The Knights of Grimm - Act 4 - Whispers of Arkhonex

Chapter 46 - Like A Monster

Author Note: Just so then everyone knows, I have decided to change the format of my writing from Present Tense to Past Tense. This is because my brother and I are now working on our original series which is being written that way. So this will help me get used to writing this way. If I do have slip-ups and accidentally do go to present tense and don't realise then don't be afraid to let me know. I want to make sure this becomes muscle memory for me.

At least this way it will help me improve upon my writing.

I hope you understand – Matt

Oscar

Everything felt so wrong now...

He thought he knew what he was doing, where he belonged in the world, but now it was not so easy to tell. Everything he remembered felt like it was a lie, a part in someone else's game, like he was a pawn or just a chapter in another power's story. He shook as he laid there, he could feel the skin peck with gooseflesh, an unnatural chill came over him as he laid there in this pool of darkness. Memories seemed to become so distant to him, like everything was fading away. With a groan he rolled onto his chest, he pushed his palms against the ground as he tried to get back up, but instead he stared into his own reflection in the dark water.

It was like he was staring into the eyes of a stranger, someone completely unfamiliar to him, he felt like he did not belong in his own skin.

Who am I?

Everything is wrong...I thought this was right, I thought I was doing the right thing...

...but what if the Onyx Phantom is lying? No! He works for Vir Nominis Umbra, surely he would never tolerate having something so powerful under him lying to his face.

Demons never lie...they use the truth, the cold hard truth to break us.

He wasn't wrong either, the Demons have learned to use the coldest of truths to break people down. The Phantom used the cold truth on Pyrrha to control her, telling her she had no destiny, and it worked for a time. For quite a while, until it could not fight whatever is shining within her, alongside Oscar, Jaune and Ruby. Oscar stared at the reflection of his face, touching his skin and blinking those hazel coloured eyes of his. He got up and looked around with fear, he saw the darkness that surrounded him begin to change. A light formed, and colour drained into this light, forming the pictures of memories...memories that could all be a fabrication now.

His only memory he ever had of his mother and father, was the two of them walking away from him. Their smiles could have been seen if it were not for his realisation of this cold truth. Like his own, their faces became unfamiliar to him in an instant, he could not see their eyes, he could not hear their voices, only distorted sounds and voices as they looked back at him. Never before has Oscar ever felt so alone, so vulnerable – even when he was Salem's Prisoner he still had faith, because he knew he was real. He knew he had a future, he knew he had a beginning and that was not gonna be his end.

He had Ruby.

But now?

Now he faced the fact that he may not have been born at all, had no real family, had no childhood. He just existed one day, he was just...found. But he did not want to believe it, he gripped his dark hair and gritted his teeth down, grating them as he started to strain. "No...NO! I am real! I have a mother! I have a father! I know I do! You're lying! It's all lies!" Oscar cried out in desperation.

"We're the same...you and I." The voice of the Onyx Phantom echoed in the back of his mind, and that terrifying laugh, that laugh that echoed his own but merely in a chillingly more sinister way.