Last chance

Marcus somberly stepped up to the gallows, his hands chaffing thanks to the rope holding them in position behind his back, and allowed the noose to be slipped over his head, feeling its weight as it fell heavily onto his shoulders. He could feel how loosely the wooden trapdoor under his bare feet was held in place, as if it were simply begging him to make a wrong step and force it open. It wanted him to drop. Not that he would get very far.

The executioner stepped toward him and pulled the bag off of his head. For a moment, the daylight blinded him. It had been nighttime when the bag had been tied there, blinding him. He had passed in and out of consciousness since then. Looking at the sun, he could tell it was about an hour passed noon. A thought came to him - a memory, of his mother telling him when he was young that he shouldn't stare at the sun, else he be blinded for the rest of his laugh.

He laughed at that. He could stare at the sun all he wanted now. He wasn't long for this world, and the pain it brought him was nothing compared to what he was about to experience.

The crowd wasn't very big. Nobody wanted to watch him die. Or, rather, no one knew him or cared enough to see him off. A meager collection of people, most of whom simply got off at watching the hangings. He wanted to spit at them, show them his distaste for their pitiful whims that only served to prolong the party. He'd rather it just be over.

"Pretty boy," the executioner called out to him. Marcus turned to look at the man. He remembered hearing stories of large, powerful men who became executioners, swung the axe to sever heads from shoulders in one swift blow. This man, though, was nothing like that. Small in stature, with barely any meat to his bones, clearly struggling just to lift the tiny hatchet used to cut the rope holding the trapdoor in place. He looked as though he had likely been a prisoner as well, for much longer, left to starve and wither away, and take people's lives mercilessly in order to save his own. Marcus wondered how much longer he would last. "You got any last words?"

Marcus looked out over the crowd again. He knew better than to expect the face he was looking for. She would hardly want to see this. "Martha!" he screamed, knowing she would never hear his voice again. "I'm sorry! And... I love you!"

The executioner chuckled, as well as some of the audience. But there was a rustling. One person, who had a robe pulled over their head to hide their face, pushed their way to the front of the crowd. The robe was ripped aside in the process, and suddenly Martha was standing at the edge of the platform, looking up into Marcus' eyes, the tears in her lashes sparkling in the sunlight. "Marcus!" she shouted back. "I love you too!"

"Isn't that sweet?" the executioner taunted. With what little strength he had, he lifted the hatchet into the air above Marcus' last lifeline. "Too bad it's too late."

The hatchet dropped with a thunk, sticking into the wood after slicing the rope effortlessly. The trapdoor fell, and Marcus dropped with a thunk, caught around the throat by his noose. He groaned in pain, but forced back the gasp that wanted to escape his lungs, maintaining eye contact with Martha through the pain. "Never too late," he hissed between his teeth.

The rope didn't have much give, and Marcus didn't have much time. Blood was struggling to rush to his head, and the feeling was quickly draining from his toes and fingers. Rather than thrash, though, he swung his body front to back, and after only a couple swings he was able to plant his feet on the platform bed, just barely holding himself up. The executioner lunged at him, but Marcus threw his legs up around the scrawny man's waist and pulled him back with him. The old rope wasn't built to hold that much weight, and as they swung back over the pit, it snapped, and they fell to the ground.

Martha was there in an instant. It was all happening quickly, and the guards were lagging, not expecting something like this on a nobody like Marcus. She pushed the executioner off Marcus roughly, grabbing the hatchet in the motion. Marcus had landed on his face, and which had forced the little air he had out of his chest, and was suffocating. Martha slashed at the rope cuffs on his hands, freeing them so that he could tear the noose away from his neck.

The guards started coming after them just as Marcus was getting to his feet. Without waiting for him, Martha grabbed him by the arm and started to run. For a moment, she was dragging him, but he caught his feet and started running with her. They weren't weighed down by armor like the guards were, and were thus capable of hitting a full sprint.

They left the dust of the execution behind them, nowhere to go, nothing to lose, but everything to gain.

The party

David slammed the door behind him, knowing that no one at the party would hear it over the booming music and scream-talking that so heavily characterized it, as well as continued to pierce through the walls and pound on his eardrums incessantly. He was tired, and he hated crowds, and he hated the smell of smoke and alcohol that was wafting through the halls, and he just wanted to be alone so he could go to sleep but that wasn't going to happen anytime soon and he knew it. He sat down on the bed, facing away from the door, and rubbed his face. He could feel his skin crawling like a thousand ants swarmed underneath it, each sound that slipped under the door was like an ant biting off a tiny ant mouthful of his muscles and moving them around inside him.

