Origins of malice

Newbie Joined: Jun 22, 2010 Posts: 7

In his earliest memories he found solace in cruel pleasure. The anguished sobbing that shook the amniotic darkness around him gave him comfort. Awareness within the womb of the flesh bag that would bring him into the world a byproduct of demonic heritage that had already begun to speak to him manifested by the sensation of gratification he felt at his vessel’s woe. Abruptly his aspiration to be free of his confines would overwhelm him beguiling sharp tiny claws to quarry at the soft ambient walls of his prison. Screams of agony penetrated the depths reaching his ears and the taste of blood found its way to his mouth alluringly as his small form clawed and chewed its way out into the world that waited. Brilliance assaulted eyes that were incapable of focus and the pain elicited a growling hiss as the fluid in his lungs was expelled. A floating flying sensation followed by impact and darkness.

The mage Vornan had been a student and practitioner of demonology among other things. The human girl intrigued him. Six weeks ago her father had brought her to him and offered the mage everything he owned if he could help his daughter’s affliction. She was young and extraordinarily pretty even in her current state as it were. Nadirralia’s eyes had dark sunken circles around them and she was beginning to look malnourished even though her father claimed she was eating four times as much as she used to. Even more curious was her story of have dreams in which she was visited by some obscene beast that did unspeakable things to her. Her belly had begun swelling a few days before she was brought to Vornan and he had immediate suspicions as to the cause although these he kept to himself. Vornan told the man to leave Nadirralia in his care and he would see to divining her malady and the man agreed eager to have his daughter cured. As the man left Vornan smiled.

Over the next few weeks Vornan went about logging notes as he studied the girl. Her belly grew swiftly and he noted that even though she ate plenty that whatever grew within her took more than her body could provide as her teeth and bones became brittle. Six weeks passed and she had become bed ridden during the last three her body emaciated but for the plumpness of her belly. Her father returned one night to see if there was any progress in her condition and as Vornan spoke with him in the vestibule of the tower the screams began. The two men entered her chamber and stood in shock at the scene before them. The screaming had stopped before they reached her door. Nadiralia lay on the bed motionless a gaping hole torn through her abdomen and in that opening sat that which had grown within her. The small form hissed and sputtered its red eyes squinting in the light of the candelabras. It had bits of bloody flesh hanging from its mouth and pointed fingers with two boney nubs upon its head and diminutive partially formed wings sprouting from its back. Before Vornan could collect his thoughts the other man rushed over and ripped the small form from where it sat and flung it across the room where it crashed into the wall and then fell limp upon the cold stone floor. The mage blinked and then as the man went to where the abomination lay and was about to bring his heel down upon it Vornan spoke and his voice was full of power as he gestured.

“BE STILL!”

In an instant the man’s body froze as it turned to stone the crushing heel but inches away from the small creature’s head. Vornan approached then swiftly taking up some linens from the bed and carefully lifted and wrapped the child in them. The infant still had breath but barely so. He ran then hastily from the room down the spiraling stairs of the tower to the laboratory in its lower sublevels. Once there he went to work meticulously setting the broken bones carefully and then dripping a potion from a dropper into the child’s mouth. The mage pondered the ramifications of what he had done and then smiled at his justification. What he would learn from raising this tiny being superseded the lives of a few peasants after all.

In the months and years that followed. Vornan would find himself amazed in the observations of his study. The fiendish child grew and learned quickly and was possessed of a cruel and hateful nature that delighted in the suffering and torment of other living things. The boy’s sadism was matched only by his hunger for learning and Vornan knew that this child would one day grow up to be a potent killer. Still he continued to teach him and learn from him all the while knowing that the likelihood was high that he was cultivating his own demise.