I run quickly down the street, panting as I glance up to where I know Sai is waiting, and I imagine a pathway up. I can do this. I can just get up there. I don’t quite understand yet, but my body tells me what I need to do, just like back at the top of the pitfall trap. I give into the instinct without a thought this time, and let it show me what I can do. I approach the wall at the base of the building and the darkness surrounds me again, the black aura stretching up to a thin line between the street and the roof, and in a snap, I move between them. A gateway of shadow. Instantaneous travel between points connected by darkness. I look back and marvel at the quickly disappearing fold in space, but flinch when I feel a hand on my head.

I look up and see Sai is… patting my head through my new hood. “Very good, you acted creatively under pressure. Well done.” I’m frozen in place, though. She has orange pupils. She’s up to something.

“What am I?” I ask directly, hoping to distract her from whatever's going through her head.

“You’re a darkling. A little goblin who thrives in shadow and flees from the light.” Unphased by the question, she backs up a step and points down the street toward the building I’d left behind. “But you didn’t finish the job. You had them right where you wanted them and you ran away.”

“I don’t…” I bite my lip and take a quick breath. She can't be serious, right? “What? Sai, I don’t want to kill them. Why would I? I won. I got back here to you, and they’ll just… fuck off now, bother someone else. Whatever, right? I-I’m not a killer.” Despite what my mind had told me in the heat of the moment, I don't think I want to get in the habit of bloodshed. That frightening bloodlust was something I could control. That I should control. Right? “I’m not a murderer. I definitely don’t think I want to be.”

Sai chortles at my innocence. “And how long is that going to last?” She motions for me to follow her to the edge of the building to watch down at their little base, dropping down and letting her legs hang over the edge. “Kid, this world isn’t nice. Unless you plan to stick to Main Street forever, you’re going to have to kill someone, eventually. And I mean, you can just stay on Main Street if you can somehow find a completely non-violent way to make a living there. Some demons do that. Not many, but some do. But even then, you’re gonna have to step on someone to get there.”

I cautiously move to sit down next to her, feeling like I’m being lectured about something I did wrong, even though I inarguably did the right thing leaving them be. “Well, maybe I should try anyway. Go to Main Street and… I dunno, make art. Sell it. I-I don’t have the stomach to just… take a life, Sai. I’m not sure why, but I can tell they’re not half-demons, right? They would have to die for real if I killed them.”

“You’d be able to tell if they were halves.” Sai nods in agreement. “Kid, this is a bandage you’re gonna need to rip off sooner rather than later. It’s going to be a lot easier for you to kill than it would be for a human, but it’s still gonna be… hard. At least at first. And it’s really best if you get your first kill on something weak, like those two down there. So you don’t flinch in a real fight down the line instead.”

I grumble quietly, looking at the knife in my hand and remembering that I had been meant to return it to Sai. I hold it out for her and she takes my hand to close it around the handle again. “It’s yours. You’ll need it.” She nods toward the trapped building and gives me an almost sad smile. “I’m here to teach you what you need to know. And you need to know that you can’t survive this world with clean hands, kid. Go, kill them now.”

My mouth hung open for a second as the gravity of what she'd just said washes over my soul. It was a command. I swallow hard, staring off into the distance as I take the dagger back and settle it in my lap, my mind refusing to acknowledge the order at first. And then I start to feel the nag of my body threatening to start a deadly approach on its own, and I turn to look at Sai. “I… I hate you.” I tell her coldly, helpless whimpering seizing at my mind. No, this wasn't right. I had resisted my instincts. I was better than this, I proved it already.

“No, you don’t.” she pats me on the shoulder and stands back up. I have to follow suit, my body compelled, unable to resist, and I once more shoot a line of darkness down to the street level, walking through the invisible gap in space as if the two points were adjacent.

I stomp heavily down the street, taking over from the puppet strings guiding my soul back into the fight. Begrudgingly, I move forward of my own volition. Sai’s right. I don’t hate her. I want to kill these people. I want to feel their blood on my skin. I want to tear them apart and eat their flesh. I let the dark thoughts wash over me, becoming more and more grim, hoping that they’ll make what’s to come easier. If I’m going to do this, then I should extinguish that lingering humanity that makes me feel disgusting for it. But it’s not so simple.

