When they all rushed at me, time almost seemed to have slowed down for me. I could see every single person that was within a certain distance of me. I weaved through them like it was a dance, dodging and avoiding every single slash like I could see the future. I cut through them just like I had practiced everyday for years. Finally all the practicing that I had done had come to realization.

Not a single movement was wasted, neither hesitation nor remorse could be seen in the way I moved. I cut off limbs and heads mercilessly, all the while not a single scratch could land on me. After about a dozen people had fallen did they realize that they stood no chance. One of them tried to run away, running past me and towards the exit. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw that he had phials strapped onto his belt. The alchemist.

Instinctively, I did a throwing motion behind me. A black pole began to materialize in the air behind me, impaling the man before he reached the exit. It was my first time controlling demon magic that well. I was surprised by myself as the spear returned to my hand.

“Impressive.”

“Thank you.”

Spear in my hand, I threw it in front this time. Midair the spear changed shape and the tip changed directions, impaling through the first person it hit before disappearing. By now everyone had enough. They were all backing off, quivering in their corner. It was strange that they were afraid of me. I was just a twelve-year old, slightly small in shape and figure. Fear could do very interesting things to a person.

I didn’t show any of them any mercy. I remembered that most of them were willing to put down their arms, but why did that matter to me? Walking past them, those that had given in had their heads flying across the air like flowers in the wind. All thirty of them gave up. And eventually the only one that was left with Malcolm.

I walked to the end of the room, where he was alone in a pool of blood, scraping across the dirt trying to get away from me. It was an amusing scene at first, but afterwards I thought it was unsightly and pathetic. Before I concluded my business with him, I had to do something else first. I broke both of his legs, and dragged him as he screamed and cried, his nails bleeding as it scraped across the dirt.

And to the cell where I was taken, I finally arrived. I opened the steel door that I would hear open before each time I was tormented. And inside, I saw her. A lonely and small figure, huddled up in the corner, afraid and cold. I left Malcolm outside. He couldn’t get that far even if he tried to run anyways.

I knelt down to her cage, breaking it open with my hands.

I saw her mouth move, and very softly she said something.

“Let me die…” I could hear her.

“Hello,” I whispered, and extended an arm out.

She avoided my hand at first, but as she looked closely the look on her face changed.

“It's you…” she whispered. She came closer, to try to come out, but she couldn’t. Her legs gave away as soon as she tried to stand.

“Here, let me help,” she instinctively tried to slap my hands away. After years of being pushed around by men like that, of course she would react like that. She held her own hands, making sure that they stopped shaking as I lifted her up, taking her outside. I stepped on Malcolm on the way out as he tried to crawl his way out of the cave.

“Was that-” she looked behind me.

“Yes.”

“What happened- my god,” she exclaimed as we walked past the multitude of dead bodies in the front. I could sense the fear returning to her as I carried her. I didn’t blame her.

Between the rusty smell of blood, I could smell food in the corridor up ahead. I walked into what appeared to be the kitchen, meat and vegetables in a closet, preserved for the future. They wouldn’t be needing this food anymore. I placed her down on a chair and table and picked up a piece of bread. I ate it. It was my first time eating something that wasn’t just crawling past the ground in a long while.

“What do you want to eat?” I asked her.

“Anything....” she replied weakly.

I wanted to give her something filling. She was given food unlike me, but of course it was only enough to keep her alive. I got a large piece of meat that was already cooking over the fire, putting it in a bowl so that she could eat.

“My teeth can’t chew through meat that tough,” she shook her head.

I ended up giving her a piece of bread, and watched as she consumed it like it was her last meal. I ate the meat slowly, my sense of taste had gotten much sharper as well.

After she was done, I motioned her to everything else in the cabinet.

“Help yourself, I”ll be back,” I wiped my mouth on my rags, returning back outside.

“Where are you going?” she asked behind me.

“I’m not done with Malcolm, not yet.”

I found him where I left him. This time he had given up trying to run outside, and he was in a sitting position next to where I had been held prisoner.

He looked up as I came, but I no longer sensed fear from him. Only defeat.

“You again…” he commented.

I simply looked down at him.

“I should have known… the first time I met you,” he coughed up. “I should have seen it in your eyes… that what I was harboring wasn’t a child… I was harboring a mon-” I kicked his face, silencing him. I didn’t need him to tell me something I already knew.

