The world is not fair, they pray.

There is a darkness, a meandering miasma trying to corrupt the world.

As the gods of order and chaos eternally struggle to assert their sovereignty over a land worn by bloody battles, things that shouldn't be slip and crawl briskly in the far corners of the world, fighting, devouring, learning, seeking, waiting.

The world is not fair, they beg.

There is a shadow, a corrosive dirt trying to spread among men.

Father wake up in the middle of the night to open their children's skulls. Mothers strangle babies to calm cries that only they can hear. Sons flay friends and loved ones before sinister altars. Daughters give their mind and flesh to strange beings in faraway places

Since the world began, blood has been spilled across the earth, sand, and snow to wash away dirt and sin.

Everything requires sacrifice.

A woman is required to bleed for a man to arise.

A land is requiered to bleed for a king to arise.

A civilization is requiered to bleed for a god to arise.

The blood must flow, but from where?

Who must burn at the stake?

How do we know who to send alone into the night?

When will arrive the ones will appease the gods with the sound of their last heartbeat?

In what gray soul, whether by the hand of condemnation or benediction, is the determination to cleanse the world of the aberrations that should not crawl, but walk and run, that could not breathe, but laugh and scream, that cannot look, but watch and observe at night?

The gods are silent, kings argue, and men wonder.

The answer is a mystery, an enigma as complex as the language of the stars, but that hasn't stopped mortals from trying to control destiny in their bony hands with a fury that only the ancient fear of extinction is capable of engendering.

A fear that you will face.

The blood will be spilled.