The next day, I didn’t visit the dungeon: Darrell ordered me to spend the afternoon in my room and concentrate on my usual thoughts. “We’re leaving immediately after dinner. There’s going to be a TV debate for Plymouth’s elections, and I can tell there’s going to be a massive amount of Apollonids.”

I shivered. It was my first time! I had to fight a massive amount?

“B..but...”

“But what?” Darrell thundered. “Do you consider yourself not to be capable? Do you think I’ve wasted my time in training you all these years?”

I looked at him fiercely. My teenage pride refused to be submitted to those harsh words: I was ready to prove him the opposite, and after my success from yesterday, I was more determined than ever. Yet, as I fixed my sight on him, a vision invaded my mind, a vision I still had serious difficulties in controlling: images of Darrell entertaining me as a child, with that happy smile he used to have. Darrell playing football with me and my dad. Darrell giving me presents for my birthdays. Darrell comforting me when I felt too lonely...

I closed my eyes and desperately forced myself to quit those images. It had all been a staging. An act. This was the true Darrell: Darrell ordering me things and expecting me to obey. Darrell showing me how disgusting this world was. Not a friend, but something else, and I had to call him like that.

“No, master. You didn’t waste your time with me. I am ready to come with you tonight.”

“Very well,” he nodded.

I hated him. Yes, I was trained to hate everything, but I gave him more hate than I would normally give. I hated him for being a mask all those years, but also for forcing me to hate him, which was ironic and paradoxical. In a way, though, the fact I hated him more than anything else was a depraved way of showing affection. After all, when you can’t have friends, all you have to take care of is your enemies. But sometimes I still forgot it: there was still a part of me that hoped in the delusion I could live like a normal human.

I went to my room and lay in my bed motionless, something I did whenever I didn’t have to do anything in particular. When I do it, time passes so quickly. I don’t even have the time to feel bored: just apathetic, like if nothing else existed besides me and the bed. Indeed, those were the best moments of my days, the only moments when I didn’t feel that constant ache in my heart that prayed me to set everything on fire and enjoy it.

In no time, Darrell opened my door and called me for dinner. I followed him and we sat together, with the TV turned on the news, as always.

“Once we’re there, Hayden, remember this: your determination is more important than their number, no matter how much they are.”

“Yes, master.”

Watching the news helped me remain relaxed: there was always some reason to feel indignant, so I wouldn’t think of what made me nervous. Plus, it gave my mind the negative charge I needed. Indignation is a bit like lying in my bed for me: it makes me feel better.

“Time to go.”

I and Darrell left our table and then the manor, where his old Volkswagen was waiting for us. Five minutes of dark forests later, we entered the suburbs of Plymouth. Usually Darrell would park his car somewhere in the dirtiest suburbs. This time, he parked the car just once we entered the town. We went out.

“The first thing to do,” he began explaining, “is to find Apollonids’ traces. First, you clear your mind, like when you do when you’re in your room. Then you can perceive the streams of hatred the Apollonids emanate.”

“How, master?”

“The streams are like the usual burning sensation of hatred you’ve been trained to feel, but since Apollonids are made of pure hate and not flesh, they’re so much stronger, us Darkfires can perceive it. The more intense the stream is, the closer an Apollonid is. With experience, you’ll also learn to figure out the direction they’re located.”

“Why did I never feel such streams when I battled the Apollonids in the dungeon, master?”

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“Since they are not made of hatred produced by you, they’re easily overwhelmed by your own emotions. When you’re afraid, you cannot perceive the Apollonids’ streams, nor when you’re producing hate by yourself. It is then very important, during a battle, to be able to call your inner hatred at will, so you can perceive when other Apollonids come. You are now capable of doing so, thanks to your training, but you must remember to be confident and cold.”

“Y...yes, master,” I answered nervously.

“Think of something else to help you.”

I tried to remember the news, but they sounded so similar every time, that they had lost every importance. The only kind of news which was easy to remember were terrorist attacks, but there were none in that period. Anxiety was conquering me fully. I could only imagine myself surrounded of dozens of Apollonids, all ready to set me on fire, and myself on the ground in the fetal position...

