Micheal walked with dark thoughts in mind. He thought of moments long past and moments he eagerly awaited. He thought of himself, sitting atop the mountain of bodies that he would create on his path to the Gods, and awaited it eagerly. It would be the completion of his life to sit atop their filthy corpses as he laughed at their demise. No matter how far into the future those thoughts might be, Micheal surrounded himself with them in excess. He channelled his hate into each and every despicable act he awaited to inflict upon them. He would be a reckoning unseen in billions of years. His wrath would be spoken of for millennia to come. He could feel the rage biting at him, eager to be released to make his hopes reality. It clawed at him from inside and he eagerly fed the flames of his hate. The mutterings of the first haller’s, the prayers he heard in the central hall, and even the very image of the altar all became anger in his mind. It was power.

With those thoughts raging in his mind, Micheal gave himself pause. His head throbbed with rage and fury, but he still felt calm. It wasn’t a blinding rage as he’d remembered from fights in his first years in the orphanage. He didn’t see red and act without thinking. It felt too deliberate. His anger felt so fake. It was artificial. Yet still, he couldn’t bring himself to care. What mattered was that he was angry. When he was angry he could hate, and that was what mattered more than anything else. When Micheal hated, he wouldn’t have to feel anything else. A silent thought came to Micheal as he pondered that. An echo of remembered words from years prior. He’d agreed with those words then. He would not remember them now.

______________________________________

Samantha walked slightly behind the very nervous Catherine. She was doing her best to avoid spooking the poor girl, but even with that the poor girl looked like she had just come back from a war.

“So, Samantha, how long have you been at the orphanage?” the girl asked shakily, projecting pure confidence in her body language. It seemed she could only do one at a time. When her voice was clear, her body language made her seem like a beaten dog, but when her body spoke of confidence, her voice quivered like a beaten goblin.

“I’ve been here a while by now,” she said. “I just like it in my dorm’’

“Well I can relate to that,” Catherine said. “Some of the people in the first dorm are a little insane. Our representative almost killed a lost kid the other day, and fights happen non-stop to boot." Well, it made sense that at least some of the first haller’s didn’t want all of the lost dead. It was poetic that Samantha finally found that out while lying about being one herself.

She thought that she should feel bad about that, but years of being beaten down on by those very same first haller’s had cruelly scratched out any sympathy that might once have been there. It was a brutal practicality that allowed Samantha to survive being one of the lost.

“I’d heard the first hall representative was a little on the violent side,” she replied. Catherine looked to her quickly with alarm - well, even more alarm than usual - on her face.

“Shhh!” she frantically spat, as if by shushing her as loudly as possible it would rid the world of the apparent sin that she had committed.

“Ok ok. Don’t talk bad about you-know-who. I get it,” she pleaded.

Catherine still looked visually shaken even after Samantha’s apology. She constantly looked around while trying to spot the toad faced boy to see if he had decided to exact his divine retribution upon the two of them. Samantha wanted to laugh it off as the girls’ extreme paranoia, but something in her told her it was otherwise. She wasn’t sure whether it had to do with Aryth, or something that had happened to the girl before.

“In less ‘tempting painful death’ news, are your guys’ dorms nice?” "I've got one of the ones on the edge of the first hall and I swear I saw that some of the other dorms had actual beds,” Samantha said, changing the conversation as soon as possible.

"Well, now that you mention it,” began the far more comfortable Catherine.

_________________________________

Micheal walked through the ornately carved wooden halls of the orphanage’s first hall. On each pillar was a carving, and each wall a painting. To a one they depicted the great triumphs of heroes and Gods alike. He saw chosen warriors fighting hopeless battles, lost villains being brought to the light. The weak and vulnerable finding divine salvation in the arms of the Gods.

Micheal sneered at each and every one of them. In each piece of art he saw the works of the Gods. where others saw the Gods helping the weak, Micheal saw them interfering in the lives of the ordinary. In each of their actions was a challenge, in each deed an affront. His anger grew with each step through the hall. Each creaking step was the snapping of ribs, and each groan of wood was an enemy’s final breath. His breath grew heavy and his chest burned with fury.

