Lord Shadow

PANDEMONIUM CENTER PALACE

The moonlight illuminated a lonely figure standing in this large room. It illuminated a lonely figure dressed in black

Light gleamed from the rings on his fingers. This person is none other than the Death Monarch

Azief was in his throne room.

There was a commotion in front of the gate a couple of hours ago. He saw it happen. Everything. And he saw her. And heard her. Every word.

And just like that….all of it came crashing down on him.

He sighed and he takes a deep breath.

If he could he would forbid her from leaving him ever again. If he could, he would make her stay beside him forever.

But he knows he can’t.

If there is one thing he can’t do with his might or spell it is that he couldn’t force someone to stay.

Even if the body stays here, if the heart is elsewhere, then forever that heart will remain elsewhere.

Probably that is the hardest thing to do. Azief always wanted to know the answer to that question?

How do you make love stay?

He saw that some powerful being could bring back the dead, but he never saw someone uses spell to make other people love them.

Maybe it is not because they can’t do it. But maybe it is because the Price of such magic will be sky high.

Or probably, because whoever cast such spell knows that whatever they received from the people they cursed is not true love.

There are many who would never understand why he loves Sofia. He still remembers the very first time he saw her after the fall.

All skinny arms, tired and fearful…..but yet, incredibly and amazingly there is still hope in her eyes.

Probably that is the reason why he saved her. Not because she was someone he knows but because he saw hope in those eyes.

And he needed that. He needed that at the time. To know that there is still hope in this world. Truth be told, he wanted to break down many times in the beginning.

He wanted to fall on his knees and give up.

All he saw at the time was death and the more he walked the more death he saw and the more he grew in despair.

It was a hellish scene to see and hellish scene to live through.

He saw corpses lying on the street, corpses that will rises up by dawn, he saw monsters and undead roaming the city he used to live, trampling anything that is beautiful and alive.

At that time he just lost his first companion. He did not show it but he is also shaken.

Thinking about it, it is because he needs to survive he suppressed his fears and memories of that time.

After all, he did forget that he kills his family at that time even though they have turned into Mutated Sapiens

And then he met her in that broken mall.

And he saw her eyes. There is fear, yes. There is also uncertainty. But there is also hope. It was like she is the last thing left in Pandora Box.

And when Pandora opens the box, there is only hope left in that box.

And Azief needed that.

He needed a lamp to guide his dark shrouded path at the time. Sofia never felt that he helped him enough.

But just being by his side at the time, it helped him tremendously. It help him remembers that there is still hope.

And then they travelled together. They fought for each other, they protected each other.

And when he knew her life story, he saw more than just a broken woman. He saw a woman that got the world gunning for her and still she got up.

Yes, she got beaten. Beaten badly and brutally. Bloodied and beaten and knockdown by life at every single turn

But each time, no matter what, she got up. Even when she was broken, she got up. Even when she is bloodied, she got up.

And she braves it all. She was stronger than him. And because she was broken she became even more beautiful.

Some people, when they break, they couldn’t be put together again. But….some heals even stronger. Sofia is the latter

‘People don’t understand’ he muttered to himself.

No one understands why he loves her.

It is truly fascinating. In his life before the Fall he would never have the courage to talk to her. There were so many words he saved for her that only lingers in his mind.

Because he is a coward.

When life punches him in the face and he got down…he stays down.

He always gives up…because in his life before the Fall, there was nothing…nothing for him to fight for.

It is sad really but he never loves anything, not the way Sofia loves thing before the Fall. And it is a sad thing to not know love and to feel like you are not loved.

He was alone. Terribly, horribly alone.

He had no love for his family; he had no friends to talk to. His life is always about, in a way, it was always about survival.

He needs to find money to eat. And when he eats after that he goes to sleep. In the morning, he wakes up to the alarm and goes to work.

And in between?

He waste his time…waiting for the day to die. It is funny thinking about it now. He used to wish the world would just blow up someday.

Or that his country got nuked by mistake.

He wanted to die in the most painless way possible.

Azief once read in a book somewhere that if a nuclear bomb falls into a place, one would only see a bright light before being evaporated to dust.

‘That doesn’t seem a bad way to die’ he once remarked

Life….was torture for him. There is nothing for him to fight for. Nothing he desires other than to just live for the day.

He is poor with no money. And in his country, if you are poor, you are nothing. He never harbors any intention to marry like any other normal person around him.

There is the fact that the dowry for marriage in Malaysia is sky high. But even if there is a woman that would not mind him being poor, he minded.

He wanted to treat the one he loves like a princess. He wanted to treat his unborn children like they were princes or princesses.

He wanted to give them the world.

