Happy Halloween... or is it Spooky Halloween? Honestly, I don't know. Shouldn't it be Spooky/Scary Halloween now? Some of these costumes are really gruesome. It isn't supposed to be happy, but I guess for little kids it's a happy day. And some adults get to wear sexy costumes, so now it's Spooky/Happy/Sexy Halloween...I digress. Here's your treat from me, you better enjoy it.

It had been her son’s birthday, he would have been turning seven. He “would have” been a lot of things, actually.

Such was how the world was. Those who didn’t deserve to die, died. And those who didn’t deserve to live, lived.

It was the evening when it had begun, they were sitting in their small cottage, getting ready to have what they considered a feast. Since they were poor, the meal consisted of a plump rabbit she had devoted an entire month’s pay to along with some of her neighbor’s vegetables that they had been kind enough to share.

The dirty, skinny and quite sickly mother and the joy and pride of her entire existence sat across from each other. The boy had been born with a physical deformity and mental illness, but she had never cared.

This was her child. She’d love him with all she had. The other villagers had more or less scorned the two of them, she was a whore who slept with some soldier who stopped by and he was a retard.

That’s what they said, that’s what they called the two. But she didn’t let it affect her, she stood tall and let their words bounce off of her skin. She was stronger than them!

She remembered smiling brightly, about to start singing his favorite lullaby to him in her beautiful voice... but he was no longer there.

She blinked. Where had he gone? The woman stood up and looked around the single room that they lived in. She checked under the rickety table to see if he was playing a prank on her like he would do sometimes.

That’s when she heard the screaming start.

She ran outside and instantly wished that she hadn’t. People’s houses were on fire and they were running out, but some people would just vanish in thin air.

Just like that, someone’s loved one was gone. Others would start running but then discover that their lower half was missing, they’d fall to the floor and quickly bleed out and their intestines spilled out on the ground.

Some people lost heads, other were diced up, all by an unseen and invisible force.

The smell of fire and blood permeated the air. The woman didn’t know what to do, all she had wanted was to find her son and when she looked out, this was her world.

“What expression will you show me?”

The woman whipped around, looking up at a young man who was floating in the air, sitting cross-legged and wearing a smug expression. On his lap, her child sat, the young boy was messing with the stranger’s soft hair. He had no injuries, if anything, he was perfectly content as he played with the man’s tresses. The stranger seemed to be paying it no mind, so the child didn’t think anything was wrong.

But, she knew that man was the cause of her villages pain, so she asked, “Are you the one doing this?”

“Yep, are you mad?” His crimson eye glowed as he asked this question.

She considered his words. “No, not at all. In fact, I might even be a little happy,” she told him honestly.

It was what they deserved, right? They, who had always talked down upon her and her son were now getting what they deserved. A small piece of her was actually a little bit disappointed... that she hadn’t been the one to kill them all. Of course, such a thing was beyond her strength, but it didn’t mean that she hadn’t longed for it.

“Really? You’re a funny one, too, I was expecting you to start screaming like the people in the other villages did.”

She didn’t say anything, she just continued to look him in the eye as the village was destroyed.

“I changed my mind, I won’t kill you two. Do you want to become one of my servants?”

Erebus, unsurprisingly, found someone else to add to his collection of “interesting things”.

“Will you discriminate against us?”

“No.”

“Will you treat us fairly?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

She shrugged, what did she have to lose? “Okay.”

Her son appeared next to her with a wave of the man’s hand. “Stay here then, I’ll be back soon., I placed a curse on your son’s heart and it’ll instantly erupt if you leave.”

The woman clenched her first tightly, she hadn’t thought of running away, but he was smart... she’d easily throw away her life for her son’s survival, but if he was to die, she wouldn’t do anything. “All right.”

“See you soon, then.” He winked his eye and then flew off.

Erebus rose into the air, humming under his breath, he had been enjoying himself so far. He’d employed different tactics in the villages he had destroyed so far, and they all worked splendidly.

Other than that woman, they all showed good faces.

Erebus transformed into his dragon form in order to properly deal with the capital, it’d be more stress on his human body if he used that magic.

“Ah, I love this tune,” he said as he arrived at the city where he had become a quester. That was fun while it had lasted.

With his hearing, he was able to hear the distant explosions of the other dragons in the other countries.