“You should have killed me when you had the chance,” I cut off a piece of cloth from his shirt, gagging him. “For months, you held me captive here, torturing me. And now, I return the gesture.”

Like I said, I thought that this was fair. After all, there is no justice in the world. Not unless you make it for yourself.

The black matter around my sword disappeared, leaving the half broken sword. I touched the tip, blood trickling from my index finger even though I barely touched it. It was still quite sharp.

He tried to break free but as his hands got close to me I grabbed them, creating a black short black spike. He shook as I stabbed the palm of his hands, impaling both arms to the rock walls behind him.

I started by pulling out all of his nails on both his feet and hands. He grunted and gagged on the cloth as I pulled each of them out, slowly. He made me go through a lot of pain within those few months. I intended to pay him back for every moment.

I remembered a book I read a while back. There are 206 bones in the human body. I wondered just how many I could break before he passed out from the pain. I couldn’t remember every single bone, so I went for the obvious ones.

I already crushed his lower legs, the fibula and the tibia. I recalled that upwards, would be the femur. He tried to break free, only to bleed more as I continued.

Phalanges, carpals, ulna, radius, humerus, scalupa, clavicle.

The sound of bones being crushed I could hear his screaming through the cloth now. He couldn’t move his arms or legs. With that many broken bones, I was just surprised he hadn’t passed out from the pain. I pressed on the piece of cloth with my hands, tilting my head as tears began rolling down his eyes.

I took my dagger, aiming precisely to the side of his head, my hand still preventing him from screaming. I carved out his left eye, they looked just like soft marble. There was so much blood on the floor now it looked as if there had been a massacre.

“Why stop now?” I asked myself.

I began twisting his arm. His muscles and tendons began to twist, and swiftly I put as much force as I could possibly put. Around the shoulders the flesh ripped apart, but unlike a stab wound he could feel every single fibre in his body being torn apart. I left it just like that for a moment before I ripped out his left arm. The bone flew out from the socket, colored deep red. I threw his arm to the side, wondering just what else I could do.

I could tear apart his flesh, and turn him inside out. Just as I thought about what I could do to him, my hands began to shake and I felt like regurgitating. I calmed myself down, putting my dagger to my side. I took another look at him again.

Malcolm was nearly dead, every bone in his body had been broken. He could barely move, much less fight back. I had already taken an arm, an eye. There was no recovering from him.

I breathed heavily, backing off from what remained of Malcolm.

“Humans... even for me that’s beyond brutal.”

“Shut up. It’s only fair…” I tried to justify myself.

“I’m not saying it’s not fair. I would have done worse myself… I’m just surprised that you had it in you.”

I knew deep down that it was cruel and pure evil. Yet I kept saying that it was only fair. But who was I to decide such a thing?

I left Malcom for dead, quickly walking back to the kitchen. The nameless girl was still at the table, done eating it seemed. She was trembling, and as she tried to stand up she fell onto the ground.

I went over swiftly, trying to help her up. As my hands got close she slapped them away, covering herself and dragging herself to a corner. She was scared of me.

There was something about it that tore me apart from the inside. I was completely powerless to help her, even with all the strength I had. I couldn’t touch her. I couldn’t hold her, I couldn’t hug her and tell her that everything would be fine. I was too scared to do anything because I felt like anything that a man like me tried would only hurt her more.

“I’ll get something for you to change into,” I said as I helped her back onto the table.

“Wait…” she gasped out. “Don’t bother.”

“Why?” She was clearly cold.

“I need you to do something else for me…” she replied weakly to me.

“What is it? Can we do this after we leave? You need to get help, it’ll be better if we discuss this after we’re in a safer place-” I rambled on.

“No…” she interrupted, louder this time. “You see… they were getting ready to discard both of us. They said that boys are easier to sell because of what’s been happening outside. I overheard them saying something about selling you… but the alchemist required someone else for his new medicine. Something about permanent paralysis…”

My heart sank.

“I can’t feel my legs anymore,” she cried. It was my first time seeing her like this. In that cell, alone with her she never cried. No matter how many times they threw her around, no matter how crudely they treated her. Until now.

“Eventually I won’t be able to move my hands. If I’m lucky, I’ll still be able to breathe, but even now I feel like I’m suffocating. I don’t feel pain anymore. I don’t… feel anything” She put her other shaky hand on my other shoulder. She wasn’t shivering because she was cold. Her body was no longer functioning. Whatever they gave her, they never gave me such a high dosage. She couldn’t feel anything anymore, not even pain. And I felt like I could hear her next words before they even left her mouth.

