Competition Series - Skin 003 - Endstalker

When we realized we had survived our ordeal against the Nether, we realized that we were on the brink of something new. Something quite a bit worse than the Nether. Our first inkling were the new beasts that appeared in both planes. First, in the Nether, the Blazes, creatures who soar through the air, belching flames at any who would enter the Netherian Ruins. And in our own world, the Endermen. Silent, massive, stalking beasts that wander our world, studying the substances it is made of. Psionic and powerful, they eliminate any who would look at them.

Except for him.

We noticed immediately, the Enderman's aversion to Pumpkins, and how anyone wearing one as headgear, or even carrying one, would be granted a wide birth. But it was not until I witnessed him first hand for myself why they so feared the benign gourd. His face, covered in a mask of the mocking, orange color, in stark contrast to the blackness of his duster. Those four wicked eyes on the mask glow, and even though he did not turn his ire toward me, his smile sent fear to my very core.

On each arm, about the wrist, the spine of a Blaze had been fashioned into a pair of Bangles, which seemed in themselves to strike fear into the Enderbeasts. His hands, bare aside from his unremarkable black cloth gloves, tore into the screaming cores of the abysmal creatures, ripping the still beating hearts, the Ender Pearls, from their chests. In the four that attacked me, only one Ender Pearl seemed of interest to the man. One that had slipped out of his grasp in the heat of combat, and rolled to me.

He approached, that infernal, smiling mask closing in on me in such a way as to make me fear I, too, would meet my maker along side the shadow fiends. Steel toes and heels clacked on the cobblestone streets of the slums in which I'd been attacked. His hand outstretched toward the pearl, he said nothing. In my terror, I volunteered the pearl without question, offering it up for hope it may be bargain enough for my life. Immediately, I noticed the dull blue green of the pearl begin to shine brilliantly against the twisted skeleton of the slaughtered Netherbat. Holding the pearl a moment, he examined the reaction.

It was in this instance I notice, around his neck on a chain of what appeared to be iron, was a small, sliver of blue ore. At first, I thought diamond or the coveted lazuli. However, as the pearl grew to shine the brilliance of the sun, the shard, now appearing almost as if a cloud made substance, glowed with matching intensity. Stepping back, my back pressed to a grime caked slum wall, I whispered in my fear. "Who... who are you?"

He turned, sliding the pearl into the duster as he began to walk away. "Know me only as the Endstalker."

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Created specifically for the HappyBandaid/PMC Halloween Costume Contest.

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