Vladmir's Prophecy

Days seem like months inside the cellar underneath the feasting of iron men. The condemned heretics of God have all proven unworthy of salvation, and several of the men have all lost hope in the divine. A wiry young man looks up to the chained beast like a tourist peering at a freak show.

"Why do you stand there so humble and quiet?" The young man asks the beast. "Why have you said nothing in the time I have been here?"

A thick overweight drunkard strung out from his lack of his poison kicks the ground and raises dirt and shit at the back of the young inquisitor. The obese man lounges in a dried pile of his own ammonia in the mud.

The young one turns his head over his shoulder and barks something obscene at the drunkard and throws his arms up in a gesture common at the time. A gesture of worthlessness and in so many motions he tells the drunkard that his mother is a whore.

"Get off me mate!" The inquisitor screams. He spits at the drunkards face and kicks at his leg.
A pounding noise is heard above, the heel of soldiers' feet crash to the wooden ceiling, "Quiet down you dogs!"

The protectors of the crown laugh at the action but the inmates become quiet again. They know well that when their guardians are angry they are treated like trash. They would be beaten to death and the others would be forced to watch the body decompose, the smell of rotting flesh. At least the others would have a feast, maggots served with tenderloins.

The scraggly fat-body shakes his head and speaks out at the wire-framed child of a man. He tells him not to talk to the beast and that the beast would only speak lies and blasphemy. The will of

God demands this.

This diatribe comes from a glutton and a thief.

The shackled monster smiles broad at the commotion, though that could not be seen under his thick mangy unkempt beard. The dirt of a hundred days dried on his face. A sense of humility in his yellow beaded eyes reflects the truth of the matter. That they were all damned and they all die slowly inside.

Each one of them will serve their purpose, Vladmir says idly. No one hears his words under the barking of hungry canines fighting over the leftovers of a hearty turkey meal. A present from the king's noble.

"Who are you to tell me this, you drunkard! God has already abandoned you!" The lanky anxious man talks like a young bishop to the glutton. The inquisitor, deemed by the holy-spirit to sentence others for their sins on earth, he asks the question to the giant again in a more solemn tone, "Vladmir, they call you. Why have you not been sentenced to burn? Why do you remain with us, watching us as you do?"

The monster of a man, Vladmir, he replies, "My time on earth is not complete. You are all subjects to the kingdom of heaven and I am the servant of God. I am here to bring peace and tribulations. I come from the leader of this land, and he alone speaks to me that I am chosen by the All Mighty."

The drunkard barks over the growling of the dogs, "Blasphemy!" He waves his arm and flicks his hand as though swatting flies from the feasts on their feces, "Don't listen to him!"

Vladmir looks up to the soldiers and then back to the other eleven stuck in their captivity, this asylum for the mad. He speaks unto them as though they were willing participants in a terrible game. The beast plays a mindless adventure into the unknown. It is a mindless game that questions the very foundations of their hope and reason for existence.

"All of you will serve your purpose to me. You have all waited so long and I will bring you all peace." The giant caged animal growls in a tone that is gentle.

The other men in the cellar are accustomed to the rambling of the beast. They have heard this type of rhetoric from the madman many times in the past. They have all become desensitized to the rambling. They ignore him as they always have. They wait patiently for their time to die.

Vladmir looks at the others whom are ignoring him. He notices they have lost faith and all together remain uncaring. He looks unto them and tilts his head, "Before the break of dawn, all of you will know that I was sent by God."