Part of me hopes that they’ll win and humiliate me. At least then they’ll be alive. At least then I won’t be a murderer. Sure, Sai will probably kill them to retrieve me, but then it’s not on my hands anymore. Is that the resolve I need to show Sai to keep my innocence? I’m not sure if I’m capable of it.

I watch as the elf carries the kobold carefully out of the building. Sven is conscious, but his legs are shredded from the depths of his own trap. The kobold can’t fight back anymore in his state. They both lock eyes with me and that dark side of me delights at the fear that I see.

I stop for just a moment; the compulsion allowing it only because I’m not backing down. “I wanted to leave you be,” I tell them loudly, my voice quavering slightly as I let it carry down the street. I don’t know why I’m warning them. Perhaps to absolve myself of some minutiae of guilt. “But I don’t have a say in it anymore. My master ordered me to kill you. Both of you. So… I dunno, maybe you can run or something. But I don’t think I’m allowed to hold back.”

There’s a long pause as we stare each other down. I approach closer and they back away. Eventually, Carlos sets Sven down on the ground.

I hate that I know their names.

Carlos readies the pipe toward me like some kind of overly-long sword held in both hands. “You think I’m not ready for you this time? You caught me off guard, that’s all.”

I stop as I get within a few meters of him and I let the darkness well up once more, surrounding me as I watch the elf’s eyes flash red. He steps toward me with a shout and then we’re both engulfed in shadows. I step effortlessly out of the way of the elf’s swing, and the battle begins in earnest. “Why did you have to attack me? I just wanted the knife. It was just supposed to be a stupid chore because I was reaped by an asshole.” I keep talking as I pace around the man, watching him swing out over and over into nothingness, my voice echoing through the darkness and confusing his sense of direction.

He pants a few times and then closes his eyes. Is he resigning himself to it? I finally approach behind him and I look down at the knife in my hand. This is it. I guess I just… stab him. He’s much taller than me, so I can’t easily reach his vitals, but a gut shot with a knife like this should do it. I swallow and lift my weapon, but hesitate. Can I really do this? My muscles seize up in the moment.

Then suddenly he whips around and my ears start ringing. I stagger back, pain erupting from my skull after a moment of swaying on my feet, and I trip down onto the ground, my senses reeling. I feel up at my head. Blood. Black blood comes off onto my hands as the world spins. That hurt. That really hurt! He’d made a solid connection with my head. If he had been just a little bit stronger, that blow could have killed me. He could have splattered my brain against the ground and I’d be a drake again. Part of me would soon wish that he had.

The world keeps spinning and I feel like I’m going to throw up. The elf is still looking in the wrong direction, but he shouts at me, misplaced triumph on his face. “Yeah! Take that! I can still hear you, you half-demon fucker! I’ll kill you first! And then I’ll kill you again! And again! And we’ll tear you apart and eat you ‘til your bastard reaper dies, and then I’ll kill you one more time!” He pants loudly, spouting ravenous anger and false bravado.

As I get back to my feet, shaking off the surface of what’s probably a concussion, I briefly wonder what color my eyes are. The next few moments happen with barely a conscious thought in my shaken skull.

I walk through shadows and find myself above him, wrapping my arm around his neck, plunging the dagger in deep from below his chin. It slides in so easily, the blade pushing up into his throat like a hot knife through butter. And just like that, it’s over.

His blood is red. It’s such a wonderful vibrant red, and I watch it pour down his chest in waterfalls as shock takes him, the artery I’d doubtless cut through rapidly coating his torso in crimson. He loses grip on his weapon, sputtering and reaching up weakly toward my arm in a futile attempt to topple me. I let him make a furtive tug at my arm, holding tight to him. I want to feel his last breath. I plunge the blade in deeper and in my violent trance, I feel no shame. I feel joy. I feel satisfaction. I feel… hunger.

I open my mouth and straight through his ragged shirt, sink my teeth into his still-twitching corpse, powerful jaws snapping through bones in his neck. I feel tendons snap in my jaws, and the euphoric taste of blood pushes me to dig in deeper. A powerful hunger for something more than sustenance has taken hold. Then I tear it away, letting the rest of his body fall, a desperate scream arrested in his torn windpipe as I swallow a large chunk of his flesh raw, my blade slipping free as he drops. His flesh is the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted.

