"He is strong, but his heart is weak. No different from a thinking beast." A choir of voices ring out-- all speaking only milliseconds apart--until the words become an ambiguous static. Their disgust is clear even amongst the darkness that hides them,

"Worse than one." A feminine voice is heard more clearly than the others, her voice hanging closely by the boy.

"He is all we have left," spoke a deep guttural voice echoed by the sound of crashing thunder in torrential rain.

"He would do better dead than any of our children," said the feminine being. Other voices shifted in the background like a symphony within discord. With a quick drop in the guttural voice the others quieted.

For a moment there was silence. The boy laid motionless in the void, covered in the blood of many mixed with his own. His off-white shirt had become a faded red, his smile a perverse statue, and his eyes empty of life.

Something in the air pulled around the boy and focused an intention that was not his own, the dead did not think after all. The dead did not feel, although the boy would have said he did not feel when he was alive either.

"I've decided, you will take him. May suffering through our darkness bring him prosperity," said the deep ominous voice.

A shadow waved over the boy's face and for a moment a single black claw could be seen. It touched between his lifeless eyes and dug into his brain, leaving something unseen. Then from the void that surrounded him a being appeared.

She wasn't human. She had no eyes, no nose, no ears. Just pale skin until her thin lips. Rings surrounded her floating and merging with her form like her existence was a shifting kaleidoscope. She wore what looked to be a long robe but it almost felt like it was a piece of her skin and flesh. Intricate patterns of bone and gold. Her smile was sad and beautiful and her horns curved and were decorated with gold designs.

She reached for the boy, and he rested in her hands like a fresh born child. He was small compared to her. His height, his stature was dwarfed by her figure. All things would be small to the feminine being.

"From darkness may desire and blood flow. From the darkness may clarity be shown. You are my first 'chosen'. Maybe this time it will survive, maybe this time our world will be fixed. I do not rest my hope in you child, however I shall watch you and hope one day you will at least entertain me, so try not to die." Her long thin spider-like fingers began to sink into him. At first it was like a cloud washing through him, but soon his screams were heard throughout the space. He shook with such a violent fervor that his clothes seemed to burn off him. He was thrashing like a fish who had its fins ripped off. The more he did the more his flesh became mush and the quieter his screams became. Then it was just her snow white fingers stained with blood and a small tainted wisp of energy.

With a wave of her fingers it was gone and so was he.

It was morning when a creature heard the voice, a metallic reverb like a stack of blades vibrating onto each other trying to create sounds that resembled words. The creature had no idea what a robot was but if she did she would have called it such. It spoke the same words over and over again in her head. She ignored it. She was a small being that had survival to worry about and this voice was a deadly distraction.

The sun had just risen and she had been out of her cave for an hour now, armed with only a small stone knife and a sharpened stick, she was doing her best to feed herself. She had survived in this forest since she was born. By the time she was just a week old she was forced to find a way to survive. Abandoned in roots of a giant tree, she only knew how cold isolation was and how cruel the world could be. Using her green skin to camouflage within the forest, she would wait for a rabbit to pass by and then strike. Her claws would quickly tear into the rabbit's flesh and it would stave off her hunger. That was how she survived in a forest that should have killed her in infancy.

She had grown much since then. Although she knew no words, she would look back on her past like this on her way to the water. The images she created within the emptiness of her mind is what allowed her to survive, it was her strength and as she grew comfortable a hidden desire began to flourish. The voice grew louder.

The walk to the water was dangerous, but it had to be done. The water was always beautiful to her, every time she brought it to her lips she smiled, it was the center of her life. She remembered the first time her stomach felt the cold stream pour into her. She was happy. She felt hope. Her lips carried a pain that was quenched only with this stream. Before she could only survive off of the blood of rabbits and dew that poured from the tree. When she grew strong the water had become a refreshing gift each day she had survived.

The crystal clear water let her see the fish that laid in it's rocky bed. Mindlessness ate at her when she stared at her flickering reflection in the waters surface. The scratches of stones filled her mind in words she could not comprehend. The words had grown louder the more she grew. She closed her eyes trying to push the voice out. Looking for peace in her gift.

Except today something stared back at her. All she could see was large black eyes with a thing yellow border. She leapt back as quickly as she could but what rushed out of the water was a little faster. It's teeth barely grazed her leg, but it was sharp enough to tear her skin into a deep red like their moon. She screamed out in pain, thrusting her spear into the creature's scales. The creature pushed forward unfazed by the stick in her hands. Fear was quickly painted in her eyes, barely a scratch was made on his scales and not even an ounce of blood.

At first the reptilian creature came out of the water on four legs but as she backed up the creature began to stand more and more upright. It stood a meter taller than her, sporting rippling muscles and mass she could never compare to. A reptilian. It's alligator mouth and human like physique made it deadly and something she thought she had avoided. She grew careless. Comfort and the sound in her head had distracted her from survival.

She had avoided its territory but it looks like he was hungry.

She quickly darted her eyes around her, visualizing the situation in her head; a tree three meters behind her, her home about a kilometer to the right and finally the brute in front of her. She knew running home would be impossible. The fact the reptilian hasn't killed her even while she is thinking right now, is he knows she can't outrun him. She only has two options, fight or climb.

Quickly she darts towards him pushing off with her good leg. The reptilian bares his teeth and speaks in a strange tongue. He's laughing. He reaches out to grab her leg, like she would have grabbed a rabbit or a fish, but before his claws could bear into her flesh she dives under his legs. She's facing the tree and his back now, for a moment she imagined outmaneuvering him and getting to the tree, but the voice screamed. She took her claws and dug underneath his scales and deep into his back, one by one she pierced her claws into him climbing to his neck. He began to scream then shaking violently, probably wishing he took her a little more seriously. She knew what would come next and dug in deeper.

The reptilian dove into the water. He rolled knocking her into the river-bed, she tried desperately to hold her breath but each second air poured out of her. She was in a death roll/ Her vision was narrowing. Each slam through the water swung her. He was thrashing to get her off his back but she dug harder. But she knew one solid slam would knock her out and she would die. She closed her eyes and cleared her mind. If she was going to do this she needed to be fast

Quickly she wrapped her legs around his sides and shot her hand for her knife. If she didn't kill him with this one stab she would die. She couldn't reach his neck so she was just hoping that his anatomy was similar to hers. With a slow pierce she pushed her knife right under his arm, pushing deeper and deeper into his chest, and then she began twisting. He started convulsing, slamming his tail all around churning the blood that had filled the river. The more she twisted and the more she aided the blade with her claws, the more he struggled.

The thrashing had loosed her grip on his sides and she could feel her mind falling asleep from how long she had been under water. She was going to die before she could kill him.

The reptilian thrashed harder now and she felt water fill her lungs. She cursed that she was going to die with out ever feeling truly happy. She stopped, her grasp had lessened. She was going to die with her hand stuck in his chest.

The reptilian would throw her off and probably survive if he could make it back to his people. If he noticed maybe he would have been ecstatic, he would be breathing easy right now but the fool was still freaking out.

Her hand was still in him and with a single slam he had woken her up and in her craze with all the force she had left.

She shoved her hand all the way into his heart.

He stopped moving and she began to dream one final dream as her brain began to starve for air. She dreamed of a family, of hundreds of beings just like her fighting together and eating together. She hated being alone. She hated that she was dying alone. Her thoughts filled with the vague images of her mother and her warmth as she died holding her. The voice stopped then and spoke to her one last time before she completely lost consciousness.

[ Blood Family has been created, From darkness may desire and blood flow. From the darkness may clarity be shown ]