It wasn't so bad in our home.
We didn't need to worry about hunger, thirst, or death.
The darkness we were born into didn't bother us.
We were at ease in this dark and very gentle place.
However, more and more of our young ones were visiting an outsider, a man.
He told us stories about him being the reason we were trapped in this dark void by him, the weapon of the gods, as he called himself.
We were an idea, canned by the ones above, so he claimed.
None of us knew what he was talking about.
As far as we knew, we were born here.
Thanks to the way our world worked, we aged incredibly slowly and at some point we stopped aging all together.
It was as if this place was preparing us for something.
During the many years of our peaceful lives in the void, more young ones were born and found themselves entranced by the nonsensical stories of the sole man in our world.
Soon the young grew older and proclaimed themselves to be wiser than anyone else who existed before them and swiftly proceeded with slaughtering the ancient ones among us.
Their own kind, murdered in the name of some god in order to escape our "prison", as they called it.
This was our world.
Why would we want to leave?
After our eldest and powerful were slain by the new generation, the man rose up and spoke to us.
He told us of a world with endless fields of grass, a bright blue sky, calming gusts of wind that would soothe the soul and delicious meals everyday.
The young nodded after every word he spat out of his talking orifice.
They were manipulated.
Just for that, for a story made up by a man, they took lives.
For empty promises.
Many years afterwards we were still "trapped".
Throughout all this time, the man kept buttering up the ones he had corrupted to believe his sweet sounding words of a world of light.
The corrupted couldn't accept that they made a mistake and doubled down to kill anyone who dared to go against them.
We asked the man what it would take to pass over to the other world. He only ever told us that "the time-man will come-man when every-man one-man of you-man believes that it will-man."
I didn't know what he said at the time and dismissed his ramblings.
The corrupted new generation started to spread a religion.
The religion of the masters that would lead the way out.
They believed that if everyone became a believer, we would be saved from this "hell".
The only hell in our world was the one they created themselves.
This place was our home and they ruined it. The way I saw it, I should have taken them out.
We would have peace once more.
Not once have I believed a word they said.
But then it happened.
I found myself in a room of pure white.
There a formless blue dust cloud talked to me and only me.
It told me "if you prove you are worthy, I will bring back the peace you desire."
I knew exactly what to do without this formless entity having to tell me.
It was as if it placed a mission straight into my mind.
Was this the master the new generation had spoken of?
All of them had placed their hopes on the word of one man.
Who would fault me for doing the same for a dust cloud?
I had chosen my master and acted accordingly.
I built an army out of the children that were still pure.
Pure of any falsehoods that man was spreading.
I waited for many years for them to mature to become my soldiers.
When the day came, we confronted the corrupted.
"Why are you still believing this man?" we asked.
They avoided answering such a simple thing by questioning our loyalty to our race, when it was them that killed our kind because of the words of a man.
It was a mess.
I left my soldiers pure of sin and took the lives of the corrupted by myself.
One by one.
I don't know how, but I somehow found a strength within me that gave me the feeling I could do it, and I did.
After a bloodbath of my own creation I turned to face the true villain.
Without saying a word, I thrust my claws at the man to wipe his dumb smirk off his face, when suddenly, the surroundings brightened up.
A blue sky above and a seemingly endless field of grass all around.
Was it that man's doing?
No, it was too real.
We had "escaped" as the corrupted would have said, if they were still alive.
Now, it was clear that I had lost control of everyone. Now everyone who was on the fence about that man's words would become like the corrupted.
"The new generation spoke the truth but you killed them!" They would say.
I steeled myself to live a lie.
"The masters ordered me to take their lives in order to escape. It was a necessary sacrifice."
I told them.
They crowned me to become their queen.
Such is the truth of our people.
Many of our kind retreated under the ocean under my command.
Their arrival had startled many of the local men so that was the only place I felt they were save.
Many of them started to delude themselves into thinking that this world was their homeland and about "facts" the man had put in their heads about how they used to feel the gentle breeze run along their hair and the sea of green grass.
Lies.
All I wanted was the peace and quiet in the dark as we had for so long.
But there was something else.
Despite feeling lost, something was driving me forwards.
A mission.
The order of that dust cloud still persisted in my mind, fueling me with strength.
I am convinced.
If I want to return to that dark and very gentle place, I have to find a true hero.
A hero to destroy me.
To tear this fake world down.
To let us rest.
Then I met him.
He told me that I wasn't the real villain, that we should find a way to coexist.
I felt his words were true and the mission within me faltered.
Just who was this man to have shaken me up so much?
I felt like I could trust him.
Then the dust cloud, my master, spoke through me and gave smart-man advice about things I knew nothing about.
Then smart-man left for this so called "realm between realities".
I wasn't sure about it at the time, but I think my master intended to show smart-man something.
Something to fuel his determination.
However, he left his turkey with me.
Was it to test my trustworthiness? I swore to myself to protect that turkey, even though I wasn't sure why I felt compelled to do so.
Then I sat there, waiting.
Soon two men appeared.
I didn't think too much of them and decided to give them orders so they would leave me alone in peace.
Occasionally an annoying pest called "Bandit-men" would come around the mountain road.
It wasn't like they posed any threat to us, but they were a minor concern of mine, so I ordered those two men to stand guard there and eliminate any men that pass through that road.
Then she appeared.
She had a similar air to her as smart-man but I didn't think much of it.
She spoke about coexistence like he once did but I wouldn't listen for some reason.
She breathed heavily, as if she just came back from a hard fought battle.
Those two must have attacked these men.
