851 A.D
Hannah sat in the fields in the evening picking berries and putting them in her basket. She was also deep in thought about the day she and Garin first arrived on Earth.
They’d been so lost and confused because they weren’t sure what to do next. They didn’t have their powers for the first time since their creation and they were in an unfamiliar place, outcasted and afraid, alone in an alien world. They may have known what the Earth was like but they had no idea how to live in it without their powers. Eventually, they adapted and learned.
If it wasn’t for Garin, they probably wouldn’t have made it. He was strong and resourceful. He made friends with some of the men in the area where they found themselves and quickly learned how to work with tools. He and Hannah built their home from scratch, all by themselves and had lived peacefully ever since. It was, up until that point, a perfect life.
Hannah slipped out of the memory and realised that the sun was starting to set. She grabbed her basket of berries so she could go back home. She left the fields and on her way back, ran into two young men standing along the path.
“Look what we have here! A fine specimen indeed.” One of the men said, throwing hungry looks her way.
Hannah ignored them and kept walking but the other young man stood in front of her and blocked her way.
“Could you please move so I can get home?” She asked nicely, feeling a little nervous because she could tell that these men didn’t have good intentions.
“Why are you in such a hurry? We just want to get to know you better.” The other man said and tried to touch her face but she pushed his hand away.
“You’re not very friendly, are you?” He said with a dark scowl.
“Just get away from me!” She screamed and tried to run past him but he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back.
In a desperate attempt to save herself, she swung her basket towards him and struck him in the face, forcing him to release her. She started to run but before she could get far, the second man tackled her to the ground and pinned her down.
“No, get your hands off me. Let me go!” She screamed out frantically but it was of no use. There was no one around to save her.
The two men got on top of her and held her down. She scrambled for something to defend herself with and her hand found a rock. She grabbed it and tried to strike one of the men on the head but he saw her and reacted quickly. He caught her hand and pinned it down.
“Please, stop it,” Hannah begged in tears but her pleas fell on deaf ears as these two men intended to violate her.
They started to touch her body which made her skin crawl. She was so scared and didn’t know what to do so she began screaming for help.
“Someone help me, help!” She cried out and to shut her up, one of the men punched her in the face and knocked her out.
Now that she was unconscious, they could easily have their way with her but before they could, they heard the rustling of leaves coming from just ahead.
“Someone’s coming,” One man said to the other.
In a panic, they both ran away and took Hannah’s fruit basket along with them and left her there with a bruise on her face. The rustling got closer and from the shadows of the setting sun came Garin. His connection to Hannah had made him sense that something was amiss with her which made him immediately come searching for his wife. He was so shocked to see her lying on the ground, barely moving and his shock became fear as he rushed over to her side.
“Hannah! My love. Who did this to you?” He cried out and held her in his arms.
“Don’t worry, my love. I’m here now and it’s going to be okay.”
She was bleeding from her temple and wasn’t responding to his calls. He carried her in his arms and rushed her home to see to her wounds.
At home, Hannah started to wake up but she was still woozy from the pain. She opened her eyes and saw Garin staring down at her with a worried look on his face.
“Garin?” She called out his name.
“I’m here, my love. I’m right here,” he assured her, “Who did this to you?” He asked.
“Two men that I stumbled upon on the path home from the berry fields. They tried to have their way with me and I was so afraid…” She said with a tired groan.
“It’s okay, my love. Just rest now. You’re safe with me," he said to her while stroking her hair.
She fell asleep and after doing so, Garin wrapped a blanket around her and went outside. He grabbed his axe and angrily went back to where he had found Hannah to look for her assaulters.
He got to the spot and with the torch in his hand, looked for tracks that he could follow and he found some. He followed the tracks all the way to the river and could hear voices just ahead. He put out his torch and quietly snuck over to where the voices were coming from.
From behind a tree, he saw two men sitting by the river bank. They had Hannah’s basket with them and were eating the berries in them. Garin was so angry and he wanted to charge at the men and kill them for what they did to Hannah but he couldn’t. He wasn’t a demon anymore and vengeance was an emotion he wanted to be completely rid of.
He turned around to leave but stopped when he heard one of the men say something provocative.
“Why did someone have to walk by at that exact time? I wanted to do things to that woman’s body," he said with a chuckle.
“Me too. I would have given her an evening that her body would never forget.” The other man said and they both laughed.
“Maybe we’ll run into her another day and finish what we started.”
That was the limit for Garin. With so much rage in his eyes, he wrapped his hands around the handle of the axe and stepped out from behind the tree.
