However there will be that moment, a rare occurance, when you are standing within Death's shadow and your courage will be frightened away by the creatures within the thick void of oblivion we all like to name Darkness. And in that moment, you will convince yourself that everything you think you hear and everything you think you see are all a part of your wild imagination. That it's just your mind playing games with you to try and frighten you.
But what if you are wrong?
What if there is a creature so afright that your mind cannot comprehend it? But no, this creature does not take on the appearance of any fearful creature you know of. It does not have large, glowing red eyes and fangs the size of a full-grown man's arm. It does not have claws that can pierce even the hardest of metals and blood dripping from its jaw from his past victims.
No, this creature is not a bedtime story.
This creature hides within the shadows of the moon and only strikes when it knows that you are vulnerable. It is not seen. It does not need sight to strike fear in even the most bravest of hearts. The most terrifying of fears is fear of the unknown, after all.
You will find that it does not let out a shrill scream when it first approaches. It will allow you to hear its every footstep and breath. Its every mumble and every giggle. Oh, yes, it giggles. Like a child on Christmas Day. Like a baby when its mother is playing with it.
But this is no child.
It giggles like one every so often. Its footsteps will surround you, and it will trap you until you cannot leave. However many times it will allow itself to be heard, it will never be seen.
You will be trapped for however long it needs in a state of bewilderment and panic. Because though it laughs like a child and is easily heard, it shall never be caught by any man. It shall never be seen by any walk of life.
After however long of them torturing you with the unknown and oblivion, you will eventually give in to all of the madness. You will scream and curl into a ball. You will pound your fists against the ground, or maybe you will chase after the unknown creature. You will be on an endless chase but with no reward. And you will eventually give in. You will eventually plead... plead for mercy. Plead for help.
But no help shall come.
A creature of the night cannot show mercy.
Though you believe it to be done, this endless abuse, it is far from over. Because though the unknown is the fear shared by all men of life, it is not the only one a man can withhold.
Once you are at your weakest point, once you cannot fight back, that's when the creature attacks. But not to end your life and drink the blood of your veins and feast upon your flesh. No, that would be much too easy.
Instead, this creature seeks to break you; to break you without Life's mercy. The soul is what it wants. And broken souls are the best kind.
The creature strikes, and one touch from its essence and you shall spiral into one of your worst fears. The thing that keeps you up at night will become reality, and you have no control over it. You can be within that nightmare for mere seconds, but it can last for weeks on end behind your eyes.
Your soul has finally broken. Shattered into a million pieces and dashed against the rocks of where the ocean crashes against. And once your soul has broken, your body decayed to a state of utter madness and your mind forever trapped in a nightmare that will never abandon you, then the creature strikes.
Not many know what quite happens when this creature attacks and sucks the soul right from your broken body. They might have long fingernails that they stab into your flesh and that's how they eat your very essence from your own skin.
Or they might just gaze into your eyes, reach in and steal your tattered soul from there. Eyes are the windows to the soul, after all.
Whatever they might do to kidnap your soul and devour it, they always leave their victims' bodies intact. However broken it may be. No one has ever reported a victim of this attack dead shortly after. But to many of these Emptied, death would be a mercy.
They wander without memory and without the ability to speak, forever trapped in a nightmare that shall never end. And what can we do for these people? Nothing. Their souls have been devoured; the souls broken beyond repair even if they found a way to retrieve them.
And so these Emptied are left to wander this earth until the end of their days, forever trapped in their shattered mind without any hope of help or mercy.
Death's crows show no mercy.
So whenever you hear that odd bump in the night, or that voice that you convince yourself to be nothing but the wind or your mind playing games, always remember the Children of the Night.
Are you afraid of the dark yet?
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