Читать книгу Afterworlds: The 13th Horseman - Barry Hutchison - Страница 6

THE VAST, LONELY wastelands of oblivion stretch out in all directions, infinite in their scale and in their emptiness. Darkness lies heavy over this most desolate of plains, like a burial shroud on a long-forgotten corpse.

This place – if, indeed, it can be called a place – has been this way since before the dawn of time itself. Uninhabited. Undisturbed. It will soon change. Everything will soon change.

Since the first fragments of reality came to exist, there has been nothing but silence here. Yet the silence in the air now hangs ominous and foreboding, as if the very cosmos itself is holding its breath, and waiting.

But waiting for what?

Like the leathery wings of a startled bat, the darkness rustles. In time – though it is impossible to say how much – the sound swells in volume, until it crashes and thunders like a storm called down by the devil himself. In all the endless reaches of this place, there is nothing and no one to bear witness to this terrible sound. At least, not yet.

But soon a fragment of the darkness warps and buckles, contorting as if pulled by some violent, invisible hand. The shadows stretch like treacle, screeching and howling in protest as they are forcibly rearranged into a new form. A form that could almost pass for that of a man.

Almost.

Angry tendrils of inky black hiss and slither across his frame. A fabric woven from the dead of night crawls across bare, bleached bone: a living cape concealing his full horror from all the worlds.

Though freshly born, he is already aware of his purpose. He knows beyond question the reason for his creation. And he knows what he must do.

His empty eye sockets turn and fix on some unseen horizon. He has an epic journey ahead of him. He has unimaginable distances to cross.

It will not take him long.