March from Darkness | ✓ (to be edited)

TWENTY

DEMITRI

I didn't sleep for the next week or so. I was even afraid of blinking half the time. I knew that none of it was real, the physical scars that had been covering my body before that messed up trip were the only ones that appeared on my body when I woke up, but the psychological ones were still fresh wounds. Every single time my eyes closed, those phantom pains returned to my body, even if just for a half-second. I had a new irrational fear that those pains were what was waiting for me when I woke up from this dream. If those phantoms really did prove to be real when I fell asleep, then why couldn't this be a dream and that world of deaf-blindness be the real world? Even though I knew for certain that there was no way I was dreaming, being there brought back that train of thought several times over.

"Come on, Demitri. You have to focus!" Phrer yelled, taking a huge step back as I lunged at him. He stuck his leg out, trying to land a kick to my abdomen, but I used what little momentum I had left to duck and slide under the leg, catching him behind his knee and pulling him down.

And what made it all worse was that fact that, despite my aversion to wanting to reside in that void of physical and mental horror, my conscience still deemed that was where I was meant to be. I couldn't blame the souls for their anger towards me, especially considering that I had been rather cruel to them, I had expected their fury. I could, however, blame them for the extent of their punishment for my atrocities. The very reasons I had taken the lives of several of those pieces of human garbage were the very morally-incompetent acts that they had forced upon me.

Phrer and I struggled for a moment after he got off the ground. He landed a solid punch straight to my chest and I felt and heard something crack slightly. The pain was immediate, but it just made me even angrier.

The amount of hatred I felt towards those self-righteous bastards, the amount of disgust I felt towards this evil that I had to fight, it was all too much. Anger had fuelled me in my final years on the mortal plane, which was something completely different from hatred. Anger could be let free on a whim; hatred led to sloppiness, to a constant need to kill, and it built up inside, festering like a plague. Anger could be controlled; hatred would erupt unexpectedly, and it would drain the person it ruled while it did so. Hatred fed on the ability to feel emotion at all, it fed on anger, and it would only get more powerful the more times it ruled the mind.

Fury was strong, but hatred was cataclysmic.

I moved out of the way quickly as he lunged at me, grabbing his arm as he passed while I turned my back to him. I bent down and used his weight and momentum against him as I brought him down over my shoulder and onto his back in front of me. He swiped his free arm behind my legs and tripped me, bringing me down with him. He grabbed for my throat as he tried to get on top of me, so I sank my nails into his arm and brought my other elbow up to his face, feeling the slightest hint of guilt at the cracking sound it made on impact. But if he was going to play dirty, then so was I.

I needed to control my emotions. I had to stop the weakness that had been let loose when I arrived here. Being terrified, being sorrowful would get us nowhere, and it would inhibit my ability to fight. I needed to regain the steel composure I had had for nearly half my mortal life. I wanted to be in control again, even if I knew it was a futile attempt since I was technically no longer allowed to make my own choices.

My right leg came up and hit him in the stomach before I swung it around his right side and kneed him in the ribs, giving myself enough room to flip us over. Phrer still had his hand around my throat, but my nails, now black claws, dragged down his arm, tearing it open, earning a grunt of pain. I slammed my knee down into his free hand's wrist, pinning it to the mats below us. My now-bloodied hand forced itself under his chin, letting the claws pierce his skin just enough to let him know I could easily tear his lower jaw off, leaving enough of his neck exposed to hold a knife lightly over the skin of his throat.