Death Departed

The light metallic scraping and clinking of the tip of my sword against the ground was the only noise audible in the chamber as I strode toward the robed figure.

The chamber was oval shaped, about 75' long and maybe 60' wide, built of stone. In fact, it really resembled more of a dungeon. On either side of the chamber was a wide doorway large enough to fit 3 people through, blocked by a wrought iron gate on each. The roof had long ago caved in, leaving an open top for the light to come through and debris scattered across the floor, which was almost flat until it recessed about 20 feet in from the wall. It wasn't much only about 6 or 7 inches, but enough to be an inconvenience for what was about to happen. I don't remember how I got in this room in the first place, I didn't even care about how I was going to get out.

The figure stood about 6 and a half feet tall, and extremely thin. It was cloaked in a black hooded robe and just standing there. Enough to send a chill in the back of my neck. The hood cast a shadow over it's face, but I didn't need to see it to know who this was. Death was standing in front of me, skeletal hands sheathed by gloves and holding a double-edged sword. Nothing of Death's body was visible as his robe extended past his feet.

Death had been haunting me for the past month. Passing through rooms I was in, speaking to me from shadows and taking over my dreams, twisting them into nightmares. It had gone on long enough. It was now going to end. I cared not of the consequences of destroying this creature, who's purpose, though necessary, did not need an incarnation.

As I got nearer, an evil red glow began to radiate from under the hood, right about where the eyes would be. It was then, I heard the haunting sound of the creature's voice.

"You have sought your doom, mortal. Those who seek me, desire not the existence they lead." The glow flared on the word doom.

I couldn't tell if the echo was in my head or in the chamber. The sound alone was deafening, low and threatening with a growling undertone. I suddenly found myself wondering what I thought I was doing. After all, how do you vanquish an immortal skeleton with those kinds of powers?

"This has gone on far enough, Death." I called out, stopping about 10 feet away and readying my sword, "Are you going to leave me alone on your own accord, or do I have to put a stop to your tricks myself?"

I inwardly cursed myself for not planning out my threat in advance.

"Now is not your time mortal." Came the evil sounding reply.

"Then why do you appear before me?" I yelled, quite possibly as loud as I could. "Why haunt my dreams and twist them to nightmares?"

"Moderation." The one word reply.

'Fuck these riddles.' I thought.

Tightening my grip around the long handle of the sword, I began to charge full speed at this demonic sounding specter.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" I screamed, swinging my blade from over my head down upon the black robe in front of me.

Death waited until the last possible second to move and block my attack. With speed faster than lightning, the ghost's sword met mine with a sickening crack. I struck again, this time striking from the right, but again I was blocked. After two more attacks, I felt a blinding pain shoot through the right side of my face as a gloved, bony hand struck it; knocking me to the ground causing my weapon to fall from my hand.

When I looked up, Death was towering over me pointing it's sword in my face. "Foolish mortal, what do you hope to accomplish from this?" The question echoed through the room and my head.

"To get you to stop haunting me! Either you leave me alone or I vanquish you. I get my peace whatever the outcome."

Kicking my feet at the ankles of this demon, I managed to sweep his feet out from underneath him. As he struck the ground, his grip on his own blade failed, allowing it to come crashing to the stone floor with a resounding racket. Taking advantage of this, i scrambled to feet, hurriedly retrieved my sword and made a hasty attack on where Death had fallen. To my surprise, he wasn't there. Nor was his weapon.

'Fuck.' Was the only word that sprung to my mind as I took up a defensive stance and quickly scanned the chamber. Another chill ran down my spine as I realized the room was now empty. "SHOW YOURSELF!!!"

It felt like an eternity before a reply came. "You were given the chance to back out. Now you will suffer the consequence of your decision."

I turned just in time to deflect a strong offensive as Death attacked from behind. He swung again, not giving me much time to gather my thoughts. With a thick, metallic crack our blades met. It was an off center blow that sent a painful vibration through my hands; like when you hit a baseball on the handle of the bat. I couldn't figure out a pattern to his attacks, it seemed like he was swinging to either keep me off guard or to strike me in a crippling or lethal way. All I could do was deflect each blow.

