Gargoyle.

How I Died - Prologue.

‘Long ago, in the distant past…

Before the formation of the Kingdom of Equestria, before the first Dragons formed the Council of Elders, before the Griffins united to form their mighty Empire, before the birth of the Changeling hives, and before the rise of Chaos and Harmony.

There was only the Demon King.

A demon that had been around since the creation of life itself.

Their first.

A demon, who fought for control of the underworld.

Their general.

A demon, who united the demonic horde under his banner.

Their King…

His demon horde roamed the world, freely slaughtering any who dared to oppose them and ruled over the younger creations of life, with a cruel and malicious reign.

For thousands of years he ruled unopposed, allowing the younger races of ponies, griffins, changelings, dragons and many more to evolve as he saw fit.

But, as with all whom live to rule with tyranny such as he did… there were forces far greater in motion.

A champion of stone was brought to the world, summoned by power of the Alicorns who would become the first rulers of a new world, leading a united army of races to oppose him.

The battle raged for days and nights but the forces of the warrior broke the stalemate, pushing the demonic horde back into Tartarus. The Demon King fought ferociously against the power of the stone warrior but to no avail, and was cast into the pits of Tartarus with his armies, sealed away till the end of time. But before the final blow was struck, The Demon King cast a curse upon the land, vowing, he will return to claim what is rightfully his when the stars broke the gates of Tartarus.

Many soothsayers of all races came together to figure out when the stars would appear, all coming to the same conclusion and prophesied the words that exist to this day...

When Chaos rises & falls,
When the rule of Shadows falls to Harmony,
When the Night rises & falls
When the Night returns to rectify its past,
When Chaos rises & falls once more,
When the power of the heart, vanquishes evil,
When the Shadows return and fall to a united crystal,
When Chaos returns to rectify its past,
When the lessons of a student, blossom into leadership,
Tartarus will open its gates…’

When this prophecy is fulfilled, the Nine Dark Stars will align in the mark of the Demon King and Tartarus will weaken, allowing the ancient evils that dwell within its walls to break free and lay waste upon the land. Allowing the Demon King to lead his horde across the world once again…

Only the hero of stone, summoned from beyond the void, can truly destroy this evil…’

“Thank you, enjoy your purchase.”

I smiled as the man left with his own smile on his face, who could blame him though. He just bought a brand new game for his console; it was Friday and from the look of his other shopping he was planning to spend the entire weekend enjoying that game.

Would be a lie if I said I wasn’t a little jealous.

But I had my own plans, I’d specifically taken this weekend off because my friend from way back in my primary school days were coming down to stay for the weekend from their universities, seeing as it was the summer holidays. We’d been planning this little get together for months now, sorting out days off with our jobs and what have you.

It was going to be a fucking brilliant weekend.

See, we play Dungeons and Dragons, me and my friends, not the online version but the good old fashioned, character sheet, describe what it is you’re doing and have a few good laughs kind. Granted we didn’t fully play it properly as most of the time, we would fall into fits of ‘the giggles’ because something would happen that would set us off. But we had fun regardless.

When we were teenagers we used to play every couple of weeks because we lived locally with one another, Alice and Sam only lived next door and were siblings, Luke was my flatmate and the others lived in the village as well, so getting round to one another’s houses was easy. Though as we got older, we didn’t get as much chances to hang out together to play the game as much as we used to whether it was because of school, college, work or whatever. So our fortnightly like sessions became quarterly every year, which in hindsight is better, it gave us more time to prepare in advance and there’s always the thrill of anticipation.

And tonight is night we finally make proper headway in the current quest were doing.

As I watched the customer leave, I felt something jab me in my side and looked to see my supervisor, Kate, giving me an annoyed glare.

“Scott, you’re meant to be cleaning out the back, remember?”

“Yeah I know, but there’s a thing called a queue Kate,” I replied with a patronizing tone.

“Don’t give me that attitude, Scott!” She snapped back, “I’m your supervisor remember?”

“Again, I know, you never shut up about it.”

We glared at one another for a moment, some customers in the shop watching us shocked and interested in what was going to happen next. I was the first to break into a grin before we both burst out laughing.

“You’re such a pain, Scott, you know that?” She chuckled.

“Yeah I know, I’ll get the cleaning done in a moment,” I said stifling a yawn.

“Alright, I’m gunna put the kettle on, want a cup?” She offered.

“Sure.”

I watched her walk into the back office before returning my attention to the shop floor, I liked Kate. I really did. When I first started working at GAME a year ago, she had been working here for about five months and at first we didn’t really speak to one another because of different shift times. But after my first two months she was promoted to supervisor and had her shifts changed to the hours I was working, we pretty much hit it off after that and became good friends.

It wasn’t the first time we had pretended to get into an argument like that in front of customers, we usually did it once or twice a week when it was just the two of us working, or when Frank was around, poor old sod still believes each argument we have is genuine.

Eventually Kate came back with two mugs of tea and handed me one, the shop by now had virtually emptied and it was pretty much us two left. Figuring I should make a start on cleaning before a rush of people came in in the last five minutes of us being open – which happened a lot – and headed back into the back room, leaving Kate to man the tills.

The cleaning didn’t take me that long to be honest, just some tidying up of stock and a quick brush around with the broom and I was done, finishing off my tea me and Kate then quickly began the routine for shutting up the shop. Turning of the lights, making sure the alarms were on etc.

As the metal gate came down over the door, Kate pulled the key from the lock and said bye to me and headed off in the opposite direction I was heading. I put my hands in my pockets and began the short walk home, thankful it was a dry evening as I only brought my hoodie as a coat. Not like the rain would have bothered me if it had been raining, tonight was going to be epic anyway.

I walked past the crowds of people returning to their homes after a busy day of doing whatever, I popped a headphone into my ear and selected a random song to play, unable to stop myself smiling as I began to imagine the fun we were going to have that weekend, and not just with dungeons and dragons.

Sam and Alice were going to bring over a couple of old games consoles as well as several of our favourite old co-op games, like Mario Kart double dash.

Man that game is fun.

I came to the end of the road where the traffic lights were and briefly glanced upwards, I saw that the light was red and proceeded to cross, humming to the music as I did. My thoughts began to drift through how I was going to start my quest for my friends.

Would I have them finally defeat the necromancer they were hunting? Or should I just fuck them over by making them fight a black dragon? Or maybe-

There was a screech of tire against road, and my world went black.

Author's Notes:

[Edited version to come.] Any errors, feel free to let me know!