The road is there, he does not have to look to see it as he guides the gleaming Harley up the steep incline of the hill then veers left at a spot so many others would simply have past by. Still lined with trees, though the once neat rows are overgrown and dangling wildly over the path, The decayed remains of fallen leaves and broken branches litter the path, he swerves wildly at times to avoid them. He'd sworn that final trip would be the last, that the flames which at his back had cast their destructive glow over the starless night would sever the ties which had bound him to his past...Forever. Yet in the passing months the voices had not stopped, only grown stronger and the flashes of memory he’d sought to drive away with each fresh kill had intensified with every passing night…now he was at the mercy of the goddess, his last chance to free the demons and become the monster he was truly meant to be. To close the door forever on the past he’d sought so had to leave behind, to wipe it out, by erasing all that had come with it, his family…only one remained.

The site which met him as he broke through the line of trees was how he had expected it to be, as no one would have come to disturb the remains. He allowed a thin smile to cross his face, then shook his head to clear his blue/black hair from his pale green eyes. A pile of cinder and rubble, broken timbers charred black from the tongues of flames, gray ash scattered across the scraggly clumps of grass which dotted the yard, carried now by the breeze as they had that night, when like black rain they had descended from the sky around him, the smell of smoke clinging even as he’d road away. He parked the bike, beside the cracked stone steps which had once led to the sagging porch, and for a moment sat in quiet awe for the desolate waste the house of horrors had become. By his hand, the place where so much blood had been shed, where so many tears had fallen, where lives had nearly come to an end, and survivors, dying a tiny bit each day, had wised for nothing more than the peaceful mercy of final death. Six lost souls, bound by the ties of blood…no seven…but he could not place that extra face. One by one he’d granted each their wish, but the count seemed wrong, in the static of is mind there was something lurking, hopelessly forgotten, memories which she had finally sparked, and only now were they being slowly drawn to the surface.

He got off the bike, and climbed upon the ruin, the first touch sending shockwaves through his brain, like electric current, he shivered, and as though struck by some unseen force, collapsed upon one knee. Flashes, a woman’s face, hair an ebony black, reading aloud from a black bound book, the girl, she sat and listened, not family, not blood, but bound by something more…he had to find it, but first the key, the dagger, he could not believe he had forgotten it in his search months before, the night he’d laid this place to ruin… his fathers knife, the one she had held so many years ago to draw his blood and that of his brothers and the creatures who had been their sacrifice…but which her, which face would match the blade, what piece was he missing? Angered now at the futility at yet another attempt at the one lost secret he plunged his hands into the mess, scraping his jacket on splintered planks and rusty nails, covering himself in the filth he had created and digging there, oblivious to the subtle changes in the world around him.

The once bright sun muted by angry clouds, rolling with a steady pace to darken the turquoise horizon. A crash of lighting, the roll of thunder but he dug on, reaching further tearing lose debris and slinging it to the sides, dropping down till he was halfway out of site, then forging on, never pausing to think he could dig for weeks and never discover the one thing he’d left behind. Another flash, not across the sky this time but across the fragile threads of his fragmented soul as he struck something with outstretched fingers that seemed vaguely familiar, a link of chain which by grasping it he managed to pull free. The broken cuff of one side remained, and for a moment he stared down at it as thought it were a living thing, writhing in his hands, but with his eyes he did not see the rust, the damaged links, or the mangled lock…with eyes and heart and soul he say it has it had once been, then slipped the remains into his pocket. Blinded now by the past he ripped away the present, with a force and rage beyond his own ability to comprehend. Debris shifted, and finally gave way, and eight feet down he crashed, the gleam of metal the first sight he was to see.

He’d found it, he knew it even as he fingers stretched towards its blacken sheath and closed around it, with a jolt he saw her in his thoughts, burned into the abyss of long repressed memories, but not the face he had expected. He saw the blood, and in his confusion he realized that he could smell it too, with the burning flesh and charring bones…he shook his head, as lightning snaked across the sky landing somewhere in the distance. He scrambled free of the remains, the life which had moments before stiffed here having quieted and grown dead, the ghosts were gone, now he carried them with him…all that was left to find was the book and the secrets its hid inside. As he stood atop the pile, he watched the sky, the darkness which loomed there, slowly spreading from the naked trees. Nothing grew their anymore, it was as though each death had sucked the life from the worm filled earth. Only the path remained with it’s tangles of veins and plants, as though trying to hide the wreckage he stood upon.

