human despite the many differences between these ashen creatures and humans.

"Leave me alone!" Cried Bernard on his knees with the palms of his hands pressed against his ears, he knew this was not going to help for the man was not talking to him from his mouth to his ears, but instead through telepathy much like the ashen people had communicated to him before when they were disguised as his old friends.

Oh how they trick me every time.

Bernard sat there rocking back and forth with his palms against his ears and his eyes shut, as he wished just for one more day with his mother and brother back with him by his side to guide him and tell him what to do. Just one more day with them, he would give it all away just for one more day.

The ashen people began to move around him and as the tears in his eyes obscured his vision making all the creatures blur into one kaleidoscope of a picture he noticed that there was colour in there where there was none before. He blinked his eyes and removed the palms of his hands from his ears and his vision returned, the ashen people however did not. He was back on the bus, a real bus that drove on wheels along the road, and although a few more people had entered it since he last saw, they seemed to have sat closer to the front so must not have heard him or noticed anything strange about what had just happened, and if they did then they didn't let on about it at all.

His head was throbbing and he needed to walk, the feeling of being young had been taken away from him and he now felt like old, senile Bernard again, but oh how good it felt being back in the real world.

"Next stop is Madrin" Announced the lady whose voice was recorded over the bus speaker system announcing Bernard's stop.

Bernard got up to leave and found that his head was aching more than ever and his muscles seemed sore as though they had done a lot of work just by sitting on the back of the bus. He pressed the button and as the bus stopped and the doors opened he felt the wave of heat hit him and thanked for the return of feeling in his body even though he normally hated the heat as it made him itch and sweat all day long.

Bernard began to think of how lucky he had been to being able to escape him once more, but he knew that his foe was becoming more persistent in his means of obtaining him and it would be over before too long, either Bernard would be gone, or he would be. Somewhere deep inside himself, Bernard knew it would not be the latter, he would not cease.

Bernard waited by the side of the road so that he could cross once the bus had moved out the way, and as he did so he turned to see the faces of the people who were sitting on the bus for the first time and to his horror saw that they all had the faces of the ashen people. He found himself struck with horror and unable to move when the bus driver turned to him, the bus driver now the ashen man with teeth, and said in a sinister voice.

"Have a nice day Bernard" before driving off and leaving Bernard too afraid to move, and too confused as to what to do if he could.

'The Ashen King is getting closer' he thought 'It's only a matter of time before they meet in the same realm, man and sorcerer, to end it all and to either forgive the betrayal or relinquish the guilt'