Hope had long since withered in Marsh Town. The desperate found no salvation, only the grim certainty that the end was near. One by one, families abandoned their homes, clutching what little they could carry. Some rode on horseback, urging their steeds into the night, while others trudged through the mud, their weary feet dragging toward a future as uncertain as the storm-choked sky. The wooden gates yawned open, a final mercy from a town that could offer no more sanctuary. Then the world darkened.
A shadow, vast and terrible, devoured the moonlight. A hush fell upon the exodus as eyes turned skyward in horror. Wings, as black as the abyss, blotted out the stars, and the night itself seemed to shudder beneath their terrible span. Varkhaz'gor had come. A single heartbeat of silence. Then panic.
Cries of fear shattered the stillness as the townsfolk scattered like leaves in the wind. Some fled for the trees, others fell to their knees, too stricken to run. Behind the wooden walls, those who had stayed behind bowed their heads, whispering final prayers to gods who would not answer.
A deep, guttural growl rolled through the heavens, like thunder before the storm. Then came the fire.
A searing torrent of flame poured from the dragon's maw, a flood of molten fury that bathed the town in hellfire. Thatched roofs ignited in an instant. The wooden palisades, meant to defend against raiders, became a funeral pyre. The night sky turned crimson as homes, shops, and barns alike crumbled into cinders.
The heat was unbearable. Screams filled the air—of mothers clutching their children, of men trying in vain to smother the flames consuming their flesh, of horses rearing in blind terror as their riders were thrown into the inferno.
Varkhaz'gor circled above, his golden eyes gleaming with ancient malice. To him, this was not war. This was not vengeance. It was simply nature. The strong devoured the weak. The world burned because he willed it so.
With another roar, he descended, his claws raking through the ruins, splintering wood and stone alike. He crushed the town square beneath his massive bulk, tail sweeping through the remnants of the market, scattering charred bodies like dust in the wind.
Jareth stumbled through the mud, his breath ragged, his heart hammering against his ribs. The swamp's filth clung to his skin, cold and slick, but he paid it no mind. His legs burned, his feet barely found purchase on the slick ground, yet he did not slow. He could not. He had to reach them.
The wooden gates of Marsh Town loomed ahead, but the moment he crossed the threshold, his soul withered. Fire.
A great, all-consuming inferno swallowed everything. Homes were nothing but skeletal frames, their blackened beams jutting into the night like charred ribs. Streets once alive with laughter and footsteps were now rivers of embers, lined with the scorched remains of those too slow to flee. Jareth's house stood at the heart of it all—or what was left of it.
The roof had caved in, the walls collapsed into smoldering ruin. The air reeked of burnt wood and something far worse. A scent he knew too well. Flesh. His legs gave out beneath him.
"No… No, no, no…" His voice was little more than a whisper, hoarse and broken.
He crawled forward, fingers digging into the scorched earth, heedless of the heat blistering his skin. He reached for the shattered threshold, but his hands found only cinders.
They had been inside. His six children—his precious little ones who had not even seen their teenhood—had been inside.
Jareth bowed his head, his forehead pressing against the soot-covered ground. His shoulders trembled, not with sobs, but with a grief so vast it hollowed him out from the inside.
Above, the sky rumbled with the beating of colossal wings. Varkhaz'gor was still there, his vast form wreathed in smoke and embers.
Jareth knelt in the ashes of his life, staring blankly at the charred remains of his home. His body felt numb, his mind trapped between the past and the ruin before him. He could still see them—his children's faces, their laughter, their tiny hands reaching for him. But the fire had taken them. The fire had taken everything. Then came the screams.
He lifted his head just in time to witness the last remnants of Marsh Town's people fleeing, their silhouettes stumbling through the inferno. Mothers clutching their infants. Fathers shielding their families. The young, the old—running, running, running. It did not matter.
Varkhaz'gor descended upon them like death incarnate. His monstrous wings sent gusts of scalding wind howling through the town, stirring the embers into whirling storms of flame. With a deep breath, the dragon filled his lungs and exhaled devastation.
