Samantha Cald - 12
Samantha was forsaken. The Gods. the almighty protectors of the righteous and good; had forsaken her. She was lost now. Prayer would not help her. She would not receive the gifts of the shadow of the Gods. it was lost to her. There was nothing for her anymore. Not power. Not friendship - who would want to befriend one of the lost? - not even her family. Her parents had thrown her out as soon as the Gods messenger sent their declaration. That shrewd little lesser God had delighted in taking it all away from her. It had smiled its sharp-toothed grin while it declared her forsaken to the Gods. it loved her suffering.
What was worse is that it was all Samantha’s fault. The Gods knew best, after all. She angered them somehow. She must have done something so awful that even the Gods couldn’t forgive her. It must have been so bad that even their neighbor Gerald had known about it. He had thrown eggs at her as her parents threw her out of the house. She was a monster. How could she have earned the disdain of the Gods? they were good, and she had been forsaken by them. How was she anything but a monster?
Micheal - 13
Micheal stared at the wall of his room in the lower dorm with an absent stare. He tried remembering her face, but that was hard. Thinking was hard. When he thought of her, it brought pain and hurt. It was hard. Everything was so hard. His body felt sluggish. His thoughts came slowly, as if through a thick tar in his mind. He felt as if a miasma had spread through him. One not of any of the dark Gods, but simply his own self-loathing. He was a miserable wretch in his room. All he could do was minimize the pain. He minimized it because there was no getting rid of it. Even staring at the wall of his room a dull ache permeated through him. His chest, stomach, and head all ached. Every thought brought him back to that small body being crushed under the weight of the almighty in front of his eyes.
He heard the crunch of small bones in his sleepless nights. The shrill scream still haunted his waking hours. Every thought of her was a fresh wave of agony. It was as if he were in one of the novels his mother had read to him. He remembered so little of her, but he always remembered the novels she had read. “The great tragedies” she had called them. That was an apt description, he supposed. As apt as any words could be, at least. He thought it was still insufficient to what he was feeling. No novel could ever capture what he felt. Even the works of the greatest master would be left wanting. How could it not? What he felt was real.
Samantha Cald - 12
Samantha shattered the mirror in her room. it had sat there for weeks now, taunting her, telling her how worthless she was. It told her that it was all her fault. It said that she deserved it all. The Gods knew best, and they had seen fit to throw her away. Just like her parents had thrown her away. She knew it was true. The mirror was only her. That gaunt figure that stared back at her was only her. It was because it was her that it knew. It knew because she knew. She knew that it really was all her fault. How would her parents have kept her? She was lost. She was forsaken. She was a monster that not even the Gods could possibly have loved. Even her own existence was an insult to everyone around her.
The others at the orphanage knew as well. She wasn’t sure how she had arrived at the front doorstep of the Mire home for the lost and forsaken, but she knew she belonged. She was at home among the other lost. She thought she would find kinship, at least, but they had only disdain for her. She had been raised by loving parents, after all. She at least knew who her parents were. She was one of the lucky ones.
That’s what the other orphans said. They were right, too. It was thanks to her parents that she knew right from wrong. That was how she knew that when the other orphans said those terrible things, they were only doing it for her own good. When they hit her it was for her own good as well. She needed to remember her place. She was lost. She wasn’t even good enough for her own parents. She deserved all of it.
Micheal - 13
A thunderous kick drove Micheal to the ground. He was sure his ribs had cracked with that, and he let out a pained yelp in response. He felt tears well up in the corner of his eyes but forced himself to hold them back. There would be no end to the pain if they saw him cry. A second kick shattered his knee into splinters, and it was all Micheal could do to remain conscious. He hardly felt the rest of the kicks that the large girl drove into his already cracked ribs. He faded into unconsciousness quickly after that. Why had she done this to him? What did he do to deserve this? Nothing. It was Gods doing that had brought him here.
Samantha Cald - 13
Samantha dried in front of her broken mirror, holding a shard of glass. She could be free of it here. One more moment of pain and it would be done. It was the one mercy she could provide the world. It would be the singular good deed of her wretched existence. Still, she faltered. She was afraid. She deserved all of this and so much more. It was the least she could do to rid the world of her presence, but she couldn’t. She was so afraid. She didn’t really want it, in the end.
