The Chronicle of Darkness

Once upon a cold and dry September morn,
Our story begins at the crack of a dawn.
Young Archus slumbers,
Through lightning and thunder,
Where a dream clots his mind, for a nightmare is under
The guise of a woman, who stands at a grave to mourn.

The woman was covered as black as the night,
With a cape and hood dressed for Hallow's Eve fright.
Yet this Woman in Black,
Had never looked back.
(The mark of a virgin in her flesh is intact),
Waiting for him and for love to take flight.

Three roses she clutched and held out to her front,
Three colours were present, their meaning was blunt:
Red was the colour; the love that she gained.
White was for innocence; lost and betrayed.
Black was the colour, the rose that was last.
(For it beheld a death that will come to pass).
Drowning in sorrow,
The rest is hollow.
The only emotion for her to swallow.
Waiting for her and for love to exeunt.

With a flash from his mind, he awakes from his bed.
Bewildered and dazed, his head drains a cold sweat.
The bad deed is done,
He repents to the Son.
And so leaves for the day, with the story begun.
Forming a path where sad tears will be shed.

The day passes by without giving much thought
To the emotions of Archus and the fate he has brought
Upon, his soul,
His kin, and their fall
Into the darkness that will only be told,
By the man who for his God and true love had fought.

The horizon changes, giving birth to a dusk,
Which in turn grows to night, with clouds forming like dust.
Young Archus walks home,
From his training alone.
He looks up and senses the sound of Death's drone,
As well as finding his door open and cussed.

With fear and a motive, he steps in his place;
And yet all of a sudden; stench of blood swarms his face.
He dashes and dashes, up stairs he then glides,
To the Satanical screams near his sibling's bedside.
With a force that would claim lives of ten thousand men,
He took the lives of the murderers and then,
He followed a maw,
And he stood and he saw,
The crimson bedsheets with his sibling's blood: raw.
The body, raped and dead, which Hell had embraced.

Cries of agony ran through the rain,
Giving the hint of a soul racked with pain.
His mother wept as blades had run her right through,
She turned and she saw her son in a mad fugue
Of violence and vengeance and virtue and hate,
To rid the foul Daemons from this unearthly place.
With life slowly passing and with vengeance done,
The last thing she saw was her Half-Angel son.
No more abuse
(One thing left to pursue),
With everything lost he has nothing to lose,
Save for his soul and revenge he may gain.

The night bequeathed dawn in a manner most foul,
A new day arisen, a new vengeance to found.
With hatred and fear,
His sanity is near
The end of a tether nearly broken by wear
Of Archus' soul gnawing at it with no sound.

He confronts the face of a love unrequited,
He sought comfort and solace, her decision not decided
Inside her mind,
In the end she declined,
Like the three roses he gave her once upon her bedside.
(It was then that his soul had become tainted).

But back to the tale, this chapter begets
A twist of a turn which breeds new hatred.
Upon the horizon
Dark wings and web spun
Of deceit and horror to revelation,
As Lucifer himself flew live yet dead.

The devil himself claimed Archus' love
As a trophy of revenge for his kinsman's blood.
Black thorns kissed
The nerves he dismissed,
Since last night when his family existed
No more under his wing and heavenly fist.

Watching his love leave and with pain taking form
He could only watch as they were taken in a storm.
All he could see
Was land and city.
The fire and brimstone wailed uncontrollably,
For it was Hell and Kingdom Pandemonium.

Tears of agony ran from his pain,
Giving scent of half-Angel's virtue slain,
With everything not lost he could only now lose,
To Lucifer himself, but knew what to do.
He cried to the Lord to give him some strength
For the deed he must do and make sure he keeps true
To the destiny he holds with his heart at great length.
He knew it was cruel,
But he was no fool.
Help he must seek to fight in a duel,
With the Darkness itself and love's soul he may gain.

The time nearly noon when he crested the dead,
With his foot and his wing he flew past stones in lament.
It was at the end he saw a statue
Of the Angel Sarah; her pose all askew.

He stared into her cold blank eyes,
Trying to illusion the stone come alive.
She was exhumed,
The stone flowed like a live-poet's muse.
To point the bearing to Archus' tone.
The colour was black,
Murder and combat.
The church where it lies gives only that.
It was his portal to the land where souls die.

Accepting his fate bidding farewell to the Stone
Staue of the Angel Sarah he knows it is true,
The place he must go;
For if God only knows,
Then lost and deserted our Hero will be,
For the realm he soldiers to is Hell and City.

Hours had passed when he saw his proud mark,
Black onto black this Tower had embarked
A clever disguise
To hide all the lies
It hid from the world for almost all time.
But Archus shall blow these dark secrets wide apart.

Clouds loomed over said Tower and eased it's cold rain
Onto said Hero and surroundings in shame,
Of the Tower's cold Host,
The Devil and Faust,
It is the one place that humans feared most.
The Entrance to Hell and it's unholy plane.

With his fear and his motive he steps in the place.
To remind him of why true Evil he may face;
Even though she may not love,
He will continue to love
Her and everyone he cared for enough
To lay down his life and soul he will not gain
For he now knows a way to beat Lucifer's game.
At the cost of the one thing that made him Archus...

Then suddenly the thirteenth hour at night had then struck
Showing the doorway to red landscapes and dusk.
He spreads his white wings and so now he takes flight
Through said Tower and into the night
Shining through,
The damn'ed window,
His body contacted the glass, his aim had been true.
So now, in Hell, he flies to his love.

Dry heat teared through his souring skin
Yet he cared not, the man without sin.
Although God is not present in this fiery place,
His love for his God and human he will embrace.
So nothing in Hell and high water can hurt him because
For his God is his love and loves he so does.
With his new strength,
He travels at great length.
His destination ever more present: -
Darkness and vengeance and horror and hate.
Pandemonium; the seat of that unearthly place.