Author's Note: It's been a month, sorry *kowtows*
Chapter 9
Sanctuary
Its last memory was of carnage.
This empty, wavering world was made anew by drowning everything in a sea of blood. The electrifying hum of raw destructive strength was pure ecstasy as entrails and limbs were forcefully separated from their vessels, brutally broken bodies wearing white coats laid in the land nourished with the blood of its people.
The Shadows were devouring each other, drawn and enticed by the exhilarating scent of unrestrainable fear and panic that permeated the air. But it was stronger, more beastly than anything. It devoured, devoured and devoured all that stood in its path to monopoly the carnage until it was the lone victor, a monstrous Shadow bathed in the black ichor of its kin.
It felt the ugly emotions settling deep within its core as its body was filled with the power and the rightness of the bloodlust, the repeating echo to trample on everything and nothing. The puny figures around it trembled, faces contorting into a mindless haze of survival instinct when the full span of its wings broke free and cast the unholy darkness that yearned sacrifices to be placed upon its altar.
There was a savage contentment and strength at its roar, pulling the weak-willed humans into its embrace and wrapping its relentless hold on their hearts, to paralyze them and to stake its existence as the master of their demise.
The symphony of humanity's ghastly wail was an incomparable sound that accompanied the easy sweep of its blade as their heads rolled away, splatting red liquid to paint a macabre of the devil. Its blade sliced through the warm flesh and bones, releasing a delicious amount of final despair as it savoured the sweet taste of their broken souls.
One human fought desperately, the sunken face etched into a foolish will to live and its scarlet blade was parched with hunger. The scent of the wispy human's soul became tastier with each second, feeding the human's blood with something that was especially favoured by its kin.
Denying death.
The human's coat was no longer a pristine white as the man took out something from his pocket, pressing something as the human yelled out and fought.
But even at its weakest, it was still mightier as a small flick of its blade sent the human flying, the back of the human's head left a red trail on its descend. It felt the fragile human bones snapped, heard the strangled sigh as the black pupils of his eyes tilted upward, finally gave out.
This was what had become of the carnage.
The carnage was the most hideously beautiful sight of the world it has seen in ages since it has started existing so many decades ago, painting the night in red.
And when a mere metal scrap put an end to its vision, the night marked the emerald taint on the moon and the silver hue of a weak human with the passing of an ancient being that faded with all that was left in the graveyard of blood, drawing everything in silence.
It was in a strange kind of half-sleep, the next moment it opened its golden eyes.
This, in many ways, was the same as it once was to sleep within the darkest recess of humanity's sea of soul. To let its power crawl into its skin and blade, invigorating its massive body.
But now, its overtaxed body was sluggish, immobile as its eyes took in the small, fragile human fingers that cradled its head. It grinned as the human child's scent reached its senses, so putrid with both impurity and innocence.
Without pause, it devoured the child's subconsciousness and mingled its will with the child's, marking the silver eyes with golden rings and drawing strength to its form as the child closed his eyes.
And when it opened its eyes again, the room they were in has changed.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again, until the child's eyes slowly turned impassive, dead like its kin.
The shredded curtain and the destroyed wooden desk were around them. Torn bedspread whispered softly as the human child shifted closer to it, laying down on its immobile feet and curling up, sleeping as his front side faced the Shadow.
It materialized till the midnight ended, its feet turned into black ichor as it dissipated slowly. But on the last few seconds before it disappeared, the child opened his dead eyes and said something, the voice faint and weak.
You didn't want me to die, Thanatos?
The body was smaller than the last time it opened its eyes, but his scent has changed so completely that the human smelled like a Shadow himself.
The next time, it tipped its face to the green-tinted sky as Mother Nyx breathed Her power through its skin. Even though it has gained enough strength to expand its wings, it still stood there silently beside the child, lest the weak Shadows would make the child their prey.