Without her mirror she couldn’t even see her bruised and bloodied face, nor could she see the cuts on her legs from the blades the other orphans had used on her. The only clue as to her state was the pain that permeated every single part of her body in unending waves. It was torture merely to stand. Holding her single blade of glass was the limit of what her pain-wracked body could even manage. It was all so hard. Just to stand was hard. Walking, running, lying down; it was all so difficult. Why was everything so hard?
Tears streamed down her face as she wondered at that. Was it the Gods that had made it all so hard? No. they were always in the right. It was the others that made it hard for her. The other orphans. But didn’t she deserve all of this difficulty? Not even the Gods could have forgiven what she had done. The hatred of her peers was nothing for a sin such as that. She deserved this and so much more. But how could she possibly hope to be forgiven through suffering like this? It was horrid, yes, but it was still minor compared to the weight of her transgressions. It was a drop in the bucket in an ocean of guilt. Why would she bother with such small penance?
She would be far better off seeking greater penance. That meant that she could stop her current suffering. She just had to find the answer to that. After all, the hatred of the others was nothing compared to being forsaken by the Gods. she would just have to give them one more reason to hate her.
Micheal - 14
Micheal looked into his mirror doppelganger and smiled a wicked and dark smile. All teeth and no substance. Someone walking by would see no mirth in his eyes as he smiled at his reflection. That was contradictory to what Micheal had figured out, however. He’d found what he’d been looking for. He finally knew who was at fault for his situation. He had thought it was the hungry-eyed fair God at first, but he knew that to be false. It had been small and weak compared to the great behemoth that had struck down his sister. But that was only one part of it. He couldn’t just dismiss the small lesser God, he needed to dismiss all of them. It wasn’t a single one of them individually that had wronged him. It was all of them. Each and every one of the Gods had done this to him. That meant they were all at fault. That meant that all of them needed punishment, and all of them would face his wrath.
He was weak, for now. But that mattered little. He would grow stronger eventually. It didn’t matter how he gained his strength. It would all be in service to destroying the Gods. it would be the only way for him to get the justice his sister deserved.
For the first time in nearly a year and a half, the dull ache in Micheal’s chest numbed a small amount. He smiled wider at his reflection in the mirror.
Samantha Cald - 13
Brutality was key. Samantha knew that. She knew that, logically, it was the only option for someone like her to make it. She wasn’t overly small for a girl of her age, but she would never stack up to the likes of Brett or Avery, the two behemoths that ran the orphanage. She was simply not strong enough. That was why she needed brutality to compensate. She knew that it would be the only way. So why did it have to be so hard?
She threw the brick down at the leg of the wide-eyed boy that had attacked her. She knew that he had been put up to it. It was obvious. He hadn’t even really tried to hurt her during their brief scuffle. She could even see the other boys that had put him up to it laughing to themselves around the corner of the building, thinking that neither of them could see them. That laughter stopped as she heard the crunch of the brick hitting the boy's leg and crushing it into uselessness.
Their priest was weak in healing, and would never be able to heal a wound so severe. The boy would need to be transferred before a wound like that would be healed. It would be weeks before he would get any reprieve from his pain.
The boy howled in pure agony as he tried to lift his leg and run away, but failed and fell back to the floor. Samantha crept up behind him before his friends could react and delivered a swift kick to the boy’s elbow. It bent the wrong way with a resounding pop. signifying her attempt had worked perfectly.
When the boy’s friends finally arrived, none of them dared to make eye contact with her.
Micheal - 14
Caved in the teeth of the first boy with the rock in his hand. He had been the easiest to contend with since he had underestimated Micheal for his size. The other three would be far too prepared for a simple maneuver like that to work again.
For the second one, a girl taller than Micheal, he slipped out his knife and cut off three of her fingers as she tried to pull him into a grapple. The blood severed them cleanly enough that the dirty old priest would be able to put them back on. At least, the ones that Micheal didn’t step on. He figured he would make sure she was one short as a reminder. She gaped at the heavily bleeding stumps on her hand as Micheal smashed the rock in his other fist against the girl's nose. A hefty crunch and a small fountain of blood erupted from the center of the girl's face as she fell back in shock.
For the last one, Micheal had saved the best for last. A long metal pipe taken from the plumbing of the building appeared from the standard grey coat that Micheal wore. He brandished it in an open stance as the last boy charged him in a barely contained fury. Micheal swung directly at the boy’s head in a wide arc, to which the boy clumsily dodged to the left. This lead him to the knife that Micheal bore in his dominant hand that pierced directly into his eye.
