I was too late to stop it. 

I don’t know what I could have done. They were always so drawn to destruction, but I had always felt like I had to try. 

I had overslept, awaking to a racket, crashing back to Earth and its dreadful reality with a hard thud. I tried to close my eyes again, wishing myself somewhere sweeter, but anxious dread dripped from me, and I knew I had to get back on the road, before it was too late. I dared not to look out the window, my heart thumping as I stared around the unfamiliar room and blinked back the bright fluorescent lights that loomed above me. 

There were screams outside. So many screams that I couldn’t tell which direction they were coming from. Pounding shoes as people scurried to and fro. Loud crashes. Flashing lights peered through the poorly made curtains as I scrambled from the floor and rushed towards the door. 

I didn’t want to open it. I couldn’t bear to see what they had done, but I knew that I was the only one who had a chance to save the world from itself. That was my curse, and the weight upon my shoulders. 

The dark sky was scarred with lightning as wind whipped through the streets. The city was a haunting landscape, a chilling reminder of the brutality of war, the cruelty of famine, and the relentless terror of corrupted power. Those who had inherited the Earth were not meek. They weren’t even interested in self preservation. They were a disaster.

I had watched the city for a long time, from afar, knowing that one day, I had to return, but never quite able to build up the courage. They needed me, but I was not the man they thought I was. I hadn’t been for a very long time. I knew what I had to do, but I also knew that I wasn’t up to the job. There wasn’t anyone else. There would never be anyone else, and so, I threw open the door and gazed upon the city at last. 

Once bustling streets were now barren, their cobblestones cracked and stained with the blood of both the innocent and the guilty. The buildings that once stood proudly crumbled in silent agony, their shattered facades bearing witness to the horrors that unfolded within their walls.

Children wailed, clutching their aching bellies as their mother’s wept, pleading with the children to be still and silent as they stared around at the wasteland, desperately searching for shelter. 

The sky above hung heavy with the pall of smoke, and the rage of the Heavens. There was no light. There were no stars, just thick, choking air that was drenched in the acrid stench of decay, mingled with the metallic tang of blood and the sickly sweet odour of rotting flesh. It clung to my clothes and filled my lungs with every breath.

They just couldn’t stop themselves. The war had to come, because they could not live without it. Not just in the Hell that I had found myself, but everywhere. The world wept. Innocents pleaded for peace, but it never ended. The wonders of the world were no more, and the sky had lost the sun. 

That was when the new King began his journey. 

So many had tried to warn them, but there was too much going on. None of them could see as he approached. Lambs to the slaughter, staring around in the dark night, but never able to see the axe that ascended above them. 

I was supposed to protect them, but I was too late. They went from one struggle to another. War. Famine. Poverty. Decay. Death. Sickness. It never stopped. I couldn’t keep up. I tried to send them signs. I tried to send them strength. I could see him stalking behind them, closer with every day, and every disaster, but they couldn’t see him, until it was too late. 

My Father gave me a ride into the city, and he told me that I could help the people, but I’m not so sure. Who am I to heal them? They are too far gone, and they belong to another now. 

In the aftermath of another dark night, the city had become a battleground not just for human adversaries, but for his creations. They were first seen here, and that was when I knew I couldn’t avoid the city anymore. They seemed to have emerged from the darkest depths of our nightmares. Twisted creatures stalk the shadows, their monstrous forms a grotesque fusion of flesh and fury. 

They filled the night with their fearsome roars, swallowing the sobbing and screaming, stalking the streets and snatching anyone in their wake. They move with an eerie grace, their eyes gleaming with a hunger that knows no bounds. Some say they were created by the chaos of war, twisted and mutated by the horrors unleashed upon the city. Others whisper that they are ancient beings, awakened from their slumber by the scent of blood and the cries of the dying.

They come in droves, and then disappear for a spell, only to return when their master is bored. He wants to toy with the people, for his own amusement, but these are people with nothing else to give.

The children of London are starving. Hunger spills into the streets like a silent spectre, its grip tightening with each passing day. Toddlers hobble down empty streets, begging empty shadows for a morsel of food. The once bustling markets are now nothing more than empty shells, their stalls stripped bare of goods. Desperate scavengers pick through the rubble in search of anything edible, their hollow eyes reflecting the emptiness of their stomachs. Those who still have something to eat hoard it with envious eyes, guarding their meagre rations against the hunger that gnaws at their bellies.

Amidst the chaos and despair, a sense of hopelessness hangs heavy in the air. The people who once called this city home have been broken and scattered like leaves in the wind. Families torn apart by war, their loved ones lost to the violence that rages unchecked. Those who remain struggle to survive, their spirits crushed beneath the weight of despair.

Who am I to heal them? 

Who am I to love them? 

They don’t even want me. As I walk the streets, I watch their hopeful, hungry eyes glide straight past me, and onto him. They follow him through the broken streets as he spins a silly little dream that will never come true. He promises perfection, with his silver tongue, and they nod and smile, with slacked jaws, salivating at the thought of things getting better. 

All that they must do, he says, is surrender to the monsters. The children of Earth shudder at the mention of the creatures, but their pied piper simply smiles, pulling them, one by one into a long embrace and whispering assurances. 

He is so convincing, that sometimes, even I could almost believe in him. He has arrived after they have suffered so long, and he has a new future to offer them. Everlasting life. Peace. Freedom. An end to all of their pain and suffering. I would have offered them the same, but as I look around at what the people have become, I know that I couldn’t say the words without weeping. 

Who am I to heal them? 

Who am I to love them, when they could not love themselves? When they starve their children? When they tear down the lives that they built? When they could not listen? When they follow the fawn of darkness in his little dance? 

I sink into his shadow, knowing of what is to come, but knowing that nothing can be done. I know who I am, and I know who I am supposed to be to them, but the people of the Earth have made their choice. 

I cannot return to my Father. His sorrow sinks further and further into the air, suffocating me. There is nothing for me back home, and nothing here for me either. I cannot save them from themselves, or from the child of the nether realms who walks among them, as their King. 

I am not the one to heal them. 

I just don’t have it in me. I have nowhere to go, and nothing to do, but to watch those I would have died for, again and again, pin themselves to the cross, and bleed, forever.