Choking On My Soul

I couldn’t tell if the fire was getting hotter or if I was simply going insane, but as I peered out the mouth of the crumbling alleyway I got the distinct impression even the air not tainted by smoke was trying to strangle me from the inside. There was something… wrong about the air now, something foul and twisted that resonated with the rage that filled my aching limbs with the strength to move; it felt like the blazing inferno raging around me was radiating anger as much as heat.

It was, to say the least, an uncomfortable sensation.

Peeking around the rough stone corner of the alley’s end, I noticed an odd red tinge to the flames. Now, fire certainly can burn red even when not fueled by weird chemicals, but something about it screamed at me that this was decidedly unnatural. For one, red fire is the coldest oxygen based flame yet the wall of furious heat that smacked me in the face the moment I poked my head out told me that was decidedly not the case here.

As I watched, I could see the fires slowly growing more and more crimson even as the heat grew higher and higher and the ambient rage surged. It didn’t take me long to decide that that could not be a good sign; this decision was only reinforced when I noticed a corpse with a cut throat leaning against a half collapsed building that seemed to be rapidly cooking from the mere proximity of these crimson flames. Any flame hot enough to scorch flesh from over ten feet away was not something I wanted anywhere near me.

The body’s hair and clothes bursting into mundane flames from the heat alone was similarly discomforting. The fact I could feel my own fur curling from the temperature did nothing to dissuade me from thinking I may have overstayed my welcome in this burning shithole; even so, I still wanted to get enough points to at least evolve before I actually left this disaster zone. Leaving without extracting everything I possibly could would still be a bit of a waste, but I wasn’t about to push things too far and wind up burning to death over a few extra points.

Wisdom +1

Fire Resistance +1

The very slight reduction in discomfort from becoming more resistant to heat was nice, even if I wished it was significantly more. I’ve never been fond of high temperatures, so suddenly adding not just a thick layer of fur but a raging (both literally and metaphorically) fire to the equation was decidedly unpleasant; despite that, the part of my mind that always envisioned everything I saw engulfed in flames was absolutely thrilled to be here.

I elected to ignore that part of me, and start making my way out of this disaster area while keeping an eye out for any easy prey. Before I actually turned to start moving away from the clearly unnatural incarnadine flames, I decided to see if I could Observe them.

Hellfire: Demonic flames pulled from a realm in Hell, they radiate hatred as much as heat and burn flesh and soul alike.

Observe +1

My blood went cold. The world seemed to fade into grayscale as my vision tunneled, fear like I’d never felt pounding through me like a stampede of crackhead elephants. It took me a while to realize the pounding in my head was my own heartbeat, that the sound of a raging river in my ears was my own blood flowing faster than it ever should.

Before I even realized what I was doing, I was already sprinting away from that soul eating flame. It was only the realization that I had abandoned any form of stealth that knocked me out of my near fugue state of terror, impulses drilled into my head by a lifetime of paranoia forcing me to take cover and get out from the clear lines of sight I had blindly sprinted into.

Endurance +1

I panted like a cheetah after a half minute sprint, sucking in scorching air in burning lungfuls. I could still feel the lingering taint of unnatural rage in the air, even from however far away I was from those infernal flames. The feeling sent a shiver down my spine, but I managed to suppress the instinct to keep running until I put a few million miles between me and the most horrifying existential threat (that could actually affect me) that I had ever seen.

Flames that burn the very soul, that bring an end to a potential eternity. I fear death, more than basically anything else, but those flames offer an oblivion far worse than any simple demise; nothingness, the dread fate that had hounded me for all of my life. The existence of souls doesn’t necessarily prove the existence of an afterlife, but I’m rather certain having one’s soul burned to nothing would remove any possibility there may have been.

I never want to die, but a death that steals any chance of an afterlife is even worse; I'd take an eternity in Hell over simply not existing in a heartbeat.

I took deep breaths, slowing my racing heart back down to reasonable levels with an effort of will. Fear is the mind killer, and I damn well needed my head on straight if I wanted to survive this fucking catastrophe. At this point, I just wanted to get the hell out of here; fuck getting a few more easy levels and evolving, I wanted to be anywhere but here before everything that makes me me goes up in smoke.

Once I got my breathing under control, I began making my way out of the disaster area at a much more cautious pace; each step placed carefully, every movement concealed, and my scent scrubbed with near religious fervor. It may have been hours or mere minutes, but eventually the flames began to thin and the oppressive heat began to fade ever so slightly. My relief at realizing I was reaching the edge of this apparently literally hellish blaze was palpable; it was almost enough to get me to ignore my caution and that little voice of greed that still scratched at the edges of my mind, telling me I was wasting a precious opportunity here.

Almost, but not entirely. Just as I reached the edges of the conflagration zone, I heard what my mind could only register as a cry of fear and pain muffled by wooden walls and distance. In a more empathetic man, this sound may have induced sympathy and a desire to help; in me, all it sang of was weakness and opportunity. Who or whatever gave off that sound was dying, and painfully at that; I’d be doing them a service by putting them out of their evident misery.

I deliberated for a moment, greed warring with my pressing need to get the fuck away from those soul drinking flames. Eventually, after thoroughly scrutinizing the flames around me for any hint of demonic influence and finding none, I decided that a short detour shouldn’t be too risky.

