Antiquity Calais: Standing At Armageddon Prologue

Enormous black birds circled the turrets of the Castle of Armageddon, sitting atop Mount Welkin at sunset. Inside the castle, the mood was as subdued as the sky was outdoors. Lord Dallin Avalon, a brave but proud man of God, was on the verge of joining his maker, the Creator. Lady Corliss Avalon, his wife of more than three decades, sat alongside his bed, while his only son, Leviathan, sat behind his mother.How could this be? The youngest Avalon could scarcely believe that the man around whom his entire existence revolved could possibly be this close to death. His father was his rock, the foundation of stability. And yet there he lay, his eyes closed, with the slightest hint of pain on his face. If he was indeed to die, it was not to be a peaceful death.

His mother was grim faced, not the usual cheerful, optimistic woman Leviathan Avalon had come to know and love. She sensed that the end was near, and thought that she should not speak, and let her husband die with dignity.

After what seemed like an eternity had passed, the eldest Avalon opened his eyes, and whispered, "Leviathan?" His son drew closer to him, and the old man continued, "Leviathan, I need you to protect your mother, and continue the work I have started."

"Yes my father."

"I need you to be strong in your convictions and faith."

"Yes my father."

"I need you to vanquish my enemies. Only then may there be peace."

"Yes my father."

The elder Avalon closed his eyes again, and then, with great pain, he said, "My time on this Earth draws short. Do honor to my name. I have faith in you, my son."

"Thank you father. I will not fail you."

"I know you couldn't. I will see you next in the great beyond."

With that thought, Dallin Avalon's eyes opened wide, and he declared, "I see the light. It is time." Following those words, he breathed his last. Leviathan Avalon, a man of 30 years, roared with the pain. Corliss Avalon wept silently.

For three days, Leviathan Avalon was unable to sleep, as the memory of his father's passing coursed through his mind. Only once his father was laid to rest was the new Lord Avalon able to sleep. As he slumbered, Leviathan Avalon was tormented by visions that were neither sought nor welcomed. He saw visions of his father falling through space, as if trapped in a bottomless pit, doomed to fall for the rest of eternity. He saw visions of energy flowing through the Pearly Gates that led to Heaven, pushing his father further away. He saw visions of the prince of darkness awaiting the arrival of his latest soul. And then he saw visions of his mother, three days a widow, locked in an embrace with a man whom Leviathan Avalon knew as Lord Ulysses Juno, a former rival of his father.

The last vision brought him back to the conscious world, and he sat up in bed, breathing heavily, rage growing in the pit of his stomach.

"I need you to vanquish my enemies...." the words of his father rang out in his mind, as he bolted from his bed, and bolted down the hallway toward his mother's bed chamber, fully expecting to see her locked in a passionate embrace with Juno. Indeed, as he entered the chamber, so filled with rage, he really believed he could see her in his father's bed, the earth still unsettled over his father's grave.

Only once he had choked the life out of his mother's body did he realize that she was, in fact, alone in this bed. Filled with grief over what he had done, Avalon tore across the room and threw open the doors leading to the balcony and threw his body over the stone railing. In the span of three days, all three members of the once great Avalon family had perished.

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