And that’s when I begin to think rationally again. I stare down at the corpse that I’m still clung to, eyes wide, breath quivering. I feel the unmistakable taste of iron on my tongue. The satisfied lump in my stomach screams for more. My mouth is coated in sticky red vital fluids that I dare not simply wipe off and discard. And my hands. In one, a small blade stained just as red as my mouth and cloak, in the other, just twitching fingers, unable to parse the blood I see. My ears are still ringing from the blow to my head and the weight of what I’d just done.

I did it. I’m a killer. I’m a ruthless corpse-eating murderer who gleefully revels in taking things that can never be put back. I stare in shocked horror at how easy it had been to make this unmoving corpse at my feet. How good it felt. I hate that I want more.

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My dome of shadow dissipates, and I feel exposed. I should feel exposed. I should be more than exposed. I should be destroyed. I’m a monster.

Then I blink and think that again. I’m a monster. But we’re all monsters. They were going to eat me too. They were going to kill me over and over until Sai thought I’d learned my lesson and intervened. That didn’t make me feel much better, but it did make me feel justified. I turn silently to the kobold cowering on the ground, his friend’s blood still dripping messily down every part of me as I lay over top of his still corpse.

I smile sadly at him, forcing myself to my feet in unnatural motion assisted by tendrils of shadow. I can’t imagine what my face must look like in this moment, haunted by the life I’d just taken, but drunk on the acceptance of the monster I am. “I want to say I’m sorry.” I manage to croak out hoarsely as I feel tears begin to stream down my face, joining the blood of my aching head wound as the last vestiges of my mind’s conflict pours free. “But I’m not.” I’m not sure why, but I let out a small laugh.

Fuck it. I’m a monster. It feels too good to be this. It feels too good to be a killer. It feels too good to devour my prey. It feels good to be someone else’s nightmare.

I walk toward the unarmed kobold, who begins whimpering and trying to crawl away from me in fear. His expression is delicious. I don’t even need my darkness this time. He has nothing. And I want him to see. I want him to know my face while I gleefully take all that he is.

I stand over him and examine his broken and pierced legs. I did that. He impotently claws the air in front of him, trying to predict my movement and shove me away. I see his eyes. Violet. And I can only think of one way to define the color now. Abject, all-consuming, fearful desperation. Irrational intent. I don’t know what he’ll do. But I know he has nothing left. Another piece to the puzzle of their eyes. I like violet eyes.

I grab one of his arms and slash my blade down its length, drinking in his screams before I pin it beneath my knee, kneeling down next to him and holding it out of my way, unable to stop smiling as I promise him “I’ll make it quick,” and stab down hard enough to hear the tip of the blade clink off of the asphalt beneath him, through his neck just like his friend. I twist the blade and pull it to the side, ending his gurgling in a hurry just as I said I would.

I watch his eyes roll up and then see the color start to fade away. I stare into those orbs as they shift to a more natural brown, the ethereal nature of his intent fading away with his soul. I can’t stop smiling wide as my muscles begin to relax. My arms go limp. I hear the blade clink to the asphalt next to me as my muscles relax, the weapon slipping from my hand. And I just stare.

It’s beautiful. I can’t tell myself that it’s anything but beautiful. It should be awful. I should hate myself. I should be begging for repentance I know I’ll never deserve from these two poor departed souls.

But I can’t. Because it’s so, so beautiful.

I have no idea how much time passes as I stare down at my prey, admiring the kobold’s draining face in silent revery, but eventually I feel a hand on my head that snaps me out of my stupor. I slowly turn my head and see Sai, a sad smile on her face. Her eyes are gold. She wants to comfort me.

And like stepping out of a terrible, psychotic fugue state, that breaks me.

It starts with a sob, then I look slowly down at my blood-drenched hands, the tears beginning to cloud my vision. What have I done? I killed people and I liked it. I didn’t just like it, I reveled in it. I ate one of them. I bathed in their terror. One of them was helpless. And I liked it. I liked it.

