Hey Guys, I wrote the opening scene again! I am really sorry about the silence of three parts thing, I should have researched more into what was or wasn't plagiarism. But now it's completely original

I am just afraid some parts might come out as confusing or lackluster. If you guys could give me some feedback on as well grammar I'd be really thankful!

Thank you in advance for your time, and hope you enjoy



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Chapter 1
Where Shadows laugh and heroes fall


   The Gates of Iron were before him on that dark and empty night. This is it, he thought to himself. This is the end.

Five years had passed since his journey began. At first there were others who rode besides him, knights, bandits, conjurers, friends... But fate was not kind. Some were betrayed, some were bested in battle, and some had given in to the shadows. In the end all others fell, and he was left alone.

   All that remained with him was his sword, and his determination to end what they had started. He would end it for all the stars that had been taken from the sky, for all the kingdoms that were consumed by the shadows, and for all empires that still stood.

   The Gates of Iron opened themselves before him, revealing a single iron road shrouded in shadows. This was the path to the Abyss.

   His feet moved firmly as he made it past The Gates of Iron. No amount of darkness and shadows could scare him now, not anymore.

   Time seemed to bend as he walked down that iron road. He felt his feet grow small, and his hairs fall from his head. His breathing grew shorter and harder, and then it didn’t. For a moment there was nothing. He did not breath, did not see, did not feel. Then he was back, holding his torch in one hand, and his sword on the other.

   But then he looked beneath him, and realized the road was gone. Instead he stood on what seemed to be stone covered in a light liquid.

   “So you did come after all…” That wretched voice called to him from the shadows.
   
   “I did, and now I will take your life and end this madness!”

   The demon walked out of the shadows and into the dim light of his torch. It was just as he remembered, a featureless, elongated, figure completely covered by a thick mass of darkness. As the monster moved closer, its limbs almost fell to the ground, and the dark mass that made it dripped down to the stone like ink. Then it grew on the twisted monster’s face, that elongated smile made of shining white teeth.

   The man stood his ground, and raised his sword with both hands, letting his torch fall to the ground. But the torch did not dwindle, it was made of blue flame and it would burn until eternity itself came to an end.

   “Oh, so it was with this blade you murdered Ilnus” The monster said as its smile spread unnaturally across its face. “ I wonder what my brother’s dying face was like.”

   The blade grew cold on his hands and the world slowed. The man covered the few feet that stood between him and the monster in a matter of seconds. Before the monster had time to move, he sliced through the air and beheaded the demon.

   Its face and body fell to the stone and turned into dust. Then he heard that sickening laugh echoe within the Abyss.
   
   “My child, why the violence? You already doomed all of creation, what is left to fight for?”

   He readied his sword again, and waited. That monster could talk, but he would not listen.

   He heard movement behind his back, and turned, with his sword ready to strike. There was another monster rising from the stone, and behind him another, and another. Four, five, six, one hundred. There were countless monsters rising around him from the shadows, all laughing that twisted laugh.

   “Can’t we all just be friends?”

   But the man did not  flinch. He split the second one in half, and beheaded the third in a matter of seconds. The monsters tried tearing at his flesh with their claw like hands, but he was faster. He dodged their strikes time after time. And unlike them, his strikes were lethal.

   With every strike another monster dispersed into dust. It did not matter how many there were, he would kill them all.
They came at him five, eight, even ten at a time, but he was faster them all of them. So he tore to shreds the ten that came at him. Then the twenty, then he stopped counting.

   “No, I guess we can’t just be friends. After all, because of you, all of this will play out again. Once we die, we will wake anew in a different time, in a different land, but we will still be cursed to the same fate. You will lose everything again and again, for all eternity. And I will be there to watch. Is there anything more beautiful?”

   The monsters did not stop coming, and he did not stop executing them. But he grew tired and they didn’t.

   No, it couldn’t end like this. He looked around and saw only the monsters coming at him from the endless sea of darkness. There had to be another way...then he looked down and saw the cold stone standing beneath him. And he remembered the monsters name.

   He raised his sword again, but now he aimed it to the stone. With a single strike he pierced the cold rock, and the Abyss itself began to die before his eyes. And as the monsters began dissolve into nothingness, they laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

   Until only echoes remained.

Don't know if I should add more, but currently this is what I have.

   The Gates of Iron were before him on that dark and empty night. This is it, he thought to himself. This is the end.

A few days back I posted the prologue + 1st chapter of a spy thriller I was working on. I listened to the feedback and started from scratch with it in mind. Hopefully this version fixes some of the issues people had with the first version. Thank you all for reading and hope you enjoy 


   01/01/1961 - 14:00
   
The windows were in shatters, the doors broken.   Someone had broken into his house. Without giving it a second thought he threw his cigar away, and ran to his home.
No, no, no. James thought to himself as he ran. This can’t be happening…
But it was, and he knew exactly why.
He passed through what was left of the front door, and made his way to the living room. On the corridor’s walls were photos of a better time, of the time before the war. Memories, that is all the photos were. Sadly, these memories were all that was left for him.
James looked at the living room and thought tears might roll down his face, but they did not. Maybe it was the shock, or maybe he was just a heartless bastard after all.
Broken glass laid all over the living room, the sofa was flipped over and thrown against the wall, and the once brown rug was now dark red. And there she laid, dead, blood still pouring out into the rug.
“Rose…” That was all James managed to say.
He walked to where her body laid, and kneeled besides her, letting his clothes become soaked by the blood. He wanted to cry, to prove he was not a monster. But the tears still didn’t come.
“You knew this would happen James, so why are you so surprised?” That hellish voice echoed within the living room. The son of a bitch was there. He did this, he must have. But James did not speak, he just allowed to the man to go on.
“You dealt with bad bad people James, and you did things to these people you just shouldn’t do. Personally, I would see it as a miracle they left you alive.”
“YOU DID THIS! Don’t try to fool me like that. This isn’t about business, this is about you and me!” James snapped. His teeth were already grinding against each other when he turned towards the man.
He stood there, within the shadows of the corridor, cloaked by the darkness.
The man laughed. “Oh no, don’t get me wrong James. While it is true nothing would have brought me more joy than murdering your wife, this time it really wasn’t me. I am just the messenger.”
“So what is the blocked message?”
The man smiled a devilish smile. “Your debt has been accounted for. You are a free man now James. But I suppose you already knew that.”

