I descended the stairs and took Douglas with me, as fast as I could, yet every step felt like one million years, as thoughts of despair and sense of guilt assaulted me.

This had been caused by me. I had renounced my duties as a Darkfire. I had underestimated the true power of the Apollonids. Darrell had never been able to offer me an opportunity to see what happened when there wasn’t anyone stopping them.

Worst of all, now I knew one thing: I would never be able to leave the Order. Ever. Now that Darrell was dead, I wouldn’t be allowed to abandon myself to those beautiful feelings, not even once. I was a trapped soul-

No! I desperately tried to say to myself. Enough with that SHIT! There are others who can solve this mess!

Yes, it was like this. Wasn’t the Order present everywhere in the world? Wouldn’t they realize they had to come here?

No. I had a responsibility. I was the only one who could stop those creatures.

“Go hide in the cellar! I’ll be back when it’s over!” I barked once we reached the ground.

“Hayden...” Douglas said “...promise me you will be back?”

“I will, my love.”

Like a fury, I exited.

All around me, there was only a huge red light and a deep fog of smoke. Immediately, I recalled my powers out of habit, and the fireballs cleared the way for me. The Apollonids were literally devouring the city out. Collapsed buildings, carbonized bodies, screams and sirens assaulted me.

For a moment, I almost fainted.

Then, I resisted. I would commiserate myself later. Now there was a battle to win.

The Apollonids started approaching me all together. I called all the hatred that I had accumulated inside me for my whole life. The hatred for the bullies that tormented my time at school. For the assassins of my parents. For Darrell, the man behind my misery. For the Order, the prison I would never escape from. For this wicked world full of evil, including the Apollonids. All the pain I lived was still better than this, though. I would fight to make it more bearable. For Douglas.

Fireballs came out of my palms. I killed one Apollonid, then two, then more and more and more. I released my anger in every direction, without any pause, getting like a fury to the creatures created by the hate of the people I had to protect. Progressively, they disappeared as my fireballs hit them.

But they were too many.

As one disappeared, three more replaced it. The demons soon encircled me, reunited against the only element present that could threaten them. I shoot, I shoot, I shoot more, but I was alone. Even if I was still in couple with Darrell, it wouldn’t be sufficient. The Apollonids had taken the city.

Gradually, my anger became despair. The despair fuelled my hatred, letting me shoot three fireballs at the same time: but this only slowed my enemies a little. I hadn’t even left the road where Douglas flat was. I could not do it: all the hatred that had been inflicted upon me was sufficient to beat a regular amount, not a whole army.

Exhausted, I kept waving my arms left and right, my eyes burning from the smoke, my breath becoming more and more faint; there was nothing but fire all around me. The feelings of hate were fading away, becoming a distant glimpse of dark light in the middle of that luminous abyss.

I was too tired.

I was alone.

It was the end for me.

I stopped moving at all, ready to accept death, even welcoming it. The fire of the Apollonids was coming, ready to take me together with the carbonized corpses. Who knows, maybe there was a heaven, I hoped...for the first time I sent my thoughts to God, supposing there was one, asking him forgiveness for whatever sin I had committed...

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At that moment, in that extremely short moment, I realized it.

There was still something I still didn’t truly hate.

All my feelings were directed towards those elements that ruined my life. My heart, all this time, had still cried for injustice, begging for a reparation in my favour. Here was the final element of the puzzle, the final moment of the training Darrell had prepared for me, the only thing that would, possibly, give me the final victory.

To beat the Apollonids, I had to hate myself.

There was only one way to do it. Energy came back to me, while tears already were running from my eyes, no more only because of the smoke, but because of what I needed to do. But if I didn’t make that sacrifice, I would lose.

After all, wasn’t he just a fag?

I turned back and ran. My reinvigorated determination gave me the necessary hatred to clean my path from the Apollonid. I was now back to the building, on fire like the rest of the town. I got inside. The fireballs cleared for me the vision from the smoke that dominated the interior, and crushed the door to the cellars.

Douglas was still there.

“Hayden!” He hugged me strongly. “You kept your promise...I am so happy! Is it safe now?”

But I knew what had to come next. With my hands, I dismissed him, silently.

“Hayden, are you fine?” he exclaimed in shock.

My eyes, by now, were more liquid than solid.

“Douglas...I am sorry...”

“Hayden, what’s going on? The demons are still there?”

I couldn’t hold it any more. I shouted all my despair and the hatred I finally felt for myself, as the fireballs appeared once again in my hands.

“I AM SORRY!”

Then came Douglas’ scream of terror. The fireballs hit his body and the shout stopped, replaced entirely by my scream of pain.

My throat exploded as the sight of the burned corpse of the love of my life stood in front of me. I had done it. There was no turning back from this. I had proved myself I was able to overcome the futile weakness of affection all by myself, and it felt atrocious. I was a monster that I would gladly kill, if only I could.

My training was complete.

***

Like in trance, I went back outside and the Apollonids assaulted me again. I was no more: I was pure hatred. The scream I had begun when killing Douglas accompanied the fireballs I threw, several at the same time, three times bigger than before. The demons succumbed like in a domino: one by one, they exploded into thousands of pieces of light that dissolved into the smoke.

The first road was clear. Now it was only a matter of doing the rest of the town.

It was hatred, not my brain, that commanded my steps. I cleaned up the destroyed town from its assassins, without thinking, without crying for my love, just a burning pain in my heart that directed every movement of mine. The hate I had for myself was superior to all the Apollonids together.

Quickly, I cleaned up that neighbour. I proceeded to the next one immediately. I defeated all the Apollonids still there. Then I passed to the next one and did the same. Then the next...and the next...I had to continue...I had to do it...Plymouth was in flames...I was the only Darkfire left...I had to...I...

Suddenly, I could no more evoke the fireballs.

“What...?” I only managed to think, too exhausted to think of anything more elaborated.

The light of the demons around me had never been so beautiful like at that moment. It was growing more and more intense, like for giving me the sweetest, most hurtful hug ever...

Then it got dark all of a sudden.

Instead of the Apollonids there was someone. A man. He was thin, with white, short hair and looked a lot like...just like...

My heart went crazy, almost as if it begged to escape my body.

“Darrell...?”

No answer.

“Darrell...?”

Nothing.

Then the man spoke. A gruff, hoarse voice, totally unlike Darrell’s, shouting something harsh.

“Leave the rest to us!”

No. Of course it wasn’t him. It was another Darkfire.

Wait...

Another Darkfire?

I didn’t have to fight any more, then? Was I free to leave, free to do whatever I could do with my life? This guy would take Darrell’s place, wouldn’t he?

No, my mind replied my thoughts immediately, and I knew it was right.

But still, another atrocious truth had materialized in front of me: I didn’t have to sacrifice Douglas. Other Darkfires were ready to save what could be saved of Plymouth: I could have simply hidden myself with him. I could have still had my love next to me.

Now it was too late. I had nothing else in my life but the Order.

The figure of the man disappeared immediately, without giving me any other second thought. There was no more light around me: that man had already extinguished the ones in the road I was in. The sky, however, kept being dark red instead of black. All around me were only destroyed buildings. There were some other figures running, but whatever they were shouting, I couldn’t understand.

I had saved the town, just after destroying it with my stupidity.

I had destroyed myself, just after saving myself with the love I still had.

Incapable of bearing those thoughts any more, I finally gently let myself fall on the ground.