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Into the Darkness
“C’mon, you can hit harder than that!” Your friend laughs, a gleaming sword hanging from his calloused hand. Two of your own swords hang from your sweat-covered palms, your thumbs resting on your knees as you pant heavily on the ground. You pull yourself up, a slight grin sliding up the side of your face. Swiftly you bring up your swords so that they form an “x” in front of your eyes. You run at your friend with a yell, swinging your whole body around while you attack, as if it were made of rubber.
The clash of metal on metal is all you hear in the practice yard of your friend’s large manor. You are blinded from anything but this battle; you no longer feel the pain when your friend strikes you time and time again. It is getting late, the sun dipping low beneath the sky as it sets fire to the horizon. You don’t notice, though. You are determined to win this match; your friend has won too many times for you to ignore it anymore.
I have two swords and he only one, yet I am the one always losing, you think bitterly to yourself. Your body now moves of its own accord-blocking and striking, dodging and lunging, the connection between your body and mind long since severed. This battle seems to go on for hours when only minutes, minutes when only seconds. You get a sudden rush of energy as you see your friend step out of line just enough to give you an opening. Taking this miracle opportunity you lunge for your friend.
You stop just as your closest blade is kissing the underside of your friend’s neck. You can move only your eyes and nothing else. You know that some sort of force is holding you back, since the position you are frozen in cannot balance on its own. Your head is aligned with your left shoulder and your mouth is set in a grimace. Your eyes strain as they look downward and they widen slightly. Your feet are still a few feet off the ground from when you leapt at your friend. Your right arm is the one that prepares the finishing blow, while your left is swung behind your contorting back, the tip of your blade appearing beside your thigh.
Your eyes move back to look at your friend, frozen in surprise. His hands are closed around his sword, preparing for a blow that would never come; on his face a small smile that would never finish growing. You see, with a panicked feeling, that his eyes are wide and pleading as they look at something beyond you.

“I suppose you have the right to know.” He looks at you with his unreadable face, and you feel needles crawl up your back. “I was born of the darkness and into darkness. I live in a world separate from yours, but that portal I have made allows passage into it. I am what you might call a Soulseeker, meaning I have no soul of my own but am willing to search all over for a specific one. Without a soul, I cannot truly live. Though I can feel things such as anger and despair, my happiness always has to come at another’s expense. Every day I feel something missing deep inside of me. An ache I can never get rid of. An ache that continuously grows, clawing at my inside. My friend is the same.
“That is why we have been searching for someone. Someone with a soul pure and strong enough for the both of us. A soul that has everything we could have wanted and more.” The man takes the hand not holding onto you and brings it to your chest, closing his eyes. His hand glows for a moment, and then he removes it. “You have that soul,” he says quietly. An eerie silence falls over the both of you, and, with fear steadily filling your heart, you ask him once again who he is.
“Merxael.” He replies, meeting your gaze. The sheer terror brought on from these events suddenly brings you the urge to laugh.
“Merxael?!” you cry. “What kind of a name is that?” your free hand slaps to your mouth, cursing your devilish tongue. Merxael’s hand curls into a fist, and his grip on you
becomes tighter.
“It is the name I chose for myself. It is the name everyone calls me by.” Confusion and fear swirl about in your chest as you think about his words.
“You chose?” you ask. “What do you mean by that? Don’t you have parents who named you?”
“I told you I was born of the darkness. Soulseekers don’t have parents. When we are first created, we are darkness itself. At that time we have a choice to take the form of a person, or just to stay as part of the surrounding black. I chose to be a man in my early twenties with the name of Merxael. These clothes you see here on me were what I found myself wearing when I took this form. I cannot change these, but I was given the chance to add a scarf or other article of clothing if I wished. I chose not to.” He starts to pull you again, towards the dark portal. Finding new strength you wrench your arm from his grip.
“No!” you cry. Merxael tilts his head. “I’m not letting you take my soul just so you and some other…thing, can live. If you do, what will that leave me?” You shake your head, feeling tears slide down your cheek, though you don’t know why.
“Fine then.” Merxael shrugs his shoulders. “When you decide to change your mind, let me know. I’ll be waiting.” He walks over to your friend and, in a swift fluid motion, unfreezes him and throws his fist into your friend’s stomach. He grabs his arm and pulls him towards the darkness. You shout at him in protest, but he ignores you.
Grabbing your swords off the ground, you run at Merxael just as he is disappearing into the swirling blackness. You swing your sword at his back and hear him gasp as beads of black-red blood spray onto your hand, and then he is gone. You quickly follow him into the portal, into the darkness.

“Why are you here?” he asks you, his voice muffled from the scarf. You take a breath to try to calm your nerves.
“I’m looking for someone.” you reply simply. You don’t feel comfortable talking in this place; the thought of those rat-like things makes you uncomfortable. The man nods his head, thinking.
“I’m looking for someone as well. But I know this place better than you do, so if you’re looking here, you’re going to need someone who knows this place-someone who lives here, for example.” You nod to him and together you head off in a new direction, neither of you finding reason to talk any longer. You don’t want to look at his face, either. Somehow the scarf he wears makes you feel cold.
The walk seems to go on for an eternity. Occasionally the rats appear again but every time your partner destroys them you feel more and more pathetic. Soon you’ve had enough. You hold out your arm, stopping the man beside you. Throwing your head up into the dark, you shout.
“Merxael! Show yourself!” Your companion turns to stare at you with curious eyes. He is about to say something, but is then stopped.
“I see you’ve found him, Lark.” Merxael appears from seemingly nowhere, and stands before you. The man you now know as Lark walks over to join Merxael, folding his arms over his chest. A sharp pain fills inside you as you realize Lark is the friend Merxael had told you about. He too, is a Soulseeker.
“Where is my friend?” you demand. Merxael snickers, and then motions to Lark. The blonde man snaps his fingers and your unconscious friend appears, his arm in Lark’s grasp.
“I take it that means you’ll give up your soul for him?” Merxael looks at your friend with a grin. You grit your teeth and your hands become tight fists, but you nod.
“If I give you my soul, then you will return him to his home unharmed?” The faces of the Soulseekers become serious and they both nod. As the last tears you will ever shed fall from your face, you shut your eyes and stretch out your arms. “Then take it.”
Lark and Merxael join shoulder-to-shoulder and raise one arm each, so that their end fingers are touching. A black mist encases their outstretched hands an even darker shadow shoots from the mist, the ends forming into claws. It dives into your chest and you feel a searing pain fill deep inside of you. The scream that flies from your mouth echoes through your mind, fading along with your consciousness.
* * *
You wake up alone with an empty feeling deep inside of you. You get up, finding yourself wearing clothes like Merxael’s. Your two swords still rest in their sheaths, only black fire surrounds the blades.
You see a small square opening in the ground of this eternal darkness, and walk over to it. You see Lark and Merxael, tears of joy streaming down their faces while Lark’s tears soak the edge of his scarf. They are whole now. Not far from them your friend sits at the base of a tree, tears also falling down his face, though these tears are of sorrow. Lark seems to notice this and nudges Merxael and they walk over to your friend, who starts to shout at them and unsheathes his sword. Merxael and Lark also unsheathe their darkswords, bringing them to your friend’s throat. Merxael says something and your friend glowers, though his sword falls to the ground. The light fades and you are once again alone.
You have no soul now. How do you feel?

No, that's just how it turned out when I wrote it. When I write stories, I never actually decide what tense it will be- its all in how it appears in my head. This one just happened to appear in second person.

seriously? thanks!