Yeah, just like In Awe of the Power, I thought about updating only when I finished the story. But I thought it was about time to post something so people don't think I forgot about it. I'm also fairly close to the ending anyways...

Oh and yeah, we are back to numbered scene breaks. Idk. I felt like it.

Chapter 13: Still a Child

1

Alex returned to her room with the morning sun. Angelique noticed instantly. Of course, she hadn't slept a wink all night. She knew what that meant. She had asked for it, wished for it countless nights. Still, her heart raced as if it would explode.

What's wrong with you? It's too late to back out now, and you have no reason to. Her life had been constant torment for years. Each day had blended endlessly into the next, forming a chain that strangled her, with no night or rest at all.

That's why it wasn't a mistake.

She only wanted peace of mind. She only wanted them to suffer as she had.

They had ruined her life. She couldn't be a saint who forgave them for it, even if they were her parents. She knew perfectly well that blood had little to do with family, sometimes.

"You're awake." It wasn't a question.

Of course. She hadn't understood more than half of his story, although she sincerely believed it was true, but anyone could understand the simplest things. For example, that he had good eyes. And good ears.

She wasn't going to let something like that go unnoticed.

"I couldn't fall asleep in the first place," Angelique sat up in bed. She felt vulnerable in her robe and little else, the sheets slid down when she changed position and that didn't help, obviously. She looked Alex in the eyes. Although she wasn't sure what she expected to see there, in any case. "It's done." This wasn't a question either. Ah, Brimir. "How was it?"

Something changed in Alex's expression. Something subtle, something dark.

Her heart accelerated a bit more still.

She had always been afraid of him (if there was anything that defined Angelique's life, it was fear), but now that she knew more than enough about what he was capable of doing, her throat practically closed up, thinking of the possibilities.

"Disguised as one of the guests at a party they were attending, I snuck in, made sure to separate them from everyone else and killed them."

He said it coldly and clinically. As if it were nothing.

Why would he give it importance? He had killed more people than Angelique could count. More people than lived in the kingdom of Tristain, if his story was true to reality, and she believed it was.

If anything, he wouldn't be exaggerating, but minimizing.

"Is that all?"

Alex paused for long enough that she thought he wouldn't say anything else. She was wrong again.

"I made them suffer for you. It didn't seem enough, a quick death with practically no pain. They did something much worse to you."

Suddenly her throat was completely dry.

Angelique swallowed.

"And you, what exactly did you do?"

"I mutilated them. I cut their throats to make sure they couldn't scream, and I made them suffer. But of course, not before telling them why I was there." Alex frowned. "Why are you making that face?"

He had seemed so kind, so different. Was he really the same person she had been getting to know? Or well, not a person, not exactly. But more human than she had been used to by far, anyway.

How could he be capable of what he was telling her at the same time?

"I just wanted you to kill them. I couldn't live peacefully knowing they were out there, enjoying their lives while I..." She swallowed again. Suddenly she couldn't breathe properly. I have to calm down. Losing control had never served her any good. "But that's all. Do you understand? I didn't want, I never asked you..."

Alex looked away.

He protested immediately, but he looked away first. That said a lot. Or so she thought.

"You should be happy. You have to be. Don't tell me you would have been satisfied that easily. Killing them before they realized what was happening, not even making them suffer."

Was he right or not? She wasn't even sure. Hearing him explain, so patiently, so reasonably, on his part, it was easy to think that he was. But right now she only felt like vomiting.

Now she was forced to wonder to what extent she knew Alex Mercer. If she hadn't been merely blinded by, yes, by her adoration. She would have kissed the feet of anyone who had freed her from the hell of living with Edmond. Of surviving.

Even the feet of an inhuman creature. That was obvious, but...

"I can't be happy, Alex. I'm not even sure I remember what that was like. I just wanted... peace of mind. But you've given me something else to think about when I have trouble sleeping at night."

It wasn't smart to make him angry. No one needed to tell her that, she wasn't that stupid. But if something so trivial was going to provoke him, neither she nor her daughter would last long, anyway.

Besides, she needed to know.

She wanted to know where the line was.

There were habits and customs for which she had been trained. As much as she disliked using that comparison, it was apt. She had been treated like an animal. Not as a person, much less as a woman.

One of them was exploring ever-changing limits to avoid being punished.

Drawing the lines that Edmond, in his madness, refused to draw. Even knowing deep down that it was useless, she had to cling to the hope that she could avoid the inevitable until it came upon her again. Then repeat it all over again.

Who could blame her? It was a matter of human instinct, looking for patterns even where there was nothing at all.

Looking for security.

And now...

Alex had an impossible expression to read.

"Alex, did you enjoy it?"

Alex grabbed a vase with a tentacle that came out of his back and threw it against the wall, shattering it into a thousand pieces. Angelique flinched as if he had punched her in the face. Her legs trembled. Still sitting on the bed, she suddenly felt unstable, as if she were actually on a piece of wood adrift in the endless sea.

