These walls… If only these walls could talk.

These dusty rooms, abandoned for centuries. These
long-forgotten halls, now home to nothing but spiders and the echoes of days
gone by.

I look back at what once was, and I weep.

This once-great empire, now reduced to nothing but a
subterranean crypt. Foundations laid bare, intricate carvings barely
recognisable through the passage of time.

A hoard of treasures, legend says too awe-inspiring to ever
be adequately captured by mortal tongue. Perhaps once, now no more. The hive of
activity has now become a grave. The silence consuming all, and these walls
have seen it all.

I gaze into the abyss. I wonder what has happened here. I
wish the walls could speak to me, pour out their secrets, never thought to be
heard again, that I may continue their legacy.

Surely such a monument could not have fallen to any less
than divine wrath itself.

Alas, I gaze into the abyss and the abyss gazes back…

Suddenly, the vaulted ceilings become shackles, the
mausoleum becomes a prison. The veil begins to be dispelled, and the illusion
is shattered like a pane of frosted glass.

For every one that rises, another must fall.

Blood-stained mosaics and cracked chiselling, crumbled
masonry and dilapidated statues. All laid as tribute to the ever-hungry demon
that dwells within.

I begin to collect the pieces, to create the image of events
transpired. And I weep.

The vision becomes clearer, the series more fluid. I see
what has happened, I see what is still happening.

For within these walls where shadows dwell, and creatures
seldom tread. Lies a dark secret, long-thought dead, but that still inspires
dread in whosoever is so unfortunate as to incur its black retribution.

The shadows come together with the cobwebs on the walls,
seamlessly forming a thousand faces, a thousand tongues, a thousand silent
screams. Pay their warnings no heed, for the worst is yet to come.

I feel the all-encompassing silence, the symphony of the
reaper. The walls seem to shudder, desperately seeking reprieve that is not to
be. I feel the pain of generations. And I weep.

I have reached the centre of the underground palace. It is
strange, how what was once so beautiful is now so terrifying to behold. A dais
lies before me, the darkness lies behind.

I step up to the epicentre, the origin of the terror that
has claimed this place for its own. I see the shattered frame. The promise of
greatness that was not to be. The promise that soon became a lie.

The white frame, the eyes that stare blankly from the
cracked stone. Have I seen this before?

The eerie tranquillity has been broken, but the smothering
silence remains. I fall to my knees, how could this be?

For every one that rises, another must fall.

The walls close in, I can feel their hatred. They despise
what has happened here. What is happening here every single day.

They despise me.

They despise what I’ve done.

Steve gazed at his legacy, and his legacy gazed back.

The portal lies dormant. The portal lies still. Awaiting the
one who would restore its dark tyranny.

Awaiting its master.

Awaiting its creator.

The walls weep despairingly as the End draws nigh. Steve
lies still. The silence remains unbroken.

Yet time erodes even the most stalwart of fortresses.

The portal lies dormant. Steve lies still. And the walls
watch. As they have always watched.

Yet even at this most delicate precipice, the walls remain
silent. As they have always been silent.

If only these walls could talk…

-------

Published on 30/11/2014/ at 21:00 GMT.

The spiritual successor to Project 907161. Written in about
an hour for Gen_Moustache’s blog contest with theme ‘If the walls could talk…’

Thanks for reading.

- Torm