Repetition

Henryk walked through the graveyard, the gravestones still hardly readable even with the mid day sun shining down and illuminating them. The headstones were of little import, however - rather, it was the swords sticking out of the ground the foot of each grave, as though it were protruding from the ground from the very spot where it pierced the chest of the grave's inhabitant.

What was disturbing about the graveyard, however, was he swords themselves, rather than where they were. Each sword was exactly the same. A simple blade, with a silver hilt, and a wolf head on the end, with one eye open and one eye closed. Hundreds of the blades, seemingly staring at Henryk as he traversed through the graveyard, mocking him. For the blades were one - the blade which Henryk's father had passed on to him, and his father had passed onto him, as far back as anyone in his family could recall. There was only one like it. Not the hundreds he was witnessing.

He couldn't explain how so many of the sword were present in one place, or why they were sticking out of graves. All he knew was that his father had been tasked with stopping a beast in the monolith at the end of the graveyard, but had failed. That was when he had passed his sword onto Henryk, and his mission along with it. Henryk had trained for his entire life for this moment - when he would enter the monolith and destroy the monster that had haunted his father's life. And when he was one, he would be able to go home to his own son and be the father the boy deserved.

The monolith was massive, standing tall into the sky, farther than Henryk's eye could see. There was a hole in the base, just large enough for Henryk to slip through, and the inside of the monolith was pitch black. He pulled a match from his pocket, lighting it on his leather spaulder to further light the torch he had brought in his off hand. He lifted it up, looking for the beast that had so long eluded his family.

It was on the inner wall of the monolith, some twenty feet up, that Henryk saw what he was searching for. Not a hair ridden creature, nor scaly vermin, as he might have suspected. But a man. An old man, whose hair and teeth had fallen away, whose eyes had clearly been torn from their sockets many years prior, who was chained to the wall as though he were the spawn of satan.

"Henryk!" the old man called out, stunning his pursuer. How did the man know his name, Henryk wondered. "It has been some time since your prior was here. Oh, but I knew you would return. You always do, Henryk, you always do."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Henryk replied. "I was sent here to kill the beast of this monolith."

"Oh, yes, I know, Henryk, my boy. Come here to kill me, just as those before you. But you won't, will you? Pity for the old man, perhaps. Or fear for what he has gained through his losses. How many times must we meet, Henryk? How long before you realize its futility?"

Henryk lifted the sword from its sheath on his back, but the moment he did he felt a stab of pain through his chest. He looked down to see his own blade, held in his own hand, plunged straight through him.

"I am running out of graves, Henryk. Where will I put you next?"