"Why would I do that? I don't even know them. I can't hate them. Not really. Not when I don't even love you."

There was something strange in his tone.

She couldn't express it in words, except that Angelique believed she had found the line. A firm line, which wouldn't change at the convenience of the person who was now her husband. So the woman extended a hand to grab his hand, but Alex didn't see it. Or ignored it on purpose. He turned around, transforming into Edmond and walking out the door. She supposed it was a good sign. If he bothered to transform into Edmond, that meant it wasn't too late. That he hadn't decided to discard that identity and this life.

The experiment that both of them represented.

Or maybe something more already.

Maybe something more.

2

Louise saw nothing drastic.

For reasons she didn't understand (there were so few things she understood about her new life), her transformation had occurred a few days after the summoning ritual. After being expelled from the Academy.

So maybe she had done it too late to save Cattleya.

She had to try anyway, it was her older sister, but the mere idea left her feeling cold. Half dead.

I'm already completely dead. Dead dead. I'm not even a human being.

After a while it seemed to her that her face color had improved, but she wasn't sure if it was real or if she was just seeing what she wanted to see. In any case, beside the bed, staring at her and holding her hand so tightly that if Cattleya could react she was complaining of pain, Louise fell asleep.

Without dreams. Neither good ones, nor nightmares.

Her life had turned into a nightmare. Why would it follow her even to her dreams, her only refuge?

No.

Louise was so tired, so hurt, that she simply shut off.

3

When she woke up, the room was empty. Sunlight was coming in through a hole in the wall. For long seconds in which her heart barely beat, Louise thought she was still dreaming. Then she finished waking up.

"Cattleya! Sister!"

Her desperate cries went nowhere.

Naturally, Cattleya had left long ago. Leaving her alone, in the darkness of the room. For hours. How far would she have gone? And what did she intend to do, if she intended anything?

It was undeniable proof that she had saved her older sister's life. That the miracle she had desperately wished for had occurred, even though everyone had told her to stop dreaming. To accept reality because if not it would be more painful. Even before this, since she was little she had lived with the knowledge that someday, sooner rather than later, Cattleya would die horribly. She hadn't started wishing for this miracle just now. She had wished for it countless nights. Sleeping with her sister, head resting on her chest, feeling her heartbeat. Fearing to wake up next to a corpse. Wanting to cry bitterly and barely containing herself.

But she couldn't even enjoy this miracle, it was just another problem in her hands.

Another nightmare to follow a brief period of rest.

This is what her life had become. Now she could only blame herself, which was the worst. She had known that something could go wrong. That it was even most likely, but she hadn't cared.

Not as long as she could save Cattleya.

Her older sister was alive, but had she saved her?

Louise set off. Running faster than any carriage, practically flying.

She leaped, like her familiar when he escaped from the academy.

Hehad ruined her life, leaving, transforming her into this. Without a doubt. It didn't take much brains to notice the similarities. It had to be that creature's fault, somehow.

Wherever he was, she cursed him with all her might.

But once again the fault was only hers, really. If she hadn't tried to rise above her status, pretend to be what she wasn't, then she would never have brought that being through the portal.

None of this would have happened.

What did it say about her that, if she had known, she would have let it happen anyway?

Just so she wouldn't have to wake up to see Cattleya's corpse?

She couldn't even complain because she had no desire to change things.

4

A newborn walked through Tristania, the capital of Tristain.

She had been born a few hours ago.

Her mind was empty. Without personality, without memories. It only contained the memory of a painful and terrifying birth. Alone in the world. She didn't know anyone like her, so fear defined her existence.

Of course, she didn't know where she was either. She had just wandered away from her birthplace, perhaps looking for others like her. Every living being had the need to look at itself in the mirror, so to speak. In an empty brain, only instinct remained. Her instincts had the reins.

What did her own instincts drive her to? The most natural thing in the world. She sought warmth, love, companionship.

She found something very different. Several men with mocking voices laughed around her.

"Wow, what a hot chick. Barefoot and all."

"She looks like a noble. Maybe recently expelled from her family."

Laughter. The creature instinctively understood the "lust" contained in them.

"What matters is that she's a first-class female, noble or not."

"Surely she's looking for fun. Going around with those huge tits practically in the air, she's tempting us. She's just playing hard to get, ignoring us."

"Maybe, maybe. What a whore."

They surrounded her and dragged her into an alley. The newborn creature defended herself weakly. She wasn't sure what she was defending herself from, or if she should defend herself in the first place. She didn't know why she had come to this world. Maybe the other beings, who had been in this confusing world longer, knew better than her.

She tried to speak, to say something, anything. Nothing came out of her throat.