But he couldn’t. If he couldn’t do that, if he couldn’t give the life that the woman she loved deserved, it is better for him to not start at all.

It is better not to have it all and make other people daughter suffers because of him.

Because he already knew how life like that will turn out.

Life is full of suffering.

That is not an opinion, it is a fact. But at least, if he married someone, married someone he loved, he wanted to lessen that suffering.

He wanted to share the burden at least. But, a poor young man like him…even if there is a young lady that loved him, he would never ever married her if he knew in his heart he could not give her the life she deserves.

He was born in a family where his father is a guard that doesn’t care much about his family, and an apathetic mother with a psycho younger brother.

It is a fortunate event that he did not turn to be some bad kid.

He was denied most things in life not because he is disabled or something but merely because he is poor.

There were a lot of thing he wanted to be, wanted to pursue but he never could.

People said money is not important.

Those people never lived his life.

Money is important.

You would understand how money is important when you have nothing to eat. When you have to beg your friend a few bucks to buy some food.

But he never asks from his parent. Azief even in his darkest moment could never let go of his pride.

Money couldn’t buy everything? That is because you are buying it at the wrong place.

When he looks at his friend with their wife and their life sometime he felt what is wrong with him that he couldn’t have the life like other people?

And then when he searched deep in his heart he got the answer.

He lacks courage. To love and to fail. He had failed in everything in his life. He never had a girlfriend not because he can’t.

There is always chance during his high school time. But he always thinks too much. And what he feared the most is rejection.

People who were never rejected before don’t know how painful it is to be rejected. Azief on the other hand knows exactly how rejection felt.

He felt it every day with his family.

And it is painful. At least it was painful in the beginning. But then after a while, you get used to it.

You get used to the fact that when you got home from work, instead of a smile from your mother all you get is silence and judging glare.

You get used to the fact that your own existence is ignored. It took him some time but he got used to it. But no one should ever get used to it.

No one.

Rejection hurts…especially if it’s someone you love. So, the unsaid words remain unsaid. And the feeling that is bottled up, keep being in the bottle.

When you have lived your whole life being rejected, you could never believe yourself that you would be accepted.

It was like you are some broken thing that could not be loved.

When the Fall happens, it was like he was reborn. Instinct takes over. When you see death staring at you in the face, you either succumb…or you fight back.

Azief did not do any of that.

Because at that moment, when he almost died, when he felt like his whole life flashed in his mind, he got a revelation.

He is sick and tired of always giving up. He is tired of always succumbing to his fate.

He has always been a pessimistic guy.

Why?

Because pessimists have everything to gain, whereas optimists have a fifty-fifty chance of being disappointed.

It is easy to be pessimistic. It is harder to become optimistic because there is always a chance of failing.

The Fall gives him more than just a new start. It gave him a new life. An equal start with everyone else in the world.

And so, this time Azief choose differently. Azief did not succumb…no, he could succumb no longer.

He did not fight. He goes beyond that. He betted it all. He betted his life on the line. He jumps into the jaw of Death and each time he comes back stronger and more powerful.

The strongest man in the world!

The apex existence in the world.

With one stomp of his feet the whole world trembles and with his palm he could cover the heavens, commanding winds and clouds.

But now, now that he reached where he is now, people even say that she does not deserve him.

What a load of bullshit.

Love is not about who deserves who. Even a beggar could love a princess and even a princess could love a beggar.

Love is free. You could buy anything in this world except love. You could buy pretend love, true, but true love?

True love is free. Any person is poor and desolate, if love passes them by.

And if it stays, even the poorest person with the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and color.

Love….has the power to make of a beggar a king. Love is free because it can dwell in no other atmosphere.

In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly, completely. And that is why Azief loves Sofia.

He loves her because what she brought in his life in his darkest moment. It brought him direction, beauty and meaning.

And even when she went away, he always had faith that she will return.

Because no matter what happens, whether she returns to him and accept him or not he knows one undeniable truth that he could never erase in his heart.

He is now…and will always be…in love with her.

***

Azief is getting a little personal as he remember how he was before the Fall. before the man becomes the legend.

To the world he was the world strongest person and to reconcile the image of a coward and the current him would be almost impossible. But he himself remembers who he is and in some way, he is and still have that part in him.

That timidness he has when dealing with the matters of the hearts. In this chapter one could understand why he could not really reject Katarina or why he is so timid with love.

Anyway next chapter would probably be a little mature for some people. So….ehem.

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And guys and gals( Thought I don’t think many girls read this kind of story)do check out my other s Age of Adventure and Song of Heroes. Song of Heroes is kind of stopped for a moment since I am editing Age of Adventure and writing Lord Shadow at the same time.

But do check it out.