Unsure how I can possibly process the horror of my own thoughts, I start to yell, which quickly escalates into a deep scream that rings out across the city, a primal cry of existential dread that descends into gasping sobs as I run out of breath. I breathe in to scream again, but nothing comes out. I don’t have it in me. I’m spent. And I began to cry uncontrollably.

How dare I? How dare a monster like me cry over his prey like this? Like I wasn’t the one that did it. Like it would have made any difference if Sai hadn’t ordered me to do it. Like this wouldn’t have happened eventually, regardless. And yet I still cry. I roll off of the smaller demon’s corpse and curl up into a ball, closing my eyes and weeping openly at Sai’s feet. Too much. This was too much. Nothing would ever be the same again now. Sai was right. This was hard.

“Yeah. Let it out.” At some point, Sai sat down next to me and began to pet my head again, carefully avoiding my bloody wound. I flinch away from her, trying to push her away with just my shoulders. I couldn’t put up any more resistance than that. I couldn’t make my body obey. I don’t deserve comfort. But I’m getting it anyway. Eventually, I stop protesting and lean into her, sniffling and sobbing and hiccuping until I go numb.

I feel like a child. I am a child. Next to Sai, I’m just a babe, and she’s coddling me as the nature of this cruel world finally swallows me whole.

I finally lay silent, my head in her lap, my eyes fixated open on the beautiful, terrible corpse in front of me that marks not only its own passing, but the death of my innocence. It marks the completion of my transformation. It wasn’t watching my human spirit burn away that settled it. This was my real gruesome initiation into demonhood.

“Are you hungry?” Sai asks quietly. I nod with muted enthusiasm.

—

The horror of what I’m doing doesn’t quite register like it would have an hour ago.

I chew on the remains of a femur bone as we walk, cleaned near-completely of the meat it once held together. Hard lesson on my own nature or not, we still have places to be, and I’m glad to dig for the soft marrow of my prize as we move rather than talk to Sai about what I’d just done.

It’s normal. It’s natural. This is the world we live in, where people kill each other every day, and the weak are food for the strong. I would have to be able to see things that way from now on. Because this won’t be an isolated incident. I will kill and I will enjoy it again and again and again, probably for as long as I exist in this world. Because I’m a demon.

Sai had bandaged up my head wound while I was consuming the hard-earned corpses of my prey. I didn’t bother cooking them this time. This tasted better. It was less than an hour before I’d had my fill, and Sai coaxed me to follow her again. We hadn’t said anything meaningful to each other since then, and I was okay with that.

But the silent march couldn’t last forever. Eventually, Sai had to bring up something else disturbing. “So… Darkling.” She tilted her head back toward me as she talked. It was nice being almost as tall as her. We were both still comedically short, but at least I wasn’t the size of a house cat anymore.

I bite impotently into the thick bone before I nod, my voice still hoarse from crying and ravenous consumption. “I think I like being a darkling,” I admit. I had just done something awful in this form, but I know deep down that I would have done it regardless of what kind of demon I am. And I like this control I seem to be able to exercise over darkness.

“Do you remember what I told you about how transformations work?” Sai turns her attention forward again.

“That it’s based on your thoughts and actions?” I continue to speak quietly, still not all there after that… psychotic episode. I shouldn’t call it that. It’s something that’s going to be resting at a base level of my soul for the rest of my existence. It wasn’t an episode, it was an awakening.

“And becoming a Darkling suggests you’re hiding something.” She says quietly.

I swallow the little edible bit of marrow I find in the depths of the bone and then pause. Yeah, I guess this was coming. I just stare down at my treat, wanting her to ask before I start spilling things.

“Kid, I’ve already known since I met you.” She says in a soft, caring tone of voice.

Wait, what? I lift my brow and stop in my tracks. She turns when I do and I see she has gold eyes. She’s being genuine. “Y-You already know?”

“I saw your soul, kid.” She smirks. “You see enough of ‘em, you start recognizing certain things.”

“So… is it normal, then?” I ask, wondering if maybe my intent-reading ability isn’t as strange as I thought it was?

