Looking Beyond

Looking beyond the carcasses which were now burnt beyond recognition, I saw two men walking towards me. I had never seen their faces before, but a knowing welled up within me and I immediately knew who they were. Moses and Elijah had come into the fight, and things were about to go up a notch.

Benny jumped out of the large pit. He was covered in blood, but he had ended three heads. His headless body lay in the pit with his arms severed from his gigantic body. Elijah unlocked the heavens and balls of fire began to fall all over the battle field, consuming each and every short man they could find.

In the center of it all, I was swinging my swords like an expert. I was expressing such a sound mastery of the blades that I was beginning to think I wasn't in control of my body. If you saw me, you would think the short men coming for me were actors in an Indian film. Their heads flew like planes leaving an airport.

Elijah made something like a cage of flames, and he began to burn everything within it until there was nothing left. This way, we began to reduce the numbers of the short men devils. I was starting to think it was all coming to an end when I saw someone new walk through the portal of darkness.

He had on his face a mask that was laughing. He stepped out of the portal and stood there laughing for about three seconds. I was pissed. I ran towards him with my swords drawn out. He saw me coming for him and he began to run towards me.

I took a swing at his neck, but before the blade made contact, he turned into a bird and dodged the blade while coming for my neck. The moment he was a bite away from me, the bird he had become suddenly developed the jaws of a lion. I tried to move away, but before I could, blood stained my armor.

A spear coated in flames had made its way into the roof of the shape shifter's mouth and had pinned him to the ground. Six more spears coated in flames and made of silver from the tip to the handle pierced his back and his mouth poured out blood.

Adino stood in front of the cave of Adullam and was controlling the spears. He had recovered enough to give us some long range support. I was still catching my breath and calming down when the next challenger came out of the portal. It wasn't just one, there were four of them.

The four of them were horsemen. They rode upon dark horses and they were as swift as the wind. The moment they appeared out of the portal, they went in four different directions. Moses summoned up a flood to begin to chase after one.

Adino had his spears chasing one, one was coming for me, and the last one was being chased by a ball of fire. In a seeming stroke of genius, the one chased by water and the one chased by fire decided to cross paths. I was like damn, how did we not think of that?

Moses and Elijah didn't seem to notice that their victims were about to escape their attacks by allowing the fire and water to put each other out. They didn't stop chasing them with the two elements. As I clashed blades with one of the horsemen, I noticed the one thig chemistry could in no way explain.

The water that was coming after one and the fire that was coming after the other, intersected each other. In logical reality, one would have put out the other, but what happened was that the water and fire got mixed. The result was two balls of burning and boiling water chasing two horsemen as they left a trail of steam.

Fighting a horseman whole on foot seems to be rather disadvantageous. His blows were heavy and I was not able to get him within my reach, instead of standing in one place and fighting me fair and square, he decided to run around and come for me whenever he felt like it. It was annoying.

The speed of the horses was what made it difficult to catch him. In a stroke of annoyance, I leapt into the air and found out the wings in my armor were actually functional. A flying cockroach is always a terror, any day and anytime.

I didn't have any long range weapons to use to catch the roaming horseman. The two who thought it was a good idea to mix the water and the fire that chased them were currently drowning in masses of boiling water. No matter how fast they ran, the balls of water were keeping up with their pace.

After about six minutes of being boiled by water that refused to evaporate, the two horsemen gave up whatever ghost they had. After spewing out the dead bodies, the water left the fire and the fire consumed the corpses, until there was nothing left of them.

The horseman who was running from me could now see that the body of water that dealt with his comrade was now coming for him. He immediately got down from his horse. I stretched out my sword to disconnect his head from his neck, but the moment he stepped his feet on the ground, he was coated with earth. He became a giant golem.

How was I supposed to deal with a golem? He sent me a punch that sent me crashing into the ground. As I picked myself up from the floor, I noticed someone new had joined the battle. It was Noah. He was standing on top of a little raft. Elijah and Moses joined him, and I was wondering why they were on a raft. The land was perfectly dry.

Noah looked up into the sky and just kept staring at the clouds. The golem took giant steps towards the three men who stood upon the raft. Moses looked at him, and the ground below the golem gave way. The golem was at least 16 feet tall. The whole 16 feet of golem went into the ground.

A strange rain suddenly began to pour into the hole which the golem had fallen into. Rain usually falls as drops of water, but this time, the rain was like multiple taps opened at the same time. Within five minutes of the rain, the hole was filled.

To avoid drowning, the horseman jumped out of the golem he was in. The moment he was in the air, a fire engulfed him and didn't stop burning him until there was nothing left. I don't know how the fire did it, but he didn't come down to earth all the while he was burning. He stayed in the air until there was nothing left.

The spears of Adino had ended the one that was left, the four horsemen were now dead. The portal of darkness which stood upon the ground now spread out and lay upon the ground. An army of skeletons began to rise up out of the ground. They all had weapons and they began to run at us.

I was exhausted from the fight. David's men had retreated to the cave to rest. Adino's spears were still at work, but there was little that spears could do against an army of bones. Noah looked up into the heavens yet again and the tap style rain began to pour down once again.

The skeleton warriors couldn't come close to us as there was now a fast flowing river that flowed between us. Moses stretched forth his hand towards the innumerable army of skeletons, and all I saw was darkness cover them. I had no idea what was even happening at this point.

Like a cloak made for winter, the darkness was thick. I couldn't see into it. When I looked back at Moses, Elijah and Noah, I discovered that they had sat down and were enjoying a meal of bread and fish.

"uh…, what are we going to do about all the skeleton soldiers?" I asked.

"there aren't any more skeleton soldiers"

"but…"

I attempted to speak as I turned back to look at the skeleton army. What I saw was a field of scattered bones. There were no two bones still connected.

"it's a good thig they don't have Ezekiel on their side" said Noah.

Moses and Elijah began to laugh ever so fatherly. I looked round and saw David and his men on their knees as they worshipped the Lord of heaven for the victory.

I fell to my knees in worship as well. I searched for the black portal, but it was gone. As I said a word of thanks to the Most High, I found myself at the side of my bed. I was back. I checked the time, it was 6am. When the day broke, the neighbors were all gathered in the front of the house talking about something.

As it turned out, there were seven huge vulture corpses that showed up in front of the house. One was wet, another was burnt with fire. One was cut in pieces, another was stabbed, and the rest were all wounded in one place or the other and seemed to die from the wounds.

Red died early that morning, and so did his grandpa. Chief Olams, Ikulore's two gang members, their wives and all their children were found dead that same day. It was all over the news. That evening, as we were preparing dinner for the house, my little brother made a comment,

"its been a while since we saw any cockroaches in this house oh"

If only he knew.

The end.

8/10/23

Creator Iyans

Oluwadara Iyanuoluwa Opemnipo.