Chronicles of Myth Volume one: Twisted Daydreams

Episode three: Through the eyes of a devil

“Hey Ragnarok can you tell me a bedtime story”, Astoria asked me with puppy eyes. “You’re thirteen years… She kept up her piercing cute stare warming my black heart. “Sure, just don’t piss yourself”. I sighed and tucked Astoria into bed, I took a seat in a wooden chair next to the bed, for just a moment I saw the chair with bloodied bindings made from barbed wire; no… I’ve changed. I’m stronger than this”. “So where do we begin”? I asked Astoria, she shrugged her shoulders: “All right then the beginning it is”. 

They were right when the said it was all in my head, but I never believed them. “I am different but I was just like you, my brother: Ashton found me as the psychopath you know today. I was human, or least had my humanity up until that point”. The feeling of having your fingers and toes ripped from your hands and feet, felt natural to my body; I faced my captor; he was perfectly clean, dressed in a pure white button down shirt and being cargo pants, he was the embodiment of all my grief and suffering, my inner demon and guardian: Anguish… so in truth it was self-inflicted torture, “we cut and kill flowers because they are beautiful, we cut and kill ourselves because we are not Ragnarok”. I felt a knife stab into my stomach for… we’ll just say again: by God the pain was ecstasy… it was only thing that reminded me of who I was and why I could never go back to my old life, “They kept growing back and I kept tearing them off” Anguish whispered into my ear, “I never wanted to hurt anyone”. He said mockingly, “You’re a fool and a monster… what man eats his own”. He spat in my face, time simply stood still in that moment: I have a special brand of insanity, I’m the only person who sees Anguish. Why: because he is everything that is wrong with me, he is the keeper of my personal hell and I was the person who drove his mind to hell… but there was a side to me/ him that scared us both; whenever I was whole… we’d become something worse than when we were separate. See Anguish and I were once two separate beings; but as fate would have it fused us together into Ragnarok… I’ve forgotten my old name, but if I heard now; it be a slap to the face for everything I believed in then … I was horrible person, the needle scars on my body suggested I was a drug addict. Anguish has manifested himself as my powers, and the more I use them… the less human I feel; I had killed my latest victim. It happened a week ago, I ate the body once, no three times before… like the first time it was disgusting and ignoble in every sense: but it was… it felt so right; so tasty. I could still taste the metallic flavor of blood and raw flesh; when the thing I had done set in, it was hell and I fled into the nearby underpass… hiding in the dark where no could find me; at first I tried to starve myself, then Anguish appeared in front of me and the torture began, it went on for a week. Day in and day out of me tearing my body apart; it was a Sunday I’d woke up with shattered glass in my mouth, then five days of peace and quiet came in and after that time of reflection it all went quiet, during those days the guilt inside finally me died, all the blame and hate I had for myself died, I accepted who I was and Anguish suddenly became my best friend… that night I’d lost my humanity, my innocence, my hope. I’d permanently merged with the monster inside me. “Don’t scare the girl”, I heard his voice… the same insane voice of reason again: “You and I are the same person… the same body and soul”, he slid a black finger nail below my throat causing my inky blood to drip; “Embrace completely who you are… it’s the only way you’ll make it out alive”. “Sound advice, why don’t you follow it… you manipulative bastard”. The image of Anguish disappeared out of my sight when I swung my fist at him, next thing I knew I was in the room and there was cowering lump underneath the sheets; “I saw him”. I heard Astoria’s muffled voice through the comforter, “Then I’m not crazy after all”. I said shutting off the lights: “Oh by the way, he’s underneath your bed”. I heard a scream as I shut the door behind me, “Your friends”? Anguish appeared next to me dressed in his beige and white suit. “Don’t make me laugh… those pathetic wastes are nothing more than food to us, eh Ragnarok”. “What makes you think this is a joke”. I said pinning him to the wall. “I’ve accepted you as a part of me and you did the same for me… then why are we still at each other’s throats”! I smashed his face into the wall and expelled him out of my body, “Come on I’m only joking”. He pleadingly, I saw him revert into his true form a large black sphere with countless speared tentacles, he looked at me with all his malice from his one red eye and opened his mouth showing countless rows of bloodstained sharp fangs. I thrust my hand into his mouth: “Hey what are you doing” he said gagging on my arm, I grabbed his tongue, opening a portal to his home in his stomach, “Be gone” I pulled out his tongue and snapped it back in his mouth the impact slingshot him back . Anguish was sent back to his circle of