Axel walked through his home village, talking to Lyra about how unreasonable his mom was with her training. The sun shone brightly, and the breeze was a warm caress on his skin. However, the other villagers seemed to be gone. As he walked, he started to notice that many of the buildings were deformed and misshapen. The further they walked, the worse the situation became, with strange shadows moving from the trees and homes. Axel tried to bring this up with Lyra, but she said it was all in his head.
Abnormal energy levels were detected. Contacting support from main system support.
When they arrived at their home, it was as strange as the rest of the town. Suddenly, Lyra was wrapped in chains of blood that shot out of the shadows and yanked her into the sky. Axel reached for a weapon or power to fight whatever had grabbed her, but there was nothing. Lyra then started to change into Aria, and the chains began to slowly tighten, tearing her apart.
“NO!!” With a scream of rage, Axel tried jumping up to the chains, but some power locked him to the ground, and laughter filled the space.
Axel turned his head to see Lyra and Cade standing on the roof of his home.
“Everything you love,” Cade started.
“Will be taken,” Lyra continued.
“Because your hands are dyed by,” Cade said, with blood beginning to fall from his mouth.
“The blood of everything you cared about,” Lyra completed, now with bleeding empty eye sockets.
“SHALL BE REAPED BY YOUR OWN HANDS!!” Both voices echoed, followed by the sound of tearing flesh and the rain of bloody feathers.
Axel felt a deep horror as he looked down at his blood-soaked body, each hand holding a chain that was pulled tightly—the same chains that had held Aria in the sky. The sky continued to rain blood as the laughter from Lyra and Cade distorted, and each of them changed into beings of blood.
Blood with a humanoid shape began emerging from the shadows of the homes, each taking a strange and off form of someone Axel knew. Each was repeating different words, but "traitor," "murderer," and "killer" were the most common. As Axel swung to stop them, he heard Aria’s scream of pain above him, causing him to look up and see the chains wrapped tighter around her. Every time he swung his fist at the blood creatures, the chains tightened, making deeper wounds.
Stuck in a quagmire, all Axel could do was defend his body. The blood monsters did not hurt him, but as each attacked him, more links began to form on the chains binding his hands. This lasted for a long time as Axel tried to stop the blood monsters without hurting Aria.
The chains finally wrapped from his wrists to his shoulders. There were even chains wrapped around each of his legs when no more blood monsters appeared. Axel could no longer move without causing Aria to scream in pain.
“Bound in blood,” came Finn’s voice from the air.
“Weakened by love,” came Quinn’s voice.
“Betrayed by friends,” came Lyra’s voice again from the roof.
“You are nothing, Axel. Just a fool who could not see the traps laid by others to destroy you,” Cade’s voice said, with a gurgle of blood foaming from his mouth.
“Fool!” the voice of a hundred people sounded at once.
“But fear not, as you will be able to spill blood without these pesky feelings slowing your hands.” A new voice appeared, coming from the sky. As Axel looked up, he saw a man who seemed to have no skin. He was covered in muscles, and each eye socket held an eye made of diamonds.
Warning! Proto-core trying to break containment.
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“I have waited years for you, young Axel,” the strange being said, though it had no lips or tongue to speak with. Its voice was crystal clear to Axel’s ears, almost soothing to his mind.
“All you need to do is embrace your true power through me, and you will no longer be bound,” the being’s voice was calm, and its skinless hand made an open-palmed gesture. “Embrace the chains and make them yours, and you will be free of worries, fear, loneliness, and betrayal.”
“What the crimsons is happening here?” Axel replied as the chains began to squirm and tighten. “Release me and Aria now!”
“But that would defeat our whole purpose here,” the calm voice replied. “I am trying to help you. You are tormented by Cade’s death, the fate of your family, the betrayal of your heart.”
“It must hurt so bad. I can only guess, as your kind and mine do not process these things the same way, but living through you has helped me understand,” the skinless man explained while floating down to look Axel in the eye. “So much pain in those lovely eyes that I could not take it anymore.”
“It pains my essence to see you in this state,” the voice projected a feeling of loss to Axel. “Just embrace my chains, and that will all be gone.”
“No...” Axel whispered.
“Why? Why do you hold onto these useless things?” The skinless one pointed to Aria’s bleeding and battered body above him. “All she will cause you is pain, loss, and sadness. She ties you down and stops you from being as strong as you could be.”
“She is my light... She holds me together... She pushes me forward,” Axel pushed out, though his mouth did not seem to want to work.
“If you need light, you can light a fire. My chains would hold you together stronger than those weak emotions, and with me, I can pull you to the top,” the being whispered in Axel’s ear, trying to entice him. As much as Axel was repulsed by it and tried to ignore it, it was as if the words bounced around in his head.
“Why do you want to keep feeling this?” The being waved its hand, and memories began to flutter through Axel’s mind in rapid succession, each playing in full. Scenes of being rejected by other kids, the pain of all the times he shattered his bones and needed to heal, Lyra telling him she could not love him, Cade challenging him on his only chance to leave a legacy with the woman he loved, the ill-fated duel ending his friend with a rage-filled attack, having to flee with a broken body, the bandit he killed, and on until he reached the moment where Aria told him about her wanting to have Lyra as one of her flock. The pain felt a hundred times worse than he remembered.
“See all that pain?” The skinless one was still standing there after forcing Axel to relive all those memories. “Why do you allow yourself to be tortured like this?”
“Just take the chains, and you will no longer have to worry,” it whispered gently into Axel’s ear. “Just give in, and it will all be gone.”
“N..n…no..” Axel denied as the scenes played again through his mind, but with everything negative increased. “I wi..will not give you what you want here.”
“Oh Axel, please don’t make me keep doing this to you,” the being said in a voice filled with sadness. “This does neither of us any favors.”
“I don’t enjoy this, but if you don’t let me save you from the pain, how can I help you?” It continued in a suggestive tone while pointing at Lyra and Cade. “Look at them. They let their pain and worry lead them to this, and now they will live in pain or feel nothing again. I am only trying to take away this pain from you.”
The chains wiggled and squeezed against Axel’s arm, leaving broken bones but then pain relief when they tightened. Over and over, for what felt like days, Axel was shown all his worst memories and the pain of the chains’ release. Axel began to lose track of time in this realm, as it seemed time had no meaning here.
Containment protocols were upgraded and the cooldown on Berserk was completed. Proto-core returning to normal. Abnormal energy levels return to normal.
As Axel suffered, he heard light crying from above. Having forgotten who was there, Axel looked up and saw a young girl with hair that shone in the sun and wings crying over the ashes of her home. Then the scene morphed into a girl who was unwanted by all who took in the young, as she never spoke and hardly ate. This was followed by a girl sitting with a young human boy who had lost his parents, helping him find a way to go forward.
After that, it changed to a young woman who took every bit of training she could, practicing with the bow and knives until she collapsed in the training yard but returned to her feet to wrap her bleeding hands. The last scene was of a woman who killed a Shadowfang with another young man she tackled.
“AXEL!” She screamed at him from the chained area above. “You are Aria’s soul. You are not allowed to give that to anyone else.”
“Ahhh, our time is up, young Axel,” the skinless one appeared on the roof where Lyra and Cade had stood so long ago. “Well, I could not convince you yet, but the more pain that builds up, the more you will seek me to release it. Maybe one day you will take my offer and truly be free of all that suffering.”
“Until next time!” The skinless one bowed, and the village disappeared, the blood broke up, and the chains dissolved into a black oblivion.
As Axel floated there in the quiet darkness, another voice quietly, not of the demon said, “That is just what you have earned.”