Anyone could have told the boy that venturing so far into the earth was a bad idea.
In fact, his parents had told him many, many times to not go into the forests, and to not venture into any caves. The boy knew it was a bad idea. He lived in a village surrounded by death and it’s stark reminders. Growing up, he had heard the stories of people who were found in clearings or in front of the village gates, mangled and not even left with a complete body.
Everyone knew entering the forest was suicide. The caves were even more so.
But he had no choice, this poor boy.
They had been coming at nightfall, you see. Shadows like a corner of the night, fleeting and wrathful. The first night, five men were found dead, their beds glimmering wetly with spilt blood. The second night saw another five men pass violently into the dark, and the third had the dead reaching fifteen in total.
The village went into a state of panic. They had never encountered anything like this, and the elders were quick to blame unseen gods for their plight.
“The Betrayer must be behind this!” They called, attempting to rally the villagers. But they were too little, too late. Someone had already acted, and the villagers followed her into the forest, towards a hopeful escape.
The boy was one of those who left. He had no choice. His parents, normally so fearful of the forest and its inhabitants, had taken him with them. As it turned out, their fear had been wise, and entering the forest was a foolish suicide.
He was the last one left, or so he felt. He had run after seeing what happened to those who entered the forest. He didn’t run in any particular direction, but could feel the pinpricks of dead on his back, eyes following his blind rush.
He arrived at a cave. And kept running.
By some miracle, the boy didn’t encounter any of the normal underground citizens. No monsters of the dark reached out to take him, and his path forward was clear. So he traveled deeper and deeper still, into the bowels of the earth.
At some point, the caves stopped being caves. The boy didn’t notice the transition—he was too concerned with escaping the sights that drove him mad. But, the coarse and rocky cave walls and hanging stalactites gave way to something more clearly structured. The twisting and turning halls of the caves, so confusing and labyrinthine in nature, gave way to something more logical. The way forward straightened out, walls, ceiling, and floor grew more defined, the edges sharper. A hallway soon took shape, hewn out of the rock itself and angling steeply downwards.
The boy continued his mad rush, hours and hours after having started. Foam was now dripping from his mouth, exhaustion catching up to him.
And yet the end was in sight. A set of massive iron doors blocked his way, rusted almost to the core.
The boy stopped, mad eyes looking warily at the doors. It looked like there had been something inscribed on them at one point, but no longer was it legible. Even if it had been, the boy couldn’t read. Nobody in the village could.
He reached out a hand. The metal was warm to the touch.
A dull thud rang out as some hidden mechanism was engaged. The doors swung open slightly, badly startling the boy, who ran back the way he came for a while.
It took time for him to realize that nothing had come from the doors, and so he returned, oh-so cautiously. He approached the doors like a wild animal—slowly, never letting his eyes off them.
There was now a gap between them, just enough space to slip through. He hesitated for a long, long moment, before slowly walking past the doors.
They would surely be able to keep out the monsters that killed his parents, right?
Past the doors, there was a large open space. The long and straight hallway widened out into a circular chamber. It was pitch black inside, and gave the boy an odd feeling inside, like something stirred in his bowels—no, higher, in the heart. It made his body feel hot. But that was one of the few things he noticed in his addled state.
There were countless other things he did not.
For instance, the entire hallway and cave system should have been so completely dark as to render eyes useless. The boy didn’t think about this fact, nor the oddity of this place actually being dark, all of the sudden. He wasn’t quite in the right mind to grasp these things, unfortunately.
He groped around in the dark, blindly searching for anything beyond the doors. The boy panicked for a moment, feeling like the darkness pressed at him much like death would. He panicked even more when the clinking sounds of metal shifting came from the middle of the room. He wasn’t alone.
A voice drifted over to him, hoarse, scratchy and somewhat female sounding, but the structure of her words unknown. He ran back the way he came after hearing that voice. It trailed after him, unknown words begging his return. The doors thudded shut after the boy left this time, and he ran all the way back out to the cave entrance, then the forest, and made the second miracle happen by running all the way back to the village before collapsing of sheer exhaustion.
The boy’s name was Titus Mead. He really shouldn’t have become anyone important, and his fate was to die in that forest with his parents. But, fate broken, his future was thrown wide open. Only 10 years old at the time of these events, he became a legendary figure in the village by returning alive, even when everyone else who left did not. It was a time which would be known as the exodus, caused by shadowy figures killing men inside the village, They lost a fourth of their population that day. And ironically enough, those shadowy figures didn’t return after those people left.
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Titus Mead sat behind the town hall house, watching the dirt. Well, not so much watching it as staring while thinking deeply. He did that a lot, these days. It became a habit more and more as his madness faded, memories of that night fading into the darkest, deepest crevasse of his mind.
He knew he wasn’t normal. There was something different, like he could see something others couldn’t. Why was it he seemed to think more than anyone else in the village, he wondered. All the other men and boys were content to farm their plot of land and chase skirts, or raise a proper family if they had married. Titus was 17 now, and the elders had declared him an adult this very morning and given him a plot of land all his own—never mind that it was his father’s, now defunct and repurposed for him to use and grow old on.
