Horror Homecoming

3rd intermezzo, a Halloween special. Be a hero. Read this story. It's not for the timid.

Warning. Darkness Inside. Only valid on Halloween.

Darkness does not only expose itself in the form of flowing blood, it also reveals itself insidiously in words and dialogues.

He hears the tyrant's footsteps coming up the stairs of the tavern. Step by step. The rumbling of a cunning monster.  Our hero already knows who it is. Our hero, one who stands for peace. Always averse to war. He prefers peaceful negotiations in the sense of strategic warfare, without force of arms , only in this way peace is made. But this stranger, now that he is standing in the middle of the tavern, looking like a scarred sailor, resembling the image of a real shipwrecked and impoverished beggar - the madness and fear are visible in his purely determined and agitatedly angry eyes - he will not be able to start a conversation with this stranger so easily. The blood of the last victims slowly drips steadily from the sword of the strange nobody. Fanarios is our hero's best friend and hides with him behind a curtain. He can easily observe the strange newcomer of the city through a small hole. The beggar's ragged clothes are soaked in blood, a mixture of dirt from the long journey, seawater and the blood of victims.

20 minutes before:

The hero is a spiritual and cunning mind, however, as well as tragic nature of this little tale. He has accomplished a lot the last years in his hometown, where he is now the king. He loves the flat hierarchy and continues to enjoy the comfort and togetherness with his friends, be it in martial arts as well as the evening meeting in their favorite tavern. From this, one has a magnificent view of the city's Great Business Street. The sun is setting. The sky drenched in an orange-red bloody merging into a sea of colors. This is not a romance. Because suddenly. Outside from the street, screaming battle cries, screaming women, choking moans of the last agony of life, slaughter, and immediately the street drenched in blood like the sky. The view down lets recognize a monster, which paves its way and kills each man that stands in its way. How many have already fallen victim to this unusual madness ? The horror has already begun. Here innocent men are massacred and killed. The sons and daughters of these innocent men have lost their beloved fathers today. Men who worked and fought for the city and the whole state of our hero, our new honorable king in office. The new king has the power. One should never believe any forces of the underworld. No one wants to betray the new king. This nobody in the form of a monster does not know what he is doing. This nobody. He is the one who kills. He hurries to the tavern. Blood-soaked sword. Dark and determined the face of the nobody. Can a nobody be a nobody and so ominously bring the horror not only over a city, no over a whole state, a small island ? Who is this nobody? Our hero is hiding with his closest friend, the town doctor Fanarios, behind a curtain that leads to a small storeroom. The others have already fled.

Fanarios recognizes the great sword. It is a very important warrior sword from the last great long 10 year war. This war was also 10 years ago. Many fighters have died. Fanarios recognizes the coat of arms of his country. Is this our old king ?

The one has already indicated it to our young King. Rarely has our hero seen his spiritual divine counterpart so sad and compassionate. More than a small tragedy, this homecoming. Ominous and bloody and so blatantly senseless, why only ? The blood still drips. Fanarios knows the old king. He was 14 when the old King left to recruit the supposedly greatest of all heroes for the war with cunning. The old king never came back. He never came home as anyone. Now he is there. As a nobody like a beggar. With a sword dripping with blood. 

Fanarios had been a friend of our true hero for a long time. He knew the old king. He was smart. He was always friendly. A little too proud. But venerable. What got into him ?

Fanarios gathered all his courage. He stepped out of the curtain. "If you are our old king, speak to me !" The strange beggar turned to the city physician with aggressive haste: "Another suitor, another man who longs for my wife, another man who is in my way" and with refined sword technique the beggar rammed the sword into the middle of Fanarios' upper abdomen. The abdominal artery was hit. The blood flowed. Inwards and outwards. A bleeding that could not be stopped. "Don't you recognize me, I am Fanarios, I ...have visited you many times years ago, this magnificent bed you made for you and your wife, an incredible work of art."

The beggar stopped. Withdrew his sword slowly from the bowels of the new king's best friend. He recognized his victim. "Fanarios, it's you, why do you want to betray me ? Fanarios answered: " Madness, I didn't want to betray you...! " The new young king watches it all as his best friend is murdered before his eyes. Something holds him back. What stupid act of his friend to rush forward. Never underestimate the weaponry of the great old warriors, an inner voice told him earlier, urging him to be careful. Bloodthirsty in the delusion of a strange nobody, a beggar, which confused however still with cold-blooded skillful weapon art was able to murder. He knew the old king. He knew who it was.

The stranger, now hesitating in madness and inwardly doubtful, took flight. Carefully following at a distance the new young king.  