“Ah, Ayirn’s coming,” he noticed her presence approaching his rapidly. Within a few seconds, the kind dragon woman was there.

“Hello, Erebus. Rolut told me to help you, he said you were slacking off.”

Erebus chuckled, well, as a dragon, it sounded like a strange roar. “Absolutely no faith in me. I am absolutely appalled.”

“That’s because you always like to stir up trouble,” Ayirn retorted, of course, being the kind dragon that she was, she meant no ill intent when she said this.

“‘I can’t deny it,” Erebus remarked. “I’m doing my job properly, you know? Rolut said me to do it quickly, and I am!”

Ayirn couldn’t argue with that, it wasn’t as if Erebus had been given a specific command on how to do his work. Even if he killed them one by one individually, as long as he did it quickly, it shouldn’t be a problem...

It wasn’t a necessarily valid way of thinking, but it was certainly a way to interpret Rolut’s words.

And, also, she simply just didn’t care enough to scold Erebus.

“Then, do you need my help with anything?”

Erebus’ eyes glittered. “No, you can go ahead and have some fun. I’ve satisfied my need for entertainment, for now at least.”

“Ah... but I’m a little rusty, unlike you three men. I mostly focus on healing, I rarely fight.”

“Ayirn... who are you trying to fool?” Erebus asked, his scaled mouth twisted into something that resembled a smile. “I remember very clearly what you took from me and what you took from others.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What I did was--”

“In accordance to the previous laws,” Erebus finished for her. “Calm down, I’m not upset. I know that you enjoy this game, maybe even more than I do.”

“No one can be as extreme as you, Brother Erebus.”

That was a name she hadn’t called him in a while, it was how they used to refer to each other thousands of years ago before the other races came into existence. She was referring to the old him...

“Hey, Ayirn, that was a long time ago, I’m not that bad anymore.” Erebus glanced away, clearly indicating that he was still that bad. “Anyway! Are you going to take up my offer or not?”

“I will, I will,” Ayirn sighed the words. “No need for you to get defensive either.”

“Then, have fun, Sister Ayirn.”

Erebus flew off, heading back towards the woman and child that he had left... ah, he’d have to transform back into his human form or they might die from shock, humans were sensitive, after all.

Ayirn watched Erebus’ retreating figure since he wasn’t in a rush, he was flying at a pace they considered “slow”, which of course, wasn’t slow at all.

The considerably smaller female dragon shook her head. Even after all those years he still hadn’t forgiven her, well, not that she could blame him for it. She remembered his rage, and as proof of it, there was a scar barely perceptible to the naked eye that ran across her abdomen.

But dragons didn’t get scars. They only had them if they created fake ones with their transformations, but this was real. It didn’t heal, wouldn’t heal, so it remained on her flesh as a reminder.

But those were stories from the past she preferred not to recall. So, she focused her gaze back onto the task at hand. “Your lives,” she told the ones that couldn’t hear her. “Your lives will be sacrificed so the ignorant can finally understand.”

A magic circle that engulfed the entire capital appeared in the sky, it cast a soft, green light over the city. With her eyes, she was able to see people pointing up at the array with a mixture of awe and fear.

“Rejoice,” she whispered. “You’ll finally become one with nature.”

And then, she began.

Where the humans had once stood, they morphed into plants, mosses, trees, beautiful yet simplistic in their appearances. It all happened instantaneously. To Ayirn, who loved nature very much so, this was a joyful occasion for her.

But did the humans die?

The answer was that they didn’t. They retained their sentience, only, they were in a different form. Since what the humans had been transformed into were very much alive, they were still alive, too.

Ayirn’s magic could be considered the most merciful out of all of them. Or it could be considered the cruelest.

Unlike the others, her magic hadn’t taken their lives, they still got to live... in that aspect, it was merciful.

But how did they live? They lived knowing full and well what they used to be, a human. They lived unable to move their bodies on their own accord, they had no eyes, so they were in an abyss of darkness.

They had no ears, so the world was silent.

Nothing. They felt nothing. The humans who could previously talk, feel, taste, hear, see, now had none of that. Instead, they simply existed. Their human soul was the last thing that they had. Trapped with only memories of who they used to be, and who they could never be again.

In that aspect, it was cruel.