Malphas sat in his large and empty factory warehouse, alone. The birds were singing and the wind was calmly blowing through the air. Malphas listened. A year was a long time to wait, he wanted to kill Ada as soon as possible. He wanted to kill her, chop her up, and christen his house with her blood. Perhaps her head would make a good decoration for his wall...
He hated her. But at the same time he couldn't help but feel another emotion for her, some weird obsessive infatuation that he wasn't familiar with kept her burned into his mind. There was an unstoppable fire in her that he managed to get a taste of, and he wanted to taste it again.
He thought about the past, about what he was when he was something more than was he was at the moment. Back when he had dreams, back before he sold his soul to do... this. He looked at all the dead bodies of all the bounties he had hunted the night before. They were a sick representation of what had happened to him. All of them, lying there, mutilated and piled up on the other side of the fire.
The voice of that person rung in his head. The person that saw him, barely human, scratching on the lid of his proverbial coffin. The person who promised him his life back, his love back, everything. He remembered all the things promised to him. It wasn't fair.
He had held on, he held on to his humanity for as long as he could. He tried his hardest to retain lucidity, he didn't want to become a monster. Not like all the others. But no, this body of his, this grotesque, disgusting, but powerful body, sometimes it took over him.
Maybe he really was a monster.
And yet look at Eleanor and Ada. They clearly loved each other. It only took a moment; that second when they looked into each other's eyes when Ada was lying in the street injured and scuffed. He was hurt too, he was damaged, Ada had burned a hole into his chest. No-one cared. They cheered. One side of him was angry, but another side of him felt something else.
Not fair. Maybe Eleanor was right, maybe he was a monster. Maybe this person who he had respected his whole life, this person he couldn't stop thinking about, this person who once looked at him with compassionate eyes. Maybe this person could have loved him.
What was it she said? Maybe I'm a monster too?
No Faris, you're not a monster. You're a goddess. Ada is your angel. And it looks like I'm your demon.
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Fragments of Ash Vol. 1 (Urban Fantasy)
FantasíaAda, a wandering mage, finds herself in the terrifying city of Melchiezedek. She sets her roots down decides to take up a career in bounty hunting. But she soon finds out that despite how powerful she may be, the terrors of the city are not to be un...