“Please, kill me,” she cried.

It shattered me. She held on for years, hoping that one day she could escape.

“We can try to find an antidote, there are other alchemists out in the world. Someone should be able to find a cure,” I pleaded.

“You know that’s not true.”

“Shut up,” I shouted in my head.

“You need the original poison to make an antidote, and from the way you killed everyone you won’t be getting your hands on it anytime soon.”

He was right.

“Please, we can try,” I pleaded with her.

She tried standing up one more time, successfully. The nameless girl put her hands up to my face, gently caressing it. At the same time I could feel that her hands were shaky, wanting to keep away from me. Her cold, dead eyes were still the same as ever. I wanted her to live.

She leaned on me, resting her head on my shoulder. “You know, when I first met you I wanted to hate you. It was because of your father that people like Malcolm exist in the world. But you looked so pitiful and helpless in that cage that I just couldn’t. But if there’s one thing I see in you… it’s that you’re not like the rest of us. You’re not normal... and you’ve proven that today. And now… please… I ask of you… kill me,” she whispered.

I held her in my arms, locked in a temporary embrace. Even as she held me I could tell that it took every ounce of her strength to make sure that she didn’t push me away. Even in the end, I could do nothing for her.

“Thank you for being in there with me,” I whispered in her ear as I reached for my dagger. “If it weren’t for you... I think I would have lost it.”

I didn’t ask for her name. I thought it would have been pointless to memorize the name of a person that would be dying soon. I wanted to ask, but at the same time she seemed to have a reason for not telling me her name, treating it like some kind of game. Perhaps it’s better this way. Just to remember her as the nameless girl.

As I left the cave, the moon was high up in the air. Soaked from head to toe with blood, I dragged my dagger and myself outside. I walked very slowly, tired and worn out. I sat down under a tree, wiping my dagger with my tattered shirt. I didn’t feel like spending any more time in that place. I just didn’t.

All my wounds slowly healed, leaving nothing but scars behind. How fast I healed scared me. This regeneration… It almost made me seem immortal. But I knew that pride would be the end of me.

I wondered, just what did I do in there?

I just killed over forty people. Yet I couldn’t even remember the faces of those I killed. Not a single one. In fact, even Malcolm’s ragged figure seemed to be blurry in my memory already. Emery’s death no longer haunted me.

In just a day, the sacrilegious act of killing became something normal for me. In just a single day, I had forgotten the value of life.

All it took was one push. Just a nudge over the edge, and I became a monster.

If violence was the rule among bests, then what a monster I had become.

I didn’t know back then but I was sinking towards something evil, that as much as I had been trying to retain my sanity and humanity, that the events up to this point had killed a part of me.

“Asura, are you there?” I whispered in the dark.

“Always.”

“Do you believe that there’s a god out there, a great creator, a single one that created all of us, including you?”

“Of course.”

“Do you think we’ll ever get a chance to kill him?”

I swear I could feel him smile.

“I wonder the same thing.”

I continued walking for hours upon end with no specific goal in mind. I went on and on, until my legs began to bleed. Until I collapsed in the middle of nowhere.

* * *

Everyone was horrified as I told my story. Eve, Rachel, Leon and Celeste were speechless after I was done. The crackling of the fire seemed to be as loud as firecrackers in the silence.

“This was ten years ago…” I interrupted the silence. “There’s still a lot left to off on, but there we go. No more secrets.”

There were no complaints, it was pretty much late into the night as well. They brought small tents so that we could all sleep better, but they didn't expect Eve to come along. I volunteered to sleep alone outside.

Before we went to bed, Leon took me aside for a second.

“Hey,” the tone of Leon’s voice was the same as when we first met. There was no more aggression.

“Is there something wrong?” I responded.

“Nah, I was just… surprised I guess. I never would have guessed what kind of childhood you had,” he sounded apologetic.

“Don’t worry about it.”

He gulped, waiting for a second before speaking again. “Do you know anything about necromancy?” It was a strange question.

“Nothing at all… demon magic is the only type of magic that I’ve learned to use,” I was interested in why he would ask such a thing. “Why do you ask?”

