IN A LAND FAR FAR AWAY, IN THE DARKEST HOUR OF MIDNIGHT, SOMEWHERE DEEP IN THE WOODS, THERE STOOD A COTTAGED FACADE HIDDEN FROM THE MORTAL WORLD.
The man gazed down upon the woman laying on the seemingly wooden floorboards, heavy pants and strangling wheezes escaping her parted lips as she stared with fear, at the man above her.
Such a shame, the man hummed silently, shewould've made a fine vessel.
The suffocating woman gasped once, blinked twice, and life abandoned her in the dark lonesome night.
Emotion, such a complex process and yet so delicate, fragile to the touch and completely fascinating to study from afar. The end of his robe brushing past the still body of his recent prey, another innocent coerced towards corruption, manipulated with honey combed lies, the sweet taste of eternity powerful enough to drag one more soul down its fiery pits of inferno.
But the nightmare has only begun...
The Warlock stood beside the dead body of his latest victim, his fingers wrapped around the ancient locket in his grasp as he inhaled slowly. The stale air flew to his lungs, head bent low and eyes rolling back in their sockets. Incantations fell out of his thin and barely parted lips.
There had always been something so dangerous shrouded in the world, so deeply rooted and unseen by every mortal that walked this plain. Greed. It held a power to destroy and to pervert. It tainted the sinless and made beasts out of the sinful. Strong and unwavering, deadly and merciless; it consumed and devoured the very essence of good in humanity until it was a mere shell of what could have been.
But the Warlock was already a monster in the making, and once ambition nature was met with covetousness... the world was his to burn and rule over the flames of iniquity.
The enchantment he'd spend decades perfecting rolled off his tongue as easily as he inhaled each breath of air into his cursed lungs. The blood of the woman coated the wood beneath and colored his skin a dripping scarlet. As his words gained in strength and volume, the red on his hands glowed and rose in droplets of damnation, gathering above his palms.
His soul was no longer his, taken over by the dark forces of an ancient and long since forgotten form of sorcery known as The Way of The Blood. A devout follower of The Way, he remained the only stronghold of Blood Magiya. With the knowledge how to manipulate Merzost to his own power and bring forth a new form of life. A being unlike any other; not a Grisha and certainly not ordinary.
The Warlock's limbs distorted and disfigured by the invisible strings the godly puppeteers of evil gleefully strung along. It was inhumane, the practice of this magic, and yet he craved power like his next breath. Words turned to incoherent mutters and his body hovered in the air at odd angles.
The excruciating pain brought joy in him like none other. He believed the suffering to be a gift from the gods—not Sanktas—but the divinity that resided in the dark, in the shadows and the corners of the world hidden from the moonlight.
And tonight was the most dangerous time to be alone.
The crimson mist that covered the full moon granted him his wish of life. As it was only fair, for the Caelestium to favor their only worshiper.
And so, a babe was forged from the blood of a woman killed and for the greed of one man power-hungry.
With cries of chaos and wails of destruction, the girl thrashed in his estranged arms and he looked down at the entity he created with pride. Oh the opportunities he saw in her tainted soul, the scars on her forearms; a reminder of the innocent she took before she even inhaled her first breath of air and the unmistakably scarlet locks of silk on her tiny head.
"You are the answer to my prayers." He whispered in the cottage of death as he walked over the desecrated corpse on the floor. Only a skeleton now. "You will bring death to my enemies." His boots softly padded against the wood as he strolled towards the small window in the corner. "For you are, chaos incarnate."
The babe had long since quieted and stared up with wide curious eyes at her maker. His sharp features and hollowed eyes, he glanced at her with an unforgiving gaze before setting his sight on the Blood Moon once more.
He stood mesmerized by the red layer of Magiya that had slowly started to unravel and hide once more in the depths of forgotten crooks of this mortal realm. And he smiled.
"You will be their Red Death."
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