They threw her onto the dirty floor of the alley and tore the material that had been bothering her on her chest anyway. But still, the creature panicked for some reason. The panic was an emotion quickly drowned out by hunger.

The alley filled with screams. Sounds of cockroaches being crushed.

Hours later, Cattleya woke up in a sea of intestines and blood.

5

Something moved in that scarlet sea. The organs went back inside the empty shell and the wounds closed in the blink of an eye.

6

Louise stopped quickly.

That's how quickly she lost what little trail there was. Footprints, fallen trees. She had no idea why Cattleya would leave in the first place. Even if she had noticed the changes, even if she had been scared, questioning her humanity like her, why would she leave and where, instead of staying in her home?

Cattleya spent most of her time at home due to her illness. The place she used to go when she was depressed, to hide from the world, was her own room, not some convenient place near the mansion grounds.

She put her hands to her head.

"Why does nothing go right for me?"

Louise screamed, just to release her frustration.

It didn't help. Not really.

She couldn't have peace until she found her older sister and brought her back home.

If someone saw what she had become now, they would try to kill her as the Princess, her own childhood friend, had almost done. But unlike Henrietta, those people wouldn't back down, their hands wouldn't tremble.

7

Henrietta sighed.

She had used the information provided by Louise to strike several supposed Reconquista bases. Each and every one of them turned out to be where she said, although she hadn't really doubted it.

She was sitting on the throne that belonged to her by right and she had the feeling that it was expanding in the corner of her eye like a beast ready to swallow her in one bite.

The information was undoubtedly correct and that meant that her childhood friend had not only killed someone, she had absorbed their memories somehow. That must be dark magic that perverted the soul.

"Maybe I made the wrong decision."

But, looking into her eyes, she simply hadn't been able to. Although it was possible that the Louise she had known... had disappeared without a trace. She hadn't had the stomach to do her duty, and now, whatever happened, it would be her fault.

"Why is it so difficult...?" She swallowed, unable to finish the sentence.

No one answered the unasked question. She was alone, and she hadn't told anyone about what happened last night. They wouldn't be able to guess what she hadn't said, anyway.

Henrietta felt as if she were nailed to the throne and could almost feel the weight of the crown that hadn't yet been given to her, since her mother was slowly rotting, dead in life, in the dark room while she had to take care of everything.

Yes. It was very difficult.

She hadn't been able to give up on her mother, just as she hadn't been able to give up on Louise.

All for the same reason.

Transitory childhood memories.

The clouds hid the sunlight, plunging the throne room into darkness.

8

"But what the fuck?"

A guy stumbled into the bar and immediately crashed into a table. For some reason, the table gave way very easily, it split in half. Of course the plates and cutlery fell noisily to the floor. The table must have been on the verge of collapse. Fuck, what a scandal.

It wasn't the first time Charles had seen a drunk who should have stopped drinking long ago enter unsteadily wanting to continue the party, but it was never pleasant.

He quickly finished what was left in his jug, he had already ruined the atmosphere and his good mood. Charles stood up, picked up his coat and headed for the door. He didn't want to have anything to do with this.

For having the reasonable response he was the first to die.

The newcomer's back opened and a tentacle full of spikes emerged violently along with a shower of blood.

"Holy Brimir!"

Charles didn't get to hear that, just the air escaping from his lungs and the blood dripping from the hole in his throat.

He died before the tentacle threw him against the wall and his head exploded. That is, he was lucky, after all. Better luck than the rest. The black corruption spread, changing him, but there was no Charles in there anymore. He was a soulless monster. The void inside him could be seen in his eyes, which had lost all spark of warmth or life.

That's why he was lucky, he had already escaped the terror.

For the rest, the horror movie had just begun.

None of those present had any conception of what the black conception really was. They knew nothing of the world of skyscrapers, the world in which viruses like this, made by man, were not even the worst threat. They must think while the dead continued to pile up and rise to come after them that they were being surrounded by demons.

Most of them still looked like human beings, but a few were already changing.

Shedding skin, increasing in mass, their bones breaking or twisting, ending in a form where they looked more like animals that no one had ever seen.

Like hellhounds.

Like winged demons.

Like giants, both arms iron maces.

The air filled with screams of horror.

Only horror, for the most part. The massacre, at least, was brutally efficient. Many died before they could feel the horrible pain.

9

Cattleya rose from the sea of entrails and blood. She was surrounded by mutilated corpses, covered in blood from head to toe, even her hair. She tried with all her might not to think about it. She had awakened, but the world around her was still a nightmare.

It had been a nightmare since she was born.

Weak. Fragile.

Deprived of things that normal people took for granted, but this was a step beyond.

Cattleya staggered out of the alley, her clothes torn and covered in blood.

Her mind emptied.

"I need help. Please. I don't... I don't know what's happening to me."

