5 PREY

I should have expected that my rampage in the forest would draw attention. The sudden violation of my body snapped me out of self-adulation.

The jarring assault made me experienced again the feeling of dissonance in my self. I knew instinctively that I was not alone, but the lines were blurred between the puppet and the puppeteer, for all I knew I just committed a sickening slaughter. And I glorified in it!.

No! That was not me!. Whatever I had become in those moment of awful carnage was horrifying. Any further introspection was ended when my senses snapped shut like a vise and I fully captured what just drove a fist into my chest.

It was a demon, no that was an understatement, it was The Demon, red skin straining to contain a muscular frame that was horribly distorted in mass and size, shroud like bat wings that ended with sharpened point.

seven horns adorned his head, black saliva pouring from its mouth, that burned the ground, the resulting fumes striking me with a spell of dizziness, and two sets of shark like teeth that poked through skin, and blue eyes that was human, and surprisingly beautiful.

"What a sight " A voice like rumbling thunder " a little orisha, who can command the aether".

Like an octopus, my limbs flexed backward, and I pulled myself from the arm that impaled me.

"how fascinating " the demon mumbled, before I could react, a blur was before me, a hand came to seize me, but I shimmered sideways, claws that suddenly burned with bloody flames swiped at my torso, so fast I knew I couldn't dodge, so I stepped closer, my arms pulled up to my shin, I avoided the claws but the demon fist struck me with a might of a thousand locomotives. the ground shattered, my hands were pulp, my body ploughed through the ground..i struggled to stand without a functional arms and a broken body which was rapidly healing, I was too late.

looking up in dismay a cloven hoof stomped on me, I was pushed deeper into the earth, my body a myriad of cracks, my arms dug into the caked soil trying to find leverage, but another stomp pushed me deeper, I forcefully expelled blood from my mouth when another stomp nearly flattened my torso, trying to shift sideways, another stomp, the demon surgically crushed my body. I was been forcefully driven tens of metres into the earth!

" Stay still, little orisha, else I break you beyond repair "... a hand seized my bloody hair drawing me closer to the nightmarish visage.

The demon spoke:

" to which power am I addressing?"

I choked in my fury... The air drew wavy current, as my anger caused the surrounding to smoulder and heat up.

" hmmm.....silent?, your body is shattered, but your ori is aware"

The demon drew me closer, my mouth opened and a rush of tendrils enveloped his face...sparks flew, as the skin of the demon could as well be metal and my tendrils noodle...the demon smirked, furious I looked at the deep blue eyes and pushed all my tendrils at it. with a bright explosion, everything went white...

I came to awareness a few moments later. I was being launched towards the heavens, my body a broken toy, it seemed I have been hurled so hard I was approaching the burning clouds, tendrils from my heart strained to keep me together.. a shadow covered me... through a battered face I looked at the demon who was keeping pace with my ascent and laughed.

inside my mouth was an eyeball, the expression of the demon was amused..

"hmmm, little orisha there are things even you can't swallow"...

the eyeball suddenly went white hot in my mouth, as seven bright green line shot from the pupils and like wriggling snakes, bisected my body into mush...pain consumed me, this was the first time my tendrils were cut...my body scattered into pieces as the demon seized my black heart.

" this is not a neidan of an orisha. reveal yourself"

A silver coloured cresent appeared on the demon chest, it was throbbing like an heart.

And a wrath so great erupted from my heart colouring the heavens.

The demon gasp in shock " you can still summon this much power, even at this 'hierarchy of life?'. No matter the conclusion is forgone"'.

The demon strained and silvery veins flowed from the cresent to the palm holding my heart, and a silvery flames erupted from the palm.

I once thought pain had to have a limit, I was wrong, my pain reached its threshold and overflowed it. in the hands of this creature, I knew a pain that could be a line strung up till infinity, different chords, and strings were played, the symphony my seemingly endless torture.

My mind went blank as my heart went mad.

