BLEEDING HEART | ONC 2024

02 - HIM

"Rise, Azath, for you have been born."

The voice is smooth yet registers as violent as it echoes in my mind. It's tinged with a need for misery, a bark of disdain.

"Demon of sorrow, of heartbreak, open your eyes and feast upon me, your king."

I obey, my eyelids parting to view a large, darkly shaded individual with the face of a man, but the blackened horns of a monster.

He's tall, imposing, a bulky figure standing in front of a throne of rotted bones blanketed by burgundy velvet cushions.

His eyes are, to my surprise, not as obscure as I'd envisioned them when hearing his voice. They're subtle, a feathery gray rimmed with brown, gleaming with a reddish glow.

It's that glow that sets off the warning signals inside me.

I was born seconds ago, but even I recognize evil when it's before me.

"Azath," he says, raising a massive arm in my direction, his inky fingertips pointed at my head, charred nails inches from scraping my face. "Do you understand me? Do my words make sense to you?"

"I do, and they do," I reply at once, sensing a threat in his tone, urging me to heed his commands at once.

My king.

I'm stiff; my limbs are weak, so recently developed, my brain awash with tons of information, millennia of knowledge. It was all crammed in seconds after my body took form, my spirit filling inside of it.

I'm a demon.

A flurry of shadows twitches my fingertips.

I serve the king of hell.

That's him; the monstrous being in front of me.

He created me for a purpose.

"Do you know who I am?" His tone booms across the room, which I sense to be hollow but wide, as the sound bounces off the walls, continuing in the distance behind me.

I serve the king of hell, whose name is Bazroth.

"Majesty," I say, dipping to one knee, ignoring the creaks in my joints as my body acclimates to movement. "You are Bazroth, King of Hell, master of the world below."

I dare a peek up at him as he studies me, one eyebrow arching, then the other.

"Stand up," he says, gesturing his other ginormous arm at me. "Well met, Azath."

Azath. I'm a demon.

"Well met, Majesty."

"You're the demon," says the king, as if reading my thoughts. And in truth, I'm so new, so green to this world, that it's quite possible he has the power to immerse into heads, to dig through memories and ideas, and I didn't know it. "The newly anointed demon of heartbreak."

I pump a fist to my chest, which I discover to be hard, chiseled. Well-defined pectoral muscles concealing strong, healthy bones. "At your service, Majesty."

I can't tell for sure without a mirror, but I'm tall, too. Certainly not as intimidating as Bazroth, but with a sturdy set of thick legs, square shoulders, and firmness in my abdomen signifying mighty muscles clenching under my skin.

I'm draped in a black cloak that falls to my feet, which are fitted into ankle-high boots. Stable, comfortable.

Flexible, to better do my job.

I wiggle my fingers, bringing my hand up to observe its intricacies. It's a big hand, pale skinned, rugged but with a certain softness in my palms. My knuckles crack as I clench and unclench, testing my grip.