He cringed as he heard the door open and close, letting in a boom of sound for a moment that shot through him like a bullet. He didn't turn to see who it was. He didn't want to know. Probably some drunk asshole who thought they were in the bathroom, and would try to pee on his sink or something...

"David, right?" came a vaguely familiar voice from behind. He glanced back, surprised, to see his roommate's sister, Rachel. He had only met her a couple of times, and it had really only been in passing, seeing as he was always in a rush to get to his room and away from whatever his roomie was doing when she was there. "You ok? I saw you practically bolt out of there." She was dressed in tight jeans and a loose, green tank top, and her hair was tied up in a ponytail. She looked surprisingly sober.

David turned away again, his body almost involuntarily curling up. "Too fucking loud," he muttered under his breath.

Rachel moved closer to the bed, but not into David's vision. He could feel the bed shift as she leaned against it gently. "Did Frank not tell you he was going to have a party tonight?" she asked.

"He did," he muttered back.

"Did you tell him it was ok to do that?"

"I did."

Rachel very slowly moved closer and sat beside him on the bed. David's body leaned away from her on its own. "Why?" she asked him. "You clearly aren't ok with it. You know this is your place, too, right? You have all the right to tell him to piss off."

David didn't dare to look at her. "Don't want to have to argue," he responded.

Rachel sighed. "Frank can be a reasonable guy, you know. Well, when he hasn't been drinking, at least." David didn't respond. He just sat there, bundled up, trying to pretend like the party wasn't happening. Rachel sighed again and got off of the bed. He expected her to head back out, but she moved into his vision and knelt on the ground in front of him. David looked away instinctually. "You don't like it here right now, right?" she asked. David remained silent. "Well, then, let's get out of here. You and me. We'll go find somewhere quiet, you can take a nap until the party's over maybe."

David slowly turned his head to look at her, the confusion plain as day on his face. "Why?" he asked after a moment.

Rachel smiled gently. "Cause it's my birthday," she said, "and I don't like people being sad on my birthday."

Shadows

Samantha looked around nervously, her hands clenched tightly around one another and clammy from the cold sweat that she couldn't stop from rolling over her skin. A part of her was excited. She had been crushing hard on the mysterious boy that was Alex, always dressed in black with his hair swept back, his skin incredibly pale even though she always seemed to see him outside. She had tried flirting with him for well over a year, but he never seemed to respond to her advances until just recently. She couldn't explain the wave of nervous happiness, mixed cold and hot, that washed over her when he had turned to look her in the eyes the first time.

He had asked her to join him on an "excursion" late into the night, and without a second thought she had agreed to it. Any extra time she could spend with him - and especially time alone with him - was worth whatever the cost as far as she was concerned. But now that she was out, in the dark night with the cold air piling down on top of her, she was beginning to think that maybe this wasn't such a good idea. She admittedly had not actually talked to Alex very much, and most of what she knew about him were really more of rumors. She had thought that the mystery around him was hot. Now she was reassessing that assumption.

Alex seemed undisturbed by Samantha's discomfort. He led her down a series of back alleyways, unconcerned as Samantha was about the possibility of someone trying to jump them, and he wasn't wearing so much as a coat to combat the frigid air. He was just dressed in his usual black t-shirt and black jeans. He never slowed or paused until he came to a dead halt at a dead end fence under an overhang, painted pitch black by the shadows.

"You, uh... You didn't get lost, did you?" Samantha asked timidly.

Alex turned to look at her, one eyebrow raised as he examined her. "You've seemed pretty set on going on a date with me," he responded abruptly, completely ignoring her question. Samantha's face burned beet red with blush. She did want to go on a date with him, but the way he just said it like that... "Now's your chance." He held out his hand. "Are you gonna take it or not?"

Samantha's hand was in his before she had even fully processed what he was saying. His hand was so cold, but the way his fingers weaved between hers sent shivers down her spine. She was suddenly very aware of how damp and clammy her hands had become, and her face burned even brighter. She was making such a bad impression. There was no way he could ever want to date someone like her...

