#elements destiny

“Mother, I may be late but - H-Happy birthday.”

A hooded figure was standing amidst Shad. “Mother. I know I haven’t always been the best son. I should have been more grateful. More importantly, I shouldn’t have - I shouldn’t have snapped back then. I guess I was being foolish, wasn’t I?”

The grave gave no answer, just as there was no commotion around him. Nemesis - no, Pat - didn’t visit this village often anymore. Not after he had slaughtered every single villager, no matter their age or gender. The elderly, the women, the clergy, the children - all of their screams had filled the air. The only survivor had been his father.

Not one person outside of their family had stepped up for them. The feeling of alienation hadn’t been what was keeping everyone away from defending them, no, there had been more to it. It had been pure hatred against demonkind even though previous demons had left the humans alone while merely satisfying their curiosity.

Asthara had stayed with them. She had fallen in love with Fares and loved humans. Her interest raised to its peak after marrying her love and having had Pat. When she looked at her son, all she had ever been expressing was gratefulness, joy, pride even. Love graced her face at every occasion.

But she had still been a demon. Not a human. A human could have been endured, tolerated, even liked. Not a demon. It hadn’t mattered that she and her family mostly kept to herself when she was burning at the stake after defending her son from harassment after he’d snapped from the human children’s torment.

The humans had deserved it, every single one of them. He hadn’t felt as joyful and satisfied as he had hoped but felt more like he was hollow inside. He had carried out his duty. He had avenged her.It was not enough.

She would have wanted for her son to be loved. Well, there was only one way for that to happen. Pat - no, Nemesis - would have to erase humanity and give the world to the demons. There was no other way for them to claim happiness in this realm of discrimination.

Pat looked around. Fields that had been glowing with vibrant green colours of crops like fresh wheat or cabbage were now barren. The salt had made it so it would not bear fruit again. Not that the corpses would have needed it.

Their screams were still ringing in his ears as much as the crackly fire that had burned the houses to the ground. Screams that pleaded him to stop, to have mercy.

They hadn’t had mercy on Asthara. What would have been the point to have mercy on them? So he had watched as their flesh was torn apart, as their skins were burned to crisps. He had watched as the noise was slowly dying out. All while his mother’s final words were resounding in his ears.

“Pat, my dear boy. Take care.”

The love in her voice has been haunting him ever since. He trembled in front of the grave as he hummed the melody his mother had always hummed to him as a lullaby. He started singing ancient words that demons had sung to their children for decades, centuries, millenia. His voice cracked as tears were streaming down his face. He snivelled, his vision blurred, as he continued singing. Crying was acceptable; nobody would see him and furthermore, he was spilling tears over a loved one. There was no shame in that.

As soon as he finished his song, he collapsed to his knees and sobbed violently, screaming out his pain for what had been taken away from him. Pat cried and cried and cried until there was no energy left in him and until he was shaking from exhaustion.

Nemesis rose to his knees again and cleaned himself of tears and snot, put on his cloak and stood at the grave in silence. When he spoke again, his voice was as dark as the depths of nothingness.

“Mother, I know that this was not what you wanted. I know that what I’m about to do is not what you’d have wanted. But I have to do this. For myself. For other demons. Mainly for myself. And I am going to destroy anyone who will stand in my way just as I’ve destroyed this village and plunged it into darkness.

I will not falter, mother. If needed, I will use everyone and everything as my puppet. And after I’ve achieved what I’m aiming to achieve... Maybe we will see each other again. Some day.