Tendrils poured out of it, only to be sliced away, my body was rapidly reconstituted only to be blown apart, a river of gore formed below me as my flesh fell like rain, yet the fire burned and my torment did not end.

But a pain that exceeded that began at what I felt was the centre of my soul, then it drew down and bisected my existence apart.

And I realised I was one yet more!.

Horror dawned on me, coiled inside me was a presence that tore my mind like a thousand needles in my eyes.

It was ancient and incredibly hungry... It has shapes like a thousand coiled snakes... It's form defy meaning, it was as small as a speck yet had crowns made of stars billions of miles wide. it was complete and whole yet was ever hungry. it was antiquity. it's root stretched before the universe was conceived.

yet I was its sheath. my soul was being worn like a shell, and the intruder had just tore its way out. The skies went dark. And thunderous tribulations covered the skies, and at the moment a heavy crack resounded, the moon shattered as the creature emerge amidst silver flames. With a shock of might it was forced back into the black heart.

" HERALDS FLAME!  AEDOMUS, YOU DARE HALT MY ASCENT?"

The demon smiled " a bargain has being struck, a seat is now opened... and eternity for you will draw to a close"

The Black Heart spoke and the heaven itself trembled

" Oh foolish slave, you made deals with the herald, they do not suffer opposition, they will warp your beauty and chain your light ,I crossed the seven gates to end their reign. You could have been at my side at the helm of creation "

" At your side?" the demon guffaw as the intensity of the flames doubled "or at your feet liege Lord? . I kept your dreams the longest. your court. your champion. Your queen, all detested you, many a night...ismael warmed my bed and whispered to me the truth.... power is meant to be taken. You have kept yours for countless eons...invincibility has dull your senses, strength has made you weak..... Oh how we all envied your gifts, we were eternal yet feared death at your choosing....how does it feel to know that long silence that seemed so ever distant from you now so near.  In the countless eons there was, and the finite more to come....there will only be this moment where you are vulnerable..... yet you trusted that bitch with your secrets"

A sudden sadness seemed to come over the demon" how foolish, rest now liege Lord ...perhaps Horun was right, only the Herald is perpetual. It is time for me to rise to ultimate divinity".

" foolish slave, I have always been a god, yet I found it wanting".

At this moment my soul was now fully separated...the foreign soul dragged from mine in writhing coils of snakes. the pain then mercifully ceased. the heart had turned a cerulean blue and melted into a orb, that sparkled like all the stars in creation. my soul rose up like smoke and merged into the orb and was seized by the demon, who peered deeply at the orb in surprise, it melted transforming into a pale green flame.

" How can this be?... An absolute soul! Does your machinations go so deep liege lord?"...

Observing the pale green flames that was my soul he said " the herald flames are truly merciless, every memory and legacies burnt away!".

His eye turned to the writhing snake like creature in greed, and he strained as he lifted it up, the stars in the sky mirrored the movement of that fell mass.. He was dragging the stars by force! the creature he placed into his empty eye socket... He shuddered, then screamed in agony, tendrils grew from his eye, making sickening squelch as they bore into his head rapidly forming a cocoon around his body... he threw the green flames that was my soul to the side..

" That absolute soul is pure, and has no use to me. do with it what you will, servant of herald, I am on the cusp of ascension"

A tear appeared in the sky, and he floated through, by now I was numb... there was no mushroom or psychedelics strong enough that could have taken me through this hallucinogenic trip... perhaps my state of being kept me sane, after all I had no heart , or brains, their was no chemical reaction firing to make me feel panic, or could a soul go mad? ... how was I still aware? I pondered, I was just a ball of ectoplasm gooey stuff after all, the lights dimmed a little as a glass covered me and a pale dwarf bottled my soul

Oh... that was who that demon was referring to, the so called "servant of herald".

"please be gentle with me, my heart has been broken too many times" I said.

The dwarf looked down, and said to an unknown person" this one is insane"