The Stories of an Immortal

A Child of Great Evil

In front of me is a child, supposedly a great evil being who will bring destruction and death wherever it goes. Beside me is a great crowd of people: some are cheering me on, impatient for the evil to be ridded; others are holding their breath, anxious like I am, wondering what I will choose. I am in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people; I don't know who to trust.

If I kill the child, many people will survive when before their lives would be cruelly cut off short. However, it's a child. Only small, so much potential, for both good as well as evil. I smile softly as I hear the voices of those long gone arguing over what I should do. I know who would want me to spare the child because killing is bad and I might be able to discourage the darkness. Yet I also know those who would want me to think of the greater good and save the thousands who will perish unless this great evil is defeated.

Time is running out.

My eyes close. My silver sword is raised high above my head, ready to come swinging onto the child's head. My hand comes crashing down. All I can hear is silence.

Then a loud noise startles me. Loud cheers mingle with harsh jeers and cries of grief. Slowly, my eyes open and I glance down.

The child's decapitated head lies cleanly on the floor while the crimson body sits stiffly to the side. Bright rosy red blood is seeping onto the floor, spread out like a gruesome piece of art. Guilt floods through me, piercing my insides, but nowhere near as much as it should have been. I begin to question my decision but I know it's too late to change what I have done.

The rest of my weeks here will be spent helping everyone else. I will pay for their rent, for food if they need it, find the homeless shelter and the unemployed a job. No more harm will come to this place. But I won't enjoy seeing the smiles on the orphan's faces when they finally have a family again. These children only remind me of the one I killed, because no matter what their morals are, all I can see is me as a child, when I was lost in a nightmare of darkness and evil.