It didn't take her long to find some guards, but that wasn't something to celebrate. She made the mistake of trusting in the kindness of strangers. Cattleya had always depended on kindness, on the pity she produced, but family was a completely different story.

A gasp of pain was torn from her throat.

She suddenly found herself lying on the ground. She didn't realize what had happened until her left arm exploded. No blood, flesh, or bone came out. Nothing one would expect, just a strange black substance.

She had only asked for help, she didn't deserve this brutal treatment. Was it because she didn't look like a noble, as dirty and ragged as she was? No. Cattleya wasn't so childish as to believe that commoners were treated decently as a general rule, but that alone wouldn't justify this level of violence in broad daylight.

No. It was something else.

There were black tentacles coming out of her back, and Cattleya didn't even feel pain, but she could feel them as if they were nailed to her spine.

But what disturbed her most was that her clothes weren't stained with blood.

That is, they hadn't been until her arm exploded, despite having woken up in the middle of a sea of blood.

10 Alex paced around the room like the predator he was.

He couldn't get the conversation with Angelique out of his head. Had he enjoyed it? Giving free rein to his powers after a good period of rest, when most of his life had been one fight after another, well yes. Deep down he had, he didn't like what that might say, but he had a need to use what he was capable of doing.

But the act itself? The pain, the torture?

No, how could that be impossible?

He didn't know Angelique's parents. He didn't know them even through Edmond's memories, he had seen them very little, and only before making the transaction. After that, he had considered his purpose fulfilled. They weren't a family and never would be.

He knew nothing, so he couldn't hate them.

He didn't love the woman or the girl either, no matter how much he was trying, so it wasn't about revenge.

So what was it?

There were no coincidences. Things happened for a reason, calling it coincidence was just giving up, stopping thinking.

Could it be about the others?

Alex suddenly stopped. Frozen.

The thousands of agonizing screams of the dead. Insistent, always in the back of his mind. As much a part of him as the biomass that composed him, like his arms and legs.

Alex Mercer was a practically newborn being. His life was counted in months, very recently in weeks.

He didn't understand himself perfectly.

On top of that, he was a new class of life, but why not? That made sense.

Humanity's greatest strength and downfall was intelligence (that is, the tendency to seek patterns where there was nothing but noise, like three holes vaguely in the right places made anyone see a face), and although many people wouldn't agree, Mercer was essentially human. He had been created to be so.

He was essentially a hive mind. What made him think he could contain the tide by sheer force of will? Real life didn't work that way.

What made him think his thoughts, his actions, and his body were his alone? Just of the base model called Alex Mercer.

He clenched his fists.

The voices seemed to grow louder.

11

The guards surrounded her, prepared with their wands. They only saw her as a monster, and it was no wonder. Cattleya was afraid of herself, of whatever she had become. She opened her mouth to explain herself, to try to calm the situation, but it became impossible when she discovered the most natural thing in the world.

Her body was no longer her body, why would her will be?

In other words, the tentacles attacked on their own. They dismantled the half-dozen guards who had been hovering over her in more or less the same number of seconds.

Blood and viscera. Bone fragments. All kinds of things were flying through the quiet afternoon air.

A horrible spectacle over which she had no control.

"No! No!"

No matter how much she screamed, they wouldn't stop.

The tentacles weren't part of her body, they were the ones in control.

Everything was horrible, and the worst of all for Cattleya was that she didn't understand anything. She had felt sick, vaguely remembered fainting, it wasn't the first time nor would it be the last, well, until it wasn't a faint but the slow death to which the disease had condemned her since birth.

She couldn't comprehend how everything had ended up this way.

There was no connection. She wished she could believe it was a nightmare, but she felt it. It was horribly real. This was her life now.

Understanding why wouldn't change the situation, wouldn't improve anything, but Cattleya couldn't help but focus on that while the tentacles continued the massacre. Why? Why, damn it?

Was this the result of the disease she had been incubating? Not death, but something a thousand times worse?

Then, as a few people she had once considered friends had told her, she should never have been born. It was impossible to argue with that. If everything had been destined to end like this from the beginning, her birth had no meaning at all. But the fact was that she had been born.

Wishing she hadn't been born and wishing to die were two completely different things.

She was afraid. Very, very afraid.

Cattleya was forced to admit that the tentacles weren't moving entirely on their own. Not anymore. She didn't want to die, so she had to fight, no matter the cost. What else could she lose?

Her desperate desire to survive made her evolve.

12

The corpses of the massacred guards and the people who had died simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time gathered in Cattleya, who no longer looked like a woman at all. Her previous form could barely be guessed under the layer of biomass that writhed and expanded, absorbing everything it could.

Soon she would disappear completely.

Soon she would be nothing but a monster, all tentacles and teeth, completely unrecognizable.

Still a Child: FIN

Fairly predictable, I guess, but at least I didn't "subvert your expectations".