This was writ­ten straight onto the site with lit­tle edit­ing, basic spell check­ing and a cou­ple of once-overs. I’m attempt­ing to get myself into writ­ing again and I fig­ured a balls-to-the-wall approach might prove best. I was aim­ing for a nar­ra­tion POV with some a build up mov­ing through it. I’m 50/50 on how it turned out, in that with some care and atten­tion, an inter­est­ing — and excit­ing — sto­ry­line could come out of it.

Please read, maybe enjoy, com­ment and above all, be gentle!

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Our hero stood before a sea of hard black and crim­son. Below the rocky precipice he bal­anced him­self upon, a blood­ied sea spread itself into the dis­tance; envelop­ing mighty cliffs as dark as a demon’s eyes and leav­ing them reach­ing from the molten river like charred fin­gers vying for the stars.

Above him fiery skies burst with night­mar­ish glare as flames licked like hun­gry tongues. The entire sheet of yel­low and red and bril­liant burn­ing blue van­ished behind an end­less hori­zon. It was truly an awful place, where the damned were tor­tured eter­nally and the sin­ners prayed for salvation.

The High­way­man how­ever, did not pray for any­thing. There was more to keep him on the side of san­ity. Inside him churned a want­ing revenge bent on per­pet­ual agony for any that stood in his way. Stripped from the cob­bled streets of Lon­don by some­thing alto­gether more evil than any man he had ever known — or killed — he would not let the sac­ri­fice of his life go quietly.

The bliss of a sin­gle breath was as crisp as life could get, so with his life gone and this damna­tion brought upon him there was noth­ing left to loose. Every pocket of the under­world would know his name until his soul was worth less than the pain and anger and blood that he would deliver to the Devil’s door.

The man who stood before hell and watched it like a King eyed the lands he would con­quer had to fight the fight, for he was not the only one taken by the crea­ture that night. The wild energy that ran through his veins and spirit was born of a vio­lent crim­i­nal of the shad­ows, but the love found in the arms of a woman that did not hate him or run away in fear cre­ated a pres­ence within him — it made the High­way­man dan­ger­ous and truly fearless.

Unlike him how­ever, she was a being born of purity. Where he was dark­ness, she was light and where he was death, she was life. The High­way­man had not under­stood her affec­tion and desire to live in the fold of his coat, but there had been no part of him that would say no. He was self­ish — as were all men — and when sep­a­rated, that defin­ing dif­fer­ence had been laid out in all its truth. She had gone to heaven, and he to hell.

It was not so unbreak­able a wall between them though. Hell would revel in the atroc­i­ties he would cre­ate in the wake of his path to her. He would raise the gates of the Devil’s yard until God him­self heard the rat­tling cries of bleed­ing demons.

Tak­ing a final look over the ruby-red wash unfold­ing below him, the High­way­man turned on a swift heel and swung a once hol­stered flint­lock out. Peer­ing over the edge of his high col­lar, he took a step for­ward and pressed the bar­rel into the tem­ple of a putrid crea­ture drip­ping black blood. Pulling the trig­ger, a snap cut the bil­low­ing fires around him and sent the demon to the molten-rock path below him.

This is where the Highwayman’s jour­ney began.