The Darkness Unveiled [DGM Wattyaward 2015 Winner]

The Tale of Maria Part 1

Human. I can faintly remember being human. The sensation of happiness, the soft fingers of love. The feeling of knowing there was more out there. But now, there is one thing I am positive about. One single, painstakingly regret-full thing I know for a fact to be true. There is no power greater than the one made by a tortured mortal soul. It's a pain that drives my very being with the urge to kill. To murder. Without it, I'd forget, and I'm already forgetting. Little by little, my memory fades. With each murder, I step closer and closer to gaining a level. Closer and closer to forgetting this pain. Closer and closer to pleasing the master. But as of right now, I do as I've been programmed to do. Desire what I've been programmed to desire. And that desire lingers no farther than the need to kill more and more people and bring more destruction. The desire to please the Earl, my master. But one day, something changed that. This is my story.

***

This all started on the day I died. I remember nothing but sheer pain and a face that belonged to none other than my beautiful twin sister. The same face that turned me- trapped me!- in this metal, pain-powered shell. I curse her name every second of every day with an uncontrollable sorrow,but silently, I curse his name too.

The great Earl's. He deserves this. He deserves to suffer through my pain, my sorrow. All he does is send me to hunt for new souls. New victims. I have come a long way since that horrible day and the pattern was the same till that fateful day. The day where I had come face to face with the one thing that stands in my way.

On the thirteenth day of November, a Friday, me and my fellow akuma decided to break the routine and wander off to a clearing in the forest that surrounded the town in which we dwelt, with high hopes of falling upon a lost traveler. We hadn't found what we were looking for. We found something far worse.

An exorcist, clad in black and white. I had never truly known fear 'till that very moment. To know that it would soon be all over. To know that soon, I would truly be dead, with nothing left to show my mortal existence. I wasn't sure about the others, but panic rose up in me.

Unlike the others, I didn't fight. I ran. I knew I had to if I wanted to survive. I fled just as the gun was being uncocked from the holster that held it. I caught a glimpse of the exorcist's face, but only half of it. He had red hair. Long, red hair. Glasses too, and a slight attraction I so lovingly regretted.

He saw mine as well. I suddenly feared them more than anything, but of all the things I've heard rumor of or witnessed myself, the memory of his face is forever engraved in my mind. I knew mine was also carved into his, but soon it wouldn't matter. Soon, he wouldn't be alive, but I needed to survive. Until then, I ran, and he let me run; I knew I would be killed.

One way or another, I will die. And the only thing I can do is hide, my very last defense.

When the sun was low in the sky, I returned to the site of the attack. It was desolate and full of devastation. The earth was cracked and scorched with damage from the battle. It was then when I sensed it. There, behind me, was a figure. Slowly, I turned around and came face to face with him. He was right beside me, looming over me like some dark evil from a never-ending nightmare.

The exorcist from before. My body froze.

"Its time," he said pulling his gun from his side.

"No," I cried, "please, no!" I poured as much emotion as I possibly could into the tears I had forcefully summoned. Never before had I felt a pain like this, so strong and murderous. Never before had I felt a feeling I've never experienced before. Somewhere deep inside me, somewhere, those tears I forced were real and I was willing to do anything to live, no matter how relieved my restless soul was.