At one point I was able to duck under a swinging attack coming from my right and popped up in time to catch the backside of his sword with mine, and add some momentum to his follow through throwing him off balance. The move didn't buy me much time, but it was enough to allow me to make two rising attacks, the first coming up from the left across his chest, and a shorter one from right to left. The first one caught a piece of his robe, leaving a clean slice at the bottom of his ribs. The second was stopped in mid-swing as he took one step back, braced his weight (he's a skeleton, how much could there be?) on his back leg and bent back to duck under the swing and catch it with his sword.

I saw his next attack coming, but couldn't do anything about it. I watched in what felt like slow motion as he dropped to his hip at the same time as he was rotating and bringing out his other leg, kicking me right behind the knee. All I could do was roll with it and brace myself for the landing. Making sure to keep an eye on my foe, I twisted my body to land on my side facing him. Unfortunately I landed on my right side, pinning my right arm underneath my body. The problem with this was I'm right handed, so my naturally I was holding my weapon in my right hand.

'NOT GOOD' I thought. The only relief was the fact that Death was on the ground too.

We both recovered at about the same time, but since I had the lighter blade, I was able to mount my offensive first.

Combining my wrestling experience with sword play, I swept out to the right as if to use a sweeping single leg take down, but instead holding the back of my blade about 3 inches from my shoulder and twisting as my shoulder lined up with his hip, which brought the blade slicing through Death's robe and into the hard bone of his pelvis with a sickening, yet satisfying scrape.

There was a deafening, bone-chilling (not a pun) screech as the blade exited from the bone cleanly. Stopping in my tracks I spun to the left and thrust my blade through the robe, not knowing what to expect, just to the left of the spinal column but managing to snap the bottom rib cleanly in the front and back as the tip tore through the front of the demon's robe. Again he shrieked. Who would of thought you could inflict pain on the dead.

'The head' I thought as I withdrew my blade from his body, ' that's got to be the only way to kill him'

Before I could act on my thought, he swung around in a blind attack. I barely was able to block it. Had I not, the attack would have cut into the top of my left shoulder.

As we squared off again, the red glow around his eyes depend and was more prominent. He was PISSED.

"THAT will not happen again!" The madder he got, the deeper his voice became.

I hated it when he spoke, the whole room seemed to rumble which shook up my ability to maintain a stance.

We both moved at the same time. He swung from my left shoulder sweeping down toward my right leg in a furious motion. If he had a face it would have been twisted with rage.

"Just agree to leave me alone and it won't have to happen again!" I shouted at him, raising my weapon in defense to block his repeated high attack.

Death was not going to stop until he had avenged my strike.

A hot, searing feeling shot through my left arm, followed closely by the cool feeling of my blood as it trickled down my arm. I looked down in time to see the silver flash of a blade sprinkled with a familiar crimson sweep away.

'Fuckin missed that one' I scolded myself, wincing from the pain internally.

Even though it hurt like hell, I still swung with hands in an attempt to regain the upper hand. It took some effort, but I managed to pin his arms to his body long enough to step in and deliver a well placed fist to right around where his temple should have been. For the second time, Death dropped his weapon. Wasting no time, I struck. I brought down my blade so that the center of it would have sliced straight through the base of his skull.

Just inches before the blow was to be struck, my blade was suddenly stopped.

'WHAT THE FUCK?!' My eyes were wide with panic. This demon was fucking toying with me. 'Am I in over my head here?'

As if two magnets were repelling off each other, my blade flew back over my head taking me with it. All I could see was the ground, then the sky then the ground before I landed painfully on my chest, still moving backwards. As I slid to a halt I heard a metallic clank and scrape and realized I had dropped my sword.

Frantically I searched for it, but found nothing. Looking up, all I saw was Death sailing through the air, blade ready to strike. As the tip bore down on my skull, I suddenly sat up.

Looking around the dark room, I realized I was in a cold sweat and sitting in bed. The only light in the room was the yellow glow of the street lamp outside my window. Glancing at the clock, it was only 1:30. 'Fuck'. Plopping back down on my pillow I began to wonder if it was going to be possible to get back to sleep. A nightmare like that just doesn't happen and subside.