At a lonely clearing in the moonlight of a dark forest the stranger stopped. He sensed someone was following him. The beggar drew his sword. But behind him was no one he could fight. He turned again and the young king swung the sword right in front of the stranger's throat. The young king commanded in a demanding voice: I know who you are, surrender, you shall cause no more harm. The stranger had no choice but to lay down his sword. He asked in an uncertain voice: Do you also want to commit an offence against my wife and take my kingdom for yourselves?

"Odysseus ! I am your son ! I am Telemachos !"

Odysseus: Telemachos, it is really you, now help me to clear the suitors out of the way, I have already killed many.

Telemachos: I will do nothing of the sort, bring you to your senses, I will, there are no suitors, you have murdered respectable citizens of the city, most recently my best friend, the city now stands without a medicine man. You really screwed up. You betrayed your own people. What makes you think these are all suitors ?

Odysseus: I was in the underworld, Teiresias, the seeing blind man, he warned me about all the suitors.

Telemachos: You were in your underworld ? There you believed some fantasys ? The underworld, share your unconscious, they let you see many things, much of it is just not true. Be honest. You knew the way home. You could have sailed straight home after the Troyan War. The easy way of a warrior after the great adventure back home to family, to me and Penelope. You knew at any time in the beginning how you could have sailed home.

Odysseus: Yes, I knew at first how I could have sailed home.

Telemachos: You preferred to hang out with the gods. You went off the right path. You took the left hand path . Embarked on a spiritual journey, an odyssey into your inner self. A journey full of dangers and a realm without laws. The hero's spiritual journey. And in the end it went wrong. The insane beggar struck by fear. You killed a lot of innocent people.

Odysseus: That's right. But I am still the king, I am just disguised as a Beggar. 

Telemachos: You was once a honorable King, yes. That was your right hand path. And no, you are no longer King here. You are the Beggar.  You got more and more involved in it, dived into this underworld, put your crew in danger. All this, sanctioned by the gods, the desperate attempt of the greatest 2 gods to get back the stolen fire voluntarily from the hands, from the living hands of a human being. The voluntary free spiritual awakening to the crown. Let me tell you father, no one has ever awakened this thing. It is like two stones which you rub together. You will not make a mirror out of it.

Odysseus: Son, from where have you these experiences from the Underworld? 

Telemachos: The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I have also visited the underworld. It is not only the world of the dead. It is just a crude imagination of a part of unconsciousness  As long as you live, it is your world. It is the world of your fear of death. It is the evil spirits and monsters, the fairies and witches - and yes - also those of the great gods, which you yourself create as an imagination, as graven images, and call within yourself. And it is this Death itself. It turns to the one who does not show fear. It is Death who uses some fantasy, some sympathy and some taste, it uses all the politeness and courtesy, for it won't lay your soul to waste.

Odysseus: I only imagined all this. Everything was fine here on Ithaca. I killed innocent people.

Telemachos: That's right. Your fear and your guilty conscience have blinded you. One who enters the unconscious, the underworld without fear, this one does not see ghosts and the dead. In the end, we are all just waiting for death. Death will be our great spiritual enlightenment. A great spiritual awakening of the masses ? The dinosaurs have already experienced it, probably thanks to a meteorite. Maybe people will just build their own meteorites one day and will it call bomb. We cannot predict the future. Therefore, any fear is useless.  I'll let you live. Never enter the city again. Go away to a desert island. I'll let time pass. Set things right again. Many years from now, little by little, in our history books, I will write this story differently. I will write your version. That they were suitors. That the great homecoming king had to kill all those suitors, together with his son. The old Kings homecoming disguised as a beggar.  I'll also mention your bow art and that wonderful bed springing from the olive tree. Everyone will tell the story of the cunning Odysseus, a Hero of the Troyan war, friend of Achilles and most of all, the wondrous and treasures he found on his journey, they will call it Odysee, for they know it's not safe out here. It's not for the timid.

Odysseus: Nobody will remember the dead as honorable people of Ithaca. What a pitty. You protect the honour of our family.  

Telemachos: That not only no one will remember the dead as honorable, that will be taken care of. They will remember them. Not their Names. But their tragedy. On one day in a year.

Odysseus: How is this to be made possible ?

Telemachos: Far away, in a world long after this one, there will be another Nobody who will simply rewrite this story. On the evening before the day when the dead are remembered. Nobody will read his story. Makes every Nobody who reads his story a hero. 

Odysseus: Is this possible ?

Telemachos: This is possible. Because today is the 31st of October . Today is the evening before All Saints’ Day. Remember all the dead. They didn't had a choice. There is no choice. Today is Halloween. Today we write this myth as it really was.