Again, he took a moment to consider his next few words. “Me and Celeste have been together for a very long time, and all this time we’ve been looking for someone… a necromancer. The thing is the magic that you used gave off the same ominous feeling that his necromancy did… I thought that the two of you were related in some way.”

“I see…” that explained his reaction at Green’s place. “I have no idea why that is… especially since this is something I myself don’t understand yet.”

“Again, I’m sorry for drawing the wrong conclusion,” he bowed slightly.

“Don’t worry about it,” I tried to smile.

“Magnus…” he seemed like he wanted to say something else. I could hear nervousness in his voice, but I didn’t want to use my superior senses to tell if he was lying to me or not.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks,” he waved as he left, but I felt like he had more to say but there was still a wall between us.

I tried to get some rest, away from the others. I felt strange, like something was about to go very very wrong. I didn’t go too far, just far enough that they could still find me if they tried looking for me. I put a cloak around me, and for the first time in a few days I felt at peace. I fell asleep immediately as I closed my eyes.

* * *

I felt something was wrong, and woke up immediately. The peace was nothing but the calm before the storm, I shifted around a little, trying not to panic. Yet there was something bothering me. I opened my eyes, and saw black matter had formed around me, latching onto the ground and the trees where I sat. I started panicking.

I couldn’t control it.

I jumped, getting up while the black matter seemed to follow me. There was something else as well, internally. Like something was trying to scrape its way outside of my body. I had to get away from everyone, whatever was happening to me was dangerous.

I began running, sprinting deeper into the woods. I was used to the cold, but I swear it had gotten even colder than before. It felt like someone, or something was siphoning the warmth out of my body.

“Asura, what is this?” I shouted.

“You re-exposure to mana’s changing your body.”

“How? Why? What did Green do to me?” I started to question just what Green had done to my body. I didn’t really ask, I just went with it. Surely, she knew Asura, she must have known what to do, right?

“She must have changed the spell I had given her…”

“You gave her the spell?” I nearly tripped over a rock. I kept on running further away.

“Before I left her I gave her all of my research and spells that I had gathered over my lifetime. What she did to you was similar to one of them, although I never tried it myself. It was never intended for a human.”

“Well, what kind of spell was it?” I came to a clearing with a small pond in the middle. I knelt down, feeling like I was far enough from everyone.

“To reconstruct the composition of a body from the ground up.”

“So what? That sounds fine,” I drank some water, the pain still persisting.

“There’s something different about your body now… I think you’ve noticed but-”

“I know… I’m a demon now, aren’t I?” I whispered.

Asura didn’t answer. I already knew from the start.

“What’s happening to me now?” I asked again.

“I don’t know.”

My skin began to turn a darker shade before it turned completely black. I felt stronger, and again my senses were sharper again. Everything lit up immediately, like it had suddenly turned day. Black crystals began to sprout out of thin air, surrounding me. As my skin turned further black before it started to crack, like fissures during an earthquake. Blood began to pour out of the fissures, but I didn’t feel any pain. In fact, I couldn't feel much of anything at all.

I felt it - mana. Overflowing in my body like a dam had burst open, flooding everything. It burned me from the inside out, and I could feel it flowing through my veins like some sort of poison. Then I heard it, whispers. From deep inside of me, like my body had become hollow.

Magnus.

Whatever it was, it called out my name.

“It’s the Abyss…”

“The Abyss can speak?” I wish he would have told me sooner.

“It never spoke to me.”

“Dangit Asura, I thought we were in control!” I shouted. The black matter around me suddenly stopped, as if time had just completely stopped. Levitating in the air, it all came together like it was being pulled together. The shards from the ground were plucked out of the soil, shining and sparkling like gems. It circled around, slowly but surely forming what seemed to look like a person, but not human.

“I… I’ve never seen the Abyss do such a thing.”

Asura sounded agitated. I could feel it when Asura was enraged, or disappointed. But never before had I felt him nervous or agitated.

The creature formed from the Abyss walked towards me, not making a single sound. Its legs didn’t even touch the ground, levitating above me. But I sensed no hostility from it.

I was scared, even with no reason to be.

Then I heard it speak again.

“Young morning star…”

The crystal hand touched me. It didn't feel like crystals, it felt like a human hand. It shattered, breaking apart and turning into small fragments. It gravitated towards me, seeping into my skin. There was no pain, but it entered the small fissures that the blood had left. I watched as it went under my skin, like insects forcefully making its way into my body. I found the courage to look at the pond again.

