Necropolis Chapter I Part I Wounded

Chapter 1

Nero looks down at the weapon lying a few feet away. The smoke curls from the gun’s hot barrel, as the wind picks up to make it dance away. The pain in his shoulder dazes him; it's like fire and ice; the numbness is creeping over his arm and spreading rapidly over his entire body. His vision swims and blurs, he reminds himself he has to keep awake. Up this high, the winds are cutting like daggers of ice, and oxygen is thin. The cavalry, he wonders, where are the damn rescue ships, EMS Helcorns, and his cohorts. He had just radioed them, right? They are minutes away, but it’s feeling like hours. He felt like laughing. He reminds himself, a few hours ago, he that should have stayed in bed. Nero pushes himself further back to the wall. Pushing himself up awkwardly, trying at least to stand up. But the world sways and he stumbles back but braces himself against the smooth marble wall. Before him, over the few feet of short ledge, the vast necropolis sweeps before him, the vast towers of the dead stand like ashy gray obelisks designed by the eccentric wealthy, and powerful, the famous and infamous. Monuments to gods and man-made gods. His stomach tightens with the vast drop as his eyes scan down into the gray depth, into the cannon of the predawn Necropolis. He realizes where he will die, on the ledge of one of the Great Mausoleums. How can this be? How did he come to this crossroad in his life, he feels the blood trickle down his arm, and he remotely wonders how bad it really is and what would kill him first the cold or the blood loss. Nero hopes that Sergeant Will Hansen and his men make it in time. He slides down the smooth marble wall feeling how cold it is, his legs buckle under him, above him cracks mar the smooth marble finish that runs like spider webs created by hunks of lead buried deep in the tomb's smooth glassy tower wall. This is the same lead that smashed Nero’s shoulder, still burning in him, driving a pulse of pain with each thump of his heart. A sinisterly carved grin of a crimson marble gargoyle; leers at him, a wash in twilight shadows and amber sun rays, like a vulture of the damned ready to claim his mortal soul. A grin of his own creases Nero’s dry cracked lips. He thinks this is not going to happen today. Creature, not today, today is not a good day to die. You will have to wait your turn demon. The reddish-gray shape of the gargoyle blurs and swims in the tears of pain that fills his eyes. The shadows darken as the world falls away and voices are heard, a familiar voice of someone once he knew, bringing a memory of faded love, of faded smells. A fade life… is that lilac, he thinks, Lilly? His beloved wife’s ghost has come to keep him company…

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