Empire of the Ill: Chapter 1
#1 of Empire Of The Ill Series
Imagine living in a world full of nothing but hopelessness, despair, and poverty; now give that image a spin with a father who would do anything for his son. Does it sound like the two would truly mix?
First, he trapped me in the ground, having me to stir around in the dirt collecting on who I truly am supposed to be. Even now, he courses his left hand through my ruffled hair, full of what used to be some animal's dinner one-thousand years ago. He whispers sweet nothings into my ears: "Everything is going to be okay" and "Submit to my heart, he doesn't want you anymore". But I knew better to not trust this demon; after all, he just wants my heart to play around with anyways. I knew right then and there, I awakened from my dirty grave just when I was desperate for air the first time. You know that feeling when you're completely underwater and you feel as though you need a breath? I had that same feeling, just underground, lying only about two feet from air. I quickly erected to the top, expecting to have the luxury of fresh air, but only to have my nose contaminated with some burning feeling, an deep burning in my lungs that made it feel heavier to breathe with every intake I forced in. Opening my eyes, my beautiful blue eyes, was still an impossibility; I would've at least thought that old man would've helped me to fix that before he decided to put me in the ground. When getting up my first time, I could sense nothing but the cold, harsh air blowing against my now thick layers of fur; I didn't feel like I was home at all. Then, it hit me right then and there. After shortly digging in my grave, I took notice that my blade was gone; my poor Seaya was deprived from his lover. I began to get up one more time, this time keeping myself up in order to walk wherever it may be from here.
"Y-you allowed Sea to be taken from you?! What the hell is wrong with you?! Don't you know how much trouble it'll be for us without that blade, without being able to feel the warm relaxant of his hilt against me?" My right hand began throwing a temper, thrashing itself about as if it wanted to completely detach itself from me; however, I handled the problem as considerably as possible, by biting my own wrist and restoring it to obedience.
"Calm yourself, I can sense him moving around, you know. What is more important is that we talk to dad....I haven't looked in a mirror, but I have a feeling that I am not who I supposed to be." I replied to his shameful whimpering discovering that my voice is more deeper than it was supposed to. I knew that I died, but yet I can't shake the feeling that something gave me, I mean "us", another chance. Well, our conversation continued for minutes forwards. It was mostly about the damn demon's thirst for some damn food. And I, as always, complained wondering what kind of demon fucking only eats food, not even attempting to devour anything spiritually symbolic. Last thing I heard him say was "Watch out for the pole," before I wholeheartedly crashed into a brass pole and gave myself a Mario bros "hill with the black pupil" sized wound. I think began to dream....but not my usual nothing-on-my-mind dream.
I dreamt about my dad and me, sitting on the pier, fishing, cutting a rug by cursing at the fish. I was about the age of 10 when I remembered that; with every second I started to realize it again, it started to feel less and less of a dream. I also remembered the ripe willow trees turning a dark green right in front of my eyes, and the fresh smell of the saltwater on his enclosed farm space. I was on my headphones with my eyes focused on the water with my makeshift fishing pole, made of bamboo for the pole and a string tightly wrapped around the edge of the top of it, and my dad started to pull my close with his right paw and then overtaking my body with his whole arm, that same bushy, lukewarm arm that implied promises of protection and security against the cold world he said he was going to create to make me a man. "Are you scared" is the question he would ask me as he started to grip me tightly. I, being of a young and naive age, didn't answer him but connected closer and closer to him feeling nothing but the somber aura he attempted to shroud me in. I...I just gave into his tone of concern, and I fooled myself into thinking that it was concern in the first place, yet I didn't allow myself to entertain his question with a response. He, after waiting 15 minutes for a response from me, leaned more heavily to his right side, caving his maw to my ear and aired out, "I love you too, son" in a heavy, rasping breath, as if it was his last. I would do nothing but just sit there, keeping my headphones, and my thoughts, to myself, ignoring his meaningless compliments and his unlawful sense of concern for me. Then, that's when I found myself waking up with reality in my face once again.
It was a furry brown coat that I first was exposed to, in the light, when I first woke from my weak sleep. He asked was I okay, but not with his mouth. Pushing myself upward, I saw myself on top of a bartop with tons of men looking at me as if I was some unusual object of life or death, or something. They all were silently consulting to each other, men of wolves and warthogs, of foxes and dogs, saying how I looked so much like Him; and when they would say Him, they would say it was complete elaboration, or emphasizes, as if he was like God from the Bible; not "him" but "Him". I attempted to get up and felt my body getting weaker and weaker by the second, ignoring the fact that everyone who was close to me began to distance themselves as if I was some poison that they couldn't trust nor touch as I charged into the decayed bathroom. "Okay," I began getting annoyed, looking into the mirror in the bathroom of the tavern and then shouting outside of the thin, plywood door, "Where in the world am I, and what the hell is going on?!" I forced myself out the bathroom, seeing all the men quivered into the counter on the west side of the tavern's rustic, greyish wallpaper. They began to calm themselves as what seemed to be the leader began to erect from the bar and removing his apron from his chestal area. The man, more clearly, was a great lion, about the height of 6 feet looking downwards to me and exposing his eyes of ashed wisdom upon to; it was like looking at a rare book at tempted you to read from its content. He first gave a great yawn, so great that you could see the Zs that wanted to flow from upon his mane ,if you focused hard enough.
"Young one, you reside in Mankayla Tavern, one of the few residing time rifts that He blessed with returning to his presence." THe old lion looked at me with great interest while I stood there in amusement of this great place. My father would tell me about this bar all the days pass; Mankayla, the only bar known in the world with the strongest men to ever feast in its hall. The place was so damn tough that during Prohibition in the human times, it continued to sell its moonshine and mead like running water, and would only sell the most horrid meals for those who were man enough to dare it. "Now, I know what you're thinking: Why is a bar from the great 1200s is doing in the existence of the now 2300s. Well, I'll tell you." He looked away from his men for a short period, pushing his eyes to mine, forcing sweat down my chest and forehead and pushing me to grab my chest and what I thought was impossible. And, as I predicted, I was right, the old man said it just as I thought it,"Your father has taken over the world."