She hardly noticed that he was leading her towards the wall of the dead end until he pushed her hand against the cold bricks. She gasped and turned to say something when she gasped again, this time in an almost painful way. She looked down at her hand and saw it flattening, turning pitch black as the wall it was melting into. She could barely see its outline against the deep shadows in front of her. But while it looked like she was flattening, she felt as though her hand was being stretched out beyond the three dimensions of their world. She was sinking into the shadows, but she felt like she was being expanded past that which her mind could comprehend. She wanted to scream, but no sound would come from her throat. She turned to Alex, but he was already halfway into the shadows.

Throughout the experience, she could still feel Alex's hand on hers. It wasn't until she herself was halfway into the wall that she looked down and saw that he clothes were not going with her, simply pushing up against the wall as she sunk into it. Her heart raced and her eyes widened. Would she be naked with Alex?

The entire thing lasted only a matter of seconds, but it felt like agonizing years passing by. But as soon as her last finger slipped into the shadows, the pain vanished. It took her a moment to catch her breath, which she was surprised to find she could not only still do, but that she could feel her breaths passing through her entire system, rather than just in and out of her mouth. All of her sense were enhanced. She could see for miles through the pitch blackness. There was no color, but she could see the texture of everything like it was the reflection of the sun on water. She could feel the fibers that made her up, as well as Alex.

Heat shot through her entire body as she realized they were, in fact, naked. Despite the lack of sight, the way the texture of his skin looked... It was more intense than anything she could have imagined before. And if she could see him like that, that meant that he...

"W-where are we?" she asked, trying not to think about it.

Alex smiled. "This is my home," he answered. "The shadowworld."

Backtracking

If you know anything about video games, and particularly about games with stories, chances are you've probably heard of Final Fantasy 7 at one point or another. A massive game, both in terms of the game itself and the impact it had on the gaming market at the time. Praised at the time for its revolutionary graphics, musical score, gameplay, and especially its storytelling, it is still considered today to be on of the greatest games of all times by many people.

And yet, the further we get away from when that game was released, the more people seem to argue that it really wasn't all that good. In fact, just about the only thing that is still universally praised from everything that Final Fantasy 7 had to offer is the music. Its graphics have aged poorly to the point where it is difficult to look at the game in the modern market of HD, life like visuals. The gameplay feels flat and forced, and gives little to no incentive for using the entirety of the party that is given to you. And the story... Oh boy the story. Not only are most characters frequently considered to be one note, but the actual events that transpire are often more confusing than they are suspenseful, leading up to an ending that quite literally takes place outside of the world in which the rest of the game takes place for barely understandable reasons.

Other games like Chrono Trigger manage to hold onto the praise that they received when they first released, not necessarily changing the world with their innovations, but simply by doing it right with what they had. While Final Fantasy 7 was a departure from what had come before it, Chrono Trigger took what had come before and refined and sharpened it into a work of art.

That then raises the question. If we can look back on Final Fantasy 7 with such contempt when we once looked on it with amazement and wonder, what changed? Did anything? Why did we think it was so good in the first place, if nothing about it has changed?

The thing that especially confuses me is that the things we once praised the game for, and now critique it for, seem no different to me than what we praise other games and stories for today. The main character, Cloud, is heavily critiqued for being little more than a dark, whiny git with women crawling all over him for no explicit reason other than he is the protagonist. The villain, on the other hand, is evil because he's evil. He seemingly has nothing to gain from the actions that he takes, and the more you learn about his motivations, the less he and the rest of the story make sense. The story is dark for the sake of creating depth, and the motivation at every turn is twisted and sinister. Death abounds, and rather than fighting to prevent further deaths, it seems more that the characters are fighting to avenge previous ones.

You'd be hard pressed to find someone who would call that good storytelling. And that's not even half of it. How about the fact that, rather than getting stronger, from a storytelling perspective, Cloud becomes weaker the further in you get?

And I say all of these things as one of the people who still thoroughly enjoys this game, and recognizes it as being considered one of the greatest games of all time. I love this game for the things it did. Not because it has an amazing story, or fantastic characters, but because it just had some wild and crazy ideas and threw them together regardless of how strange they seemed and managed to make it all work. When was the last time you heard of a story where one of the major plot points was doing squats to get a wig to help you crossdress to invade a playboy's mansion?

It's weird. It's not good storytelling. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or insane.