The cries were high pitched, filled with misery and fear such that even my paranoid brain only mildly suspected they could be faked. Rats evidently have much better hearing than a human, so even if I hadn’t trained myself to identify the source of a noises from my time living on the streets (it always pays to be able to know where a potential threat is coming from), I’m sure I would have still been able to track the cries back to the small hovel from whence they came.

It was a place that might generously be called quaint were it not for the thick layers of built up grime and the notable fact that half of it was engulfed in flames; a small brick and mortar home with a thatched roof and a little smiley face etched into the layers of mud and rot clinging to one of the outer walls. Now though, the roof was burning up, the thin windows belched smoke, and one side of the building was slumped over in a tide of scorched brick and burning thatch. While the place was clearly in the middle of collapsing entirely, its ruined state seemed stable enough to last at least a few minutes.

Even so, I’d normally never risk it; running into burning buildings in search of people trapped inside is the sort of thing only fools with more heart than brains would usually bother with. The only reason I even considered it was because I figured slitting the throat of whoever was stuck in there would be quick enough for me to be in and out before the place came tumbling down on top of me. Getting crushed under a few tonnes of burning brick was a decidedly unpleasant risk, but compared to actually getting into a straight fight it seemed almost safe. Almost.

This close I could more clearly make out the nuances of the increasingly hoarse screams coming from the burning building; the screams were coming from a woman, one likely trapped under fallen rubble given I couldn’t see any movement through the windows. Easy prey, if all went well; honestly, compared to burning to death or spending her last few days starving on the streets of a shithole like this, a knife to the neck would practically be a mercy.

Not that I would ever accept that logic were I on the other end of the blade, but I never claimed to not be a hypocrite. Then again, I feel no need to justify myself; if it will help me survive, and I can live with it, then it's worth doing regardless of what the morality of the masses says. The only standard I hold myself to is my own, no one else’s opinion matters; I learned that lesson a long time ago.

Taking a deep breath to fill my lungs with mostly clean air, I dashed into the building. For the second time in my new life I was glad for my short profile allowing me to run beneath the worst of the smoke choking the room, even if it did still block my vision and sense of smell. Even so, the building was small and it didn’t take me long to trace the now rather feeble cries for help back to their source.

I was unsurprised to find a woman half crushed under the collapsed section of the house, her long blond hair matted to her sweat and ash coated face by the slowly spreading pool of blood around her; even without my help she would likely be dead before the hour was out. What did somewhat surprise me was what she clutched close to her chest, evidently having attempted to shield it from the fires with her own body; a child, more of an infant really, and one that was far too pale to be healthy.

I hadn’t expected a baby, not because I didn’t consider the possibility but because I hadn’t heard it crying. A quick glance with Observe told me why; the infant was dying, almost dead already. I could only guess that its mother had been a little too slow to notice the fire from the burns along both her and the child’s arms and smoke inhalation had done neither of them any favours; being nearly crushed under its own mother when the ceiling came crashing down had certainly not helped, either.

I simply watched them for a moment after determining that they couldn’t see me through the smoke, seeing the panic in the mother’s eyes fade to despair; she knew neither of them would ever leave here, that there was no one to answer her cries and nothing they could do even if they did. I knew that even if I wanted to, I couldn’t save either of them; the mother’s body was pulped from the lower back down and the infant’s breathing was slowing down before my eyes.

I knew that I would create scenes like this in the future, knew that a quest for immortality fueled by blood and death would create a thousand little tragedies along the way; but knowing something and seeing it are entirely different things. I watched the scene for a moment longer, questioning if I could go through with my path if the everyday sight of a mother and child dying as a side effect of someone else’s battle was making me hesitate like this. I didn’t know these people, didn’t care about them, and yet something in their miserable fates twinged at the rotten vestiges of my heart and made me pause; I always did hate tragedies, and it seems a new life hadn't quite managed to strip me of that trait.

Then I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and steeled myself; to simply let the flames consume them would be a waste, after all.

When my eyes snapped open once more, the coldness that had filled me for all of my adult life was back and any burgeoning hint of empathy was once more crushed into oblivion where it belonged. Later, I would blame this moment of doubt and pity on that damnable plague doctor for weakening my Sociopathy trait with his projected emotion.

Crossing the distance between me and the dying little family in the blink of an eye, I brought an end to their suffering with two quick thrusts of my tail blade straight through the backs of their necks. The short blade slid cleanly between their vertebrae, severing their brainstem and spinal cords and giving them a quick and painless death.

Never let it be said I am not capable of mercy.

Human Female Butcher Killed +70 Exp

Human Male Infant Killed +5 Exp

Title Gained: Child Killer

Title Gained: Baby Killer

You have leveled Up! +50 stat points

You have leveled Up! +50 stat points

You have reached the level cap for your species, evolve to continue leveling!

I was out of the building before the flames touched their bodies, a dead sprint carrying me away from both the fires and my sins. My new titles hung heavy over my mind, far more so than they ever would have before that bastard heightened my emotions. Even with my newfound capacity to feel things like guilt and pity, nasty emotions that they are, I let the elation of the coming pleasure of evolution sweep such malignant feelings away.

For freedom from death and fear, no amount of blood on my hands would ever be too much; innocent or otherwise.