Micheal made sure the knife was small enough not to enter the boy’s brain, but he gave it a firm twist inside of his eye socket, causing a wet scraping sound that sent chills down Micheal’s side. He pulled the knife free with a mighty tug, and the boy fell to the floor with a look of pure and unbridled shock. His mouth opened in a silent scream, which caused Micheal to smile down with a look of pure malice.
With one last hit with his pip, the now half-blind boy went to the floor, completely unconscious.
With his last three challengers for the title of representative of the lower hall taken out, Micheal sat down as the leader of the lower dorms. His first step to power was complete.
Samantha Cald - 14
With pipes and stones, Samantha had beaten bloody everyone that had stood against her. Their looks of hatred nothing more than confirmation that she was doing what needed to be done to rid herself of the unnecessary pain that they had given her. She would face her penance properly, in front of the Gods themselves. She wouldn’t take the hate-filled stares of the other orphans before she took the judgment of the divine. They were nothing to the Gods, as she was nothing before them.
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It had come as a surprise that she was being moved to an orphanage with no name. It was one of the many court-run orphanages that sprinkled the continent of Saxlaw, and it would be nothing more than another stepping stone on her journey to receive the judgment of the divine. She would overcome the orphans there as she had those at her last orphanage. Their hate-filled mockery would be nothing more that fuel to the fire of her soul.
Micheal - 14
Micheal sat atop the lowest throne in a kingdom of dirt. His were not riches of gold and gems, but the spoils of war hard won. His subjects were the lowest of the low, and Micheal had no love for them as they had for him. He ruled with iron fist and an aura of fear. Not a one dared challenge him within the lower hall, and he knew it to be the work of his brutality. A swift and impactful beating was all that was needed to keep the rest in line, and it would be within his kingdom of dirt that he would rise to be a force to be reckoned with.
The orphans mocked him out of sight. They called him the blind master of the lower hall, as he was blind to the ways of the world. A lost with the ambition to rival the great master was as blind as one of the lusulki. That mattered so, so little to Micheal. Be he blind or crippled, Micheal would fight the mountains and the sky if it meant achieving his goals. If it meant gutting a few that stood in his way, so be it.
Micheal had fought through the lower hall with fervor, and now stood at its precipice, but that was nothing. He needed more. He would need to challenge the girl that had apparently been making her way through some of his subjects recently. That would be something of note, at the very least. The story of a girl only slightly taller than himself taking down those twice her size intrigued him greatly.
Samantha Cald - 14
Samantha had a bloodthirsty stare that could rival even the old Gods of death as she clawed at the eyes of the boy at her feet. Her grey standard-ordered skirt had been replaced with the stolen pants of one of the boys on her first day, and now it paid dividends to her. He sat on the boy's chest and ripped and tore at his face until it was a bloody and raw mess. The boy wheezed through cut lips and a broken nose as Samantha spat on his face before walking away for her next victim.
Even as weak as that boy was, he had put up a fair fight, which did not bode well for her time in the orphanage. If even the rabble were stronger than some of the strongest at the Mire institute, who would be in charge? Some monster even bigger than Brett? She had barely beaten Brett with her secret knife, how would she beat someone even stronger?
“Hello there young lady,” a small voice said from behind her. “It seems you’ve beaten poor Simon half to death. He was actually quite good in a fight, you know? If you managed that, I’d be eager to see how you’ll do against me,” the voice finished.
Samantha turned to find the small form of a boy looking up at her. He was very, very short. Shorter than even her, which made him practically tiny by the standards of Saxlaw and its giants.
This was going to be a very quick fight. Samantha smiled wildly before a resounding thud echoed from her head, sending a flash of white amongst her vision.
Before the pain could even catch up to her, a pipe crashed into her skull and sent her to the floor in short order. Before she could even scream in surprise another his from the pipe panged off of her skull once more and sent the back of her head crashing into the stone floor. She felt her skull fracture at that, and the pain finally caught up to her. Misery was the word that best described her condition for the next few hours. She even snapped at the kindly old priest that had healed her wounds.