He thought of the girl; small and mousey, with that annoying demeanour. He remembered the way she had talked down to him, telling him to stop fighting the boy on the ground, as if he hadn’t deserved every single one of the kicks and punches Micheal had thrown! Her entitled attitude drove him insane. She knew nothing about him! She had no right to tell him what to do or who to do it to. He had earned the right to do as he pleased to the kids below him, as they had done to him for years before. They might have forgotten the broken bones and black eyes given to an ‘insolent lost,’ like Micheal, but he hadn’t forgotten. He remembered days lying in bed, too broken to go to the vile healing priest, and too scared of the older boys to ask them to take him. He remembered all to well the feeling of having his fingers broken in front of them, forced to count aloud each snap of his joints.

He used those memories as fuel to the flame. Each broken rib and arm was another broken bone for the stupid little girl he was going to kill. He would force her to watch as he pulled the teeth right from her mouth, as Richter had done to Micheal when he was nine. Me may even feed them to her, as had been done to him. A slim smile appeared on Micheal’s face at that. It was a familiar poison to him, and one he drank of easily. With each memory his anger grew, sliding further down in the madness and glee. He let all of it flow down the familiar path as he trudged through the brightly-lit wooden halls of the first hall, smiling without mirth and laughing without glee all the while.

He felt empty as he looked for the girl. He felt more empty than he had in a long, long time. He flooded that emptiness with anger, but the hole only grew.

Micheal ignored that as he looked for a girl he’d met only once so that he could kill her.

________________________________

Samantha looked at the ornate carvings of the wooden walls and felt their warmth and familiarity wash over her. She looked at the old wooden walls and saw in them a timelessness that only buildings could possess. The building remembered what men forgot. The scuff marks on the varnished wooden floor was the memory of a young child falling and scraping their knee for the first time. It would remember that moment for years after that child left the world. It would remember the countless eyes that peered upon its paintings and carvings, and the many footsteps that had tread upon its worn floors.

In each creaking footstep Sam was brought back to her home. It was the sound of her father’s footsteps as he got back from work. It was the quick-stepped bustle as her mother prepared dinner in the kitchen. It was the heavy plodding steps of her grandfather who, to his dying day, had refused to remove his boots inside of the house. She fell into those memories like a warm embrace, sinking deep and never wanting to come out. Her attachment to the present was a tenuous, unimportant thing. It was a short reprieve from the nothingness that had taken hold of her recently.

Catherine’s footsteps, even her own, faded into the haze of memory. She felt at home there. Thinking of her home, her parents, her grandfather. She felt so warm. The biting emptiness at the pit of her stomach ceased, for the first time in the weeks since Micheal had left. Inside of that memory there was no need for atonement, for hatred. She had no business with the Gods, and they with her. It was simplicity and calm. It was completely empty.

Sam was brought back into reality with that thought, her calmness stripped away like the covers of her bed in the early morning. A wave of coldness washed over her as the pit in her stomach returned. Her short reprieve held absolutely no meaning of any kind. Her family was dead. She was a monster. She didn’t deserve to feel better. Why should she? Even the Gods, the people who had taken Micheal’s sister from him like it was nothing, thought she was a monster beyond redemption. Why should she feel better?

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Her comfort, her safety, all of it was wrenched away from her.

“Do you think tabby-wyverns should eat nerts?” Catherine said, snapping Samantha out of her reverie and causing her to stumble.

“W-what?” she said in confusion, having been too busy inside her mind to pay attention

“I said!” Catherine said, jokingly speaking to Samantha as if she were hard of hearing. “Do you think tabby-wyverns should eat nerts!?”

Samantha balked at the pure ridiculousness of such a question. What did it matter whether the freaking cat-dragons ate nerts or not? Who cared?

“I think that if the nerts’ didn’t want to be eaten, they should take it up with the Gods. they decided their place in the world, so they clearly deserve it,” Samantha said, slightly annoyed at the shy girl prancing in front of her.

Catherine turned back as Samantha said that, and a frown creased her normally fear-filled face. “Hmm,” she said sagely.

“Hmm? What does ‘hmm,’ mean?” she asked impatiently.

