[Eden]
What… just happened? Was it sheer luck?
A cloud of dust slowly dissipated in front of me, revealing the queen crawler. It had missed me by an inch and landed on the wall ahead of me. Stopping on my tracks, the confusion grew inside my head. How did it miss me?
A quick theory arrived in my head, but it wasn’t as important as the opportunity presented in front of me. The queen crawler, having hit the wall, was full of openings.
“Everyone! Now’s the chance to…” As I tried to gather the remaining people to attack it together, two realizations dawned upon me.
One. Most of them were dead. Only two or three remained, including Pyke. Two. The ones left alive were scared down to their spines. None of them moved a muscle.
Damn it! This is the golden opportunity to kill it! Why aren’t they moving at all? I was berating them in my head, but deep down, I knew the reason why, and I wouldn’t have blamed them a few minutes ago. After all, I was just like them.
Nonetheless, with a powerful “ally” on our side, I couldn’t help but blame them for standing idly while that monstrous beast was aiming for my neck.
These people… They’re all useless. Every single one of them.
Even Pyke? Our supposed leader? What about the other raiders? Weren’t you paid to protect us? And how did so many of them die anyways?
I threw endless accusations on everyone around me, and in turn, it built up a single emotion inside me. All the fear that had accumulated in me, in an instant, turned into rage.
Fuck all of them, Eden. If you don’t want to be killed… Then you just have to kill it yourself.
The flames manifesting out of my hand began to move towards the queen crawler, as if in synchrony with my emotions.
No, that was exactly it.
The flames started beating down on the beast, each strike leaving a burn mark slightly deeper than the previous. The unruly beast that had tormented my mentality now seemed like mere livestock to me. With each hit it took, it screeched in a higher shrill. It was clear that that one blunder completely turned the tables around, and the hunter was now the hunted.
However, even rats would jump at you when cornered.
In an attempt full of disparity, the queen crawler gathered all its remaining strength, ignored the giant ball of flames spewed on its torso, and made a leap to the ceiling.
Its sudden movement took me by surprise, but for some reason, I wasn’t panicking. It’s coming from up above. There’s no way it’s gonna miss this next attack, so…
I better be right about this.
I stretched my right arm which was glowing with the sentient, compact fire storm.
RAAAAGGHHH!
The massive unsightly beast, worsened by its scorched body, dove straight down on me. I tilted my body slightly to the left and pulled back my right arm. That motion resulted in the fire manifestation following suit, moving slightly closer to the left where my right arm was.
The queen crawler, with its full force, dove through the fire manifestation and landed straight to the ground.
It fucking worked!
Crawlers, spending their entire lives in a cavernous environment, have adapted eyes to see in low-light conditions. The queen crawler was no exception. Normally, this would be an advantage for them, since it allowed them to see clearly in the dark.
Unless you had a giant ball of flames.
Bright light would overstimulate their retinas, and in turn, impair their vision. The night vision that they boasted quickly turned into a double-edged sword. During the entire battle, the queen crawler could only see the fire spirit and only assumed I was underneath it. Using this strategy, I was able to bait it into missing its attack.
As ecstatic as I was, I needed to kill it first. Sure enough, as the slightest amount of bloodlust appeared, the sentient fire followed my will and continued attacking it.
Is it reacting to my emotions? My will? Testing my newfound theory, I tried to command it to throw a ball of fire at it. The flames formed a ball of fire as large as a human, and threw it at the helpless beast.
What’s this thing? How am I controlling it?
The queen crawler’s skin had turned partially into ash, and the rest were finely roasted. After a short while of struggling, it finally showed no signs of moving.
With the constant flames burning up, the room was practically filled with smoke, blocking my vision. I walked up to the supposed corpse of the queen crawler, keeping my right arm in front of me for precaution. As I reached a closer distance, the remains of the queen crawler lay on a slim crater formed when it was diving down from the ceiling.
…Yeah. I’m pretty sure that’s a dead corpse.
“Hey! It’s dead! Let’s get out of here!” I walked away from the corpse to look for all the survivors, only to be greeted with a scene I would never expect.
From the few remaining survivors, every single one of them couldn’t keep their eyes off me. Or rather, the spirit of fire that had conquered the monstrous beast with utter dominance.
They were scared.
These people are… afraid of me? But why?
Didn’t I defeat the monster? Didn’t I save the day? Why are they looking at me like that?
Finally, the silence was broken by one of the three surviving raiders. “G-Get out of here, you freak!” He pointed his claymore, which he wielded with both hands, directly towards my face.
These people… These ungrateful rats! I stared back at him with a resenting look.
A single drop of bloodlust emerged. A single whisper emerged, ringing in my mind. Kill them all, it said.
That simple emotion was enough to trigger the fire spirit. In a quick motion, with its left hand, it shot a beam of flame on the man berating me. The man tried to dodge out of the way, but couldn’t do so in time. Having set ablaze, he screamed for his life.
The trance I was in finally broke from the screams. What… have I done?
I looked at the fire spirit, and then at the stone I held. While the resentment was still there, the guilt quickly overtook its place in my mind
“S-Stop!” I commanded it to stop, but to no avail.The fire spirit didn’t stop shooting fire at the poor man.
“I- I said stop!”
The flaming storm finally stopped attacking the raider, but not under my command. It simply stopped for one reason. The man was now a pile of ashes.
I never asked it to attack the man… So why?
My lack of understanding of this newfound power had already cast its first victim.
“You… You killed him! You monster!” Pyke, who had been frozen in place the entire time, spoke up. As I turned my head to face him, he flinched backwards and readied a defensive stance.
In defeat, I let go of the stone that I had clung onto with my whole life the entire time. As followed, the fire spirit dissipated into the air, leaving only the smoke to slowly whittle down.
I held my right arm and looked at it, noticing markings which glowed with a purple hue. They definitely weren’t there the last time I checked. The distinct patterns were easily noticeable to resemble that of the stone. However, as the glow quickly died out, so did the markings.
I saved everyone, right? Am I the monster here?
“H-How did you do that, you sick fuck?!”
“Get away from us!”
The others joined Pyke in chastising me, but I had my constraints checked this time. They’re… They’re rightful to be scared of you, Eden.
“Stop at once!” A familiar voice echoed from a short distance, ending the quick ragging session.
From a distance, two people could be seen running towards us. As they reached a closer distance, the torch one of them carried revealed their identities.
They were the two royal brothers, Allen and Alex.
Comments (1)
See all