NATHANIEL
Eve was a bundle of joy and curiosity, her innocence was nothing short of refreshing when you consider how crappy a household Nathaniel came from. But they had spent a whole week doing nothing but walking and talking. And within that period, Nathaniel had not been able to find any body, demon or otherwise, and the wildlife was quite sparse in return.
Thankfully Nathaniel discovered that he no longer had any need to eat or drink, and he did not get tired either. But he had to actively hunt and search for food for Eve, which gave him the opportunity to introduce the little demon girl to the wonders of barbecue.
Meat was not in abundance here, but there were new advantages to Nathaniel that had helped him provide for Eve. First of all, he no longer had access to his stat page or the system as a whole. but in exchange he had super strength, speed, durability and enhanced senses. He could see farther, clearer and even at night. His hearing and sense of smell were also off the charts. With all this new advantages, finding a snake or rabbit within their burrows was extremely easy.
Though water seemed to be a very lacking resource in this place, as he had no need for it, he could only substitute it with something Eve was actually quite familiar with....blood. This also assuaged his doubt's and put a lot of things in perspective, Eve was a vampire.
While Nathaniel has not had the best experience with vampire's, he couldn't really judge since he only had the pleasure of meeting one, however the little red skinned brat was so precocious Nathaniel could do nothing but love her cuteness.
So far they have been moving east for a week, Nathaniel had plundered the body of the grey demon, and was using its bag to hold food, Nathaniel was also dragging about its bloodstained war hammer, though dragging would be the wrong word as that hunk of metal felt no heavier than a cup of hot chocolate in Nathaniel's hands.
But so far all Nathaniel had been able to see was an endless expanse of grey rocks, cliffs, caves and craters filled with boiling acid. And it seemed the further east they moved the more rarer anything to eat could be found. Eve had not eaten anything for a whole day, but she was very adamant about not eating her pet rabbit who she made every possible effort to feed.
"Nathaniel, I'm hungry."
"Sorry silly girl, I promise there would be something for you to eat in the morning. So let's go to sleep."
It was late, though Nathaniel did not feel tired even though he had spent most of the day carrying Eve and running, he still felt strong and refreshed. But the little girl was hungry and very much tired, the only thing Nathaniel could suggest was for her to sleep.
There was nothing around for hundreds of thousands of miles, so Nathaniel was not worried about them being attacked. He was not tired, but he was also not adverse to resting his mind. He might really be dead, but he could still sleep. He would take every hour of rest he could get even if he didn't need it.
When Nathaniel woke up Eve was gone, the very moment he discovered her absence, he felt his heart jump into his mouth and he was completely waylaid by fright.
"Eve!!!!"
"Eve!!!"
At first there was no reply, but that was when he heard it. There were screams and cries of fright, but they were coming from quite a distance away so Nathaniel could not really make them out. But the fact that he could hear it, and it was that faint meant the location was no where close to where he currently was. He had no idea where Eve was, but that was the only clue he had, so he set off running towards the sounds.
Nathaniel ran with the wind, to a normal eye, if would seem as if his feet was not even touching the ground before he moved forward. But there was nothing normal about the way he was running, if he wanted he could stop breathing, it was as if he was a machine or a spirit given body, but still very much dead to the world.
It took Nathaniel ten minutes of hard running before he got to the place where the noises were coming from. His running had brought him to a grey stone cliff, but there was a cave right in the middle of the cliff, and a giant basket was placed there to serve as some sort of elevator. This place looked like a mine, but the entrance was littered with bodies.
Nathaniel moved closer but immediately regretted it as he almost lost his non-existent breakfast at the sight in front of him. They were demons, demons that Nathaniel actually recognized from earth. The Anubis.
This Demons had the head of a dog, and the body of a man, they were mostly depicted as a single entity as history never mentioned anything about them being more than one. Anubis was the Egyptian God of the dead, he escorted souls to receive judgment.
This Anubis looked the same with the elongated ears and muzzle, but something was horribly wrong here. The Anubis seemed drained of every liquid in their body, they looked like a bunch of desiccated corpses, or in simple scientific terms, a mummy. Their eyes were wide opened with fright and glazed over. The jaws were also clenched together so tightly Nathaniel could see that their fangs had pushed through their jaws essentially nailing their mouth shut. These demons did not die from an ordinary vampire bite, they died in complete terror and pain.
Nathaniel had seen Eve feed before, every time she took a bite out of something, she released her saliva into the wound to serve as a sort of anesthetic/drug/paralysis kind of venom. It made the person or animal being eaten completely docile and amicable to being lunch.
Nathaniel doubted Eve had anything to do with this, but that cave was the only lead to the whereabouts of that silly girl, if it meant facing whatever was causing this carnage, then he would do it. Nathaniel made his way into the basket, and used a rope like pulley system to pull himself up, completely vigilant of his surroundings.
When Nathaniel got to the opening of the cave he almost doubled over in disgust at the smell coming from within. It smelt like the Anubis demons, lots of them, but it also smelled like death. Nathaniel hefted the war hammer to his shoulder and took of running deeper into the darkened cave. His sight was good and strong enough to see in the dark, so it was not that much of a problem for him. As he made his way deeper into the mine, he discovered more bodies, some of them were in an even worse state as they had their bones broken or were dismembered while they were being fed on.