hell and the house fell quiet and he appeared next to me again in the form of a child; “Forgive me”? “No”. “You’re no fun, you know that”. He pouted and disappeared again, “Do you forgive me now”. I pulled out my sawn off shotgun and put in his mouth, “I swear to god… fuck off, or I’ll paint the wall behind you with your brains”. “Jeez man, why so seri–… I pulled the trigger and his head burst open like a grape”. He regrew his head: “Ragnarok”? “No”. “You haven’t heard my question though”? “Okay fine”. “Knock knock”. “You’re supposed to answer who’s there”? I rolled my eyes and smashed his head into the wall, before using his back to break the coffee table in the living room. I went a little crazy for good measure, I got the meat slicer from the kitchen and started sawing him into itsy little bits of flesh, “Die… die, die, die, die”!  I screamed running his torso through the table saw in the butcher’s corner of our kitchen; “Die! Again… again, and again”! I screamed at the top of my lungs, whatever was left of his body I shoveled into the incinerator garbage disposal. “Satisfied”, outraged I chucked the cleaver next to my hand at Ashton; he caught the blade and put the cleaver back in the knife block. “Ashton… Oh, god are you alright”? “You chucked a cleaver at my face… yeah I’m fine”. He said pouring me and himself a glass of milk, “You want it warm”? He asked opening the microwave door, “Its fine, I’ll take it cold”. He handed me the glass of milk and took out his cup from the microwave, taking a seat in front of me at the breakfast nook. “I’m here for you, man; for the love of Christ tell me you want get something off your chest”. “I’m slowly starting to lose it again”. I said with my anxiety growing, “No… you’ve been fine for the last three years. That can’t be, can it”? Ashton replied back, I knew better than anyone he was scared for me and for good reason. I clutched the table cloth and fell out of the chair, once on the ground I kneeled and stared at the stained glass mosaic on the ceiling. What I saw next was equally surprising and horrifying: the man was made entirely of light and darkness, his face showed me divinity and all things wicked… the last time we met he said these words to me: “What’s wrong isn’t me… it’s the world. Anyone who dares to hurt the things I love and care about shall receive no mercy or compassion from me, you take away my place, what is precious to me: I don’t care how strong you are, I will rip you apart, and slaughter your very existence”. At one point or another he was my best friend, the only person that stayed by my side before I met Ashton… he kept me sane, he was the person that kept Anguish in check and taught me to control my insanity as a weapon. I drew my Kusanagi and he drew his sword, it was beam of pure light with a black hue surrounding it. “Just like old times… let us dance once more”. My blade hissed at its opponent and glowed a fleshy pink, my sword was made from the remains of snake with a thirst for blood and flesh… this sword is all my fury made manifest. “I’m going to murderize you”! I took my stance and we circled each other like sharks; getting bored Nolan made the first move and I slashed downward, his guardian appeared out of his back and smashed large scaly fists where I was just standing. “Anguish… time to party”. I heard a devilish laugh behind me: “Let’s fucking rock”. I dove forward and thrust my blade, Anguish followed with a torrent of speared hands: I saw a demon appear in front of Nolan, he placed his hands out in front and caught Anguish by his head and deflected the slew of side attacks with his wings without giving an inch. Thrown to the other side of our arena Anguish screamed like a child: “Pazuzu… fucker! I will fucking kill you”! Anguish rage boiled over and he started attacking wildly, Nolan and I dodged the black ocean of harpoon strikes, we met in the middle of the arena and stared each other in the eyes… there was no noise between us, hell we knew how the other person felt just by our body language. “Do you remember who I am”? I asked desperately, he nodded his head and with that every semblance of humanity I had left walked out the door… for the first time in all my battles my hair turned snow white from the insanity I kept bottled in … I had snapped and I won’t be responsible for what comes next. Nolan created a separate ring of darkness for us to fight in, “No fear… nothing left but the beast inside me”. Our blades sang a chilling tune… this was a test of our wills to survive… tonight I had no intention of dying, before now I wanted to save my friend… but now it’s too late. I can’t expel his insanity or purify the monster inside him, they decided and chose the path of sin… now I am their judge and the verdict is: guilt, the best I can do for him is make this quick and painless, Anguish and I had other plans… we have no intention of mercy for our enemies; compassion is a luxury I can’t afford to share, luckily Anguish and I on agreement for this one. Our wills have become one and for once I was the one in the driver’s seat, our guardians disappeared into oblivion that was their home… leaving only us in this hell.