(Writer's note before we begin, this will be one part of a larger story upcoming, enjoy!)
[STAFF-MANDATED DISCRETION FOR GORE]
[YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED]
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(Pictured above), the Apotheosis of War, a painting dating back to the bygone era of the Russian Empire, depicting a distressing symbolical image of the Muscovite conquest of Central Asia.
As can be seen, the painting portrays a towering pile of human skulls, just outside the walls of a nearby city. While this particular piece was made all the way back during the 19th century, it would unknowingly serve as a grim foreshadowing to what the 21st century beholds.
In the ruins of Navoiy, Khazali sighed. The man had walked around the city for hours and miles, trying desperately to find any trace of his friends and family.
He didn't get to see them for the last time, just before their collapse the Soviets deployed him and some of his voluntary comrades on a mission in Afghanistan, fighting NATO-backed mujahid groups alongside some.. peculiar 'bio-weapons'.
These were creatures of a time long forgotten, 'shaytan in feathery cloaks' as both Afghan and Soviet Central Asian soldiers called them. Khazali saw first-hand the amount of death that these beasts were capable of, and with nothing left of the Soviet Union that could keep them in check, he dreaded for the worst.
He looks around, finding nothing but the same buildings he saw earlier, all empty, and covered in snow. The wind howled as some of the doors from the houses creaked slightly open. The moonlight glared above the dark snowing skies, winter usually isn't that long in Uzbekistan, but Khazali felt as though it had been going on for nearly a year now.
"Ota, Ona, where are you? Ali doesn't want to be here, Ali wants to be with you." He hears himself pray, with tears running downwards from his eyes. He looks down to check on his Automat Kalashnikov rifle, finding that it's still in good condition. He keeps it by his side at all times, as being in an empty city, there could only be two scenarios that explain the sudden desolation.
The possibility that something had caused the people to leave
The possibility that something had murdered the people entirely
Both were terrifying to think, but at least the first had the possible explanation of lack of food forcing them to move. With the second, it implies that a greater force has taken over, something far beyond the control of a simple infantryman.
Khazali continues on his search, traversing through the barren uninhabited place with nothing but moonlight and a map guiding him. He assumes that his parents had went to seek shelter in the house of his friend, Oleg, remembering that it's only a dozen minutes away from his own house.
"Not bad," he thinks, "Just have to get through.. half an hour of nothing."
He leaves the empty village through a narrow shortcut on one corner, which he would have used in the past to quickly get to his house after school ends. Thinking about old memories, he shrugs them off, looking around again, seemingly paranoid at nothing.
Finally, he reaches a recognizable place, the house of one of his other friends, who had died in combat during the mission in Afghanistan. He stops to take a break at the front porch, drinking a few sips of water from his bottle. He stops, taking a moment to hold the front door in memory of him, "Rest in peace Sayed, you were a great person," he mourns. Khazali looks upwards to the photos taken of him and Sayed, both looking gleefully innocent while in a military camp nearby.
Khazali faces down, in honor of his fallen friend, in honor of one of the people who made him laugh and gave him great memories to look back upon.
He gets back up standing, equipping his rifle and getting his backpack in a more comfortable position on his shoulders. He puts the bottle of water inside, when he hears a shout. "Tamirov!"
Khazali cocks his head towards the direction of the voice, his eyes wide open in confusion.
"Oleg, is that you?" He shouts back for confirmation.
"Yes! We've been waiting for you back at the fort!" The voice replies. "I'm at the other side!"
Khazali's maw widens, as the man begins rushing over to the direction of the sound. His footsteps echo throughout the empty town as he gets through an alleyway into the road on the other side, where he could see Oleg waving his hands, waiting for him.
Impatient and excited to see his friend after hours and hours of trekking and seeing nothing but once-bustling locations, he runs towards Oleg. Khazali opens his arms, inadvertently dropping his rifle as he dashes to hug his old friend.
He falls down into the partially snow-covered asphalt road below with a loud thud, seemingly phasing through Oleg. Khazali becomes confused, and rushedly gets up and looks back, only to see... nothing.
"Nothing?" he thinks. "I swear, Oleg was right here, shouting for me to come right over!" his mind coped.
The man collects himself, and runs to get back his rifle, cleaning it up and making sure it's still in proper condition. Then, he stops, as a cackling voice seemingly mocks him from afar, beyond sight.
