Malecia’s head was a mess, more of a mess than usual. From the first time she’d laid eyes on the girl that ran out of the university gates, memories that did not belong to her present self intruded upon her mind.

Malecia had died. Fully. Her heart had been ripped out of her chest and crushed. The memory was extremely encrypted, with only her death and the emotions she felt being clear. Who killed her she didn't know. She did know her fear, her hatred, her horror. She felt it all. For the first time since she had gotten to this world, it became too much.

They sunk back into Malecia’s mind, the trauma of an undying being dying, taking them by the throat now that they had sunken deeper into the fog of intangibility. The vision of death, digging under their skin, encasing them in anguish they never thought was possible to feel. They were now just a cluster of feelings, ideas, and thoughts. They were no longer Malecia. The original Malecia’s volatile emotions raced to the forefront of her mind. Feelings of glee shone throughout the space as Malecia’s clump of feelings took its rightful place. Malecia's body moved and talked, while they felt themselves being crushed in a vice of negative emotions.

They tried to open their mouth. They had no mouth. They tried to scream. They had no voice. This all felt hauntingly familiar. Darkness surrounded them, darkness they had been surrounded by once before. They didn't see the absence of color, they saw nothing at all.

They screamed, thrashed and cried in silence. No one knew their pain. No one understood their dread. No one knew they even existed. The mind they were encased in lit with mirth, as if laughing at their suffering. They had died, truly, just like Malecia. They were no more. They had no family to turn too, a life they knew next to nothing about, lost. They mourned the loss of the memories that had been stripped from them. They mourned the blurry faces of family members they couldn't remember. They remembered that they would never remember them again. And that fact terrified them.

⇼

They did not know how long they had been here. In never ending darkness, wallowing in their own self-pity. The passage of time could not be felt, it could have been days, weeks, years. They did not know. Only the emotions Malecia may have been feeling at the moment notified them time had changed at all. They wondered what they were. A soul? A glitch in the system? Maybe even some type of monster. They pondered on why this was happening to them. Were they special? Did this all serve some great purpose they couldn't understand? Was this a test of some sort? No one answered their queries. They tried to talk to Malecia, someone they felt close to. They had been her once, they had lived her life, no matter the small portion it must have been. They screamed for answers, shouted for help, but Malecia did not answer. Their pleas for help soon turned to enraged insults. From racist vampire slurs they made up to demeaning remarks about Malecia’s body, they threw it all at her. Despite this, they did not get any response, their existence not even acknowledged. They had felt concern, anger, and hatred light up around them, but none of it was directed at them.

They were scared. Were they going to die here? They did not want to die again. No. Not again. Not so soon.

They were spiraling. Even if they did not have a body that portrayed the symptoms of an anxiety attack, their mind was still on the brink of fragmenting. Pieces of sentences drifted about in their head, broken up and nonsensical. ‘..𛲠𛲠nic att𛲠ck….’ ‘...help them br𛲠𛲠the.’ ‘Confront your 𛲠𛲠𛲠𛲠,...’ ‘..𛲠un away fr𛲠m it..’ ‘ 𛲠𛲠thing’s going to happen.’

‘Focus on your surroundings.’

They wanted to look at anything other than this eternal pitch black, but there was nothing else they could see.

‘Focus on your surroundings.’

The same phrase appeared in front of them again and again, but they did not understand there was nothing to see.

‘There is nothing here. Nothing.’

‘Focus on your surroundings.’

‘Just tell me what I need to do!’

‘Focus on your surroundings.’

They screamed in silent frustration. They were sure they were going crazy. The pain that came from their metaphysical body only served to further irritate them.

‘Pain?’

It had been so long since they last had felt anything.

‘Focus..’

They understood now. They focused on the pain.

Light slowly creeped into the edges of their vision. Muffled yells of shock and triumphant cheers entered their ears. Their vision became clear and their eyes looked at the woman a few feet away from them. She was small, hair done up in a messy bun and had a smug smile on her lips, her blue eyes squinting from how wide her smile was. She held a gun in front of her that was smoking, having just been shot. They followed the aim of her arm and looked down at themselves. A dark hole in the lower left area of the abdomen of the body they were in gaped, it did not bleed. Looking up slowly they saw the small woman looking at her with slight confusion, behind her were a man, a giant wolf that stood on its hind legs and a crowd of people dressed in servants attire either smiling or frowning, some had already started running away.

“Um,” The small woman turned towards the man with purple eyes. “This is a silver bullet covered in the blood of a sun elf, right?” The man nodded at the woman and held up his bandaged hand, “I tested it myself.”

“Then why isn't this walking corpse dyin’ again?” The werewolf said in a completely normal tone that looked weird coming out of its mouth. The man looked towards them again and responded unsurely. “I dont know…”

The wolf man growled, “Well im tired of fuckin’ waitin’, Ive waited for months already.” Straining his biceps he got into a slightly tilted position, his nails dug and scratched the cement floors beneath him. “Wait! Somethings-” It was already too late, the wolf man dashed towards them, crossing halfway with a single long jump. “Fuckin’ die!!”