What had I done?
After my conversation with smart-man, I hurt the race of men again.
Despite smart-man's words, the mission within me still persisted, like a curse.
Having realized what I had done, maybe it would be for the better to give into the narrative in my head.
If I could die to bring peace back to my kind, then I would do it.
I had to pay for the crimes I had committed.
The feeling of my claws tearing the new generation apart still lingered on my consciousness.
Once more I created a blood bath.
Why am I always doing this?
What is wrong with me?
I had the sudden urge to tear them apart.
Is this my mission?
My mission?
Maybe since smart-man refused, these men were meant to become the heroes to take me down.
Yes, of course.
I have to fight with all I've got or there will be no conclusion.
To live in heaven, the men first have to overcome hell, and I am their demon lord.
This is what the narrative in my head told me.
If that was the case then I shouldn't hold back.
But one thing led to another.
Things I couldn't explain.
One after another more men popped up out of nowhere.
I can't keep up with this, I thought.
Instead of thinking too hard, just obeying my narrative was simple in comparison, so I tried continuing to take the lives of men.
But then I noticed that man.
They called him intelligent-man.
It was him.
It was all because of him.
I readied my claws to strike him down in one swift swoop.
But suddenly I found myself shielding the other men from the almighty power of the "goddess-wrath" with the help my sturdy and fit body.
An action in complete opposition to what I was planning to do.
It was as if my body moved on its own.
Even with my master's enhancement, surviving this was no easy feat.
I hoped smart-man saw that I could take on one of the two most lethal skills and live to tell the tale.
Eh?
Was I always like this?
Why do I care about any of this.
Are these my real feelings or the narrative?
Is anything I ever thought really coming from me, or my master?
Maybe I should have asked these questions earlier but I have done too much already.
What I have done I couldn't take back anymore so... these men.
There must be a reason why I felt like saving them.
Of course.
These men will become heroes.
They must live to fulfill my mission.
My narrative.
I stood there like a statue, fully conscious but paralyzed.
It was a stroke of luck that I was even alive.
But that wasn't the end of it.
Smart-man was there, trying to fend off Intelligent-man.
The man that ruined my life.
I needed to move and help smart-man to take that man down, but I still couldn't move.
I had never felt so weak in my entire life.
That woman from earlier appeared again.
So that woman really was smart-man's mother, I thought.
Why didn't I listen to her back then? She spoke as smart-man did, but I wouldn't listen.
Why did I only give her credit after knowing about her connection to smart-man?
I should have listened to the words any man said to me, because then it might have not come to this, but the narrative within me must have drowned it out.
Did I even have a choice?
Then his mother shielded her son from another goddess-wrath.
It reminded me of me.
Why did I save these men?
Because of my narrative, or because of the same reason smart-man's mother did the same for her son?
I don't think I'm able to comprehend any of this.
What's keeping me from turning around and continuing the blood bath?
I'm sure smart-man lost all his trust in me anyway.
Wait...
Why do I care about that?
He is supposed to take me down anyway.
I don't need his trust.
After his mother vanished in a flash, smart-man swiftly crushed Intelligent-man's heart with his hand.
Then I remembered his words from back then.
"I'm done with killing-man. I want us to coexist-man. For that you have to live-man."
The determination in his eyes must have hypnotized me to think I needed his trust.
Or maybe he freed me from my narrative?
Why would I want that though?
The narrative will bring happiness to my entire race, I'm sure of it.
If not, then why did I start taking the lives of men in the first place?
Maybe I should just die.
"Glugug!"
The turkey.
It came to comfort me.
Can it feel my distress?
This is no normal turkey.
"Glave glim glug-man"
The turkey said.
It nearly sounded like it asked me to "save him".
I looked where I last saw those two ripping each other apart as if they didn't have any use for that mountain of organs and body parts that slowly formed around them.
How were they still alive?
Anyone else would have died from smart-man's heart crush.
"I'm done with killing-man."
He said back then.
I have to stop him, I thought.
But there is nothing wrong with what he was doing. Even if it was against his moral code, if he would eliminate Intelligent-man, I'm all for it.
Then I remembered his expression from back then, filled with determination, but now...
The wrinkles of his face intensified and cast a shadow on it.
Had he become a different person?
What if he isn't qualified to be a hero anymore?
How would I even know?
How was I so sure that any of these men are here to fulfill my narrative?
Is it because of me?
Because of my incompetence?
I turned him into the kind of person that would throw his morals away to kill.
However, Intelligent-man smiled through it all and just fought back like losing his heart was not a big deal.
I understand now.
Intelligent-man was a true monster.
And I turned smart-man into one too.
"Glease glave glim glug-man"
The turkey insisted.
I don't have the right, O' I don't have the right to save him after plunging him into darkness.
When he comes for me, this nightmare would end anyway and everything would go back to how it was meant to be.
My kind is meant to be in the void, away from this world.
In peace.
I should just let him take me down as planned.
That'd be for the best.
As I watched smart-man and intelligent-man tear each other apart, I noticed something.
"Glug glug glave glim-man!!"
The turkey kept insisting.
Why can't you just let me rest in peace?
I just want to wait for my turn to face smart-man.
"Glave-man glim-man!"
Why would I need to save him?
Smart-man can handle himself.
After all, he is the hero I was waiting for all along, isn't he?
Suddenly the man known as basic-man appeared in front of me, kneeling.
I was no longer his master but still, here he was.
"You saved-men these men, didn't you, your majesty-man?"
Basic-man said.
"Let's fight together-man."
He also said.