The Shadows Within Us

Monsters Aren't Born, They're Created

The stupid saying...

If you love something, let it go.

I always thought it was a sappy load of shit—spoken by a real lonely son of a bitch.

Until I had to let her go.

I never imagined seeing her that way—bullet piercing through bone.

Motionless in a puddle of her own blood.

Love can make you believe so many sick things,

like any other disease of the mind.

Love turned me blind.

The future could have been so bright,

and she threw it away.

I wanted to care for her,

but she wanted him more.

What I would have done to show her,

what could have been.

Maybe I would have even forgiven her,

if it weren't for the unspeakable trespasses against me.

The Betrayal.

A creation that wasn't even partially my own.

How could our relationship survive such an unspeakable act?

It needed to end.
Permanently.

I can carry the burden of this family without her.

Amongst the toppling gusts of gritty soil, stood a man the likes of which the storm had never seen. He was dauntless, trekking through the roaring winds as if they were little more than a soft summer breeze. The haze was blinding, even for Osiris' typically keen eyes, which had been scratched and scuffed with flecks of flying debris. Still, they remained peeled open, searching for a runaway.

More powerful than his sight, perhaps, was his remarkable sense of smell. Unbeknownst to his youngest daughter, she held quite a particular scent indeed. It was the odor of humankind, and it stuck out quite powerfully within the decrepit wastelands of Hell's rejects. He could sense it even now, through the raging grips of the desert storm as though there was nothing more than a thin film between him and her.

She'd taken off in the midst of his quarrel with the oldest problem child. Naïve, that girl was. Deluded by her misinterpretations of good and evil. Osiris couldn't put his finger on where she could have learned such behavior. He'd spend the last seventeen years beating it out of her, but it never seemed to work for long.

It was buried within what she was.
The man seethed, his features turning bitter and enraged. He thought he could save her, shield her from the throes of humankind, from their self-righteous belief system and egotistical agendas. Yet all the ungrateful little brat ever asked for was to see that place. Earth, what a pathetic jailhouse it was. No coincidence that most souls ended up slithering their way into Hell from that very planet.

As the scent carried the man further, away from his precious property, Osiris grew wary. Behind his home, perhaps about a football field's length away, sat a dense cloud of fog that stretched far and wide across the horizon. It was a place not even he fathomed exploring. The creatures that thrived beyond the mist were said to be horrendous abominations—things not even Satan could create himself. They were vulgar, carnivorous beings, driven by malevolence itself. Embodiments of chaos.

His eyes blazed a furious pink into the ghostly mist; the father feeling a sense of urgency now beginning to ignite within him.
How ignorant of her, is she trying to get herself killed? Osiris seethed silently, whacking his heavy hand haphazardly through the blinding fog. A peculiar rustling sound caught the demon's attention, the hairs on his body standing in warning as he spun to face the potential danger, but he could see nothing.
The man gritted his sharpened teeth, fuming with aggravation. With a huff, he returned to his search, promptly looking for the lost girl. This god-forsaken place was crawling with all kinds of repulsive beings. It was a race to the finish line now, and Osiris knew he needed to find Eden before something else did.

***

The currents of the Hell storm gusted past the fledgling in heavy waves, forcing her frail form whichever direction it pleased. Eventually, the girl dropped to her knees, too exhausted to fight any longer. As she sat there, a still monument amongst the ghastly chaos, she felt an eerie peace. She wasn't sure why, exactly. Perhaps, the insanity around her felt like a suitable cloak against her pursuer. Or rather, it brought to physical tangibility the heavy emotions that wracked the girl's psyche. For once, she was the quiet observer, as if the storm inside of her had spilled out into the world.

The peaceful sensation was short-lived, interrupted by the scampering of footsteps that sounded as though they were coming from all directions. Eden sprung to her feet, adrenaline coursing through her once more. More times than she could count, she had been warned of the not-so-distant fog lands. It was an unfortunate repercussion of living in the far corners of Hell's suburbia. Typically, the creatures kept to themselves, cloaking their heinous forms behind the thick layers of smog. But now Eden was in their territory, and it hadn't taken long for them to sniff out the unfamiliar innocence that presented itself to their disposal.

"FUCK!" Osiris bellowed, hissing in pain as he snatched up a long snake covered in fleshy sacks of mucus. He peeled the leech-like creature from his leg, reeling from the sharp stinging sensation that pulsed vehemently in his ankle.

The fucking thing bit me. Osiris panted in disdain.
"Damn hell-spawn." The demon cursed, hissing in pain. The fog was too thick, and he couldn't see past his waist. It was like wading in piranha infested waters. Osiris howled in rage, taking the snake's repulsive body and tearing it in two. He stalled, inhaling heavy breaths and wincing with the discomfort that the creature's bite invoked. Though, when an ear-piercing screech resounded behind him, Osiris didn't flee. It was a cry of violence, of murder. That much, any demon could comprehend. Without a doubt, Eden had been found, not by him, but by one of the Deranged. Osiris sprinted toward the source.

The man had arrived without a single moment to spare, swiping Eden's unsuspecting form from behind and tossing her roughly over his shoulder. He felt the wind of the creature that had been mid-lunge but didn't chance looking back. Instead, he ran, carrying the two of them back to the place he called home.

A wave of heroic victory taunted the man, but he was too angry to acknowledge it. He wanted to lock his unruly daughter away in her room—to punish her rebellion and reinstate his position of power. At the same time, he wanted to hold her closely, to tell her never to scare him like that again. The idea of losing her startled him more than he imagined it would...and that was making him angry too.

"Don't you ever run away again."