But something did change, and that's why people started looking at it differently. We started looking at the game critically, rather than experiencing it for what it is. We heard that it was great so many times that we started to try and look at why it was great. And in doing so, by trying to analyze greatness rather than experience it, we saw that for all accounts and purposes, it was anything but.

That's what happens when you backtrack. That's why some things are better left in the past. At least if you don't want to challenge your opinion of them.

Immortality

Tarrant hooked on his belt sword for the first time in a long time, and slipped the ancient steel sword into its sheath. He had spent hours sharpening and restoring it. He could have easily gotten a new one, and it might have even cost him less, but he trusted the one that he had. It had carried him through many dark times. He prayed it would be able to carry him through one more.

Gisil sat across from him, watching him quietly. She had known him her entire life. He had been there when she was born. She trusted him implicitly - more than she trusted anyone. She was drawn to him in a way. She couldn't look away from when he spoke, and she was never more comfortable than she was in his arms. There was a warmth and a light to him that wasn't present anywhere else in the world. And she knew that he felt the same way about her.

Tarrant stood up and pulled a wool shirt on before holding out a hand to Gisil. She took it and let him pull her up onto her feet. "Are you ready?" he asked her. "This is it. No turning back."

Gisil looked up at him, looking into his eyes. There was an emptiness to them that she could only notice when they were alone. He was experienced with hiding his thoughts and emotions, she had learned, but he never did when it was just the two of them. She was able to see true happiness in those dark eyes, but she was also able to see unbelievable pain that she knew no one but Tarrant could ever experience. "I'm ready," she whispered.

They walked out of Tarrant's room, hand in hand, and down the castle hallway. They could have done this in secret. Gisil had tried to convince Tarrant of going through with that plan. But Tarrant was older, wiser. He knew what it was they were fighting better than anyone. He had said that if they didn't make a point of their departure, as painful as it may be, they wouldn't be able to buy enough time. Gisil had had no choice but to concede.

Violently and abruptly, Tarrant kicked the door to the throne room open, revealing the true strength he had been gifted with all those years ago, and sending the shattered remains of the door into the far wall. Gisil tried not to look at her father, sitting on the throne.

"Tarrant?" the king asked. He had known Tarrant his entire life as well. Everyone in the castle had. Tarrant had regaled them with tales of the world before the castle had ever even been built. Before the concept of a castle had even been made. "What's wrong? What's happening?"

"I'm sorry, old friend," Tarrant replied, his face flat, but his voice taut with bitter frustration. "I'm afraid it's time for me to draw the line. I have waited for the chosen one for over a millennium, and she has arrived too late. I can not save you. I can only save she and I from having to watch the darkness win."

The king stood up roughly, but paused as Tarrant's sword leapt into his hand. "You told me she was not the one of prophecy," he called out, sadness rich in his voice. "You lied to me?"

"I had no choice," Tarrant spat back. "It has been too long. The darkness is too powerful. No prophecy could ever stand against it now."

The king looked to his daughter, but Gisil's eyes were closed, and her body was glowing. For the first time, she was releasing her powers. Tarrant's sword began to glow, dully at first, but quickly became blindingly bright.

With a flick of his wrist, the sword ripped through the air, tearing a massive hole that sucked in the air around them like a black hole. The king gripped his throne tightly, trying to maintain his feet. "Why?" he cried out desperately. "Why are you forsaking us after all this time?"

"I am old," Tarrant called out. For the first time in over a thousand years, he was crying. "But this is the only way I can give you even a chance of dying without the darkness corrupting you. I promised to see the chosen into a new world. That's what I'm going to do."

Tarrant discarded the sword and lifted Gisil into his arms. She curled tightly into a ball, gripping Tarrant's shirt with all the strength she had. He and the king locked eyes. They were both crying.

"Goodbye, old friend," Tarrant called, his voice barely audible over the whirlwind of air being sucked into the hole. Before he could hear a response, Tarrant leaped through, and the hole sealed behind him.

The king dropped to his knees. In the back of his mind, he could sense a creeping darkness that wanted to take him fall away, as if it were no longer afraid of not eventually getting there.

"Goodbye," he whispered. "Old friend."