Very dry, and very hot. Sometimes it rains, but not much.

Prologue-   

The world was ashen grey to his eyes, and it had been that way for as long as he could remember. The colors had long faded from his sight, and now even sound was becoming dull to his ears.

   His hands were heavy, and he walked with the bitter determination of one who has learned too many things. They were soaked, for they held on, reluctantly, to his stomach. It was a futile attempt at stopping his blood from gushing out into the snow that laid around him.

   Not that it mattered much now. In reality the man did so out of instinct, for otherwise the pain would lend him unable to move. And he still needed his legs to pursue the last hope fate had left him.

   It was a vain hope, one that no sane man would ever hope to achieve, but he did so regardless. Promises had been made, and he would hold on to his word until the bitter end.

He felt the sun rays reaching to his eyes, causing him to turn his gaze downwards to the cloud white snow. And before he could continue, his legs failed him. Blood no longer flowed in them, and so the man fell to his knees.

   The sun hung low in the sky, and he was unable to tell if it rose from the horizon or fell back to the boundaries of the earth. He had spent so long locked away in that house of metal and stone that even the sky had become alien to him. But as he felt the sunlight gently caressing his face, he remembered how it felt to be beneath the light.

   The icy wind of winter fondled his weary eyes, asking him kindly to let it be. To end the suffering, and fall back to the earth. But he did not.

   His strength was long gone, but yet there he remained. Looking up to the ashen sky, a million familiar faces crossed his thoughts. Those he had loved, those he hated, and those he had left behind. His past was there to haunt him, and even then in his final moments it refused to leave his side.

   Maybe he should have left it all behind, maybe he was never a hero and maybe he should never have tried being one. But now it did not matter.   

    Faint sounds of metal birds echoed through the air, but he did not listen. And in the end the man fell to the snow. Little by little, his blood painted the cloud white snow, and little by little it turned rose red.

1962, December 1:
   
   “It has been one month, do you have an answer?” The words came dry out of his mouth and into the tired man’s ears.

   The words prompted an answer, but the person who spoke them demanded the tired man to make his choice.

   The two sat side by side, eyes not daring to meet. They looked at the street, and to the many that walked by them. Time passed, and the tired man just looked at the many faces that passed idly by: he saw young men in stern suits, old women carrying their fancy bags, and children wearing their gentle smiles. Maybe he was supposed to realise something then, but he never did. Nothing came to him while looking at those faces, so his decision remained the same.

   But the words did not come. They stuck to his throat, tearing at his flesh with every breath he took.

   “Is that a no?”

   “No” He answered immediately, letting the words slice through his throat and burn within his mouth. “I accept the offer.”

   Neither of them averted their gazes, and maybe one of them took a drink from one of the two cups of coffee that rested on the table, but if one did, the other would never know.

   “Listen carefully for I will not repeat myself.” The tired man heard. “As of now you are 05, when you present yourself for briefing that is all you will say.” There was a small pause, then the sound of paper being pressed against the table. “Inside you will find where and when you will have your briefing.”

   05 let his hands lay on the table, not so coincidentally finding a small paper packet, no bigger than a letter. He casually grabbed said packet and let it rest inside one of his shirt’s pockets.

   A gentle motion could be seen in the edges of his eyes, then, as the motion went on, he heard the sound of a chair being set aside. One of them stood up, while the other still sat. Dark smoke rose to the sky and that foul smell ever so characteristic of cigars made its way to 05’s nose.

   A single step was taken by the man who stood.

   “I know it is not my business, but may I ask you a question?”

There was silence.

 “Why?” The man who stood asked.

05 did not answer.

   The man who stood walked away, and left casually, just as he had arrived.

   The man who sat opened the small packet, and carefully read the two lines written on it.

   12/03/62
Airport, casual clothes, minimal luggage, 1:00 AM
   
   05 then proceeded to tear the paper into pieces and meticulously curl these torn pieces into a ball. Only to throw said ball into the trash.

   After doing so he got a few dollars from his pocket and placed them on the table, signaling he was done eating, but the waitress did not notice. So he stayed there, listening to the rumbling of cars and watching the city lights flicker and fade.

   The sun was setting and his coffee was getting cold, yet there he remained. The sky above turned from blue to gold and from gold to darkness, and the people went by and the cars did pass, yet there he remained.

   He was there as most are, simply there for the sake of being, but his movements were precise. Not a second too fast, nor a second too late. All that he did, he did so deliberately. There was not a breath he did not know, a stare he did not command. And it was in his movements that it laid, a silence deeper than the chasms of the sea.

   It was present in all that he was, haunting him with every move. Appropriate really, for he had brought this silence onto himself. It was the devil he deserved, for with it came all that he once was and all that he would be. But even if he had brought this demon unto himself, he did not regret doing so.

   He knew what the silence meant and what its purpose was, for he had faced it many times before, but now something was different. Before he had looked in its eyes and seen only evil and despair, but now, he saw nothing, almost as if he no longer recognized what it was. However, even as he came to this realization, his breath continued steady.

   He was not afraid of his past, nor was he afraid of the end.