IRON GOD | 1: Peripeteia

[22] Haode: Staring Demon

Haode lay listless in the wreckage of the cabin, gripped by the deepest depression he had ever experienced. He had managed to drag himself under some rubble, so he was at least safe from the snow and wind, but Ido's lightning strike had left him horribly burned to the point that every small motion was excruciating.

He tried to look ahead. As his future visions cycled through all the possible ways his life might end, he felt a strange apathy. He wondered why. His fear had been agony, but this was somehow worse. A shred of him wondered if he should drag himself out into the cold and let himself freeze.

The vision that almost reignited him was one of Styzia's spectacled snake with arms around his boys, consoling them. Haode twitched. What kind of future was that? His mind struggled to grasp it at first, but gradually, it sank in that this might be the true outcome. And for perhaps the first time, Haode understood where he had gone wrong.

He opened one eye. The world beyond him was all cold and white and hostile. He closed it again. He'd spent so long running through this white waste, chasing a white lie with white hair. All the while, he had lost himself in darkness and dragged Ido and Dakko down with him. Those boys deserved so much better. Why had he ever raised a hand against either of them?

He wanted to go back instead of forward, to pull his fist back each time and mend the bonds he had beaten and shattered to splinters. Haode's teeth clenched. He knew all of the regret in the world meant nothing and that he could never repent. Still, he wanted them back. He needed them back. Maybe healing could happen over time, maybe...if only he had time.

Haode reached a ravaged hand out into the snow. The cold aggravated his flesh where the skin had been scorched off. He clenched his fingers tight. All he wanted right then was to feel something. The snow melted in his palm. He almost relished the sensation. Hurt and cold was better than numb and hollow.

A noise somewhere startled him. His eyes snapped open, and his body jerked like a puppet yanked up by a careless child. Haode's mind raced ahead to another possibility. At least, he thought it was a vision of some future. It was clearer than any he had seen since his power betrayed him.

The ground beneath him became cold wet stone. Everything was dark until someone very tall crouched by his side and set a lantern on the ground between them. Its soft orange glow lit the face of a staring demon. Haode felt a terrible tingling sensation on the back of his neck. The Styzian master extended a spidery, almost skeletal hand toward him.

Haode yanked himself back. "No!"

Xigon's fingers hovered in the air for a second before returning to the lantern. "What are you afraid of?" He leaned in closer. Slight venom crept into his voice. "What ever gave you the idea that you're a helpless victim?"

Haode sat up and backed himself into a wall he hadn't realized was there. "A...ah!"

Xigon held the lantern up and its light grew scorching. He bared his teeth like a snarling dog, then his expression leveled to one of cold calm. "How long has your power been damaged?"

Haode didn't answer. It wasn't as if he knew for certain anyway. He remembered the sickness that had nearly killed him. He remembered his own body burning him alive with fever, the feeling like an axe was splitting his skull, and the violent hallucinations like they had happened yesterday, but it must have been years by this point.

Xigon's eyes narrowed. "Well?"

Haode ignored the question. "What have you done to my boys, you snake?"