A/N: Ahahaha...laughs nervously It seems I have decided to trash Hidden as well. I’ve been wanting to write a story about this, however, for a very long time. I just needed time to collect my thoughts. I’m sorry if this seems really confusing, but aren’t most prologues? Er..eh heh heh..I hope so, anyway. NO, this is NOT going to be like Lord of the Rings, as some people might think. I guess it’s because of the bracelet...but that will be explained! ...well, not for a while. But I’ve spoken long enough! I hope you enjoy, even though this really sucks!

The Death Hunter

Prologue: World of Mourning

The mist was suffocating, creating not only a haze in his vision but in his mind as well. A shrouded figure beyond the veil which swirled and twisted stood unmoving, barely a shadow in the vagueness.

He sat on his knees, fingers and palms grasping at the rough stones beneath them in terror. His eyes were wide and he trembled, staring at the shadow.

A strangled noise tore from his mouth, a forbidden cry of fear that could not be controlled. He bowed his head quickly, blood dripping off his brow and landing on the ground beneath him. Or was it sweat? He couldn’t tell, his fear clouding his vision.

There was silence for a moment, or perhaps an eternity, the man who was nothing more than human crouching in wait of his inevitable fate.

Suddenly, the figure moved forward and he jumped, sweating harder – or was it blood? – and sat, tense as though a coiled spring.

“You are nothing,” the figure spoke. “Accept defeat and surrender; your power cannot save you.”

He flinched but did not move or speak in return, gripping the cold stones so hard he felt his skin tear. Was this the sting of pain?

The figure made a noise of frustration or exasperation or both, and disappeared with an unexpected suddenness. A sharp pain drove itself into the man’s head and he flew several feet from the force, a brief cry of pain echoing from his lips.

Was this how it felt to hurt?

“You are nothing,” it repeated, and the words seemed to echo mercilessly in his aching head again and again. “You are just a man now. Do you enjoy the pain? So many have felt it because of you. So many.” Its tone was clipped, with an undertone of rage. It was precise. Deadly.

There was a soft noise, the sound wind makes as it whispers through a maze of grass, and suddenly the mist and the haze was gone. His mind thought clearly and his vision sharpened, though his head reeled with a dull throb.

Painfully he sat up, wincing as he felt pebbles dig into the scratches on his hands. The stone around him was an unwelcoming gray, a gray that he had once taken pride in. A world that had once seemed so vivid was dull now, and he knew that he now looked through a human’s eyes.

How had they lived forever so blinded, their vision so clouded?

His lips trembled in an effort and he managed a sound, but not a word, and no action to follow. He sat propped up on his stinging hands, staring upwards at the figure.

It stared back at him and he was horrified, suddenly, by its appearance, though once he had looked like it, and he knew it was the human’s eyes.

Blood dark as death stained the ground around him, the only vivid thing in his world. No, not his world anymore. Someone else’s. Blood was the only thing which seemed alive.

“I...” he started, choking on his words from the effort to speak. “Never…surrender...” His sentence was broken as he began losing the ability to speak as one of them, and the language became lost.

A noise, the noise of a thousand worlds screaming together in rage, rolled in as thunder and he trembled before the thing in front of him.

The black-beaded bracelet which shone like a rat’s beady eyes broke from his arm, a bracelet he had forgotten about – what was it? Why was it there?

Great quakes shook the ground beneath him and he trembled with them. He knew what was to follow.

A ripping, a shredding of the soul, of whatever power he had left tore his fragmented world and suddenly it shattered, falling away from his vision brokenly to succumb to darkness.

Everything held a breath for a moment, just a moment which seemed like an eternity, before screams of agony from countless other souls followed, and they broke into shards of darkness.

The figure moved forward, the only thing dead or alive in the world, just barely scraping along the cloudy stone. It reached out and the bracelet shuddered and rose despite its struggles not to obey. Slowly, still struggling, the darkened bracelet moved towards the figure and slipped onto its eager wrist, never to leave again.

A sudden power overtook the creature, a sudden maddening but at the same time a sudden clarity. Everything in the broken world seemed brighter, appealing, and a feeling of something it had never had before overtook it. It tried to identify the abnormal feeling but could not place it, and forgot the matter.

Turning to the bloody pools on the ground, it spoke with a new authority, a new power. “So, then. We defeated you. You are nothing now, just a human, a mortal, a blinded one. The Death Lord is no more.”

Yet as it spoke those words, a strange feeling overcame it and with a start it realized the bracelet which had once been black as night was glowing. Suddenly, however, the strangeness of it left, and the figure was left without doubt.

“I will free your soul,” it said to the bracelet. “The Death Lord has trapped you, but I will free you, and you will be able to return to your homeland. I will...”

It trailed off, staring out into the once seemingly barren land, but now a glorious kingdom. “I will free you,” it finished softly, but with less conviction, less surety.

“I have won,” it said again, but suddenly it didn’t seem so great a victory.