“I can’t do it, master,” I confessed.

Darrell snorted. “Well, it’s your first time, I can concede you that. But you must learn it quickly.” He stood still. “I sense them coming to our right. Let’s go immediately.”

With that, he ran, and I followed him. My anxiety only got worse, until the first pair of Apollonids appeared between two suburban houses. Once I saw them running through the street, I immediately changed. I wasn’t any more anxious: I was full of hate. Those were the demons whose existence had marked my life forever. Albeit I couldn’t win over them, albeit I couldn’t save my soul, I still wanted to release my frustration into those things. With that, the fireballs appeared in an instant.

The first Apollonid turned itself and rapidly floated towards me, its flaming body emanating unbearable heat; but I threw a fireball, and the demon disappeared. The second came, and it ended the same way. Darrell was staying behind, watching me. Immediately, more Apollonids came: my hate had to have just attracted them. Slime was running under my lips for adrenaline. Those things, with their black, faceless eyes, had to perish all. I hit them, one by one.

The amount of hatred I was releasing was so high, their number rapidly became dreadful. Now I was completely surrounded by them, a reddish light pervading my savage face. As I destroyed one, another one came out in its place. Wherever I turned my face, I could only see red and yellow. Understanding my defeat, I let my mind succumb and be crushed by fear, waiting for the fire of my enemies, until suddenly they disappeared. Darrell now stood in front of me, the last glimpse of the fireballs still in his hands.

He turned his head.

“You used rage to evoke the fireballs, didn’t you?”

“I...” I was heavily panting. “I couldn’t...control it...I saw them and...and...I couldn’t hold myself...”

“I expected you to have mastered that. Now you’ve spent all your energy.”

“Sorry...master...”

He looked around. “The night is still young. You will stand next to me while I face the rest of the Apollonids. It won’t take long, after all those you attracted.”

***

After coming back home, I fell into slumber the same instant my body touched the bed. I woke up almost before lunchtime, and as I reached the dining room, I abandoned myself on the chair very heavily. Darrell didn’t lose any time and readily announced me he would take me to Plymouth again. “For this afternoon, I suggest you to prepare your mind.”

“Maybe,” I dared questioning, “I need one day of rest-”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

I swallowed. He was my master, and I had no choice. I ate my lunch as quickly as I could, went back to my room, but this time I didn’t let myself be thoughtless: I concentrated to find the right attitude for my next battle.

Disdain, I remembered, disdain and not rage...

I looked outside the window and watched the world I lived in. A small forest stood in front of me, pleasant hills were on the horizon, and the sun was shining. I baffled. Forests hid dozens of dangers behind their apparent calm. Hills offered no repair from nature. The sun procured life on Earth only by accident. All around, men damaged themselves by lying, stealing, sometimes killing.

And still, I could not escape. This was where I lived, and this was what I had to do. I was trapped there, inside that reality, inside the Order. I had no choice. The best thing to do was to honour what I was called to do the best way possible.

I’m only protecting you, I mentally proclaimed, for lack of a better world.

I kept looking at that apparent beauty outside my window, and slowly found the right attitude. That evening, during dinner, I didn’t even need to concentrate on the news to relax: it was like if my mind had stopped existing, apart from my continuous scorns to the world.

When Darrell and I got on his car, I kept thinking of nothing. We arrived in Plymouth before I could even perceive the passage of time, and he parked the car at the same point of the night before.

“They’re coming west now,” he announced.

Indeed, now I could sense it: it was a stream of hate that didn’t belong to me. Only, I couldn’t understand where it was from. I walked west with him, indifferently. Once the Apollonids appeared, I evoked the fireballs without even thinking about it, without thinking about what they represented to me: the fireballs came from my heart, not from what my eyes saw. The determination I now had was not of killing my enemies, but more like doing my duty.

I destroyed a group of Apollonids, and then another, and then another one, with little intervention from Darrell himself, apart from sensing their position. After the last one was defeated, Darrell, who was behind me, came closer. “I see you have learned quickly the lesson from yesterday. What you only have to learn is to sense their position. Understood?”

“Of course, master,” I said proudly.