Chapter 49: The True Demon
Red skies...
Bloody river...
Screaming children...
The howl of wolves...
Opening his eyes, Cregan notices himself laying on a field of bloodied golden roses that surround him. Up in the sky a crimson red color overcomes it. Through the roses and thorns, Cregan can see his arms and legs entangled between the many vines that the golden roses were making. He knew this was a dream, but from the sky and the field of thorned, bloodied and golden roses, it seemed this wasn't a vision from the man in plate armor, it seemed this was another nightmare. Knowing this made Cregan somehow remind himself of the moment between Vesemir and himself, of how he finally realised what Vesemir was trying to tell him, or at least what Cregan thought he was trying to tell him.
Just then, a barely noticable smile came across Cregan's face, but the strange thing was that he didn't know why he was smiling. It could have been the fact that Cregan trusted Vesemir with one of the secrets not even his own family knows, the fact that he could share his greatest weakness to someone that he trusted, to a friend. But even still, the nightmares and his own bloodlust was something Cregan was already uncomfortable talking about, yet there was one thing that no one must ever know, not his family, not his friends, not Margaery.
When the feeling of bloodloss started to befel Cregan's arms and legs, that is when the thorned vines released their grasp of them. Blood once again rushed through his veins as Cregan got up from the ground and went up to get bakc on his feet. He knew what was coming, his corpse would appear again, it would slaughter him again, and Cregan would once again lose a piece of himself.
"What's the point..."
"Just give up..."
"They will all die anyways..."
"You'll never see her again..."
"No one is going to survive..."
Cregan's thoughts manifested into words, his hopeless, defeated, broken thoughts. As he turned around Cregan saw it, his corpse standing lazily over a field of crushed roses, dead hawkes and dismembered wolf heads. It's back hunched over, it's arms dangling from it's shoulders and his legs shaking and looking almost weak enough to not be able to support it's body from the ground. The face was not how Cregan remembered it however, it seemed... normal. Instead of the deformed, scarred, insane and murderous expression that it would always have, the corpse wore Cregan's face, his normal face.
"Do you ever shut up?" Cregan asked, not even reacting to the horryfying image in front of him that would intice fear into anyone.
To his words the corpse said nothing except laugh maniacely. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..." and it just went on and on with no stop, none at all. Until finally, there was silence once again. Cregan and his corpse, standing in silence, eyeing each other down, Cregan with his emotionless and cold stare and his corpse with it's insane and fear-inducing smile.
Instead of doing what he would usually do and try to fight his corpse, Cregan only sat down back on the ground. Now, Cregan had one arm rested upon his knee and the other on the ground. He stared directly into it's eyes, the red tint and wolf like pupil, it made him wonder if he had somehow gotten to Sif, but Cregan instantly shredded that thought from what little privacy he had in this place. The corpse looked somewhat confused at this, as much confusion as a face like that could show. The corpse did nothing except examine Cregan with it's eyes, keeping to the carved smile that went from ear to ear. With the corpse still shifting it's eyes to every corner of Cregan's body, he himself was doing nothing, not moving, not speaking, only sitting there in silence.
Cregan was getting tired of the silence as he let out a long sigh, closing his eyes for just a second before opening them and looking back towards the corpse. "I don't really feel like fighting you, so come, sit." Cregan said with his words being more like commands rather than requests.
The corpse was still suspicious to what Cregan was doing, so it finally decided to respond. "Oh my, have you lost your claws wolf." the corpse said as it's human-like voice and face dissapeared to the inhuman tone and expression that Cregan was used to. To it's words Cregan only shifted his head left and right, responding without words but still denying the corpses words.
"No, I just don't feel like fighting anymore, I'm tired, so are you going to sit down or are you just going to kill me again?" Cregan's annoyance seemed to suprise even the corpse. Usually, he would just speak to the corpse as aggresively as possible. Now, it was almost as if he was bored at being where he was, bored if being in the center of his own nightmares.