He felt like he didn’t want this. He had been to the healer and talk about his misgivings, and the old woman had told him it was normal to have doubts about something like this. He didn’t talk to her about the other issues he was having. They seemed too personal to share. Like, the little nubs he felt growing from his head, under his thick black hair, or the raw strength he could feel coursing through his veins on occasion. Sometimes his vision improved for no reason, fading back to normal soon after. And even worse, he’d experienced the same thing with his hearing.
Titus had already known about the things said behind his back, but hearing them from the lips of people who thought him far enough away burned at his soul.
How was he supposed to talk about these changes? Most boys only acted like stags in rut with the onset of puberty, but he was somehow undergoing a more fundamental change.
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But, he didn’t have any intention of hiding these things any longer. He was an adult now, and maybe it could be something normal— though Titus knew he was just fooling himself with such thoughts. Regardless, he’d let these strange things burn away at him for far too long.
Steeling himself, Titus got up from the shadow of town hall, and made his way to the outskirts of the village, seeking the healer once more. If anyone knew about the changes of a body and what they meant, it was her.
Her hut wasn’t too far away, and around ten minutes of wandering towards the outskirts of the little town brought him to the healer’s door. He entered without knocking, knowing the relationship between him and the healer to be comparable with actual family. Indeed, his arrival came as no surprise to anyone inside.
“Titus, what can I do for you today?” Asked the kindly old woman as she ground some herbs up with mortar and pestle. Off to the side, young Maria sat watching the process, mentally taking note. She was the healer’s apprentice, and was expected to take over the craft once the old woman’s arthritis caught up with her.
“I just need to talk.” Said Titus. The healer nodded, and indicated for him to sit while she finished up her medicine. He took a seat, perching awkwardly while the healer ground up the medicine with well-practiced movements.
He’d talked with the healer about a great many things, especially after finally coming out of his madness. There was healing not only in herbs and drugs or magic, but also in the simple act of listening, and the old woman lent a willing ear. Titus considered her the sole reason for his continued existence after returning from that damned forest.
She took the ground up stuff—seeds, from the looks of the paste created, and dumped it into a bubbling cauldron in the corner, under which was a mostly dead fire whose wood had been burnt to white a while ago, leaving only smoldering embers to gently heat the big pot suspended above.
The old woman was an alchemist. The only one in their little community, actually. He also suspected that the woman had the highest level out of all the people he’d met, but didn’t have any good reason for thinking this. It was just a feeling, mostly.
She washed her hands off in a bucket of water to the side, and ambled over to where Titus stood.
“Come with me, we can talk somewhere more comfortable.” She said, putting a frail looking hand on his shoulder, and steering him towards another room with surprising strength.
“Sit down, sit down my dear Titus. How can I help you today?” Asked the healer, groaning slightly as she sat in a chair opposite his own.
Titus leaned back, wondering where he should start.
“I think there’s something wrong with me.” He said, deciding to simply jump to the meat of the matter.
“Hmm. Well, yes.” Replied the old woman. “Generally, everyone has something ‘wrong’ with them. It would help if you elaborated, Titus. When you tell me something’s wrong, what do you mean?”
“It’s just…um…my body has been acting…off….for the past few years, in fact.”
“My dear boy, please don’t tell me I have to explain puberty to you. Again, I might add.”
“No! No, it’s not that! Or, uh, it might be. But I doubt it. After all, I don’t see anyone here sprouting horns.”
“Horns, you say?” Asked the old healer, suddenly sitting more upright. She had a serious look on her face. “Come here, so I can get a look at this.”
Titus complied, kneeling down in front of the woman’s seat, and parting a section of his hair above and in front of his ear. A little nub grew there, with a small bit of a hardened black material peaking out from the skin.
It was a horn, for sure. Titus thought so, and the healer confirmed this odd phenomena.
“Now, am I correct in assuming that there is another horn growing on the opposite side of your head?” She asked, to which Titus nodded.
“Hmm, they seem to be growing from the temporal bone of the skull. How odd. And have they given you any sort of discomfort or pain?”
“Just some itching. Nothing more, though. That’s not it, though.”
“There’s more?”
Titus nodded. “Yes. Last week, I was chopping wood for the Bethlehem family, just to earn a little more money. And I, um, broke the axe.” He said, chagrinned. “I didn’t think I was swinging that hard and all, but it broke anyway. The entire handle just snapped in two, and the axe head itself was buried halfway into the stump I was chopping on. I think it might still be there…. Then, about 4 days before that, I was just fooling around by the pond, jumping stones. One of them got all the way to the other side and shattered itself on a boulder. I…I just get this sudden feeling of strength, and it goes away after a little bit.”
“That certainly is…unusual, to say the least. More has happened though, hasn’t it?” Said the healer with a knowing look. “If I had to guess, I would say that your hearing also improves for no reason, that sometimes your skin feels like harder, that food might taste like so much more at times, right? Your eyesight might get better, things like that.”
“Yes!” cried Titus. “Do you know what’s happening to me?!”
“As it happens, I do. I’ve just never seen it for myself, nor did I think it possible to happen in a small backwater like this. It’s called atavism, or bloodline regression. Fetch me the status reader, Titus. I will show you what I mean.”