Catherine looked at her with an uncharacteristically serious expression. “It means I don’t like your answer,” she said without even the hint of a quiver in her voice. Gone was the shy demeanour that the girl normally carried with her, as it had been replaced by a no-nonsense look that burrowed straight into Samantha’s soul.

“Well what’s wrong with it?” Samantha asked angrily. “If the Gods didn’t think the nerts’ should suffer, then why would he let them? It's because they deserve it,” she said, exasperated.

“That,” Catherine said simply. “I Don't like that”

“Well what about ‘that’ don’t you like, then, since you’re so smart,” she spat.

“It doesn’t answer the question,” she replied with an impassive calm. “I asked whether the tabby-wyverns should eat the nerts’, not whether the nerts’ deserve to be eaten.”

“Well what’s the difference? What does it matter whether they should or not? The nerts’ obviously deserve to be eaten,” Samantha said, raising her voice. “They’re disgusting little things anyway. The briny deep can take the lot of them for all I care,” she said with an air of finality, hoping to put an end to the stupid conversation that had brought them there. Nerts really were disgusting in Samantha’s opinion. They were just slimy little lizard things that burrowed into the ground like worms. If the Gods made them live like that, clearly they deserved it.

“The difference? Who are the Gods to decide who deserves what? Who’s anyone to decide that…” Catherine’s voice faded off as she said that, and Samantha let the conversation die there. Nerts deserved to die and that was that. Horrible things deserve horrible lives, and that’s that.

__________________________________

Micheal imagined the sound her bones were going to make as he snapped them. Would it be more of a cracking sound, or more of a popping sound? Would her teeth make a suction sound as he pulled them out, or a squelching sound? He was too excited to wait. His retribution would finally begin here and now. All that needed to be done was one quick distraction with the mousy little nert of a girl, and then he could finally make progress with his plan to take over the first hall. After that it was simply a matter of… something. He had something that needed doing in the lower hall, but that was so… unimportant. He needed to do something, but the thoughts of breaking the girl came first. No, not just the girl, the whole of the first hall.

The girl was a start, and that was all. He would draw the strong ones to him, where he could challenge them in front of everyone, just like he had with the lower hall. Once that was done he could pray and train to his hearts’ content, until he could challenge the second and third halls. He had even heard rumour that the fourth hall had someone faithful to one of the old Gods. If that were true he may even be the stone ranker that had beaten Micheal recently. He would be perfect.

…

…

…

Thoughts of his violent deeds filled Micheals head as he wandered the stunning wooden halls of the first floor, looking for the mousey little girl that had publicly shamed him. His smile had turned to a disturbing rictus on his face, and it grew from there to an ugly, evil thing. Anger and mania mixed as one.

“Micheal!” Micheal froze in place. The voice of the girl. Right behind him, just like that? It was perfect. She even knew his name, clearly she had come to challenge him instead. Good. watching him kill a challenger would be the perfect thing the first haller’s would need to force the strongest among them to challenge him. Now. should I Crush her knees first, or her arms? He thought.

Turning around with a manic grin ear to ear, Micheal faced the girl. The smile slid off of his face in a heartbeat.

“Samantha…”

__________________________

Samantha thought often about whether she should rid the world of herself. It was, fundamentally, the right thing to do. Hers was an absolutely and completely pointless existence. A waste of space was too kind a phrase for someone like her. She wondered why she even bothered to come and see Micheal. Without her holding him back, he could easily make it out of this horrible place. He Might even make it up to hedgeside, or to one of the better cities altogether. He might still be forsaken, but he was so much better off without her. He never felt like this, he never had to feel all of this hurt. He was just better than she was.

Maybe without her, Micheal would finally be able to be happy?

A small part of her mind told her that it was a lie. Falsehoods her mind was telling her. But in the end it didn’t matter. Who cared if what she told herself wasn’t real. She felt it. What more was there than that.

Samantha decided that she wouldn’t deny these thoughts their place any longer. A deep part of her, somewhere locked away far into the depths of her soul, told her she could do it again. She could stop them. She could hold out longer. She didn’t listen to that small whisper any longer. It was more than time for her to make good on her place in this world. She was horrid, and horrid things deserved to go.

She turned to the silently contemplative Catherine to let her know that she would be going home. She didn’t need to see Micheal any longer.