Lately, the thick Shadow-like scent on the human child has blurred, uncertain. There was a faint thread that intertwined the child's soul to warm touch and laughter as time passed outside the Shadow's comprehension. The thread stabilized their connection where it was chaotically disassembled between them, hints of light returning to the human child's eyes.
The child's soul has a more delectable taste than before.
The Shadow has a burning need to touch, to assimilate itself into the fragile bones under the child's skin. But it was impossible for a prison of transient flesh to take on everything. Otherwise, the flesh would be tainted even with the barest exposure of its touch, and everything would collapse.
But then-
-It could feel the connection, as if everything was jarred in something so forcefully violent that it would scorch the mind apart. The union was nearly parasitic in nature, awakening the Shadow's power as it licked the new feeling of being reborn in a sanctuary. The power transcended the taste from when it opened its eyes for the first time and it could spread itself further inside the human's body.
It did not wish for such a thing.
Shadows were a part of humanity. Shadows under the reign of Death were originally fragments of Life but the humans linked them as omens of physical death while in reality, it was humanity's despair who decided it so. If humanity wished for Death, it was its duty to fulfill it.
Was it not the deepest wish of the humans who purposefully collected them?
But to the Shadow, there was only one thing that was important, and that one thing was its vessel's life. Although the rest of its massive body was thrumming with the desire to destroy everything, the chains that joined its coffin-like wings together were stretched taut furiously, feverishly, binding its awakened strength to the human child, trying to preserve the drained life that cocooned it.
Enduring the sudden collapse of the human child's body was not a problem for the Shadow –it was not a weak entity- but the child was a mere human. His flesh could be easily shredded, his heartbeat faint. Their joined fragments could keep the human alive long enough for the Shadow to take possession, for the assimilation to be completed.
But the Shadow wouldn't have enough strength to sustain them both, being an incomplete Shadow as it was. It wouldn't be able to emerge but the human's life was hanging by a thin spider's thread. It would have to take lives drawn from other sources to survive.
Voices and visions entered its senses, humans clamouring around the room it was in. The humans showed faces of absolute astonishment and rotten greed, charging the air with a sickening sense of satisfaction.
And it was when the Shadow felt something foreign, inflaming the course of its body with an unnamed desire. To its eyes, the bleary room lost its focus, becoming dark and staining it with something that grew harsher. The jeering and feverish voracity around it fueled the power that pulsed within.
Rage.
Taken over, the emotion continued to rise within it, within the Shadow that the human child called as Thanatos. A Death God whose vessel has been wronged so violently that his presence grew fainter by each moment even as it tried to bind the human child to it.
How dare they, those disgusting humans, so powerless and weak who thought that they could replace god, so ignorant and foolish, thinking themselves as rulers of the world and-
-A feral grin was etched in its formless figure, its metal mouth stretched wide.
It cared little about how the miserable humans who never stopped wishing for Death could drawn the Shadow out from the human child's soul, but vibrant human lives were the source of boundless energy.
The Shadow will drain them all within inches of their lives, make them pay and suffer because its vessel was all that has ever mattered, all that ever will. Filling the room with screams of agony and pain to replace the silence as the Shadow ate, human's fragile legs no match for its blade. Shouts became the prelude as it swung its blade sideway.
"S-Save me!"
It heeded no one.
"It went berserk! Kill the sample!"
Ragged men swarmed the Shadow but its grin only widen as the scent of bloodbath nourished its strength. It roared savagely, planting fear of the unknown within the hearts of weaklings.
"Cut the sample's oxygen supply!"
It towered over the humans, attacking everything that came close with the ferocity of a beast. The Shadow wiped out the incoming force relentlessly, some of the blood landed on its vessel's clothing. The room became a one-sided battlefield.
But when its enemies were reduced only to a lone human wrapped in a brown coat, its strength were gone suddenly. Its vessel's harsh breathing resounded through the dark room as its enemy let out a crazed laughter.
And Thanatos was forcefully cut off from its vessel's subconsciousness.