Though it was the last place he should be in he felt the call to go there, and broke into a run for the line of trees, another piece lost for so long and found again, would it remain…only one way left to tell. The branches and brambles tore his clothes and scratched his face as he raced along side the flooded gully, tripped and stumbled on the slick white rocks and crashed headlong into the water. He emerged, sputtering and choking, soaked to the bone with leaves clinging to his hair to claw his way back up the embankment on the other side. Once back on firmer ground he rolled onto his back, and their for a time just staring up at the black branches overhead, the gray clouds, the brilliant lightning, everything grown darker, closing in, the trees resembles splatter pain on a canvas of ash, and he smiled an honest smile as night closed in…then briefly broke his silence.

Ulfric: So the approaching night is as silent as my opponent has been in recent days. Vince, are you beginning to wonder what you may have gotten yourself into yet, all your thirsting for power, for fame, for glory and the belt to symbolize it has placed you in a spot where you appear most uncomfortable…the position of a champion. See victory, Vince is not truth, it’s not absolute and it most certainly is not what makes you fit to carry the belt you carry, all it is, all it was, was the one word used to describe who was left alive inside the ruins of the ring on that one night in question…the night you became a marked man.

Ulfric: Now Vince, so many other words come to mind, words which could have been used that night as well, but none of them matter as much now as the one which stands in place, the one which placed a target on your back, and planted the seed of doubt into your very soul, a seed which Vince, when we finally meet, will bring to bloom the flower of despair. See Vince, a very wise man once described the plane we stand on as the darkling plane, and since I’m sure you could not comprehend what that means let me explain it to you.

Ulfric: Society has divided existence into three planes one to justify our existence as if the futile attempts are needed, I suppose for some it simply makes them feel better about their being. The second plane describes where we may go, as if dust in the wind was not enough for most of us, it seems the idea of rotting in our coffins or being reduced to a mound of ash were not enough, but I am rambling now and your as it is I can’t be sure you’ll understand. The last plane is here and now, the monsters realm the one we stand on, the darkling plane where gods and devils fear to tread and only the unforgivin remain.

Ulfric: Within this plane, all around me there are those who are swept along a tide of struggle and flight, they hear the alarm calling them to battle, they suit up, prepare to jump right in, just another soldier in life’s ignorant armies clashing by night and never really understanding what they are fighting for. Like you Vince, chasing the prize for all the wrong reasons, following the paths of those before you because you fear to tread where there is nothing save the mind and ones own imagination. You’ll destroy each other, in time, your foolish follies providing amusement for monsters just like me, the darklings, the unforgiven, creatures born soulless, and already dead who watch you fail with pale, colorless eyes waiting for our time to strike. My time is drawing near, the place of battle has been set, May 27th, I will watch no longer, I will unleash the beast and take my rightful place in natures order.

Full dark, somehow he’d known he’d half to wait till now to find it, when his eyes could not blind him to the truth. Silence, for a just a moment, in weeks he’d spoken not a word, tonight he’s clued us in on things to come, the music of the forest swirled around him as he sat up. Metal scraping metal in the darkness, a razor sharp blade drawn from its silver sheath silences the night. The feather soft beat of birds wings vanishes from the cypress trees overhead, the faint rustling of leaves, the soft tread of cloven hooves and tearing claws ceases to be…even the thunder has dies down, the lightning vanished into the void from which it came…the smell of rain which threaten but never comes hangs heavily in the air…finally there is nothing save for the voices in his head.

He’s on his feet and moving through the forest, as quiet as a cat, his since of direction an instinct now, and he relies souly on that to guide him to the place he seeks to go. Recognition by touch and the memories the feel of the knurled old oak invoke, the steps he knew were their, once fresh and new wood now green with moss, cracked and brown with age. The visions flash, so many times he’d climbed here rushing now to fill his mind in a torrent of pain and long forgotten hurt. So much blood, so many wounds tended here, so many nights when this was the only place left to go. He scaled the tree, and over hand with the unsheathed blade of the knife clenched tightly in his mouth, drawing blood which slipped warm and thick down his throat.

At the top he pulled himself along the blanks of the long forgotten tree fort, with its warped boards and sagging places and something decidedly not human moving about in the corners. He did not care how close he came to falling, the simple fact it could no longer support his weight. He moved slowly with a purpose, drawing fingers and scraped up hands along every inch of this place, every hole and cranny, every place where as a child they’d hid their treasures in the hopes that no one else would find them. Near the back he smelled it, failure richer than it should have been, not faint, not old, but very new…lilies and lavender…and then it happened.

Floorboards creaked and strained, splintered and gave way, through space and for a moment he fell through time as well, so slow the fall, so sudden the stop he almost could not breath, dazed, but in his haze of fresh confusion a sudden realization…the book was gone…and the goddess Sara had it. We fade to black.