This seemed to work though. The corpse didn't pull out a some weapon in a grotesque way as usual, it only began to shift it's seemingly limp body towards Cregan. It's legs were moving in an un-coordinated pace, as well as looking broken, shifted and mainly just diformed in all possible ways. Step... step... step... those were the only things that were heard as the corpse limped to where he was, it's arms dangling from it's shoulders. And then, it was some two or three feet away from Cregan, staring at him for a few more moments before it's legs collapsed on themselves. The bones of it's legs broke as the corpse collapsed into a sitting position, it was obvious the body that it was in had reached it's limit, it couldn't take any sort of pressure or movement anymore. The corpse was at the edge of being fully decayed, the only step left was just turning into nothing but ash.
"So... what are you trying to do... finally start begging me to stop torturing you... HAHAHAHA..." the corpse said as it broke out into a fit of insane laughter, clearly not being able to contain it's own words of sanity. Cregan seemed completely disinterested in listening to the corpses insane laughter, he only flicked his eyes to the red sky that, for some reason, started to lose it's crimson red color and was beggining to be replace by the water blue that the sky in the real world has.
"Be quiet..." Cregan said in a low tone, and it worked, the corpse suddenly went silent in confusion as he continued to talk. "Listen to me, I don't really care what you want. In all honesty, your right, I'm losing my will to fight, my will to survive and keep on living..." Cregan's eyes flicked back to the corpse, narrowing them a bright glow began to overcome the pupils of his eyes, "But that doesn't mean I would let someone like you take over my body."
To his words the corpse once again laughed in an insane manner, still staring at Cregan with it's eyes that had a blood red tint. "YOU MUST BE A BIGGER FOOL THAN I THOUGHT IF YOU HAVEN'T FIGURED OUT WHO I AM AFTER ALL THESE YEARS..." the corpse said between it's insane laughs. "DON'T YOU GET IT ALREADY..." it then started to crawl with it's arms as the corpse got right in front of Cregan's face, "... YOU WANT ME TO KEEP HAUNTING YOU, YOU WANT ME TO KEEP TORTURING YOU... BECAUSE DEEP DOWN, YOU KNOW YOU DESERVE EVERYTHING I DO TO YOU... EVERY TIME I KILL YOU, EVERY WAY I KILL... DON'T YOU FEEL A PIECE OF YOU GOING AWAY?".
"So what, you're trying to redeem me?" Cregan raised his brow, not reacting to the decaying and brittle face that was right in front of his. "You, who were once like me, who acted like me, who had the same moralities like me, who got corrupted because of love..." he kept his tone disinterested and his voice barely above a whisper.
The corpse however, just kept smiling and laughing as it once again spoke. "You think I'm like you... HAHA... you fool... I AM YOU... HAHAHAHAHA..." it went into a mad fit of laughter before continuing to speak. "I AM YOUR DOUPTS, I AM YOUR GRIEF, I AM YOUR REGRETS... YOUR TRUE MURDEROUS INTENT... I AM THE TRUE CREGAN STARK... I AM THE DEMON OF THE NORTH!"
Cregan, once again, didn't even flinch at the corpses speech that was meant to intimidate him, in reality it was mediocre for him than anything else. He let out a slight smirk at his corpses words, "Did you honestly think I would believe that shit?" he asked the corpse while looking at it's dead and rotting eyes, still smirking confidently. This seemed to suprise the corpse as it moved back a bit from Cregan's face, now seeming more cautious than anything. "You are not me..." Cregan said as he lifted himself from the ground and got back on his feet, standing over the corpses hunched over position now. "You will never be me..." he took a step forward. This emediately alarmed the corpse, it flung back some twenty feet, seemingly putting it's legs back together mid-air.
"WHY ARE YOU EVEN TRYING ANYMORE... YOU KNOW YOU CAN'T BEAT ME..." the corpses smile quickly started to fade as it's entire body twitched and a black smoke leaked from it's eyes and mouth. The screaming stopped almost completely, the corpse was losing control, and Cregan knew it. The howl of wolves began to waver, the bloody water dried up, the sky was normal again, everything was going back to normal. Everything was normal except the area around Cregan's corpse, which still resembled the nightmarish hellscape from just a few moments ago.