He was angry. But they were angrier. The first feeling of anger that they had ever felt since they had opened Malecia’s eyes. This was no one else's anger but theirs. They had woken up in a body that was not theirs, they tried to work with it. They were trapped in darkness for so long they almost lost even more of their sense of self, they tried to power through it. Their memories were stripped from them and would never be returned, they tried to forget about that.

And now. Now they were being put into another situation they had no information about, nor control over. They were so angry. They did not feel fear, or worry, only pure blinding fury. Emotions from the far back in their mind melded into their own, sadness, regret, and fear being stripped and burned away only leaving more anger, fury, and hate that stacked atop of one another into solidifying into the only emotion that could hold it all together. Truly defining it.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Wrath.

Their chest rose up and down rapidly taking breaths they did not need.

“Wait! Jason, stop!”

Tears streamed down their face. They didn't need to hold it in anymore.

“Fuck! Run, run away now!”

They opened their mouth.

“No! I can't just leave y-”

And they screamed.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The walls cracked from their ear-splitting cry of wrath. The group that had swarmed around them were thrown back into stairs, walls and destroyed furniture instantly being knocked out from either brain trauma from their scream or hitting concrete. The wolf man that had jumped in front of them bore the worst of the unplanned attack. His skin had been rended from his body, his hand that ended in claws eviscerated from existence, a small half of the flesh of his face hanging off and only being attached by nerves and thin skin. He fell to the ground, his ears popped and bleeding as he rolled on the ground in agony, his broken howls and whimpers bringing a small smile to their face. Poor thing couldn't even hear his own screams. They watched in malicious elation until he passed out before their feet from the immense torture.

They felt a cold liquid slip past their lips and down their chin, their throat bleeding and damaged beyond repair from their scream. But they didn't care. They looked up hearing the sound of strained breaths, pained gasps and shuffling. The woman who had shot them looked completely fine, her hair the only thing out of place as it came down from its bun and hung behind her like a curtain. That wouldn't do. She needed to hurt like she had hurt them.

They stepped towards her, the cracking of bones underneath their feet making the small woman’s head snap up from the man she was trying to pull up. She gasped as she saw the deformed figure they had stepped on. The fearful eyes that looked up at them made their smile stretch a little more.

“Y-you, killed h-him.” They didn't respond, they couldn't, their throat was destroyed. The ground beneath them cracked and splintered from their steps. The small woman squeaked and flopped to her knees pitifully, her baby blue eyes tear filled. They stretched their arm out towards her and she tried to shy away but she was too slow, they pulled her hair, lifting her off the ground. She yelped and cried in pain as her scalp was pulled up, her legs kicked in the air trying to find purchase where there was none.

Raising the woman up to eye level they looked deeply into her blue orbs, the woman stared back through tears. They slowly raised their free hand, bringing it up above their head. The woman’s eyes widened and she reached her little hands up to try and pry their fingers open. “Stop! Let go! Dont-” A sharp slap rang through the spacious room, followed by the thud of a body falling to the ground. The woman held her face in shock, warm blood spreading across her palm.

Hunger tried to take over but the wrath they felt burned it away, its own hunger for pain not yet satiated. Lifting their leg they kicked it harshly into the woman's face. Her head snapped back with a sickening crack. Clutching her neck she sprawled on the ground and cried out in pain. Their jaw was starting to hurt from their smile but they ignored it, the woman would share their pain soon enough. They lifted their leg in order to stomp down on the girl's jaw but a certain purple eyed figure appeared.

The man had woken up at some point in time and draped himself over the little woman. They stopped the descent of their foot. Setting their foot down, they looked over the boy who shivered like a freezing pup in winter.

They opened their mouth.

⇼

“...mo-oo-ve…” Damien heard the breathy, broken voice above him and twisted his neck to look at Malecia. He blinked at her current image. Her usually picture perfect hair stuck out in odd angles, her eyes were fully red, tears of blood streamed down her puffed cheeks and a smile impossibly wide threatened to split her face in half. Her chest was still heaving even though she didn't need to breathe.

“B-big sister.” Damien was so shocked he didn't check his tongue and called out to the woman in front of him with a title she hated and didn't deserve. Seemingly confirming his speculations, Malecia’s unnerving smile slowly turned into a flat line as she stared into his eyes. Damien scoffed, of course she still hated so much that even in her maniac state she still recognized the words she hated so. Malecia crouched down and grabbed his shoulder. Damien braced himself for pain but all he got was air as he was thrown to the side. Crashing into the ground he hurriedly righted himself and saw Malecia wrap her hands around Rain’s jaw and yank.

“AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!” A wail that Damien did not want to ever hear come from someone he loved erupted from Rain. Her jaw hung limply as she cried hysterically and Malecia's a small smile planted itself on her face. She looked pleased.

“GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HER!!” Damien dashed towards Malecia. Pulling back his fist it connected with Malceia’s nose. Damien took deep breaths in and out as he slowly retracted his fist. It did nothing. No bruises, no bleeding, no nothing. He couldn’t hurt her, he wasn't strong enough. Damien yelled in frustration and threw another punch. And another, and another, and another, and another. He rained punches that did nothing but tire him out. “RAAAAAAGH!!” He snarled and threw his last punch which was caught in Malecia’s palm.

She crushed it. His bones cracked and stuck out of his skin. He fell to his knees and cradled his wrist, heavy breaths pushed past his grit teeth. He would not scream, he would not give her the satisfaction of his suffering. Damien held back his tears with all the willpower he had and raised his head. She wasn't even looking at him. Too busy wrapping her hand around Rain’s neck. She wasn't even looking at him. Malecia still didn't care about him. Was he that much of an insect to her? So much so that his suffering was nothing more than air to her? Damien could deal with her hating him as much as he hated her, but receiving nothing but dismissal? His injury was nothing in the face of the emptiness he felt. He didn't even hear Rain’s gags and gurgles for assistance.

“...look at me…” the words grated across his throat.

“Look.” he stood shakily, his legs threatening to give out.

“At.” He took out a knife from the hidden belt under his shirt.

“ME!” lunging he stabbed the silver coated in real sun elf blood in Malecia’s head.

And look at him she did. Her hand unraveled from around Rain’s neck. Her arms hang limply by her sides. Her body stilled and she looked unblinkingly at him. Coming down from his adrenaline rush he looked at her as well. Damien stared into those dead, murky, pale red eyes, and cried. His legs gave out and he cried. His hand lost feeling and he cried. Malecia used the last of her draining life force to reach for him, and he knew she wanted to kill him, to take him with her but he didn't care. Damien leaned into her cold touch and cried. His ugly wails, hiccups, and whines all being let out. Rigor Mortis came fast to a vampire corpse and Malecia was no exception. She breathed her last cold breath and froze, her deceptively gentle touch cradling Damien’s cheek, being her final act.

Fat tears and snot ran down his face as he released all his sorrows. “Why*hicc* did you*hicc*make me*hicc*kill yooooou?” He sobbed. “Why*hicc*weren't*hicc* you a better big*hicc*sister to meeee?” He didn't cry this much when Malecia slapped him when he was a child. He didn't cry this much when the servants bullied him. He didn't even cry this much when his big sister called him a vile parasitic creature.Yet here he was, an even bigger baby trying to find an explanation from someone long gone.

The wall in front of both him and Malecia’s corpse was broken open. Damien whipped his head to look at the figures responsible for the intrusion. In stepped Mandrake Lyre Von Serpens and Dahlia Prinsine Von Longustine. Mandrake looked around the room littered with servants and splintered furniture. His eyes glanced over the twitching small girl, paused on Malceia’s corpse before painfully dragging themselves away and settling on Damien’ snot filled, wide eyed face.

Stepping out of the hole he had created in the wall, Mandrake walked towards Damien, his steps cracking the ground where he walked. Towering over Damien he spoke. “Boy, you will tell me exactly what transpired here.”

…

Incomprehensibility. That is what it was. It was incomprehensible in all senses of the word. No being could understand its actions, no being could recognize its language, no being could realize its very existence. There were many of itselves at all places at all times. It perceived everything, it understood everything. But it was still slightly surprised.

A being of pure, untainted wrath raged in silence at its life being cut short once again.It had purposely sent it to that world in the way it had, stripping them of their memories and putting them in that body. It too had thought that this being had died too soon so it gave them a new purpose, to fix the life of someone who had destroyed it. To solve a mystery larger than themselves, to mend relationships that had burned. They had left remnants of the soul of the original tenant to add a bit of challenge, all beings loved challenges. It expected the being to brave through any challenge, conquer a small part of that world, stay there a few years until they grew bored and killed themselves. But this? This was abrupt. It had literally only blinked and the being was back having gone through a staggeringly quick change. They had come out of nowhere like a random mosquito that maxed out their stealth stats. It watched this curious creature try to throw itself about, scream, hurt and terrorize. Agitating the other beings around it. But in this realm they were nothing but an idea, they couldn't do anything. It pondered on whether it should strip them of this rage but quickly decided against it. No matter how abrupt anything interesting deserved to be watched and thought about some more. It already had so much to think about, but what was wrong with thinking a little more?

So this unfathomable thing plucked this little vengeful idea out of its metaphysical head and whispered it into existence again. It wanted to see how far they could go and what they could do.

It couldn't wait to see what they would do.