He nodded, and left the room to grab a smoky crystal ball about the size of an orange. Maria, who was still waiting in the mixing room, looked at Titus curiously.
“The old woman wants it.” He said, by way of explanation while picking up the reader and hurrying back into the other room. The healer was standing now, and turned towards Titus as he returned.
“Good, now hold that out, please.” She asked. Titus extended his arms, and she put a hand on top of the ball.
“Status, open.” Called the healer, while a warm current flowed from her hand into the ball, and then jumped to Titus. He felt the current twist around inside him somewhere, giving the odd feeling of something crawling under his skin. He nearly shuddered, but stopped himself.
Between the two of them, a glowing blue window came into being, with numerous lines and squiggles on it. It took the healer a moment to read the window over, and Titus didn’t miss how her eyes widened a little. Obviously, she was seeing something surprising in the white squiggles, though Titus had no damn idea what they meant.
The healer took her hand off the reader, and the blue window faded from view. They both sat down again.
“So?” asked Titus expectantly.
“It is indeed atavism. It looks like you had the blood of a demon somewhere in your line, and it’s coming to the forefront now.”
Titus sat in silence a moment, mulling this revelation over.
“So, you’re saying, I’m not human?”
“You still are, for now. The process looks like it’ll take a while, and you will likely die before becoming a full-blood demon. Humans normally don't live long enough for that. However, elements of that demonic blood are emerging, which is causing these changes you are undergoing.”
“But…how?”
“Normally, atavism is caused by a trigger of some sort, enabling the blood of your forefathers to come forward. In most cases, those who undergo atavism are either incredibly strong and intentionally induce the process through the forced stimulation of their blood, or they belong to a powerful family, who can induce it for them while still weak.”
“Then how come this is happening to me? I mean, I’m just…a kid, a human kid. Why am I turning into a freaking demon, of all things?! Aren’t those things a legendary existence?”
“Out here, they might as well be.” Muttered the old healer under her breath, too low for Titus to hear. She spoke louder, this time to Titus himself. “Think about things.” She urged him. “Remember, and try to recall where this might have happened. People don’t go into bloodline regression for no reason—there is always a trigger. The initial cause could occur years before any symptoms come up.”
Titus turned a nasty shade of green, recalling a night unlike any other, a night he was wholly unwilling to remember in its entirety. The healer obviously noticed his discomfort, and realized what was causing it.
‘So, it would be that after all. He never was willing to tell me what happened, or how he survived.’ Thought the woman. She wondered briefly if she should push Titus towards recalling the events, so that she might finally get to the bottom of a good many mysteries.
The healer decided not to, in the end. She sent Titus on his way, giving him reassurances that his atavism is nothing to be worried about, and he should be fine.
She did secretly send something to look after Titus, and make sure that nothing happened without her knowing. Otherwise, the healer settled down to deal with her bitch of an apprentice. The town elders dumped her off on the healer about 5 months ago, thinking that the head elder’s granddaughter would somehow be able to pick up herbology without even being able to fucking read!
The healer sighed, well and truly sick of this small backwoods village.
Meanwhile, Titus made his way to the house and land given to him that very day. One of the perks of offically becoming an adult was that he had his own space now. No longer would he have to board with the rest of the kids orphaned by the Exodus. People thought the parents of those children were selfish for having left them behind, no matter how foolish traveling into the forest was. However, Titus always thought that it was a good thing they weren’t dragged along. It was good that the death toll wasn’t higher.
Rooming with those kids was annoying though. He liked peace, and quiet, and was happy to now have a house of his own to achieve this with. He disliked the part about having to farm, though. Peace and quiet was all well and good—he just didn’t want to work for it, is all.
Which is why he was dismayed upon arriving at the house, and finding out how much he would have to repair. It made sense, after all, considering that the house had been unoccupied for the last 7 years. But still, it was annoying that he would have to dust so much off, and ready the place to live in.
The sun was still high in the sky at the time he started cleaning, and making the space livable again. By the time it fell, he had only managed to clean a single bedroom. Thankfully, the bed and furniture was well made, and only required a dusting. In fact, the bedroom itself didn’t really need anything beyond that, and Titus quickly finished things up, leaving the room clean and tidy.
But, he had forgotten that this used to be his parents’ room. Hell, he was likely conceived on that very bed. A nasty thought, but one which passed his mind regardless, and left him feeling….lonely.
No, not in that sense, but more melancholic loneliness.
Titus hadn’t thought about his parents in so long, he realized. They were normally pushed away at the slightest thought, shoved into the same dark corner of his mind occupied by that night. Some memories were too painful to touch, and the faded smiles of his parents were among the most painful. He couldn’t even properly remember their faces anymore.
And now, combing though his old house, his old parents’ bedroom—it dredged things up best left alone, and brought things closer to the surface than they needed to be.
Titus went to sleep early that night, just as the sun touched the horizon. He didn’t sleep on the bed, but instead on the floor, and fell into the nightmares all too easily.
And he remembered things best left forgotten, including the voice of a woman trapped deep underground, wrapped in chains.