"You know what? You're right..." Cregan's words once again made the corpse be confused. "It doesn't matter how many times I try... doesn't matter how many time I kill you... you will always come back, and I'll just die eventually..." his tone had now become dark and more hopeless, something that made the corpses smile come back.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..." it went into yet another mad fit of laughter before starting to speak again, "YOU FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT... SINCE WHEN WERE YOU THE ONE IN CONTROL...". Cregan's corpse then raised it's arm and waved it's fingers, "COME CREGAN, LET US DESTROY THE LANNISTERS, AND LET US SHOW ALL THOSE WHO WOULD OPPOSE US THE TRUE MEANING OF PAIN..." before the corpse could finish it's sentence however, it was interrupted by Cregan.
"Pain... do you even know what pain is?" Cregan stopped the corpse mid-sentence.
"Pain is going to sleep every night not knowing if you will wake up the next morning. Pain is living, day by day, seeing the same faces, the same people, the same place, having the knowledge that you will never see it again. Pain is the knowledge of knowing what lies beyond the lands winter, but pretending you don't, because as long as everyone is safe and sound, it doesn't matter. Pain, REAL PAIN is eventually feeling... nothing, knowing that everything you do and had done will eventually be worth just that, nothing at all...".
"YOUR PAIN CAN END..." the corpse was now using a more human-like voice, his face however, was still the same demonic expression as it always has been. "LET ME TAKE CONTROL... AND I WILL END YOUR PAIN..." the now calm and somewhat soothing voice coming from a monstrosoty like that was both disturbing and bone-chilling to say the least.
"Like I said before, you were right, I was never fully in control. I'm just a coward who's too afraid to accept the truth, a coward who is too afraid to accept his fate." Cregan's emotionless tone and expression became a completely grim and defeated voice and face. The corpse had it's smile going from ear to ear again, until Cregan spoke once more.
"But-"
"Knowing what you would do if I let you take full control... what would happen to everyone." Cregan returned to his persona of not giving anything about his emotions as he stared the corpse down with his equally menacing eyes. "I know what you would do to them. Robb, Mother, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon, Triston, Lyarra, Loras, Margaery, Willas, Garlan and so many more, you would kill them all. It doesn't matter who they are, Lannister... Greyjoy... Arryn... Tyrell... you would erase everyone and everything. That's something I can't allow."
Suddenly, the corpse started to twitch again as the same blackness enveloped it's eyes and mouth. Even with that, Cregan continued to stare at his corpse, not even flinching at the grotesque sight in front of him. The corpses twitching just got worse and worse with each moment that passed, but Cregan stood his ground. "Seven... seven years I was afraid of you..." Cregan stated, closing his eyes for a moment before opening them again. "I was afraid of you for so long... for all those years... but no more... I won't let you win this little game of ours".
And it seemed that Cregan was telling the truth. There was no fear in his eyes, only bravery, there was no doupt in his mind, only determination, nothing that showed his regrets, and this proved to anger the corpse. It seemed to be at edge, only moments away from charging at Cregan in pure blind rage, one more thing, and it would snap. "You Starks really are hard to kill..." the corpse finally spoke, it's twitching now resembled more trembling than anything else. And whilst the corpse was losing it's humanity slowy, Cregan only gave the corpse a smirk, something that even he was uncomfortable in doing due to his sheer nature. "Your grandfather tried to fight me once, look what happened to him..." it made it's threat, raising it's hands as the shadows and dark aura started to surround it, "... look where that got him... burned alive by The Mad King..."
"Aye, you haunted my grandfather, before him you haunted thousands more after your death by our hands. After my grandfather you decided to haunt my Uncle Benjen, but he resisted you, and eventually, you just got bored and found a new oppurtunity in me. Because of you my uncle joined The Night's Watch, then you stopped haunting him and started torturing me." Cregan's words just kept suprising the corpse as it's smile once again faded, "Tell me monster, how many of my ancenstors did you drive insane? How many promises did you make for them? How many of their lives did you take?" at this point, the corpses trembling resemble that of fear, but Cregan knew better.
