Part One

A frozen and bare wasteland. Ice sheets pelt the night sky with unrelenting fury. Between the Two Poles sing the sweet strains of carols, crashing against the thrum of a glass of milk and the hum of the liquid splashing inside the glistening container. And it crashes against the glass as if crying out to crack it. All is not calm and all is not bright.

Thunderous cracks split the ayre and streams of molten rock, seething lava spew from the shattering ice sheets of the frozen Northern Pole. A choking fog collides with frigid sleet. Something scratches the silence with a horrible grating, cacophonic sound. Bells. They are bells. But not like the bells of carols and tales of old times. No. These toll ominously, persistently.

A black apparition lurches from the widening molten chasm as a hateful roar bloodies the ears of every frozen body lost among the snow. Humans. They are human bodies. Twisted, covered, buried in snow.

Humans. What a thought that they still exist. Even now. It has been five thousand and twenty-one years since the dark approached their beloved winter holidays.

A blood-chilling chuckle. The grunts of burdened, maddened animals. Their leader drops the reins. He is not the Santa the humans sing merrily of. No, the fools. Far from the red-clad Saint Nick they dreamt of.

Humans.

They had worshipped the image, made him into a God-forsaken god, and because he was not the god they made him to be, he fell and became the lord of the underwourlde. And it was this dark spirit who invaded their winter festivities. Every year. Without fail. Ever since they made him what he was never intended to be. I wished their dreams turned to nightmares. And then I wished their nightmares were real. They were wishing their own destruction upon themselves.

Humans. The end of their race wishing for the last of their race. Unknowingly. Subtlely.

Every year this fell spirit has become less like the sleigh-riding jolly grandfather they want and more like the winged demon they dread. Hardly is his sleigh necessary now – it is merely another pawn in his hand, spread forth for the destruction of those Imago Dei beings.

The sleigh collapses in a jolted landing upon the ice. The figure dismounts. I am staring into the eyes of a devil. His reindeer no longer resemble whatever creatures they once were – their once multi-pronged antlers have converged and melted into two in-curling horns. Their eyes have been eaten away, leaving empty sockets. Misty flesh covers their rotting bones. They are dead, but roaming. Whatever grass they may find amidst the frozen tundra…they do not eat it. They kill it. The foul beasts – poor things – shake their heads in listless, bitter agony and release foul screams into the white expanse.

The dark figure laughs hollowly and reaches into the mildewed sack in the sleigh. A swirling wire of lightning ignites in his hand.

‘At last. Their silent night.’

***

Inspired by youtube video music, artwork, and related comments:

 'Christmas Music: Epic Music Edition - Position Music [Epic Music - Dramatic Uplifting Orchestral] by Composers Geoff Zanelli, James Dooley, annd Matthew Margeson. Album: Christmas: Coming Soon. 

Picture/Artwork on youtube video by 'TheRisingSoul.'