From where he stood, the far etches of that horizon seemed almost achievable. But that was a far-fetched idea that'd never become reality. Just as everyone else, he was banished and lost on the forbidden land, cast away from the rest of society. What lies before, who knows? They'll all die here anyway.
Hope came in the form of four corners of half-haphazardly built walls constructed from whatever trees were still usable. At some point, a plague had swept across this land, leaving behind black masses that, if touched by any living organism, would create unfavorable conditions. Unfortunately, long before they came, others had made such an event become reality. And they remain even now.
As you'd expect, watchdogs were one of the unfortunate few who maintained a constant occupation of watching the bare land and the forest just ahead of it. Spear in hand with a stone tip, nomadic methods of survival that fared just as effectively as you'd expect from monsters that were beyond human explanation. Decoration was all it was, but all of them kept it close, in the cold hours of the night; it made them feel better than the fires.
They were essentially watchdogs from the beginning to the end of the day, with a constant cycle that left little time for rest. Drones that followed orders not because they were scared of disobeying, but were afraid of what would happen to the rest of them if they failed. Grasping onto whatever humanity they had left in them and striving to maintain a community, gave them more than enough desire to follow protocol. But not all were the same.
Each morning, the boss allows a select few to go out into the forbidden land. They're not expected to come back, and there's no confidence that they'd even survive, but there was always one. They'd open the gate, and two guards would carry them out a certain distance and set them free. Most of them called it a suicide, a way to kill yourself without being damned for eternity. But as a watchdog, you'd hear more than you wanted to, and in the bare land, they could hear their last breath and plead for salvation. But not all arrivals could be so fortunate as to land on the southern extremity, as many arrive on the north; unbeknownst to them, the last shred of humanity was many miles away. Until then, they were alone on the wasteland.
A beaming heat centered on his neck was the first sensation that boiled against his skin. With a mouthful of sand, he coughed up clumps of sand as he sprang up and looked around. The ground was as black as night, with grains of darkness sliding from his arm, as only a gray collage of nature completed the full scope of the world around him.
His name was Gryce Harlington, banished from the mainland, doomed to die in the hands of a terrestrial being of non-human origin. Perhaps even older than humanity itself, they found themselves unable to evolve, as there was no need to.
He'd hear only stories of the land, a distant picture of darkness that seemed to sway in the ocean's current. Ripples of mysticism that created stories, old and new, of a punishment worse than death, a trip to the Forbidden Land you'd never come back from. He'd never think he'd witness one himself.
With an aimless stride, he stepped further into the gullet of the beast with only his tattered clothing and mind left with him. Walk until you can't anymore, walk, walk, and walk, hopefully by then you'd find shelter, the last home you'd ever find, and everyone else's. Gryce's home came in the form of a shabby wooden square infested with the disease that covered everything else. It'd have to do for the time.
By then, he was far away from the shore and entered a plane. It was difficult to tell where anything was, difficult to breathe, even. The air was thick and dry; there wasn't even the slightest breeze to break the deathly silence, to ease your mind even for a second, as there was a constant sense that you'd entered someone else's domain. That's because he had but the eye hadn't found him yet; he didn't know what that meant, but he heard a scattered few chanting as he stepped inside the gate and entered the forbidden gate.
Stripped of all worldly possessions, besides the clothes that stuck to his clammy skin as he stared into the crowd of many their arms erect, all in a united idea of his existence to no longer be a factor. Such hatred in their voice, no loose thoughts, it was an iron wall of a seething desire for death as they salivated for a meal they'd only imagine he'd become.
"The God of the Forbidden Land has chosen another one of his decrypt ilk to be spawned in the midst of our great town. A worthy sacrifice to quell its aching hunger, this dastardly criminal, a man bereft of all things humane, proves in his last moments that perhaps we were wrong and as repentance step into the gate and live the rest of his days wandering the abyss". The man wore blood red silk, a fine material wasted on filth. Glistening, brighter than them all, the rows of religious men brandishing the Eye of Rendition on their skulls, their sigil toward the sky. The true God of this land.
The pearly gates, as Christians would call them, a bright light emanated from the corners of that door. A holy light that tempted all to step inside, it was a lie.
Gryce opened his eyes, his mind allowed itself to rest, but it was impossible to know how long. Either way, at least for a time, he was safe, as he was just in time to witness the birth of a new night in every sense of the word. On the Forbidden land, danger didn't come from what you couldn't see but what you could, as there was no hiding from the beasts that stood on two legs.
In the middle of the sky, at the epicenter of the island, cladded in shadow, the long eyelashes of a great eye twinkled into life, twitching as its first blink had ended, and with crippling speed, it slowly peered open as the sclera made way for a wave of light; only for it to slowly be tripped away as the great eye closed once again.
Don't let the Eye find you. Don't let the Eye find you.
Gryce recognized some of the people who chanted it. How did they know who ruled here?