"HOW MUCH... HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW?" the corpse screached out in an ear-grading tone, once again, nothing about it was human, only a monsters voice in a monsters body, Cregan's body. However, even with it's trembling and now completely monster-like expression, Cregan stayed calm and collected, not even answering it's question, just smirking at it confidently. "YOU THINK YOU KNOW EVERYTHING DON'T YOU?! YOU THINK YOU ARE IN CONTROL?! YOU AREN'T IN CONTROL, I AM! I AM THE ONE IN CONTROL! I AM YOU MASTER! YOU. WILL. OBEY. ME!".
As the corpse lost it composure, now nothing more than a black pudge surrounded by rotting skin. Cregan spread out his arms, let out a wide smile, and spoke up, "Since when were you the one in control...". This silenced the corpse emediately, until...
"hehehehe... hahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..." the laugh began, and the corpse charged towards Cregan, the shadows around it leaving a dark liquid behind it. With every step the corpse took at immense speeds it just began to lose it's skin, breaking and tearing through the black liquid that was now enveloping Cregan's corpse. Cregan stood his ground once more, not budging, not flinching, not even reacting, he just stood there and observed what was coming at him. During it's entire charge to Cregan the corpses laugh continued, becoming even more insane as the quick seconds passed, something Cregan thought was impossible.
Death was something Cregan knew very well in his nightmares. So many times, so many different ways, each one of them as painful as it could be, but not this time, it was time to show his nightmares the true meaning of pain.
The corpse kept running at Cregan before leaping into the air, launching itself at him, but Cregan was ready. As his corpse got closer and closer to Cregan, a moonlit blue light started to form around his left arm. Before the corpse could even react, it was just a foot above Cregan when he drove Frostbite through the corpses skull. The blue light formed into Cregan's longsword, Frostbite, and the suddeness of everything made the corpses look of suprise more noticable when Cregan drove his blade through the corpses eye and out the back of it's skull. It only stared at Cregan with it's one remaining eye, the corpses gaze filled with both suprise and confusion to what had just happened. The two continued to stare at each other for a few more moments, Cregan with his dissinterested look and his cocky smirk, and the corpses glare of shock to what it had just witnessed. It's smille faded as the black aura vanished, the silence continued before the corpse faded away, a trail of ash and dust following after it's dissapearance.
The specs of dust left marks on Cregan, mostly on Frostbite, which was now glowing the same blue shine it had when Cregan first saw it. The same thing happened from just a few months ago, it had dissapeared, and Cregan had thought he won, but not this time, he wasn't letting his guard down just yet. To his right hand a small spark started to appear, that spark eventually turned to a flicker of light, and that flicker of light transformed into a burning flame, eventually forming into Cregan's shortsword, Demonsteel. The shortswords fiery red glow and aura of warmth was now the most noticable in Cregan's nightmare. From all these things, Cregan had come to an epiphany of sorts, both Frostbite and Demonsteel had their distinctive traits become more 'active' in Cregan's dreams. Perhaps this was Cregan's own mind trying to give him an edge in this fight, then again, it could have been almost countless other reasons, Cregan just didn't want to think about them just now, not during something this important.
The wind howled, the sun shined, the birds sang and the roses blomed. All the nightmarish imagery had dissapeared, replaced by the scenery of some kind of paradise, at least to Cregan. As he inhaled the newly fresh air accompanied the scent that the blooming golden roses gave out Cregan could hear footsteps approaching him at that same immense speed. Cregan didn't react to it though, instead he closed his eyes, inhaling the fresh and scented air one more time, he knew he had to savor it for what was about to come next. Finally having enough of the air and with the footsteps now closer than ever, Cregan exhaled, opening his eyes once more.
"And so it begins..."
