Shallow, ragged whispers of breath echoing in my mind. I listened to the dying color of my heartbeat. My vision was foggy; the world around me shifting. Out of the blackness I saw my fingertips, stained with blood - my blood - trembling on the dirt. In my numb haze, I felt the weight of his body lift from me. I was spent - like a useless rag wasted and dirtied upon the earth. The sound of his belt clasp buckling over felt like sharp needles on my ears. I shut my eyes, trying to breath. Trying to focus.

Weak…

Empty tears spread across my face. I no longer had the strength to sob, or to scream. I could feel nothing. The sound of my own withering breath filled my mind, my heart, and my chest. Barely-there breathing that left me on the fringes, wondering if I should just stop. If I should give up.

Stand up.

Though my mind demanded obedience, I could not suffer movement. I could not will myself to try. I lay there on the ground, limp, useless, and bleeding - staring at the pool of blood collecting beneath me.

Stand up.

My body moved, just slight. I watched my fingertips twitch on the ground. A spark of life threaded through my body like molten fire. It hurt, and made me wince. I coughed up blood, further stirring the dust beneath me. I could hear the dull sound of his footsteps leading away in the back of my mind.

Stand up.

The further he walked away, the more life I felt breathing back into my lungs. I took in a thick, though uneven breath, and forced my shaking hands under me.

A new life began to pulse within my broken mind - that of force, of penetrative need and desire. I was filled with a great fire that burned in the pit of my stomach, stirring the acid and bubbling hate up to the surface of my chest.

A slow snarl began to form on my lips. Each breath brought me closer to the surface, bursting with a fire burning just beneath the cracked stone. I felt the earth beneath me shifting; the weight of my palms embedding deep into the dirt. I shook with a monstrous, growing lust for this new life, this burning that pushed me back to the edge.

Stand up.

My rage began to consume me. No thought of mercy or humanity crossed my mind. All I could focus on was the hate of his hands, stained with my blood. Stained with sin. Enraged tears flooded my eyes as I forced my broken, bleeding, tainted limbs beneath me and forced the stained earth away.

I stood to my feet.

I said nothing; I made no move to approach him. I saw him take one more step, then two, and he slowly turned to me with an expectant smile in his eyes. The expression fell completely from his features when he stood to face me. No sympathy. No humanity.

No mercy.

I took the dagger from the ground, feeling the heat of the blood rising around my body in a weightless dance. I felt a great, encompassing power I had never experienced before - a violent, fiery control that sent me off the edge of madness and euphoria. I was blissful; I was mad.

I was ready.

A snarl pulled across my lips until I was baring a fully fanged smile at him. I saw the fear in his eyes - the unexpected hesitation as he began to take a step away. I drank in that expression; the same he had produced from me. My hand tilted over, palm up, as I let the dagger float weightlessly in my hands. I tipped my head to the side.

"You're not the only one who can have fun, darling," I chuckled in a voice belonging to another creature and another time. The words burst from me in an exhilaration of reverence and pleasure. I grinned again, wickedly, before snapping my hand back around and slamming his body into the ground.

My steps were slow and leisurely as I made my way over to his body, still twisted and frozen to the earth. He groaned and tried to turn and face me. I twisted my hand around again, and his body instinctively obeyed. The satisfying sound of snapping bones filled the air, as did his screams.

"I love the way you lie," I whispered, breathing deep in through my nose of the fresh scent of his blood mingling with mine. I effortlessly moved my hand through the air as I circled around him, creating a symphony from his snapping bones and shouts of pain.

"My, you are a strong one," I laughed as I stopped again around his front and knelt down. I ran an index through the pool of blood now collecting under his throat where I had churned and tore open the flesh of his stomach. He was twitching and burbling in his own filth, trying to speak. The whites of his eyes were shifting again to black. I pressed the tainted fingertip stained with his blood to my mouth, savoring the bitter flavor of a demon's life.

"His form will not save you, demon," I laughed before standing back to my feet. He looked up at me once more, the rise and fall of his chest quickening with each new breath, and finally shifted back to his true form. I grinned.

"Release me," the creature hissed.

I twisted my hand around, tensing my palm into a vicious claw. He reacted with a shrill screech of pain as the sound of his final bones cracking and snapping twisted him over again. My lips pulled into a snarl.

"I'm not done with you," I growled, the pleasure of my hate creeping up my bones and warming my body. I reveled in the searing, blissful heat of my blood being drawn from the wound, using it against him. I felt empowered by the gesture, even ironically justified. I breathed deep through my chest, letting the blade lower into my palm. Grabbing it with my other hand, I released the demon from my power to grip the cold steel of my weapon. He groaned with the thud of his mangled body hitting the ground. As I twisted the knife deep into the flesh of my palm, I winced and turned back to him.

"I said I wasn't done," I snarled, shoving my foot into his back before he could crawl away. He shrieked and fell to the ground again, his weight overcoming the strength of his broken arms. He fell back into a pool of his own rotting corpse, of flesh and blood and stinking entrails dragging beneath him. "I didn't know demons could bleed so beautifully," I laughed as an afterthought while watching him again try to crawl away from me. I yanked the blade from my palm, slightly wincing again, before raising it to the demon. He froze to his spot.

"I wish to return the courtesy," I smiled before dragging his body from the ground and lifting it into the air in front of me. The torn bits of flesh and black blood floated about him, as did the remnants of his insides still torn from his stomach.

"You look like a darkspawn," I commented before waving my hand and commanding the dagger to slice across the front of his chest. The creature shrieked again as the new wound bubbled with fresh, tainted blood and spread down his chest. He tried again to put up a pitiful illusion, this time of Alistair. Though the wounds remained, he turned the eyes of the half-guilty man to try and will me out of this torture. I grinned.

"All the more reason for me to tear you apart," I seethed before making a jerking motion with my arms and, in turn, watching the satisfying sight of his own arms being torn off. He shrieked and squalled in his false man-form before abruptly returning to his own body, now hanging in the air as a useless, armless, bleeding corpse. Stupid creature. I continued to let the dagger tear over his body until I was certain he had been hacked and torn into small, black hunks of tainted meat on the ground. He was long dead before I finished, but the thrill had not left me until the largest part left of his carcass was no larger than my dagger.

When it finally stopped, I dropped the dagger from my hand and stared down at the massacre at my feet. My breath had become heavy and ragged once more, and the burning in my chest overwhelming. It felt as if a veil was slowly thinning in my eyes as I looked about me, my foggy mind clearing, and absorbed the scene before me. I had not killed the creature; I had torn him, piece by piece, until nothing was left. I had destroyed him, mangled him, tortured him, and maimed him until there was nothing left. I stared down at the pieces left, my eyes clearing, and took in another shuddering breath.

Well done…

Her voice returned, as did her form as she appeared before me in a wall of smoke and shadow. A grin tipped her wicked purple lips as she leaned down and took back her dagger, pressing admiring fingertips to the blood-tainted blade.

"Well done, my darling.." she smiled. My heart was calming once more as I gripped my fists at my side and stared her down, mind now cleared.

"Take me to him," I ordered.

She smiled at me, and nodded.

As you wish, my pet…