The Anubis here were all of different shapes and sizes, but the tell tale sign of children were every where. In fact from the looks of things, this place was filled with more children than adults. The sight of their mangled bodies were enough to leave Nathaniel with a really bad chill and fright. He had never seen anything like this before, and the thought that Eve might be among this bodies left him gasping for breath.
Eventually Nathaniel made his way to a cavern within the mine, the place looked more like a coliseum since seats were carved on the cavern walls in a spiral pattern all the way to the top where a massive glowing crystal could be seen. The path to the coliseum was strewn with even more bodies, but thankfully some of them were actually still alive. Nathaniel moved his gaze to the center of the coliseum to see almost a dozen armored Anubis surrounding a blood soaked creature that was moving way to fast for their crude spears to even scratch much less kill.
They could not trace the movement of the creature, and even Nathaniel himself could not, because this creature was not moving normally, it was doing more than just running. It was as if its body vibrated really fast and disappeared and appeared with every step it took. If Nathaniel did not know any better he would say this was a type of teleportation. One of the Anubis demons finally managed to scratch the creature, but that was a big mistake as the creature howled with rage and jumped on him, going straight for his neck.
Nathaniel watched with utter horror and fascination as his body dried up until it was nothing more than dried skin and brittle bones. But something else caught Nathaniel's attention, it was the snow white rabbit being held by the blood soaked monster. It did not take long for him to remove the elongated horns, tail and wings.
With those appendages missing, the creature in the ring became nothing more than Eve. When Nathaniel realized this he was so scared, he was so shocked that he hesitated. He couldn't help but ask himself if this was the same little girl he had been traveling with for the past week, this thing in front of him was a monsters, a very terrible death causing monster.
Another spear made a strike, but this time it was not a monster that cried out, it was a girl. The horns, tail, and wings suddenly faded away into wisps of black ash and floated with the wind. What was left was a frightened girl left in the center of a bunch of demons that wanted nothing more than her death. Nathaniel wanted to go forward, but it felt as if his feet were glued to the ground, he couldn't make the decision to go and save her. It was at that moment he remembered everything she had told him about herself, about how she was accused of being an abomination, how she was hunted.
This was not the first time this had happened, and Nathaniel was afraid this was not going to be the last. He couldn't stop the thought that maybe it would be better or easier if she was killed. That way thousands if not millions of lives would be saved. What ever prophecy was made about this girl seemed to be true, she was definitely going to bring about an endless amount of bloodshed and pain. She was this dangerous at six years old, Nathaniel could not imagine her at sixteen.
"NATHANIEL!!!!!!"
She was screaming for him now, tears and blood covered her face now, and this time most of it were hers. Nathaniel could not even stop himself from moving after she called for him. He had made a promise to look after her, and he knew he couldn't give up. Nathaniel swung the hammer with so much force he completely pulverized the head of the first Anubis. Then he swung the hammer into the chest of another wincing at the sound of cracks before the Anubis was shot towards the other end of the coliseum.
By now the other Anubis demons had noticed the newcomer, but whether they noticed him earlier or later, it was already to late. Nathaniel had his own little massacre as he swung the hammer into the face of the first Anubis demon to attack, even though it tried to dodge with quite an impressive burst of speed, the hammer felt like a feather in Nathaniel's hands, it was easy for him to change the trajectory and pound the head of the demon into the cave floor.
Nathaniel dodged a spear attack to his face by slightly shifting his head, then he shot out his foot towards the attacking demon who shot backwards like a soccer ball and only stoped when his body impacted the carved out stands made for spectating. Every bone in his body was now placed at an awkward angle, that guy was very much dead, but the rest of the demons were relentless.
Nathaniel swung the hammer and swept two demons together to the ground, by the time he was done, no one could tell who was who among the two of them. Nathaniel shot forward and swung his hammer upwards under the jaw of one of the demons, the head and a significant part of the spine shot up into the air in a shower of blood. There were only four Anubis demons left, but somehow this four were smarter as they made the decision to run instead of fight.
But the mistake they made was to run in a straight line instead of separating, Nathaniel hefted the hammer and threw it with all if his strength.
It shot out with such speed there was a sonic boom that pushed Nathaniel off his feet a bit, the hammer hit the first demon in the back, then carried him to the next, and then the next, and then to the final Anubis demon before finally slamming into the cavern wall and breaking to pieces. As for the Demons, they became nothing more than a stain on the wall.
Nathaniel felt empty, for the first time since he fell into hell he felt tired, and frightened. He was covered with blood and he smelt like death. Nathaniel knew without a doubt he had killed innocent demons, a monster had wandered into their den and proceeded to kill their children, and then another monster came along and killed them because he wanted to protect the killer of their children. This was a world of monsters, and Nathaniel knew that after today, he was now one of them.
He turned to look at Eve who had passed out while clutching her rabbit that for some reason still had not a single speck of blood on it even with all the carnage. He realized that when they said she would bring about destruction, it was not just by her hand, but by the hands of those who would come to love and follow her. She was not dangerous because she was a monster, she was dangerous because.....SHE MADE MONSTERS.