“Sure. I mean, it’s not typical, but it happens, and it’s not hard to fix.” Fix? I mean, I don’t really think it’s a problem, more of a boon. “You know, malleable form and all, you can influence it pretty easy with a bit of a change of mindset and a little bit of effort on your presentation.”

“W-Wait, hold up… what are we talking about?” I ask, completely lost on what she’s trying to imply now.

She blinks a few times and her eyes flash violet. She’s confused now too. “Umm… what… what are we talking about?”

We stare at each other for a very long moment. Well, this is weird. Not getting out of this one now, though. I look down at the ground. This is as good of a time as any to see if she has answers. “Can I ask a weird question first? What… color are your eyes?”

She quirks an eyebrow at me. Blue eyes. She’s confused, but not enough to act irrationally. “My eyes are green? Can you not tell?”

I take in a deep breath. “So… I didn’t figure it out right away. I’m kinda still figuring it out… but ever since I woke up in the underworld, I noticed I can sense something whenever I look in peoples’ eyes. Right now, your eyes are blue to me. I’m pretty sure blue is passive. You don’t intend to take meaningful direct action. A second ago, they were violet. Which I think means you were scared. Or confused. Unpredictable. Something like that.” It’s around that moment that her eyes turn again. “Violet.” I mumble.

Sai creases her brow and opens her mouth slightly, but nothing comes out. She licks her lips and makes a few more attempts at saying something, until finally she settles on an unimpressed “are you telling me… that you think you can read minds?”

I shake my head “I thought that at first too, but no, I can read intent. I can’t tell what’s going on in your head, but I can tell what you mean to do. Red means you’re homicidal, orange means you’re up to something… deceitful or mischievous I think? There’s also green eyes, but I still haven’t figured out what that means. And gold…” I pause for a moment and blush a little as I look away. “Your eyes turn gold when you’re being nice to me.”

She stares at me for another long stretch of time, sizing me up, all the while her eyes cycle between violet and gold. She wants to comfort me, but she’s also uncertain what this means. Me too, Sai. “You're serious, aren't you? And this has just been happening this whole time? Since skyfall?”

“You never told me what that means, but if you mean since I fell out of the sky, then yeah. It was happening when I was human, and it’s happening now.” I try not to look her in the eyes. I feel weird looking at them now that she knows they’re betraying her intent. Or at least she knows I believe that. I don’t have any way of proving any of this to her.

“That sounds like a mutation.” She mumbles, shaking her head slightly. “But mutations go away when you lose your spirit.”

“Then I guess it’s not a mutation.” I shrug. Other than this being an awkward confession, the weight of what this means is still sort of lost on me. “It seems to work on every demon I can see the eyes of. And I saw it in my own eyes too when I was using the mirror.”

There’s a short pause as she tries to put all of it together, but she’s clearly failing. “Kid, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but this is real hard to believe. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Like, ever. Not to me, not to any of my thralls, not to anyone I’ve ever heard of. It means you have some kind of power from between worlds ingrained in your soul. Which is absurd.”

I think about it for a second, and then I just shrug again. “I guess I don’t really care if you believe me or not. I’m being honest now, and that means it should stop influencing my transformation, right?”

Sai pursed her lips, eyes finally starting to change, briefly orange, then blue again. Okay, at least she wasn’t irrational anymore. She nodded slowly “Alright. I guess. Let me know if there’s any more developments about it, I guess? I don’t really know what I could possibly do about this, or if there’s even anything to do about it. I mean, I guess it could be useful, but don’t go broadcasting that you’ve got… I don’t know, eldritch soul-reading powers or whatever.”

I nod slowly. She has a good point. Weird revelation or not, it didn’t really change much about what needs to be done. “So that’s my big secret. What about you?”

Her eyes open wide. She’s forgotten about that, but I haven’t. She’d seen something revealing about my soul while the succubus had it. Something entirely unrelated to what I’ve been holding back from her. “I-I mean, nothing that important.” she shrugs, trying to play it off like it was nothing.

“Violet.” I mumble loud enough for her to hear.

She looks shocked. “What the fuck, that’s cheating!” she throws her arms out in frustration and takes a few pacing steps as she tries to put the words together now that I have her cornered about it. She finally lets out a loud sigh and stops to face me.

“Kid, your soul is female.”