Micheal - 14
Lost were fragile things. Prone to breaking if mishandled. Micheal had scares down to his very soul that could prove that to even the most fervent of deniers. He had challenged the first hall often enough to know the plight of the last dearly.
Instead of despair at that fact, he had taken it to his advantage. Fragility among the lost was both a blessing and a curse to one with the right mindset to take advantage. Just as easily as a stray attack from an apostle might end Micheal, so too could a brick to the skull end one of his enemies. He remembered the look on the face of the previous representative of the lower hall - a despicable nineteen-year-old known for his despicable acts among the younger orphans- as he slammed the large stone into his leg. He had cried and begged as well as any wretch could hope. He was the only man Micheal had ever killed.
Still, their fragility was a problem as well. He was hesitant to kill at his leisure as his predecessors had, but he needed to send a message. His complete destruction of the new girl might send the right message, but he hadn’t even had the proper chance to do anything truly horrific. She would be fine with some light healing and rest. What he needed was to destroy them completely. Only then would he be left unmolested by the rabble of the lower hall while he gained enough power to combat the Gods.
There was still the gift of the Elder Gods for him to exploit, after all.
Samantha Cald - 14
Samantha had failed. Completely and unabashedly. She had failed so splendidly that the word failure was completely insufficient. She couldn’t even beat another one of the lost? The faces that used to speak of hatred and disdain now only showed pity and disinterest. Where was their hatred? Was she unworthy of even that?
If she couldn’t even evoke hatred from the lost, how could she possibly hope the Gods to care enough to punish her? How would she pay the cost of her sins? How would she ever find out what she had done to deserve all of this?
No. that wouldn’t be the end of it. Not at all. She would simply try again and again until she bested this small boy. When she did that, the rest of the orphans would finally hate her agian without a doubt. Once they hated her, it was only a matter of time before the Gods would take notice. Finally, she would get what she deserved. Her wretched and horrid life would finally be ended by the divine and glorious Gods. it would finally be over. There would be no more nights of suffering ahead of her. She wouldn’t have to cry to sleep each night. There wouldn’t be any more pain or hurt. It would be blissful emptiness.
Samantha couldn’t wait.
Micheal - 14
Micheal’s scowl was a constant companion by now. Everything he did was filled with his resounding hatred. Each action and movement filled with the perpetual pain and anger that pushed him onward. Down to his core, Micheal hated. Even a mention of the Gods brought out a barely contained fury upon everything around him. He had beaten two orphans, a girl and a boy of sixteen, nearly to death with nothing but a stone and a lamp. Vanriel had barely saved them. Each of them was lucky to walk in only a few weeks of recovery.
Micheal, for his part, only grew more furious. Each second of the day was dedicated to his hatred. A miasma spread around him as he thought up the most disturbing and awful images of the Gods. it had grown to the point of even the oldest among the orphans avoiding his gaze.
Micheal was a coiled spring, ready to explode at even the lightest of provocations.
That was when he saw the new Girl. He hadn’t bothered learning her name as he had known her to be a non-issue. She was merely a stepping stone on Micheal’s path to becoming strong enough to impose his will upon the Gods. his was a wretched existence, but it was all he needed. Fueled by his complete and undying fury, he almost missed the knife that plunged into his right shoulder.
Searing pain erupted from his arm and Micheal let out a roar before charging the girl. He had no time for banter this time around, and pulled out the pipe he had gotten all those months ago to smash against the girl's brown-haired head. One good shot would teach her from standing against him again.
He broke out into a crazed grin as he charged forward.
Samantha Cald - 14
Samantha looked at the crazed form of the short boy charging toward her and was completely perplexed. His face was anger given form, with a manic layering on top. The mania was only skin-deep, however, and that confused her. She furrowed her brow at the boy, who didn’t hesitate in the slightest with his approach. Samantha barely reacted as he swung at her head with his pipe, resigned to the fact that she would not win this fight.
He had taken her throwing knife to his shoulder and hadn’t even flinched. The way he charged at her with complete reckless abandon only confirmed the fact he was actually in a state of manic rage, but Samantha knew better. She had embraced mania to avoid pain. For all her acceptance of the will of the Gods, it was always easier to fall into nothingness than to accept such pain.
This boy, however, had not given in. Instead, he had resisted. The anger he wore transitioned to mania, and mania to glee, but it was false. A cleverly constructed ruse to fool everyone including himself. It was a laudable effort. If Samantha were anywhere near as well practiced at self-deception as he, she was sure she would have had the strength to slit her own throat.
