THE LAST KNIGHT

While I train, I keep watching these viral projections pop up on the crystal only to be removed moments later. What kind of affliction would ever cause that much carnage? Mainstream academia are all running with the same headlines. Magic tool experimentation has gone wrong affecting small groups of people across the states with some kind of flesh-eating curse.

“Nighty eight, ninety nine, one hundred, ok squats are next.” I make my way downstairs to grab water and hear my father arguing in the forge.

“David, you’ve locked yourself in the forge for days making these useless swords. Knights are a thing of the past and nearly extinct, magic tools have advanced our society over decades. When are you going to do something useful with your life?” says Jade.

“This is who I am, Jade, quitting being a smith would be like losing a piece of my heart. I’ve almost made a breakthrough. I may have found a way to combine sword aura with magic by turning the sword itself into a magic tool. If I can engrave—”

“Enough. I’ve had enough; you’ve been doing this for years. Wasting my time and resources while I hold together this once noble family from collapse ‘cough.’ You are pathetic and useless ‘cough…’

“Jade, you need to stop, you’ve always treated dad like trash despite the fact that he is the only reason you became head magus.”

Jade continued to cough despite my provocation which would normally send her into a fit of rage.

“Honey you’re burning up, are you ok?” said David.

“Cough, cough, somethings wrong. Oh no, the hex is evolving.”

Hex? I’ve heard that before, wait, she cannot mean the hex that’s been coming up all over the crystal projections, right? Although skeptical, I remember what the people in the projections looked like. Black bulging veins stretching across their entire body as if cursed magics ran through their blood stream.

“Dad, get away from her now.”

We watch in shock as she begins to cough up this black tar like fluid. A putrid smell begins to fill the air, as if we were standing beside a rotting corpse.

“Son, we need to do something, get the healing tools. I should be able to stabilize her condition.”

“No, you don’t understand, this is not a normal affliction. There is no way basic healing tools can help her we need to get away from her right now or we will end up just like her” I explained.

“What color are my pupils?” Jade asked shakingly while gasping for air, drowning in black fluid.

“Blood shot red,” says David.

“What have we done. Please… Run,” said Jade.

My father and I watch Jade’s body lie lifelessly in his arms.

“Get the healing tools right now, I don’t care what she affliction plagues her body. I have to try and save her” says David.

I make for the kitchen and reach for the cabinet where we keep the healing tools. Empty, I started pulling draws out looking sporadically but the healing tools weren’t there.

“Father, where are the tools” I shouted.

Silence.

“Father, answer me.”

My body felt heavy, fear gripped my legs as I stared through the hall at the door leading into the forge. Fear that my farther might be heartbroken after his wife died suddenly in his arms. Fear that the same affliction that plagued Jade would take my father, the last knight away from this world, away from me. “Fear is an emotion meant to be conquered. Breathe deep, and with one clean slash sever its hold onto your heart. Pathe your path forward.” Words my father spoke to me often rang through my head. As I walked forward, calling out to my father the silence that once filled the hall changed to a feint crunching sound. As If I walked on a bridge paved with brittle bones. My heart raced as the smell of decay magnified. A scent so strong it dulled my senses as I approached, nonetheless I continued to the door.

“What did you do.”

I watched what used to be Jade, crunching on my father’s neck. Covered in blood, blackened veins, red skin, my worst fears had come true.

“Father,” I cried out.

Bloodshot eyes dart toward me. As I look upon my father’s flayed and distorted body, fear took hold of my mind. Not again, first my mother, now my father, taken from me. I have no one left. Jade let out a deafening screech, I can feel the blood dripping down my ears. Again, there is silence as this creature lunges for my throat. I can hear my heart pounding in my chest like a barrage of cannon fire. Fear has clouded my mind, but in this silence, I watch my father’s murderer approach me. Deep within my heart there is nothing but seething hot rage. Seconds away from being mauled I leap towards my father’s anvil. With an unnatural speed Jade closes the distance. As she approaches, I grab my father’s sword and drive it through her chest. Blackened blood spews forth. The sword’s handle sears the skin on my had and the sword begins to glow. Jade claws at me like a feral animal attempting to take the sword out of its chest.

“Son, that glow…” David laughs coughing up black blood. “I have done it. The first rune sword, channel your aura like I taught you and speak the invocation. Live on my son, for you are The Last Knight.”

As I hear my father’s last words my mind and heart are clear.

“This world has taken everyone I have ever loved. The code is all I have left. I love you father.”

As I stare into the eyes of this murderous thing, aura flows through me into the sword, awaiting my command.

“Burn to cinders…Ignis.”

Wellio Jacques is a marine corps veteran and an action-fantasy connoisseur with a pen. Outside of writing he spends his time playing video games, reading Japanese manga and working out in the gym.