THE LOST KINGDOM
by Anonymous

All was still, before the crash. Birds seemed to hang in the air, frozen. Trees lost their leaves, but those leaves never touched the ground. Even the water refused to rush, as if waiting... waiting for something to happen. And then it did.

That was ten years ago. The King of the land didn't know it yet, but worse would soon follow. The tides would rise, and the food would grow scarce. Pestilence reigned. The fire of the sun tore through the Earth's skin, and seared her flesh. The stink of concrete and sulfur would grow to cover everything. All would be forced to live underground, wherever they could: bunkers, vaults, even sewers. The people never learned that the King had brought this all upon them. That he had created the crash, and others in faraway lands, in his quest for power. He had sought the Earth's black blood, and let her aura shield come to harm from within, so he could take it from her frozen veins. Into her valleys, the blood flowed... killing everything it touched, for it was purer than any living thing, and poisonous to them all. There, the King let it drain, crying to his subjects of the tragedy... all the while, he and his men perfected their art of plunging for blood.

Now everything above was aflame. Meanwhile, the last life on earth ate itself and went blind and pale below. They were forsaken by the sun for their crimes, which they knew not that they had committed, for the King had used them. They would never again feel the gentle touch of life on their skin... only darkness, and if they dared to venture, the infernal rage of the sky. Little did they know that their own Prince of Hell would be the one to find salvation, and deliver his people unto it. Through the fire he marched, past unimaginable tortures, and plague, to reach the gate to another world...