Opening my eyes I'm greeted by the sunrise, its orange painting the blue sky, white clouds above, and still a few stars can be seen. I wonder, do they laugh at me?

"I couldn't blame them"

And neither can I.

The pelt is covering my chest as if the demon wanted to keep me warm, and I know that if it wasn't because of him, I would be dead.

I leave it next to me, the dagger Fogosh used to try to kill me in my left hand, and the now empty vial in my right hand grabbed in the few precious seconds I struggled with him before being cast down into the river. I sit up, my body still hurting all around, and inspect the wound.

There is a large scar where the knife was once dug in, was it because I drank it instead of pouring it on my skin? Fighting to keep my head above the water inside the furious river, it felt like the only thing I could do to apply it, anyways I'm happy that it still worked.

Happy?

No, I feel numb. Numb inside, my entire body is still in pain, the potion surely aiding some of the wounds Makur gave me, but not all.

I rest against the riverside, looking up at the stars I can hear the voice of the demon clear among the silence of the woods, I'm far from the most turbulent and noisy part of the river, and much further away from the tower. And I enter the trance.

"You really are an idiot piece of shit"

I never knew Fogosh, except for the first angry punches he delivered when I was in captivity, and his disdain at me when I joined the warband. But I should have seen the signs earlier.

He let me charge at the caravan, watching me from afar probably looking for something to use, and he found it in my proficiency for combat. He didn't speak badly of me to Makur, not because of some sort of duty, or respect for him, whom he always seemed to resent or speak up against, only silenced by his strength.

No, he wanted me to stay. For how long had he planned this?

He wasn't there when the humans stormed the camp, did he hide? Being the one in charge of looking for nearby enemies, did he guide them to us? Anyways, he stole Makur's other potion.

Was he a human?

No, he figured out what I was and what I wanted, and tried to exploit it.

Studying the medicine I made, he must have known what I was. Maeld's torn clothes when I found her...he must have forced feed her too much, and knowing what we were up to, how did he convince her to go far away with him? Does he know Akani? For how long?

He wanted me to train with Makur so that I could defeat him, everything went according to plan, to his plan...I simply was too stupid to see it. His sudden changes in mood, and attitude, when I told him I wasn't going to leave, that was the moment I should have seen it, I felt his true intentions, his true self.

"But you were blind"

And then, Maeld. Her smile, her touches, her words.

"Lies"

How could I be so blind? So desperate for compassion? I wanted to believe everything, but I felt that something was off...I thought at the beginning I had lifted some worry by being able to make her medicine, but no, she didn't change her attitude because a weight had been lifted, it was her drugged-infused euphoria that I provided for her.

Why did only men have it? Why the guards? I never stopped to question this, I simply accepted it.

"Idiot, fool, imbecile"

And she knew, from the very beginning, from the moment she saw the envelope, she too saw me as a tool for her goal. A pawn, an object from which to squeeze any use they could.

But I never questioned it. I only wanted to do better for Ismeina.

"Chasing a shadow"

I wanted to somehow redeem myself as if Maeld was her avatar, her reincarnation, a second chance to do better and fix my error, to be there in time, to be strong enough to defend her.

To save her.

"Save someone for yourself? How humble"

I leave the trance, having seen everything with clear eyes, no longer blinded by the necessity of believing in people, or monsters. After all, I have been used by both.

Looking at my feet and then around the riverside I see the war pick I had dropped and stand up with noticeable difficulty, I can feel a sharp pain in my arm, and my chest is on fire, my bones were no longer broken, but aching with fury.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Once I reach it I pick it up, placing it on my back together with the other one. And I look at the dark forest surrounding me. Choking me with its vegetation, judging me with invisible eyes.

"You know why are such a fucking idiot?" I know "No, you don't! You are a liar!"

A liar?

"Trying to look all high and mighty, so just and righteous. When every time that conflict arose your first course of action was violence. You never spoke, never tried to solve things with dialogue, you always struck first...That's what I like about you"

Would things have turned out differently if I had tried to speak for Ismeina when the guards got to us? Would it have hurt me to try and speak to the many lone wanderers in the woods? Did I speak with the caravan guards when we attacked them? I could have demanded them to give us their goods, or at least, fight against them with no lethal strikes.

I never had to go for the kill. But I thought, that was you?

The demon doesn't answer, and I know is not needed. I grab the pelt with both hands, the running water of the river that reaches my ankles reflects my murky image through his empty sockets. My own bruised face.

Are you real?

