The Boy stood perfectly still in the pitch black as his eyes strained to make out any detail through the omnipresent darkness. Ever so slowly the Boy’s eyes adjusted enough that he could see two long lines of light outlining some sort of Bridge stretching out into the ocean of darkness before him.
The lights were in fact torches wagging an eternal war to illuminate just a small fraction of all encompassing gloom. The Boy cautiously crept towards the edge of the Bridge shuffling his feet as if he was a institutionalized mental patient from the 1970’s doing the Thorazine Shuffle.
The Boy stopped just short of walking onto the actual Bridge itself, and found the Torches flames were burning in black and white utterly devoid of any color. The dull white of the ghostly flickering flames were all there that contrasted with the infinite night.
The Boy stood there a minute trying to remember anything about life before finding himself abducted into this Endless Abyss. The more the Boy struggled trying to force himself to remember the farther the memories seemed to dance just out of his grasp.
He had no recollection of his Mother or any family member for that matter. He couldn’t remember where he grew up, any possible friends,where he went to school, currently lived or even simply what his name was. This was horribly disorienting. The Boy’s immature mind hadn’t yet to even remotely begin to understand what was happening to him.
Seeing no other option other than to cross the Bridge in front of him the Boy cautiously lowered his foot down as he took his first step upon the mysterious Bridge. As soon as his heal planted itself the Boy heard a low variety of horrible and troubling sounds rising invisible from the Bridge itself. The Boy heard the deep growls like a rabid badger with only its next meal in mind, but there were other accompanying the aggressive growls. There were moans that resembled those of animal suffering a lingering and painful death, and above those were savage Banshee likes howling wails.
The Boy froze in a paralyzing fear as time seemed to stand still. He knew he was no match the bevy of Beasts hiding in the shadows, yet he was so scared he had become immobile like a living human statue incapable of movement. The panic set in as the Boy’s young brain began to run through countless scenarios of carnage, violence, and death at the hands of the unseen Evils laying in wait beyond his field of vision in the ceaseless oppression of the lightless Abyss.
What the Boy saw next was the things of Nightmares so overwhelmingly ominous that they haunt the dreamer for the rest of their days until death. The deck of the Bridge started to ripple and roll as it transformed into a dark liquid sludge before the Boy’s eyes. The Boy clenched his eyes shut trying to maintain his own sanity until they burst open frantically out of fear desperately searching for viable dangerous threats.
To the Boy’s horror saw were several emaciated looking ghouls pulling themselves up out of the sludge straining to free themselves. They sinister Spirits had large empty eye sockets, and large deformed mouths that hung open displaying multiple rows of rotting teeth. The Spirits crept towards the Boy their spindly limbs outstretched like a bunch of bastardized beggars wondering the barren and empty streets as they starve. Their feeble bodies slowly wasting away ravaged by a overpowering and unsatisfied hunger.
Adrenaline flowed freely through the Boys veins like high test rocket fuel as his fight or flight principal reached a feverish pitch. The Boy felt a building power within himself that could alleviate the crippling terror that encased him to make a run for it. Where he ran was of no concern as long as it was away from the frightful Fiend’s as their gray skin stretched precariously across their skeletal frames as their twisted gnarled limbs contorting as they groped the air with their long, thin spectral fingers, and clawed at the foreboding sludge that now comprised the Bridge’s deck.
The Boy turned to run he looked back to see how far a ways behind him were the evil entities, and saw something standing behind the gaggle of Ghouls that terrified him to the point he involuntary lost control of his bladder. As the warm stream of urine ran down his legs the Boy couldn’t take his eyes off of what loomed behind the ghastly Ghouls like an executioner about to bring his Ax down upon the neck of the guilty. The creature standing behind the grizzly Ghouls was a Tall human like form with a height of at least 7 feet tall, yet it had no discernible features thus resembling more of a shadow than any mortal man.
The Shadow Man strode through the gang of Ghouls with no opposition or resistance as he made his way to the front of them. Once The Shadow Man reached a several feet in front of the gangly Ghouls he immediately blocked their path by blocking the way off the Bridge.
Next he knelt down on one knee and plunged his hands deep into his torso. After a minute The Shadow Man pulled his hands out from with in his chest, and in them he held a small variety of colorfully decorated bowls. In each bowl there was some money, a piece or two of fruit, a tiny bit of tobacco, and several sticks of lit incense. The Shadow Man then proceeded to set the bowls down upon the Bridge’s deck spreading them out over approximately a yard or so before returning to a standing position once again.
To the Boy’s amazement as each of the abominations reached the end of the Bridge they each gravitated towards one of the bowls that the Shadow Man had laid down. The monstrous specters picked up each one of the bowls and carried it in their hands with their freakish fingers wrapped around it like mutated tree roots. Once the ghastly Ghoul had a bowl in their possession they crawled, slithered or dragged themselves back onto the Bridge sinking back into the sickening Sludge. When the last of the gruesome Ghouls had descended from view succumbing to the Sludge the Bridge’s deck re-solidified instantly.
The Shadow Man walked purposefully over to the Boy. He then leaned down and whispered hoarsely
“Always be sure to put out an offering to feed The Hungry Ghosts”
Look For Valhalla Rising : The Boy and The Shadow Man COMING SOON.
Thanks for Reading,
Les Sober 
Presented By Les Sober