The Fiddler on the Green

[GameWizard]

Sad voices they're calling
Our precious girl she can't be gone
How bitter this morning
When daddy's darling
Went out and started her day

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He had been regarded as a hero. A saviour of the people, an icon of justice. To himself he was none of these things. In his own mind he was a wretched, tortured soul lost in a world in which he no longer belonged. A legend he was indeed, this much he accepted, but he had begun to purposefully fade away, drawing himself out of the public eye and slipping deeper into the shadows that had claimed him as their own.

Wasn't there a dream, last night
Like a spring never ending
Still the water runs clear
through my mind

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Shadows indeed! They were more a part of his life now than anything else. They had consumed him, taken him body and mind, and with every passing day they stole even more into his humanity and even into the last remaining pieces of sanity. He did not hate the darkness. He did not hate what he had become. On the contrary: as the years had gone by he had come to enjoy it. He thrived on the darkness that he lived within and when it came right down to it, he would have stayed forever in the shadows if he could.

On the field I can see a fiddler
The fiddler on the green
And a sad boy
I took him too early
Would you mind
Would you mind
Would you mind
If I take you

[/i]

There! Below in the moonlit streets of the city his one good eye could see the group of criminals he had been seeking the entire night. He had followed the clues and trailed them here, to this warehouse, and felt for certain that it was the gang's hideout. He had simply waited for one last sign to confirm it. And there it was. He followed them, quietly walking along the cracked and litter-filled sidewalk. One glanced at him as his fellow thugs called in to open the locked door. He turned back to his 'friends' without a second look. What did this lone man matter to them? A middle aged guy in a long coat, his right eye hideously scarred permanently shut. He was no threat and wouldn't likely have any idea who these men were. But he did, oh how he did. The Gray Marauders, a notorious gang down in this district of the collosal city. He chuckled under his breath, too low for these men to hear. Only he knew that they were all dead men. The door opened. The thugs entered. The door slammed shut and locked. Gannon Donovan, the man of darkness, stopped before the door and grinned. At once the shadows spread out from his body, a flow of almost liquid darkness that spewed forth from him until he was nothing but darkness, no sign of the human he had once been. The shadows smoked into thick tendrils and black misty fog. It moved, shifted, and slipped silently through the cracks of the door into the denizen that lay beyond.

To be with you
To be with you
To be with you
To be with you

The sun seemed bright
The air was clear
The air was clear

[/i]

They had gathered in their common room, surrounded by old cranes and crates full of stolen goods, drugs, and weaponry. They laughed, they smoked, they drank and gambled. Little did they know that all along it was their lives they had put up to stake. They didn't notice the dimming of the lights, cast low as the flood of darkness seeped into their believed safe-haven. He entered then, silent and unnoticed until he made his first kill. The young man gave a choked cry before the tendrils of darkness, wrapped tightly around his throat, silenced him forever. They rose and drew guns and knives on the intruder but hesitation at the sight before them was ultimately their downfall. Who wouldn't freeze up on catching sight of this thing, I ask you? He was shadow itself, a walking silhuette in a shape close to that of the man it had once been, though its fingers and feet were great demonic claws. A solitary eye, a glimmering red, burned from the left side of its featureless head. It's only clothing was a cloak of faded scarlet, shredded with use and age, that was securely wrapped around the beast's neck. The mist and waving steams of shadow circled the monster and drifted outward as it moved. They knew him at once, any who laid eyes on him would. He was the legend, he was darkness made living. He was the Fiddler.

A trick of light
Turned red into green
She saw the light
Her face was pale
Her body smashed
Her beauty's gone

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His hand rose, clawed fingers spread wide. The shadows snaked quickly up his arm, forming at his hand and elongating into a great scythe, its blade black with the darkness and twisted with cruel jagged edges. There were some who said this scythe would put the Grim Reaper's to shame. There were some who said that's exactly who the Fiddler really was. In the Fiddler's mind, they were much closer to the truth. He spoke to them one phrase that had struck fear into the hearts of all his enemies. The voice that issued forth was harsh yet quiet, a sound almost like the sigh of a demon. "I deliver thee all unto the Green." He moved forward, bringing the massive shadow blade down in a sweeping arc that slashed through the first thugs he came to, still frozen in fear, now frozen in death. The Fiddler turned, spun, and descended upon the next group only just now coming out of their stunned revery. It was, of course, too late for them. Blood sprayed the floor and walls, limbs fell forever lost. The men began to scream in their panic and ran, though some forced up the courage to remain and defend their shattered stronghold. A gunshot rang out but the bullet went wide in the attacker's fear. Another came, this one piercing a thick tendril of shadow. It burst as if smoke and gathered itself whole again. There was no pain. The third shot was dead on, speeding toward the Fiddler's dark chest. It could have been a killing blow, a dismal end to the legend of darkness. It wasn't. His chest parted, the shadows shifting to open a passage for the bullet to pass cleanly through before closing again. If the Fiddler had a mouth he would have grinned.

Isn't it a shame
The reaper said
He is quite alone here
And still waiting for you
Oh I really did fail for the first time
Spoke the fiddler, poor old fiddler
The fiddler on the green
The fiddler on the green
It would be nice...

Take my hand

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They all fell, they all died. A strewn mass of corpses littered the warehouse that had once served as their home. Though they fought back, they found their own attacks did nothing against this monster. Those who ran found themselves trapped in the room, all exits covered in a film of shadow that 'bit' when approached. Then darkness fell upon them all, the lights dimming further until there was nothing. They were trapped and blind, the only sound that of their own heartbeats and the slow footsteps that drew ever closer. The pain was sudden and bright, yet death came swift. The scythe cut and pierced and hacked, cleaving the men into pieces that would be unrecognizable when the police finally arrived on the scene hours later, when only the stench that wafted out into the city drew attention to the incident. At last the lights came back, one Gray Marauder left cowering in a corner, his pants damp with released fear. Sweat beaded on his brow. This man, now shivering with fear, had once been the leader of these men, had once been a fearless beast of a man who had survived against the odds. Now he had been reduced to this. When he opened his tightly shut eyes and looked up he saw only the face of the Fiddler, that burning red eye glaring into his own which had been wet with tears of terror. It spoke one last time, that sighing voice more horrifying than the face it came from. "Perish."

Just hold my hand
I'll take you there
Your pain will go away