Cregan emediately swung both Frostbite and Demonsteel to the direction from where he heard the footsteps. This was a smart move seeing at what his swings had hit, once again, Cregan's reflexes proved to be his most trusted traits. To his back was the corpse, except now it didn't really resemble anything like a corpse. An empty darkness surrounded it's entire body, the only thing left Cregan could recognise was the face. The face was Cregan's, but like always, this was not like his actual face, it was rotten and decaying. The only thing keeping the face from breaking apart like all the other parts of the corpse was possibly it's desperatness to try and stop this fight, perhaps make Cregan feel fear again, but that wasn't going to work anymore. The moment the blades his it's body that was now nothing more than an abyss of darkness, the corpses torso separated as the same expression appeared on it's face. It was starting to lose control over Cregan's mind, thus losing it's practical imunity to Cregan's attacks. The corpse once again dissapeared into ash and dust but this time it was much faster than last time.
Once again, Cregan became covered by the dust, however, Demonsteels warm aura made the ash quickly turn to cinder as small sparks flew off his body and swords.
Before Cregan could take another moment of peace, the corpse attacked once again. This time it was much faster but still, Cregan was ready for it. The corpse swung it's 'arms' at Cregan, it's limbs forming into a sharp blade but Cregan easily blocked it with Frostbite before shoving Demonsteel through the corpses throat. Once again, ash and dust spread as the corpse dissapeared, this time it merely flew away due to the wind carrying it through the sky.
However, the ash and dust quickly reformed into the black abbys that the corpse had now permanently taken as it's form. It quickly dropped towards Cregan, letting out an ear-grading screach while falling. The speed of the fall made Cregan assume it was forcefully making itself go quicker, somehow. When the corpse had come closer to him, it spread it's arms to try and grab Cregan. But Cregan just dodged out of the way, spining to the sides before unleashing a flurry of attack the split the corpse into four parts, it's legs, arms, torso and head. The corpse dissapeared into ash and dust once more.
Ash and dust, ash and dust, ash and dust, time after time it had only repeated with Cregan killing his corpse each one of these times. He split it in half, he cut off it's arms, he cut of it's legs, he drove his blades through it's eyes, through it's neck, he cut off it's head, he tore it to shreds, so many ways, so many times. Cregan didn't want to admit it, but every time he would kill the corpse, he felt a bit of glee from it. After the corpses fifteenth or so attempt, it's nervousness and frustration became more and more obvious.
It slowly walked in front of Cregan, the black aura now being much weaker as it lazily flicked it's head upwards to look at him. Cregan did nothing but smirk at the corpse before speaking, "You seem frustrated about something..." he said sarcasticaly. The flash in his eyes reappeared once more, as if lighting struck his gaze, "... then I guess I'm pretty good at this, eh?" Cregan asked, the same sarcasm being constant in his tone.
Just then, darkness surrounded Cregan's feet, something that resembled water but much darker. In a strange way, the water reminded him of the pond in Winterfell's godswood. But before Cregan could move away from the small black puddle around eight hands burst from the water and grabbed all of Cregan's limbs, legs, feet, arms and hands. He didn't react to it though, Cregan just stayed there and looked at the corpse with a disinterested expression. Unlike Cregan however, the corpse had it's ear to ear smile slowly creeping back up before it raised one arm.
"NOW... DIE!" the corpse crushed it's palm, resulting in all the black water engulfing Cregan as it sprung from the ground. All of the water formed into a sphere that quickly shrunk resulting in a loud crushing sound resembling Cregan's bones being broken. This made the corpse start laughing insanely once more, "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..." that was the only sound it made, thinking it had finally won.
But then suddenly, it's laughter had stopped abruptly to the sound of steel piercing through it's torso. The corpse looked down to see two blades sticking out of it's body, one having a warm aura around it, the other having an insatiabely cold feeling to it. The corpse leaned it body back, seemingly unable to control it anymore. Instead of falling to the ground however, the corpses body was stopped by the body of it's attacked. It was Cregan, still alive somehow. It's expression of satisfaction dissapeared completely as it flicked it's eyes back to look at him. While it did that, Cregan leaned in to the corpses rotten and grotesque ear to whisper to it. "Quite persistent aren't you?" Cregan whispered in a deep tone before continuing, "But when will you learn? Your not going to kill me... not this time..." he whispered.
