The Evil That We Are

CHAPTER TWO

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

The chant was loud and echoed with many voices as it compelled Melody to join in, to add her voice in with the countless others. The song was ageless and alluring, sung in no language that she had been taught, but one that something inside her still seemed to know somehow.

Her walls began to crack and her resolve began to break.

Melody's feet started moving, fighting to go forwards. Soon she resisted less and her feet moved faster towards the great flames. Something was wrong with all this, but she could not think what.

The steps became easier as something inside uncovered its ancient knowledge. A fierce joy bolded out of her heart, its warmth and force triggering the rest of her body into dancing. The moves felt sharp and awkward in her young frame, as unused to such movements as it was. The deep well of knowledge buried inside her weakened and strengthened its flow as it tried too hard to push through her veins. Her inexperience physique was unable to handle the overload.

Muscles pulled taught and strained against the force this alien power exerted on them, yet Melody paid little notice to the afflictions this strange thrill cause her. Adrenalin pumped through her system, running along with this alien magic.

She felt careless, without pain or worry, stress or fear. She had never felt so light before. She could only imagine that this is how other children felt all the time. No load, no stress, no demons...

No demons!

That is what was wrong, there were no demons constantly fighting against her, battling for supremacy over her body, over their freedom to destroy.

Melody began to struggle out of this nightmare, it could be nothing else. Only a deceptive illusion to quell her defences enough that the demons could fight their way out. Her hands fisted and her arms curled up towards her chest. Her heart was beating stronger than a raven's wings, and faster and less predictably than a butterfly's.

Her small feet stumbled away from the tamed flames, her toes stubbed each other as they lost their rhythm and placing the magic had given them. The bright snow-grass that had been so soft and springy only moments before was now dry and brittle, digging into the soft flesh on the underside of the arches in her feet. The eccentric and exciting music that she had been singing to only moments before now screeched without any harmony and dug deep into her mind. Holding her palms tight against her ears mad no difference to the pain.

Melody stumble back for the suddenly wild flames that had been barely a finger width's distance away from kissing her pale skin. The heat was unbearable, roasting her alive without even toughing her.

She continued to shuffle backwards as quickly as she could with her bare, bleeding feet. The majestic and beautiful sight that had drawn her so far in only just before had changed. The illusions melted away to reveal what was truly underneath.

The sight was horrifying, satanic and gruesome. It almost froze Melody's heart with unmeasurable terror.

What had looked so graceful and beautiful before had now melted away; rotten flesh hung loosely off jagged bones, their bodies framed with brittle, broken horns in sets ranging from two to twelve that could be as long as from her littlest finger's width to taller than her entire height when she stood on the very tips of her toes.

Once more there was a familiar pounding in her head. But it was stronger this time, more forceful than it had ever been before. An enormous pressure expanded behind her eyes, and she could feel tears creeping out the corners.