Sunday Short: The Seventh Seal

They said it was forbidden, the Seven Dark Paths, each one more blasphemous than the last. But Darren didn’t care. He had a purpose, and he would see it through.

People who knew him once whispered about betrayal, about vengeance.

Some said his enemy had destroyed his life.

Others said he was driven by hatred so pure it burned through his soul.

No one really knew the truth.

What they didn’t see was the map of scars carved into his body, each one earned through a ritual no mortal was meant to survive.

His first teacher, an old dukun deep in the jungles of Kalimantan, made him drink water steeped with ashes and goat’s blood.

“To command darkness,” the man rasped, “you must first let it live in you.”

The taste lingered for days, metallic, bitter, unholy.

In Haiti, a voodoo priestess stitched the name of a spirit into his tongue with a bone needle. Every word he spoke after that bled.

In Cuba, a santero made him bathe in grave dirt while chanting to the restless dead.

In Japan, an onmyōji branded his skin with seals of warding though he never said whether they were meant to protect Darren, or contain him.

Seven masters. Seven rituals. Seven times he should’ve died.

But he endured. Because when you’ve lost everything, even death feels like a delay.

At last, he stood beneath a dead tree on the seventh moon, where his journey began.

The wind howled through the hollow ground as he drew a circle of bones and lit seven black candles.

This was it, the Seventh Seal, the final spell. The one that would end his mortal enemy once and for all.

He spoke the words, voice trembling with exhaustion and power.

Each candle flickered, shadows stretching longer, swallowing the earth around him.

“I summon the darkness,” he said. “To destroy the one who has taken everything from me.”

The air grew colder. His breath fogged.

And then, silence.

He waited for his enemy to appear. He waited to see the face he had cursed a thousand times in his mind.

But the darkness didn’t move. Instead, it whispered. Softly. Almost tenderly.

“You called for me… but you were calling for yourself.”

Darren froze. His heartbeat slowed. The wind stopped.

The shadows coiled tighter, rising up his legs like hands, pulling him closer into their embrace.

And in that moment, he understood.

All this time, all the pain, the rituals, the sacrifices, he hadn’t been trying to destroy another.

He had been trying to destroy himself.

He wasn’t consumed by hatred for the world.

He was consumed by hatred for the man he saw in the mirror.

He knelt as the final candle died, a small smile crossing his lips.

“I guess… I finally found peace,” he whispered.

And then the darkness took him, gently like an old friend welcoming him home.

When dawn came, there was nothing left but the circle of bones and the faint smell of wax and blood.

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If you’ve ever felt like the darkness is calling your name, please reach out.

You’re not alone, and you are never beyond saving.

💬 Befrienders KL: 03-7627 2929 | Talian Kasih: 15999 | Mental Health Helpline (MY): 15555