“Micheal!” she shouted down the hall.

In front of Catherine, just blocked by her body, was the unmistakably tiny form of Micheal the Nameless. He turned quickly to the voice of Catherine, where a smile, one that she hadn’t seen in a long, long time, fell off of his face. Oh no.

______________________________

Micheal felt himself grow cold all over. A stomach-wrenching, bone-deep cold that even the most frozen of winter nights could never compare to. He felt his hands grow numb and his legs weak. Thoughts of murder and mutilation left his mind before he could even think to remember their existence. Samantha. How could he have forgotten? He had to check on Samantha. He needed to make sure she was safe. Why was she here? Did the girl kidnap her to get to him? Surely not. Did she need his help?

Micheal tried moving to approach her, to help her, but his legs fell out from under him as he hit the floor hard. The pit in his stomach, ignored and left to grow, had finally made itself known. He had thrown everything to the beast this time. He had given his happiness and joy, left only with his anger to sustain himself, but he had even given that away as well. He had let himself find the solace of the mad, and now there was nothing left.

He remembered his sister. He remembered everything about her. He remembered the day she had arrived at the orphanage. A small baby, no bigger than his ten-year-old forearm, and already lost. Her beautiful black eyes. He remembered how she clung to him that day and never let go. She had never left his side from that moment on.

He remembered how he had taught her to walk. It had been so hard thanks to the broken leg that Richter had given to him, but he’d done it. He even remembered how she’d loved his eyes. The way she would stare up at them had made it feel like a blessing rather than a curse.

Finally he remembered that mighty hand. The hand of a God as it crushed her tiny form into nothing. He gave himself to that pain. He pushed all of it into the pit in his chest, making it shrink and shrink into the familiar abyss at his centre. He knelt onto his useless legs, as he held back flowing tears.

…

A shape sat next to Micheal. He had neither seen, nor heard her arrive. Her somewhat small figure had always been prone to sneaking, Micheal figured.

Samantha sat next to him, and he felt her warmth against him as she leaned her side against his, banishing the chill of his sadness and replacing it with an aching warmth.

“That was it,” he said softly, staring at the wall. “That’s what I said before. I had forgotten.” Samantha leaned in closer to him, before whispering as well. “I think I might have forgotten as well,” she said simply.

Both of them sat there for a while, enjoying having each other at their side again. They both ignored the others' tears.

“I was back there again, you know? I was just so… angry. I was just so sad,” he said again, restraining himself from breaking into a bout of sobs. “I just… Hate being so sad.”

Samantha wrapped her small arm around his should and leaned into him more, and he wrapped his around hers in response.

“I know, Micheal. I know,” she said as her voice trembled. She was close enough that he could feel her breath against the wetness of his cheeks, and he hugged her tighter at the thought.

“I was the same. It was just like back then, but this time I really was going to do it.” she said between sobs. Micheal could feel as her chest heaved in breath after breath, and he barely noticed himself slip into the same rhythm of sobs. “I just wanted to finally be happy. I wanted all of the pain to go away,” she cried.

Micheal felt his restraint break as he finally stopped holding back his tears, and he cried on the floor with his best friend. Micheal couldn’t find the words to speak, so he didn’t bother speaking at all. He clung to Samantha as he’d clung to his sister, never wanting to let her go. He wasn’t sure if it was to protect her, or to have her protect him.

Samantha pulled him in closer as well, and together they wept at everything and nothing. They cried for loss and pain, and everything in-between.

“Micheal,” she said after a she pulled in a big gasping breath. “Do you think nerts’ deserve to be eaten by tabby-wyverns?” she asked in a sad whisper.

“You don’t deserve anything but the best, Sam. And I’ll fight you if you think otherwise,” he said as he cried.

Samantha hugged into him even more tightly.

The two best friends cried on the floor of the first hall dorm, embracing one another and sobbing like howler snakes all the while.

_______________________________________

Catherine knew enough, despite her social ineptitude, that those two needed to be left alone. She left the crying boy that had beaten her classmate only a few short weeks ago to the embrace of his friend? Girlfriend? Honestly, she wasn’t too sure what they were, but she knew know was not the time to ask.

Shaking like a leaf, she left the two of them to each other's company.