"Is my mind playing around right now? Or is there someone actually messing with me?!" He thinks to himself. He points the rifle's barrel towards the direction of the laughing, finding it to just be yet another abandoned store. He tries to think of a possible explanation for this, when he remembers those things that the Soviets deployed during his mission in Afghanistan.
He recalls the creatures making eery voices, enough to even cause the Afghan opposition to retreat out of fear of an infernal intervention. He steps back, afraid of the thought.
Then, he hears another voice. "Tamirov! Come over here, we're waiting for you!"
"Stop fooling around, would you?!" Khazali barked back.
The voice responds, "No, this is me, Oleg!"
Frustrated, Khazali rushes towards the voice, his rifle loaded and ready to lay a barrage of lead.
Yet again, he finds nothing. Nothing but a hallucination of what he desperately wants to hear. He collapses on the ground, shivering.
The man starts to cry out loud, his hands shaking and himself barely able to comprehend what's even going on anymore. "Am I really this far in?" He thought again to himself. He falls into a fetal position, staggering and sobbing.
Another cackling voice is heard from nearby, Khazali tries to collect himself however tears are falling down like raindrops still, his hands are barely able to grab his rifle.
The cackling grows louder, eventually, Khazali's flight-or-flight response takes over, and he assumes full control of his body again.
"Come and face me you bastard!" He roars in anger, "Whatever you are, you can't keep doing this to me!"
The cackling continues, but it grows more distant. Out of rage, Khazali chases after the voice. The snow on the ground seemingly grows thicker and thicker as he eventually finds himself in the open fields. He looks around, and indeed, he has walked past the boundaries of the road. He turns his head to look at the land in front of him, and he drops his rifle out of horror.
Towering piles of skulls, seemingly collected from the civilians that had been thought to have left the city, laid bare across the snowy fields in front of Khazali. The piles of skulls each formed a pyramid-like shape, with stacks of them getting wider as they reach close to the ground. He stumbles back from fear, and trips on something, causing him to fall. Checking back, he discovers that it is a rotting piece, of his father's head. Decapitated, just like that.
Khazali frightenedly screams, his voice jittery and his face purely horrified. He crawls backwards to escape this place, only to bump into another piece of this collection, his own mother's head, rotting, with pieces of bloody flesh hanging off from it.
"Ota.. Ona.. what have they done to you?!" He shrieks in absolute dread, crying loudly.
The man struggles to stand up, when he remembers one thing, his rifle. "Where is it?!" He thinks. He runs across the snowy skull-decorated field, attempting to find his Automat Kalashnikov.
Khazali accidentally trips on another pile of skulls, planting his face within the deathly stack. He tries to get back up, when he then notices something while looking up.
The feathered shaytan, the devil of an age godforsaken, the giant of Bissekty. The large dinosaur glared at Khazali menacingly, its eagle-like eyes maintaining unbroken eye contact. The man covers his head, and immediately cocks his head back into the pile of skulls, when he feels a sharp pain in his hands sinking into the back of his skull. His body is lifted up, as he could now see the pile of skulls, but also the feet of the beast. They sprouted large sickle-shaped claws on the hyperextended second toes, and similarly sharp claws on the rest.
The pain on his head increases in severity, his hands frantically scramble across, feeling a thick liquid dripping from most of the surfaces. This was no doubt blood, but then Khazali's hands began to feel something else. Something thicker, mushier, almost akin to jelly.
It was then that he would realize the horrifying truth—he was touching parts of his own brain. Khazali screamed, but no longer out of agony, he was screaming from pure dread.
The beast intensified the grip of its bite, as a crack could be processed from what is left of its victim's brain. Khazali's entire body went completely numb. He could no longer feel anything at all, he could only process his external surroundings. Khazali looks as another sickle-clawed feet steps on the red snow.
The creature places his now limp body on the snowy field, its sickle-claw now attached to his spine. His head is dropped to the ground, bloodied and torn with chunks of the brain scattered about. Just before his gruesome death, Khazali hears one final thing.
"Tamirov! It's me, Oleg!"
-. . .-- / .-. ..- .-.. . .-. ... / .... .- ...- . / - .- -.- . -. / --- ...- . .-.
YAKUN.
To the people who may be interested:
@Andromedus the dragon
@Cooner21
@LynxSoott
@Ganimes
@Mediterranean Mapper
@ZeldaPro97
@Godzilla 1795
@BaryonyxLover9870
