Fear. It's a concept most understand, a primal instinct etched into the very core of being. The fear of pain, of loss, of the unknown, and a hundred other anxieties.
For most, the ultimate fear is that of death. But for me, death had become a revolving door. I'd been killed countless times in that hazy, blood-soaked past I barely recalled.
Each time, I'd returned, cursed or blessed to endure again. I thought I knew death, understood its sting, and perhaps, even grown numb to its terror.
I was wrong. Again.
Time had trickled by in this new life. I was no longer an utterly helpless infant. Months had blurred into a year, then two.
I could walk, albeit with the wobbly gait of a toddler. I could form simple words, though I mostly kept my thoughts – my real thoughts – locked deep inside. I was Arthur, the cherished, if slightly quiet, son of Lyra and Kiarles. I played, I ate, I slept. I was, on the surface, a normal child.
But tonight was different. Sleep wouldn't come. A strange restlessness prickled under my skin. I padded softly to the window of my nursery, a large, low-set affair overlooking the garden that bordered the edge of our estate.
The moon hung high, casting an ethereal, silver light, but shadows clung thick and heavy beneath the ancient trees.
And then I saw it.
At first, it seemed like a man comforting a child, perhaps a late-night wanderer. But the angle was wrong. The child, a girl no older than five, was limp.
The man… his movements were predatory. He wasn't comforting; he was holding. As I watched, a knot of ice tightening in my stomach, he leaned down. His teeth, impossibly long and sharp in a sudden glint of moonlight, tore into the girl's neck.
My mind, the adult mind trapped in this child's form, reeled. It wasn't just the act; it was the casualness, the relish. He drank, long and deep, his face contorted in an ecstasy that chilled me more than the violence itself.
He looked up, wiping his chin, and under the moonlight, he looked… perfectly, terrifyingly normal. No horns, no claws, no monstrous features. Just a man.
A man who had just devoured a child's lifeblood like fine wine. This, I realized with dawning horror, is what they mean by 'monsters' in this world. This was a demon in human skin.
Suddenly, his head snapped towards my window. His eyes, for a fleeting second, glowed with an unnatural, hungry light. He saw me. A flicker of annoyance crossed his features – the look of someone needing to clean up an unexpected mess. He started moving towards the house, towards me.
Every instinct screamed run. Hide. Pretend to be the helpless child I appeared to be. But something else surged through me, something hot and ancient and utterly, incandescently furious.
It wasn't fear. It was rage. A boundless, volcanic rage that I hadn't felt since… since the crown? It was a familiar, terrifying power. The urge to kill, to annihilate this creature, overwhelmed everything else.
He was getting closer, moving with an unnatural speed, scaling the low garden wall.
My small hand lifted, pointing a chubby finger towards the approaching figure. I didn't think; I acted. A vibrant, crimson aura, invisible to all but perhaps its target, exploded from me, coalescing around my finger. Not peacefully, a cold voice whispered in my soul. Not quickly.
CRUNCH.
It wasn't a sound; it was a feeling, a psychic shockwave. The demon's head didn't just explode; it atomized. A fine mist of gore and bone sprayed outwards, then vanished before it even hit the ground. For a second, his headless body stood, swaying.
But my anger wasn't sated. It demanded more. It demanded suffering. As the body began to topple, my eyes, I distantly felt, shifted, a cool, emerald light replacing their natural colour. The mist recoiled, swirling, reforming. Bone knitted, flesh wove, and in an instant, the demon's head was back, his face a mask of utter shock and terror.
CRUNCH.
Again. And again. And again. My consciousness detached, watching as this tiny hand conducted an orchestra of brutal, repetitive destruction. The crimson flash, the obliteration, the green glow, the sickening reconstruction. Over and over.
My mind tried to count, but the number blurred, escalating into the thousands. 59,000 felt… plausible, in the horrifying eternity of those moments.
Through the cycle, sounds began to emerge. First, choked gasps, then whimpers, then full-blown screams of agony and terror, each one cut short by the next obliteration.
"Help! Help me! So-sorry! P-please… spare me… please… mercy… death… give me death… please!"
His pleas were a symphony to my rage. Death? the cold voice sneered. Death is a gift you don't deserve. My focus sharpened. I reached out, not physically, but with that same, terrifying power, and ripped into his mind.
I pulled forth the memory of the little girl – her fear, her pain, her final, fading breath – and forced him to experience it, amplified a thousandfold, within the split second between each destruction. I wanted him to drown in the horror he had inflicted.
Finally, when his very soul felt frayed, broken beyond repair, when the begging had turned to silent, mind-shattering tears, I allowed the crimson light to flare one last time.
This time, there was no green. The head vanished, and the body dissolved, turning to ash and then to nothing, leaving not a single trace on the moonlit grass.
Silence descended. The rage drained away as quickly as it had come, leaving behind a hollow, trembling void. My hand dropped. I looked at it – a small, chubby toddler's hand.
How could it have unleashed such… such horror? The power felt familiar, yet its scale, its savagery, shocked even me. I stumbled back from the window, my legs weak, my breath catching in my throat.
I crawled back into my bed, pulling the covers up high. The house was silent. The world outside was silent. But in my mind, the screams echoed, and the crimson light still burned.
The next morning, sunlight streamed through the window, painting golden stripes across my room. Birds chirped outside. The smell of baking bread drifted up from the kitchens. It was a picture of perfect, domestic peace.
Elara, the kind maid, came in, her smile warm. "Good morning, little Arthur! Did you sleep well?"
I looked up at her, my heart thudding. Could she see it? Could she see the monster lurking behind these childish eyes? I managed a small nod, a gesture I'd perfected to seem normal.
My mother came in, her face soft with morning affection. She picked me up, cuddling me close. "My sweet boy. You seem a bit quiet today."
Kiarles joined them, ruffling my silver hair. "Probably dreaming of adventures, eh, son?"
I leaned into my mother's warmth, a refuge against the chilling memory of the night. They saw nothing. They saw Arthur, their son. They didn't see the ancient rage,
the godlike power, the cold executioner who had tortured a soul to oblivion in their garden.
I was safe. But the world wasn't. And neither, I suspected, was anyone who dared to cross me. The crown of spikes felt closer than ever, its phantom weight a chilling promise of what I was… and what I might become again. I was a child, but I held a terrible, secret power.
And I was afraid. Not of the monsters outside, but of the one I now knew lived within me.