"YOU... HOW D-"
Before the corpse could say anything else, Cregan split his blades in opposite directions, tearing the corpses torso in half. Ash and dust, once more filled the air. By now, the entire lush field of roses was covered in that same ash and dust. The golden roses were now an ash-grey color, quite fitting actually. The air had carried some of the dust away. And the sun revealed all that ash and dust to Cregan's eyes.
The corpse was growing desperate by now, that much Cregan knew. However, he expected it to attack him again in some way the corpse thought would suprise Cregan. This made Cregan's reflexes on high alert. Any sound, any movement, any voice, any change in the scenery, any shift in the wind, Cregan would know about it. But, instead of that, Cregan heard water bubbling behind him.
As he turned around Cregan saw his corpse... melting.
The corpses skin had all nearly dissapeared revealing it's true form, a black mess with nothing but darkness in it. The only thing left that resembled anything human was it's face, which was also melting, becoming more and more grotesque by the second. Once again, Cregan didn't even react to the sight in front of him, he merely walked up to the diformed and melting darkness that his corpse now was. Cregan stood over his corpse, looking at how it desperately tried to reform itself into something that had a body, but to not avail. This continued for several minutes as the two stood in silence, Cregan watching at the pathetic sight that once broke fear into his heart, and the corpse still desperately trying to put itself back together, but again, to no avail.
"You really are determined on trying to break me, aren't you?" Cregan asked the corpse, giving it a pityful smile.
"YOU... HOW... DARE YOU?!" the corpse screatched out, trying to fling itself at Cregan, but failing miserabely.
"It's simple really..." Cregan shrugged his shoulder and once again smiled, "... I broke you, I'm suprised it was this easy".
"YOU THINK YOU'VE WON?! YOU THINK YOU'VE BROKEN ME?! YOU'RE WRONG! I WILL BREAK YOU! I WILL ERASE YOU!" the corpse went into another mad rambling, the melting speeding up as it continued to scream at Cregan. The corpse noticed this however and calmed down. It stared at Cregan directly in the eyes.
"I will break down that little wall of yours..."
"I will slaughter all your pathetic people..."
"I will turn them all against each other..."
"I will erase all of you from existence..."
"And when I am finished... I will make you suffer for eternity... knowing that it was all your fault... and then you will kn-"
Before the corpse could finish it's threats, it found Cregan boot above it's head, knocking the corpse to the ground. While everything else melted, it seemed the corpses head was still intact, and fully crushable. Cregan slowly started to add pressure to the skull, pressing his boot against it. As the cracks and breakings began to overcome the almost completely melted corpse, it was now without any skin and left but a skeleton. Before he fully crushed it's eyes flicked back to him, the look of sheer terror to what it was seeing, and Cregan spoke to it once more.
"Remember these words Demon..."
"Stare into the abyss for too long and eventually... the abyss will stare back at you..."
The corpses skull was now almost completely shattered, only a fraction of force was keeping it from completely being crushed. Cregan gave the corpse one last look. It was a look of pure hatred and spite, of anger and rage, the completely opposite of his lips, which were releasing an almost sadistic smile as Cregan spoke his next few words.
"I'll see you tommorow night, 'King of Winter'..."
Note:
And there we have it people, Chapter 49...
I know it has been almost what, two weeks now, but I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter as it contained answers, revelations, action, and the thing we all love, Cregan being an unkillable Demi-God of Destruction. Like I always say, all the support for this story is more than welcome and it warms my heart to see people enjoying my story and what I am writting. And as I also say, all your guys's review are also more than welcome and I love reading them.
As always I hope you enjoyed the chapter, please do post your reviews and tell me your thoughts on the story so far, your advice etc. Thank you for all the reviews, favorites and follows and I will see you all next time.
