He felt increasingly dirty as each day passed. Really, if he thought about it, it was his fool father's fault, because if he hadn't managed to get himself caught, then his mother wouldn't have forced him to take his father's place.
The mark on his arm grew darker as the time went on; it had been almost transparent at first. Looking at it now made his body squirm and shudder, the water splashing against the sides of the bathtub reminded him of how close he was to breaking.
Fortunately, for him, he was an accomplished actor, or else everyone would see how his skin crawled, covered in insects. The mask hid his identity, the sleeves the long scratches down his arms. The insects crawled more on those, than on any other place. The mark was the only patch of skin he had never scratched.
The mark was everything that he wasn't. The mark was hate, and the mark was subservience. Hate was below him, and only fools bowed down to nothing. There were only humans and gods, nothing in between.
He might have been an in between as well, he supposed. He was neither good nor bad, he was dirty. And in between was dirty. He was dirty, the dirt and the blood that stained the water was proof of that.
"You bleed just to know you're alive."
At least he was alive, and at least he wasn't a target, death and its contracts were worse than his dirt. Eventually, he told himself before he could sleep at night, that the mark would be gone, and he'd been clean again. That belief was all he had, but sometimes he didn't even believe that. The mark was getting darker, and he still couldn't touch it for fear of getting stung.
Even now, in his bath, he could feel the feet and the feelers crawling all over his skin, his secret torment taking over even in his sanctuary. It seemed the waters would not be enough to keep him from the onslaught of his nightmares.
A new wave of hot water broke the composure he was striving for, as it stung his newest scratches with its clean, and flowed over the old scabs. For the moment, he was safe- the insects had retreated back into their nest on his arm.
Insects were an annoyance, but then again, so were they. They were always there, doing something good, or poking their noses in somebody else's business. Recently he hadn't seen all of them, just the other two, the hero their ringleader hadn't been out lately. He supposed the three of them had holed up with the old man- another one of the nothings- and devised a plan to keep their precious hero all holed up.
Politics, now that his father was gone, were of no use to him. His father hated everyone he considered inferior, but hate was beneath their family name. A calm attitude of disdain was better; much more satisfying for him, as he found it infuriated them more.
He was not a fool like his father, who didn't realize people hated him, thought that he was feared by many, but with his blinded eyes, didn't realize that there was no fear behind the hate. His father, who had once seen everything, had been blinded by the lies of the nothing. And the fact that he knew that his father was weak, helped him learn that he must not become like that fool.
So, he made sure to be good at everything, and to be strong. And with strength came fear.
He saw much more than his father.
Fin.