“Childish behaviour like this will only delay the inevitable, not avoid it!” Syrian spits through his rotten teeth. “I nurtured you into adulthood, I helped build your legacy, and I feel I deserve some type of admiration for it instead of pranks better left to those that can pull them off!”

“You’re just jealous because I’m favoured by the others over you!” Toad remarks with a grin broad and green.

“I AM NOT IN COMPETITION WITH YOU!” he erupts as he trusts himself to his feet and points a long bony finger toward Toad. “I AM ABOVE YOU IN EVER SINGLE WAY! YOU, YOU ARE A PATHETIC WORM NOT WORTHY OF MY TIME OR PATIENCE, AND THE PEOPLE WILL SOON SEE THE SAME!”

“That’s where you are wrong, the people worship me as if I were their king for I bring their children happiness with the gifts I make, while they hate and despise you in every single way possible,” he scoffs with chauvinistic bravado.

“I’ll CUT you in pieces of SIX, nay TWELVE and then I’ll HANG you from EVERY tree I’m ABLE, just so I can show your PEOPLE who is their true KING!” Syrian spits venomously.

“Then I’ll become a martyr for their cause, and they’ll make this day my legacy, a day of gift and joy!” Toad croaks with a smugness only Toad could pull off.

Syrian’s lips curl, and his teeth clench tightly together. “YOU WILL BE NO MARTYR, THERE WILL BE NO DAY, NOT WHILE I STILL BREATH, AND NEITHER WILL YOU BE KING! YOU’LL BE A FOOTNOTE IN MY STORY, BUT ONLY TO ME, FOR THEY WILL FORGET YOU!” he bellows as he raises his hands into the air and lets out a hellish cry as the skies above them ignite with power, and Syrian rises into the air. He looks down upon Toad as his face twists in anger. “THE MOON ONCE HIGH WITH THE END IN SIGHT, I ASK MY ANCESTORS TO TURN THEIR HEADS AND CLOSE THEIR EYES, MY FLESH BE BURNT, MY BONES BE DUST, I WADE THROUGH TIME, I SEE THE END, REBORN WILL I BE IN THE FLESH OF ANOTHER, FOR IN MY DEATH I REMAKE MYSELF AND BECOME SOMEONE NEW!” he cries as a bolt of lightning tears through the sky and strikes him in the chest, vaporising him almost instantly. For many minutes after the skies send bolt after bolt down into the earth, tearing at the flesh that covers the spinning ball. Then as quickly as the skies darkened, they clear, and the stars shine brightly as far as the eyes can see once more.

Toad uneasily gets to his feet and kneads his swollen jaw tightly. “You old fool, even your magic has turned against you, your words fried YOU instead of ME” he hisses, drawing his sword at the ready as he does, as a handful of Syrian’s soldiers spill into the decimated courtyard.

“Drop your sword Toad, your pathetic quest to take the kingdom is over!” one of the soldiers yell out.

“YOU FOOLS, CAN’T YOU SEE I HAVE WON! LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS AND I’LL SPARE YOU ALL!” Toad snarls as he draws a second sword to the ready.

“WHILE WE STILL STAND, YOU HAVEN’T WON ANYTHING!” the soldier bellows as they charge towards Toad.

“So be it!” Toad hisses through clenched teeth as he tightens his grip on the blades and digs his heels into the earth. He strikes the first two low and high, his swords blade slicing through flesh and bone as if it were one in the same. He pivots, then leaps into the air, spinning like a graceful ballerina, coming back to earth behind the next three. With a crossed overed slash, he decapitates all three. Without looking he drives a sword to his behind, impaling a would-be attack, then spins around and takes his head off with the other sword. Thrusting his swords to the side he grits his teeth bare, and charges forward as the final solider stares on in horror. With a primeval cry barraging his eardrums Toad slices his blades up and down the soldier’s form, cutting him in two.

For a few seconds before he falls of in two different directions, the soldier’s eyes peer into the darkness, staring off just over Toad’s shoulder. He spins around to find Syrian’s ghostly form standing smugly in front of him.

“Y-Y-You can’t be!” he stammers before Syrian quickly glides forward and engulfs him in.

Toad drops to the earth, gaging for breath, spitting, spewing, screaming, before he collapses in a heap. For some time, he lies there unmoving, slowing bathing in the blood of those that have fallen beneath his sword on this day. After what seems like hours, but in truth is only minutes, Toad pulls himself to his feet, and stands like a newborn deer, trying to find its footing. “I can be, and you will not,” he sneers with a wicked smile upon his face.

***

Follow the below link to purchase A Twistedly Jolly Christmas 2022 and read all 31 five minute short stories.

Before you lies a piece of a puzzle far grander than you could ever know or imagine. For scrawled in blood upon the pages hidden within the above tome is stories twisted thirty-one in all, soaked in the embers of my insanity. Five minutes to glimpse inside the eyes of someone new, five minutes to answer, five minutes to sin, five minutes to do almost anything. A god, a demon, a harlot, a whore. A fascist, a killer, a sinner, a door. Death and division, humanity askew. A belfry of bats, a sea of black cats, so many moments out there to see, so many things you could see with me. So take a seat beside me and call it voodoo, because now you ride with me too…

 

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