The Bringer of the End

I felt that I had made the greatest scientific discovery in the history of mankind. A bold statement, I know. But to defy death? To be ageless? Eternally young? I had broken through a barrier that mankind had been ramming its head against since its inception.

I had been working for decades, slaving away in a lab. This had ruined me, ruined my family, ruined my life. But it was all finally worth it. I found a particular form of radiation that reversed the aging process. I had found the ever-mythical Fountain of Youth, and it was highly, highly radioactive. I felt like Curie but in reverse. I flourished, glowed, and felt better than ever because of my work.

Of course, people were skeptical. To do what I had done seemed impossible to most. But faced with the proof, even deniers became believers. Not everyone supported my discovery though. Many accused me of playing God. They said that what I had done was unnatural. And it was. But I didn’t care. I was fabulously wealthy and frozen at the ripe old age of 28. I had been for the last few centuries. I saw history books being written in real-time, and witnessed the rise and fall of entire countries, all the while enjoying a near-perfect body.

That all changed one horrible night.

I was in my bedroom when I heard a crash come from the front of the house, a cacophonous medley of crystal and tile. I grabbed my pistol out of my nightstand and pressed the silent alarm. I pulled up the front foyer camera on my phone and confirmed my suspicions. The chandelier had fallen.

Within minutes my house was surrounded by my private security. I saw them enter through secret doors that I'd built into the walls, and watched as they swept through every room in the house. They kept in contact with me via comms built into my ear and jaw.

They called out their clears, checking their boxes of safety as they finished their sweep. Until they got to the basement. I saw them walking around pointing their guns into every corner when suddenly the camera feed cut out. We called out to them, but their comms returned only static.

Suddenly there was a scream through the channels; not a scream of pain, but of horror. I switched the camera feed over to the hallway adjacent to the basement stairs and saw nothing but a pile of gear on the floor. I didn’t have time to process what could have even happened before I heard more screams through the channels. I began flicking through the cameras and all I could see were bodies dropping to the floor. But upon closer inspection, I realized there were no bodies, only more piles of equipment.

Before long the screaming stopped, and my house was eerily quiet, only the static of the radio in my ear. I shut that off too.

Then, I heard laughter.

I began looking through all the video feeds but still saw nothing.

‘You have escaped me long enough, mortal.’

I heard the raspy voice, or rather, I felt it. It was in my head, not my ears. It grate on my mind.

My door, with its reinforced steel core, began to open slowly. It was supposed to be locked. In a panic, I made my way into my en-suite, which doubled as a panic room. When I got inside I activated the lockdown procedure, and the guards came down around me, closing off any means of entry. I was inside a fortress.

But that would not save me. Nothing would.

I watched in horror as the steel plating over the doors began to vanish, rusting at first, then turning into nothing more than dust. It happened so quickly that a cloud the color of dried blood billowed up, and from that cloud came forth something. Something horrible.

It was vaguely humanoid, but it had no true features to speak of. Its form shifted, moving between man and woman, young and old. Any hair it had grew grey and fell out in quick order, disappearing from existence before it could even touch the floor. The only constants were its formidable height and nearly translucent skin. Its veins were entirely visible, and I could see its heart beating in a chest that was too long.

“What are you?” I asked, my voice but a trembling whisper.

‘I am infinite and eternal. I have no beginning and no end. Many people have called me many things: the most common being death. But I am more. I am decay, I am deterioration, I am the inescapable march of time and its inevitable consequences. I know how everything ends because I am that end. You know me, you fear me, but you cannot run from me, cannot hide. So crawl, mortal. Crawl and wallow in your weakness. You too shall join me, for I am a horseman, the bringer of the end.’

With that I felt my muscles begin to atrophy, my bones felt soft, and my skin loose. I could tell that I was aging at a visible rate. I looked in the mirror, and for a fleeting moment, I thought I saw my grandfather. Then, my eyesight began to fail me, and the world went black.