Weather

The blizzard was raging outside, making it nearly impossible to see anything through the already heavily frosted window. Madelyn sighed and drew a frowning face one the pane by steaming it up with her breath and wiping some of it away with her finger. She hated the cold. It kept her inside, and it made her feel alone and cramped. Other people loved the snow, and making snowballs and having fights with them, or building snowmen, or making snow angels, or all kinds of other snow things. But Madelyn couldn't stand any of it. She just wanted the sun to shine and melt it all away.

Her father sat next to her on the couch and handed her a mug of hot cocoa, with two marshmallows and an appropriate sprinkling of chocolate sprinkles. Madelyn took the mug in her mittened hands, feelings its warmth through the thick wool, and held it close to her face so that she might simulate the warmth of the sun on her face.

"You know, Madelyn, I think winter might be my favorite season."

Madelyn looked up at her father with a scowl on her face, nothing but contempt for his statement, despite the great deal of love she had for her father. "Winter is terrible," she spat back at him. "There's no point to it except to make you cold. All the plants die when it comes around, it's so terrible."

Her father smiled at her and brushed aside a stray strand of hair from her face. "Is that so?" he asked. Madelyn nodded angrily. "Is that why all of the animals build themselves little homes before the winter sets, and they fill their tummies, and they sleep through the whole debacle?"

Madelyn nodded again and patted her belly. "I wish I could do that," she said. "That sounds more fun than having to deal with the cold. The cold just makes you wish that you weren't there."

Her father chuckled. "And the summer is better because it's warm?" Madelyn nodded excitedly. "Is that why people around the world despise the heat that comes in the summer, because it dwindles their already small supply of water?"

Madelyn blinked, unsure of how to respond. She had never thought about anything like that. She had never understood why anyone would dislike the summer, but she loved having her three water bottles in the summer whenever she left the house. But if she didn't have that water...

"And all the cute animals come out," her father continued, "as well as all of the dangerous ones, and you can not go to some places anymore because of those animals."

Madelyn frowned. She wasn't sure what to think now. She looked at the frosty window and down at her hot cocoa, and realized that although she loved hot chocolate, she could only have it during the winter because it was too hot to have in the summer.

She looked up at her dad. "Is there any season that is just good or bad?" she asked.

Her father smiled knowingly. "An excellent question," he replied. "What do you think?"

Inferno

The roar of the fire coming from all around was deafening. The entire building was being consumed by the flames, but Daniel and his little sister were trapped. Maria was just a baby, who had no idea what was happening other than that it was utterly terrifying. Daniel had been sent by his parents to get her and get out, but as he was struggling to get her out of her baby carriage, the supports of the door had collapsed, and the only way in or out of the room had been sealed. He had no idea what had started the fire, or how it had spread so quickly and done so much damage. All he knew was that if he didn't find a way out quick, he and his sister were goners.

But Daniel wasn't all that old either. He had only recently started the third grade. Part of the reason his parents had sent him was because they knew that he was smaller than they were, and could get under an already collapsed wall in the hallway leading down to Maria's room. He hadn't had time to think or argue. Something in him told him that this wasn't something that should be argued, and he had leapt into action.

Staring at the now sealed door, he was beginning to despise that decision.

The smoke was finally starting to get to him, too, filling his lungs and eyes and making it hard to think straight. It took him far too long to realize that Maria had stopped crying. She had passed out, and he was struck with a fear that perhaps she had already died. He considered if he would have a better chance of escaping if he left her behind, but the flaming rubble that had filled the doorway weren't going to budge for him regardless. Besides, after a bit he realized that he could still feel her breathing, though it was incredibly faint.

Outside, he could hear a distant sound of sirens. He prayed that that meant the fire department had arrived. Surely his parents wouldn't allow them to just leave the two inside. Surely they would report that they were still trapped.

Unless, of course, they hadn't made it out either. If the door to Maria's room had fallen, who was to say that others hadn't done the same? Perhaps his parents had been trapped inside as well. Or worse yet, underneath.

Daniel wanted to cry as his sister had been crying, but it was too hot. Every pore in his body was fighting to keep him cool, but they had already failed. He had never been good about drinking as much as his parents told him, and he was feeling the consequences. He had peed his pants when he had seen the flames, and while that was now dry due to the intense heat, so was the rest of him. He was completely out of water.

He dropped to the ground and wound himself into a tight ball around Maria. His body wracked itself with tearless sobs, and it didn't take long for him to begin to lose consciousness.

The last thing he saw was a single piece of rubble from the doorway pop loose from what looked like a long pole being jabbed through from the other side.