Because I Love You✔️

Chapter 24: I'm Warning You

Chapter Twenty-Four: I'm Warning You

Nothingness stretched in all directions, arching over his head and under his feet. It was almost as though the earth and sky had both been dipped in colorless paint that had rendered everything both dark and light at once.

"Poor child," someone sneered. "So alone. So afraid."

Xaphile wanted to tell whoever it was that he wasn't afraid, but his voice didn't seem to work the way he was used to. He tried to look down, but he didn't seem to have a neck, or eyes, for that matter.

It was as if his consciousness had been pulled from his body and left suspended in the air of a world made of nothing.

He had no form, no shape, no physical essence, but he could see all around, three hundred and sixty degrees of awareness that looked everywhere at once, and his voice... if that's what it even was... seemed to have no trouble being heard despite his lack of a mouth or vocal chords.

It occurred to him, as he floated, that not having a body should have frightened him... but then again, he'd already been through so many bizarre situations that this one was kind of tame.

Been there, done that, as the saying goes.

"Of course you're afraid," the voice told him, tone resonating with impatience and pity. "Why shouldn't you be, when you look the way you do? They hate you because you're a monster. I'd hate you, too, if I was them... you're so ugly it's almost laughable."

If he'd had a throat, it would have swelled with the foreshadowing of tears.

He wanted to tell whoever this was that he wasn't ugly... that even with the way he looked, he wasn't a monster, but almost as if it could hear him, the voice answered his thoughts with a response.

"Of course you are," the one taunting him snickered. "Look at you."

The 'sky' in front of him cracked, showering him with light and shadow as it glazed over and became solid in a wave of color. It hurt to look at after being exposed to a world so lacking in substance. It reflected everything and nothing, a mirror in a world with nothing to reflect, and as he studied its contours a dark shape blossomed 'below' him and surged upward.

Suddenly, he had a face and a body, and he could see himself.

A devilish monstrosity, with two huge horns extending from his skull and curling around his long ears.

Snarling mouth, with four huge fangs expanding from his upper and lower jaw...

Bright yellow eyes, glaring out of a demonic face hooded with raw agony and hatred.

"Look," the voice whispered; the mirror roared towards him until it was only a single inch from the tip of his nose. "Look at yourself and tell me that you're not the most hideous creature in existence."

He wanted to deny it, truly, he did, but those demonic features, that marred expression, that horribly disjointed body, those empty yellow eyes, and the mouth that concealed rows of jagged, serrated teeth... he was the ugliest, most frightening, most abhorrent creature he'd ever seen with his own two eyes.

When he beheld his true face, he actually screamed, the sound ripping from behind those horrible teeth like the sound of gunfire and war drums and dying children.

"Trust in me," the voice engulfing whispered. "I can give you a safe haven, I can give you your family, whatever it is you desire. I can make you happy, Xaphile, if only you'll swear your loyalty to me."