I had black, coal-like skin. I just looked like a monster.

“That's… not possible.”

The black matter stormed the area around me, breaking branches, leveling the ground around where I was. I watched in terror as my magic went loose, destroying everything in the nearby vicinity. Thankfully, I was far away from everyone else.

It was still silent. As the fragments of the Abyss consumed and ravaged the landscape, it silently consumed it, disappearing from this world. I watched as everything around me was enraptured in void, corrupted and changed by me.

Then I felt something, someone behind me. I turned around as a single figure approached me from the thistles.

Rachel.

It was always her.

“Don’t come near me!” I shouted across the broken grassland.

She ignored my warning, stepping into the storm. I could feel the shards of darkness whispering to me, like the devil dancing on my shoulder.

Consume everything…

The Abyss raged on, devouring trees and stone without discrimination. And I watched in fear, as Rachel without hesitation stepped towards me, her face masked with that of indifference. Even as she was right in front of me, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do anything.

And as she knelt down, she placed her hand on my face. I was too scared to meet her eyes.

“It’s fine…” she whispered. It was quiet, even among the storm of silence. “I’m here, Magnus.”

The fragments of the Abyss continued to whisper into my ear.

“Consume her.”

Even as the shards of darkness pointed towards her, her face remained calm and composed. As if she had absolute faith in me. The fragments of the Abyss slowly drew back, then lunged forward immediately towards her.

“NO, NO, NO,” I jumped up back onto my feet and suddenly everything stopped moving. The black in my skin fluctuated and glowed like a black pearl, and then I could feel it. I could feel a connection to the Abyss, and then I was in control. The storm slowed down, and the black shards stopped right before they impaled her.

The whispers stopped. The fragments obeyed.

I lowered my hands as everything calmed down. I could hear my own heart beating as the storm settled. As everything came to a halt, I banished it all back into the realm they came from.

The Abyss dissolved into thin air, taking what they had destroyed with them. Black dust scattered into the wind like flowers, and the storm was gone.

It was just us two now.

I watched as my skin reverted to normal, the black matter underneath in my skin receding back into my body. I raised my shirt, seeing the pulsating black matter travel through my body like a parasite. All of it retreated into my heart, and then there was nothing. My skin turned back to normal, Rachel grabbing me as I fell forward. The two of us dropped to our knees, my arms falling downwards as she held me tightly.

I had known for a long time, since that night many years ago, back in my home country.

That I couldn’t be human anymore.

For years I roamed the world, looking for ways I could retain my humanity, and restore my powers.

But as I realized that it was one or the other I accepted my fate.

I had dreamed of living a normal, human life.

But as that dream faded out of existence, I asked myself.

Why I had to be cursed with such an existence.

“It's fine now…” Rachel assured me.

“You can see it, can’t you?” I whispered.

“Yes. I can,” her voice calmed me down slightly.

“Am I still human?” I asked.

“No… you’re not,”

“What am I then? What do you see?”

She paused for a moment. “I see that you’re changing into something, and I’m not entirely sure what.”

“But you know, don’t you. That it’s something vile. Celeste and Leon knew, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to tell.”

“Yeah, I know,” she answered without hesitation.

“Then how can you still believe… that I’m not the monster I think I am?”

“Because I can see through that lonely and somber mask, that you’re only broken because the world tried to break you. I knew from the start… and the others know now. Even if you’re no longer human… you’re still the one that saved a thousand people by himself, without having to be asked, knowing that even at the end he might not be rewarded or recognized for what he had done. You’re right… sometimes the world doesn’t need another hero. It doesn’t need a hero that will appear at the right time at the right place to suddenly save everyone. Sometimes it just needs a monster… someone that can fight the battles that no one else can. A monster that’s willing to fight until the bitter end so that no one else has to.”

Tears rolled down my face.

For the first time in many moons, I cried.

I wept, and I held her tightly.

And just a little bit.

The walls that I had placed to protect myself began to crumble.

Deep inside, I’d always felt like I’d be alone.

I always felt like everytime I met someone, I had to put up a facade.

To protect myself and them at the same time.

When you wear a mask for so long…

You end up forgetting who you were beneath it.

And slowly but surely, I was remembering who I was.

Because she gave me the courage to stop fearing who I was, only who I would become.