Dark Souls: The Beginning

It all started with a falling corpse.

No one knows how and why....or it's more that no one remembers how and why. All anyone knows is that it all ends for you when a certain mark grows on the back of your left hand: a circle, slightly wavy in the interior. Look at it for long enough and it will seem like it's made of a dull burning flame. But that of course, would emit the least of your despair. For the mark is the Darksign, and those branded with the accursed mark is doomed to have their bodies and minds decay, first becoming undead, when the body wastes away, and then Hollow, when the mind goes too. A sad fate, to become a walking corpse, knowing nothing of who you once were, only a faceless, voiceless madness left within.

And these poor souls, whether by family, friends or anyone with fear or prejudice, would be chained to many other of the Hollowed, like cattle and led to the Northern mountains, locked up in an Asylum to await the end of the world, or die conveniently before that. It's a dark, dank and lonely place, with all the grandeur of a dungeon, and a very insane one. Faint screams of idiocy and pain echo through the halls. Another undead finally going Hollow, losing all personality and identity. The constant thumping in the walls is probably someone bashing their skull in, perhaps venting the need to inflict violence on something....or someone. But that's nothing compared to the soft growl emanating from the bowels of this cursed hellhole. There is only really one real guard needed for this Asylum...and it's roar, however faint, is enough to keep in check any one with enough of a mind for fear.

And here is where I languish, aging probably faster than I ever could have: It's not just the body, although I'm practically undead. But it's more what I have seen, heard and felt. To witness the horrors of what this place has done to others, and understand it....at times I have wanted nothing more than to lose my mind. But I don't. Most of it is gone, but I still retain memories of my previous life. I remember my name for a start: Miria. I also remember that I was once a low class Knight, judging by the armour I was still in when they threw me into the cell. Of what Order, I have forgotten, but I still remember how to use a weapon, if such a thing was found. And.....like either a mirror or a painting, I can remember how I once looked: Gleaming purple hair, a rare colour of royalty apparently, tied in a ponytail and coming down over my forehead.  A porcelain face, more handsome than pretty, but more amiable and open than patrician, except for the straight, sharp nose. And brown-black eyes, which seem to glow as if polished, like a transparent marble.

And so, it all started with a corpse. Falling, through the grills at the ceiling of my cell. Already sat down, hunched with my back against the wall, I jumped up, starled and scared at this most new event. Through decaying eyeholes I looked up. There was another knight, his colours red, but his face obscured by the visage of his helmet. He looked at me, saying nothing, as if his gaze alone would speak for him. Then he was gone. With buckling legs not used to standing up anymore, I stumbled over to the body. It was decomposed, nothing too special, but on his wrist, there was a kind of dull, iron bracelet. And adorning the bracelet, was a single key. Suddenly my legs turned to water, and a certain heat threatened to burst through my body, as I bent down to pick the key from the wrist. It was then that I remembered what the feeling I was experiencing was: Joy. For the first time since I had been locked up here, I actually felt positive about something. But like all things, it quickly eroded and left a wave of suspicion: Of all the undead and Hollows, why would someone take the trouble of infiltrating an Undead Asylum to free one undead Knight, albeit a perfectly sane one? What possible machination could I be a part of? And most importantly of all, what world would I be walking into, if what remained could be called a world anymore? What sights would I see, what horrors, what foes, what fantastical monsters?

With trembling gauntlets, I took the key into its slot at the door and turned. I heard an unlocking sound, and pushed the door open. Looking back on this beginning of sorts, I wonder: If I had any foresight of the countless deaths, endless agonies, the deadly sights of beauty, the horrors and the miracles that awaited me at the end of the pitch black corridor in front of me, only faintly lit by dying flames, would I have taken that fateful step forward? Or would I have sat back in my cell, preferring to at least end my days out in dull, boring but predictable peace?

Well, we all tend to think about doing the impossible.