I still did not understand what had just happened. How did no one know about this? Where did these entities come from? My head was spinning just trying to think of some answer.

  I could feel Zael grinning in the back of my head. It was weird, having thoughts that were not my own in my head. If I were not concentrating on the goal before me, the sensation most likely would have driven me crazy.

  Walking toward the crater of the explosion, I was stunned by how big it was. Spanning so wide across the horizon, I could not even see the end. And the guy that did this is not supposed to be that strong? Are you kidding me?

  *The guy you are here to kill did not do that with his magic. It was a … weapon test. Don’t worry, he can’t do that again, so you can beat him.*

  I stood at the edge of the massive crater, stunned. What kind of weapon could carve something like this into the world?

  But more than that, I was angry. I was furious. A weapon test killed my family. We were just collateral in this fucking demonstration of destruction? My family was not even the target. My family could have lived…

  My family did not have to die.

  *Where is he?* I thought with a sharp tone

  *Who? The guy that did th…*

  *Where is he?* I thought again, louder, louder than any other thoughts that Zael could try to insert into my head.

  *Fuck you, chill the fuck out, that hurt. He is that way, you dipshit.* Zael pointed me in the direction west of the crater.

  As soon as I had that information, I started sprinting. I was even faster than when I ran home from the forest. My body, or the body I was controlling, had gotten stronger.

  After a while of running, I saw a small village appear in the distance. Speeding up even more, I could feel my muscles tearing again. But before they could continue breaking down, more muscles grew in place of the old ones.

  Still, it hurt more than my muscles tearing apart could ever hurt. I felt my control of my body slowly slipping. I could still control it for now, but the more I broke my body, the more control Zael would have.

  Zael pointed me to a house in the middle of the village. A man came running outside, looking confused. He opened his mouth to say something.

  Before he could speak, my fist smashed into his jaw, sending him flying. He smashed against the wall of his house. The cracked wall crumbled, all but destroyed by the force of my punch, but the man was fine, more than fine; he was not even hurt.

  *Damn, I did not even confirm for you if that was the guy. But yeah, that’s him. Go ham.*

  I jumped forward, trying to not let him retaliate, but before my eyes, the man vanished. Before I could even register what happened, he hit me. It felt like back then, when the shockwave smashed me into the ground.

  He struck me on my back, sending me flying into another house. I felt dull pain radiating through my whole body, but I was fine as well. I spat on the ground to clear my mouth of the dust I inhaled and readied myself.

  People were screaming everywhere, and the entire village was fleeing because of our fight. They thought I was the evil one, but if they knew… I saw the man I was fighting telling a woman and a small girl to run, standing in front of them. Was that his family…?

  Reminding myself of what he had done to my family, I jumped forward again. The man vanished again, but this time I was ready.

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  I ducked, and as his hand flew through the spot where my back would have been, I grabbed his arm and slammed him into the ground. Before he got up, I slammed my fist into his face.

  Remembering my family, their charred remains, and their pained expressions, my fist lit itself on fire, burning his face, but also burning me.

  I could feel my burned flesh peel itself from my body, but my opponent did not have that luxury. His face blackened, flesh melting away to expose the bone beneath. He screamed. I did not stop.

  As I sat on him and kept smashing my fists into his face, his bones turned black, and his resistance got less and less. At first, he was clawing at my face, trying to get me off him and resume fighting.

  But now, he was only left with the choice to protect himself from my flames. Holding his arms in front of his face, he blocked my strikes.

  My flames grew stronger, now reaching up to my shoulders, engulfing my arms in the raging flames of my pain. The pain I was feeling was agonizing, but still nothing compared to the pain of losing my family. To get my revenge, no amount of pain would stop me.

  As my fist struck his arms, his flesh melted from his bones, and his bones were cracking from the impact of my punches.

  But before I could break through his arms, he vanished again. Without even moving, I held my hand behind me and caught his hand as it appeared.

  Looking behind me, I saw his shocked expression, before my flames danced from my hand onto his body, leaving behind only a raging mount of flames. He screamed, but slowly the screams died down.

  I was alone; the rest of the village left for safety. My flames grew hotter and hotter still, the buildings catching fire from the sheer temperature of the air. As the village was burning, so was I.

  My skin kept burning and regrowing. With each cycle, I felt my control slip from me. Each thought I had was pushed back by Zael, trying to gain the upper hand, trying to force my soul out of my body. The pain was getting worse.

  My skin was melting, my blood was boiling, and I did not want to feel this pain anymore. I did what I had set out to do. I killed the man responsible for the death of my family. I did not care about anything anymore. I let Zael take control, ending the natural urge to resist his possession.

  I took one last look around. The village was mostly gone, only a few buildings still left, burning. Below me, the charred corpse of the man I killed. Next to him, a small trinket was left whole by my flames. As I looked closer, it reminded me of something. I picked it up and looked at it. It was a compass.

  Realization washed over me like a cold shower. A father died to my hands. I did what had to be done. I thought to myself. Crying came from behind me. At the entrance to the village, a woman was on her knees. Crying and screaming, a child in her arms, staring at the corpse beneath my feet.

  Why did he have to kill my family if he had a family of his own? Why did he have to sacrifice himself to save them? Why could he not just have been a scumbag? The control of my body failed me as I fell to my knees.

  The memories of our fight flooded back. I was the one to attack without confirmation. I remembered the details my rage had ignored before. The hesitation in his eyes, the fear for his family. The way he only defended most of the time, never intending to kill me.

  As all those memories became clearer and clearer, I felt doubt. How could he have been the one to kill my family? Why would this village have the power to fire such a weapon? The doubt grew bigger, and I slowly realized something.

  *Oh, someone finally figured it out.*

  *What did you make me do?!*

  *What did I make you do? You jumped the guy before I even told you who it was.*

  *Why would you lie? I thought we had a deal, you bastard!*

  *You were so eager, so desperate to blame someone, you even let me pick the target of your anger. You wanted revenge. I gave you revenge. Just not the right one."

  As the weight of my actions crashed down on me, I felt Zael ripping the last bit of control from me.

  *Then who killed them? At Least tell me that!*

  As tears streamed down my face, I heard Zael’s answer. The laughter that followed was not loud, nor mocking. It was a whisper, curling around me like the smoke of the lives I had just ruined. My crying face contorted into a maniacal smile as Zael spoke through my body.

  “Oh, that? That was me.”

  As Zael took control of what had once been my body, he ejected my soul. I could not even resist anymore. I felt like I did not deserve to live after what I had done. I was blind and stupid.

  ***

  His soul sank into the depths of the earth, descending into the abyss—silent, endless, weightless. The farther he drifted, the more the pain faded, dissolving into the quiet hum of the void.

  There was no struggle, no fear, only the soft pull of something vast and unknowable. Slowly, he descended into a land of unknown dangers and opportunities.

  There was no sky above, no ground below. Only silence.

  As he lost consciousness, his thoughts unraveled like threads in the wind, his name slipping from him, his regrets scattering into the endless dark. Alone and betrayed, Ashen died.

  But death was not the mercy he had hoped for.