“You animals!” Garin roared in anger and charged at the men with his axe. One of the men tried to get up but before he could stand, the axe crashed right on top of his head and was buried deep into his skull.
He gasped in pain as his blood dripped down his head and onto his face relentlessly and he stumbled to the ground, dead. The other man was shocked by this and his eyes met Garin’s. He could see the anger, the rage, the hatred and the thirst for revenge emitting from Garin’s eyes and he knew he didn’t stand a chance.
The young man tried to run but as he began, Garin threw the axe at him and it spun in the air before driving into the man’s leg and slicing it off clean.
“Arghh!” The young man screamed out in pain and held his bleeding leg in fear as a vengeful Garin approached him with only one intention; his death.
“Please, please spare me, I beg you. Have mercy.” The young man begged but Garin didn’t listen to his pleas as he was consumed by his rage and hatred.
All the emotions he had been born with came flooding back into his mind. He had lost all control and all sense of the new man he was trying to become. The traits of a demon that he had abandoned were still in him and they wanted out and unfortunately for these men, they were out now and he couldn’t stop himself.
Garin picked the axe up from the ground and like a predator stalking his prey, he slowly walked over to the man who was trying to crawl away to save himself.
“Somebody help me," he cried out as he crawled.
“No one can save you from me!” Garin said before burying his axe in the back of the man.
He pulled out the axe and drove down into the man again, and again, and again, brutally ripping him apart with a crazed look in his eyes. He was being splattered by blood but he didn’t seem to care and kept on swinging his axe and his clothes became soaked in blood.
Garin finally managed to regain control of his senses and looked at what he had done, horrified by his actions. He put down the axe in fear of it and of himself and stared at his bloody hands, wondering how he let himself do something so…well, demonic. He fell to his knees and roared out in anger, now aware that his demon was still in him and it would always be.
“Wow! What a mess you’ve made here, brother. I didn’t think you still had it in you.” A female voice that felt like razors kissing his flesh said from behind Garin.
He turned around and saw another of his siblings from hell, a demon named Gentel; The dame of destruction, which was her title in Hell.
“What are you doing here, Gentel? What do you want?” Garin asked without once tearing his gaze from her.
She was slim and slender with smooth curves and a wicked smile. She was clothed in dark leather and shiny armour. Her eyes were blood red and her horns were long and pointed downwards unlike the male demons whose horns grew upwards. Her wings weren’t black but ash, like burned flesh disintegrated in the fires of Hell and just like Zarif and every other demon, the plants that grew around her all withered and died. She was a stone-cold ruthless killing machine but unlike Zarif, Gentel was a lot deadlier and unpredictable which made her extremely dangerous. If she was there to kill him, then the chances that he would survive were next to none but he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
“You mean, what do ‘we’ want?” She replied and gestured to his other side as Zarif landed on the ground.
“I told you he’d do it,” Zarif said as he walked over to Gentel.
“You were right, brother. I actually thought he’d truly changed after more than a decade of living without his powers but it seems that you can never fully take the demon out of a demon..,” Gentel said and took out her hand and manifested a battle axe and handed it over to Zarif, “I lost the bet so here’s your price.” She said to Zarif.
He took the axe and looked at it with satisfaction. It was now his and he was very pleased.
“You both made a bet that I would slaughter these men?” Garin asked in disgust.
“Not only that. We also possessed them and made them attack your wife earlier today,” Gentel said with an evil smile.
“And we made them say all those things they said just before you attacked,” Zarif added.
“You did this?” Garin asked in anger but he tried to control himself and managed to do so.
“No Garin. YOU did this. You attacked these men, you chose to kill them even after one of them begged you for mercy, you slaughtered them without hesitation and you will bury their bodies after we leave to make sure no one finds out about your crime, most especially your wife,” Gentel said and released her wings.
“I wonder what your sweet Hannah would think if she found out about this. Would she still see the ‘good’ inside you or will she only see the evil that you will always carry in your blackened heart?” Zarif said and released his wings also.
“Why did the two of you do this?” Garin asked, desperately holding back his tears and his rage.
“We were bored so we decided to have a little fun,” Gentel replied with a laugh of mockery.
“You were boredddd?!” Garin yelled out and ran towards Gentel with his axe.
He smashed it on her head and the axe shattered into pieces. Gentel was enraged and grabbed Garin’s throat. She slammed him into the ground and threw him towards a tree that almost broke on impact with his body.
“You were always one of Father’s favourites but look at you now. You’re nothing now, Garin. Nothing at all and you’ll live the rest of your miserable life as nothing.” She told him before flying off into the night sky with Zarif, leaving Garin in the dirt, covered in mud, blood and his own tears.