Fire, hotter than any forge, engulfed the last survivors. Their screams shrieked into the night, only to be drowned by the crackling hunger of the blaze. Skin melted, bones blackened, and in mere moments, nothing remained but shadows scorched into the ruined ground. And then—Laughter. A deep, resonant chuckle rumbled from above, shaking the very ground.
Varkhaz'gor loomed over the wreckage, his scales gleaming like molten gold in the firelight. His eyes, deep as the abyss, glowed with cruel amusement. His maw curled into something akin to a grin as he watched the last embers of life flicker and die.
"Pathetic," he mused, his voice a deep, guttural growl that slithered through the smoke-filled air.
Jareth froze, his body trembling. The dragon was speaking. "You should have run when you had the chance." The great beast's voice dripped with mockery, reverberating through the skeletal ruins of the town. "Foolish little insects… You built your homes atop the bones of this land and thought yourselves untouchable."
The dragon's eyes turned downward, sweeping over the blackened corpses. "You had time. You had warning. Yet you stayed, clinging to your pitiful hopes. Now, look at you—ashes in the wind."
Jareth clenched his fists, his nails biting into his palms. His breath was ragged, not from exhaustion, but from the fury rising within him. The dragon laughed again.
"But do not despair," Varkhaz'gor crooned, spreading his wings wide. "Your end is not meaningless. No… Your suffering is a lesson to those who remain." He tilted his head, his gaze sweeping across the ruins as if searching for any last souls to snuff out.
Jareth's heart pounded. His vision blurred with rage. He had nothing left—no family, no home, no future. Only one thing remained. Vengeance.
Slowly, he rose from the ground, his breath steadying, his grief hardening into something sharper. He turned his gaze upward, locking eyes with the monstrous being that had stolen everything from him.
And for the first time, Varkhaz'gor noticed him. The dragon's golden eyes narrowed. "Oh? Still alive, are you?" He let out an amused snort, embers scattering from his nostrils. "A curious thing. Most men would grovel. Beg. But you…" He lowered his head, tilting it slightly. "You still stand."
Jareth said nothing. Varkhaz'gor paused, his vast head slowly lowering until his baleful eyes fixed on the lone figure standing among the ash. Jareth.
A man broken by grief, bathed in soot and swamp filth, his skin streaked with tears and blood. And yet—he stood. Amid a graveyard of flame and bone, he faced the dragon. Not with defiance. Not with courage. But with the hollow, smoldering gaze of one who had nothing left to lose.
The Elder Dragon stared. Then, without a word, Varkhaz'gor's chest swelled. The ground trembled. The wind recoiled. The very air turned dry and thin, as if the world itself held its breath. And then—Oblivion.
A torrent of fire, white-hot and pure, erupted from the dragon's jaws. It wasn't just flame. It was annihilation—searing light, molten heat, and the scream of the world unmaking itself.
The wave of fire swallowed Jareth whole. There was no time to run, no miracle, no last stand. His flesh peeled away in seconds, his bones turned black, and then even those were swept away like dust in a storm. But Varkhaz'gor didn't stop. The breath kept coming.
The fire rolled over Marsh Town like a tide of Hell, reducing everything to cinders. Houses, barns, fences, the chapel—once a place of sanctuary—all burst like overripe fruit under the fury of the flame.
Trees shriveled and cracked, their trunks bursting apart as sap boiled within. The swamp itself hissed and screamed—the very waters boiling until entire stretches of mire dried into barren, steaming pits.
The cries of those who once fled were gone now. There were no screams left. Only fire. Only the roar of destruction.
When the breath finally ceased, a haunting silence fell—unnatural and absolute. Smoke coiled upward in black pillars, choking the stars. What remained of Marsh Town was no more than a scorched scar upon the land, a black wound where life had once stirred.
Not a single soul survived. No witness. No tale to carry on. No names to etch into stone. Marsh Town had been erased, its story devoured in flame.
And Varkhaz'gor rose into the night, wings blotting out the moon once more—leaving behind only ruin, silence… and the promise that he would return again.