That was why she hardly dodged the swing of the pip.
“You’re not even angry, are you,” she said sadly.
The pipe stopped a mere breadth from her face.
Micheal - 14
“You do a good job at faking it, but you’re not nearly good enough to fool me,” that mocking voice repeated.
Rage bubbled up from Micheal’s very soul. He grasped the pipe tighter into his fist and clenched his teeth. He could feel them scraping at one another but couldn’t spare the thought to care. His existence became rage so deep he had thought it impossible. “Shut your briny mouth you sea cucumber whore! You know nothing!” he roared, pulling back his pipe to send it into the girl’s brain. Knocking her unconscious would never be enough to subdue this rage. He would end this wretched girl with nothing but his pipe.
“Then why are you crying, short stack?’’ she questioned softly. It was so soft a sound that Micheal had barely heard her. His blood was pumping into his ears so loudly that he at first thought her voice to be the sound of a distant shout, but it was directly in front of him. Her voice was tinged with a knowing sadness, causing the rage in Micheal’s heart to ebb in its monstrous flow.
“Crying! How darer you even insinuate-” Micheal screamed before cutting himself off as he reached up to feel his left eye. True to her word his fingers came away dampened from his tears.
“You- how did you do-”
“I didn’t do anything, you idiot. I’m just a little better at picking it up,” she said from her spot on the floor. Her long black hair pooled on the floor as she lay down and sighed.
Micheal tried to summon up his anger and rage at this complete dismissal, but for the first time in months, it wouldn’t come to him. He thought of the Gods and his sister, and still, his anger eluded him. It had streamed out of him in a torrent and wouldn’t heed his call.
Without his hatred, he simply couldn’t summon his will to kill this strange girl at his feet. He released his pipe from his iron grip before falling down on weak knees. His pipe clattered to the ground next to him as he felt months' worth of tension leaving his body, filling him with a profound emptiness.
With no anger to lift him, Micheal felt his body fall limp to the ground. He looked up, confused, to the girl on his right.
“No more steam without the anger, huh,” she said simply. Micheal nodded.
“But you’re not really even angry, are ya?” she said again.
“I… I thought I was,” he said sadly. He hadn’t even noticed the tears had increased. He tried waving them away or hiding them from himself, ashamed, but they wouldn’t obey him as they had. His chest began to return to the dull ache he thought he’d left behind all that time ago. Emptiness was replaced by a deep, painful sadness.
“And what about you? Why’d you want to fight me again,” Micheal’s trembling voice said as he tried to get his tears under his control again.
“Me? I think I wanted to be hated. It was just better that way. I deserve to be hated,” she said slowly.
“I think I wanted to be hated, too. Deep down. It was easier that way. When people hated me, I could be angry, you know? And being angry was just easier,” he said. He had no idea why he was sharing these things. He wasn’t even sure he knew any of it until he said it, but hearing his words he felt they were right. He felt like he was finally understanding where he had been these last few months.
“I don’t think I could bring myself to hate anyone now. There’s nothing left for that. It's all just… empty,” he said again, knowing it felt true. Without his anger, there was nothing left to hold back his anguish. Without his anger pushing him forward, all that was left was his sad existence without his sister. Had had nothing. He was nothing. He was distraught to his core.
“Empty except for the pain,” the girl said too, and he nodded slowly as tears continued to flow.
“The pain and sadness that never goes away, no matter how hard you try to forget about them,” she said with more energy, with tears of her own joining Micheals. He nodded once more.
“The pain that tells you that this is all you’ll ever have and all that you deserve,” she said before breaking down into a crescendo of sobs. Micheal silently nodded his head as his own tears flowed unabated down his face.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s it.”
Pip 17
Pip, youngest of the new Gods, floated aimlessly down the densely packed streets of the Human city. The new Gods were seldom welcome in the light of the city, but a backend human city the likes of which a silver ranker would not be caught dead in was as good a place to hide as any. She would at least be safe so long as the three iron rankers over the hedges of the town didn’t notice her. If she was lucky she might even manage to find someone to take in her power and help her. That may have been nothing but wishful thinking, though.
The power of a new God was weak as is. The power of the youngest of the new Gods? It wasn’t worth the ground that Pip walked on.