"As you are. I have always been real, but without me, you would have been long dead" His voice is different, slowly becoming less loud and more normal, he sounds just like me "I protected us, I took over when you were too much of a pussy to do what needed to be done...but at the end of the day, I am still you. The only difference is that I am honest"

I step out of the river, still wet and cold, and I walk into the woods.

What is left? By now, Fogosh must be gone, and I have lost everything, once more.

"Everything? You have lost nothing at all, nothing that was true"

False emotions, fake faces...a fake world. I have been such a fucking idiot.

"Glad we see eye to eye"

But what do I do now? I am once more without direction, survived certain death by luck and quick, unthinking action but alone. My mind shattered in a pitiful attempt at keeping myself sane like I had a purpose to be here and I had to keep myself in line to achieve it.

I have to be, right? I wouldn't suffer if I wasn't meant to learn something if there was no greater purpose at all. I wouldn't be here if there was no reason to be here at all.

"We are all here for no reason, but you believe that a reason to live is to give everything to others. Your trust, your affection...you are left giving away it all, and people will take it all. You need to change"

How?

"I can still help you, I know just the right thing to do for you to change. And you have to do one thing only"

What?

"What you should have done"

My mind travels back, further back than I have in so long. To the moment I first felt the anger, the rage, the need for blood and I willingly gave in. The moment I could have chosen to be better, I let my need for revenge to get the better of me.

The village, where it all started.

I have been so delusional, trying to convince myself that I wasn't someone bad. But I killed that man, it was the first moment I truly let myself go when I embraced the darkness.

"Good boy. You are learning"

For so long, I have run away from my instincts, they were always there. The bloodlust, my selfish reasons to help Maeld...and my delusional thoughts, trying to convince myself I was something better than the goblins, than the monsters.

And I did feel regret and disgust for my actions. I truly did.

But I still choose violence, every time I could, without stopping to think for even one second that there may have been another way. I had no way to know if it would have worked, but I could have tried.

Now I wander into the woods. The voice, my murderous safety blanket keeps whispering in my ears as the day pass. From my trance, I kept Fogosh's talent with scouting, so I find it easier to walk back.

And that is what I do.

With the voice whispering mocking insults and constant laughter, I trek through the woods, and past the roads. Constantly thinking of Fogosh, every aspect of his face, every minute detail burned in my mind.

And Dubby, likely dead, another victim birthed from my selfish wish to be a savior, to prove to myself that I was something more than a monster, that I didn't want to kill, that I was better than this world.

The darkness I fell within I thought it was the goblin part of me, some idiotic excuse to not face the reality. There is no darkness, no inner demon, no force that compels me to act in a certain way, there never was.

I am the demon with no name.

I killed men without thinking it twice, with excuses of duty, or need. But it was still my actions, my hands that are stained, no, dripping with their blood. And even if I was cornered, if I truly seemed to have no other choice, does that change anything at all?

No, the world doesn't care if I want to be good or if I try to be good. Everyone is out for themselves, they look for their best interest and I know now humans are not some altruistic, pure beings.

Is there even such a thing?

The days turn to weeks as I walk back, as I hunt just enough to keep moving forward, I don't want to be late.

And after spring is over, with the summer heat seeping into every piece of dirt, its rays of light shining on every leaf of the trees...I finally reach it. Glad that it took less, now with a clear place where to go and how to move faster between the woods.

The rotten but still standing tree trunk, in a clearing inside the woods, a shallow river running not too far away, and several white flowers dot the grass with its beauty.

I sit down for a moment, and take in the view in front of me, carrying the weight of the lives that my naivety has harvested like a sickening man with his sickle.

All from a single act of kindness. Something I had never thought about that much before, but in the many weeks it took me to get here, I've had a lot of time to think.

The first thing I did when I could stand up. Freeing my mother from captivity.

Had I not done that, if I had just waited a little more, grow stronger, faster...I could have tried to save her anyways, and left with her. Even if she felt disgusted, or full of hatred, I would have gone away.

Ismeina would have never lost her child, and maybe I would have just died in the woods.

I wonder if that would have been better.

But none of that matters anymore, not now. I have made up my mind. Not far lays the village, that burned the only person that I believe was human.

Because humans can be kind, and just, as much as they can be liars, and hateful.

But not all humans can be forgiving.

That is what really means to be human, the capacity to forgive, as she forgave me the night I lost her. And the first lie I told myself also began here, when I tried to follow her example, and forgive them for what they had done.

But I never did, I could never forgive them. And I have to do now, what I should have done.