Squeezing, a woman ragged from neglect, prematurely aged past her beauty, was squeezing the neck of her only child, Baal. Wanting to slay the demon which she herself birthed, the witch of enbrook was wrenching out the last of Baal's breath as Baal stared passively into her hollow eyes. Curiousity dancing across his own, a feeling unfimiliar to Baal was being felt for the first time: the warmth of his mother's hands. Suddenly, the all too familiar feeling which had dominated the totality of Baal's life, cold, was returning. The life, wonderment, and joy at the warmth of touch were fading from his eyes as Baal descended down into the embrace of death.
Warmth, a different warmth than before, slid its way across Baal's face as the pressure lessened around his neck. Reopening his eyes, Baal saw that his mother's face had become as messy and grotesque as his own; a red liquid sliding down both. Crunching, crumbling, crinkling, the warning call of fallen leaves trumpeted behind Baal as he stared at his now deceased mother. Craning his head, looking behind himself, Baal could make out three figures, each more disdainful to the eye than the preceding. Gargling, snarling, Chortling, a mixture of sounds which seemed to convey a common meaning began to reverberate from the three figures of white. Baal smiled.
After the subtlety of Baal's response, "Do you only speak human?," one of the figures asked.
A rasp of a voice, evident at once of neglect of use and the trauma inflected upon his throat, emerged from Baal's mouth. "Human? Is that what I speak? Monster is the only term I ever heard," Baal replied as his touched his face, deformed and resented from the moment of his birth.
"I see," replied the more obese of the three as he approached Baal's mother. Puggly, long lived as he was, could discern a lot from the casual glance he threw Baal's mother. "This witch, is she your mother?"
Glancing at his mother, a small, resigned voice struggled to make it past his lips, as Baal replied "yes."
"What of your father?" Asked the tallest, leanest of the three, putrid.
Self loathing, and resignation evident on his face, "I don't have one," replied Baal.
"Don't worry, most of our kind don't," replied the last of the three, horrendous. "I, myself, was also born of a witch, a lot of our kind are."
"Our kind?," Replied Baal, curiosity once more flitting across his young, lifeful eyes.
"Demons," the three returned in unison.
Clenching, beating wildly, a mad horse entering its stride, all kinds of bizarre feelings emerged from Baal's heart and spread throughout his chest. His nails, drawing blood from his palms, "I'm human," answered Baal.
"Human?! You?," the three scoffed.
"I've never seen such a handsome face amongst the humans," answered Puggly.
"Only, a demon can have such a noble appearance," replied horrendous, gesturing to his own mismatched head and torso.
"It's true," returned Putrid. "Besides, you reek of resentment, to say nothing of the fact you were born of a witch!," Putrid emphasized, while making a motion which communicated that the case was closed.
Baal withdrew into his own mind, vividly recalling the faces of his fellow villages, filled with disdain, as they abused away the spring like beauty from his mother's countenance, and cast them from the village. "Could it be true? Could I be a demon?," Baal had to wonder to himself.
"Say, kid. Would you like to come with us?," asked horrendous. "We stumbled upon you on our way back, it must be fate asking us to pick up one of our own."
"It would be for the best if you came with us," encouraged puggly, his belly rebounding at his every syllable. "The world of human's is dangerous to our kind, opposed to natural order as they are."
"It's true," cemented Putrid, his nauseous breath spreading throughout the area. "The human's have no love for our kind, and will only turn their blades toward you, especially now that you don't have that witch's back to hide behind. A child without their parents is no more than dead already."
The concern of strangers, never having been present in Baal's life, emerging now, only served to color Baal's face in confusion. How could Baal understand the love of strangers when his own mother had just been wrapping her hands around his throat, cursing his very existence? A new world was opening up to Baal, and these three were sure to be its messengers. Kind, loving, hopeful, disdaining, despairing, wrathful, what kind of world would this be? Hesitant, worrying, unsure of the direction he should head in, was Baal.
Looking upon his three saviors, an appearance of defiance emerging, Baal had found his answer amidst hesitation. If the humans would turn their backs to Baal, Ball would turn his back to them!
"I'll come with you!," proclaimed Baal, his voice powerful and triumphant for the first time in their encounter.
The three brothers, Puggly, Putrid, and Horrendous couldn't help but smile. "That's the spirt!," they answered in turn.
Suddenly, a rotten aura seeped out from the folds of Puggly's fat, the pore's of Putrid's skin, and the orifices of Horrendous' head. Bone chilling, spine tingling, fear inducing aura began to worm its way around the party of four, until finally they vanished from the area, as mysteriously as the three themselves had appeared.
Like spring emerging from the winter, a boy, innocent and youthful, emerged from a bush not too far from where the four had departed. He made his way over to where the witch laid dead, a feeling of dread and regret emerging from his heart. This woman, the boy remembered, had once just been just like himself, the spring made manifest upon this forlorn world. She was the very image of beauty, and the boy had dreamed of wedding her when he grew older.
Looking where Baal had previously stood, hate erupted out of the boy. He knew better than anyone how Baal had ruined the young girl's life. If he had never been born, if he wasn't so grotesque, if he hadn't taken all of her vitality and youth, perhaps the boy's love would still be alive. In this moment, the boy had found the just cause that all boy's long for, and all men are want to take up: he would kill the demon that cursed his love, he would bring an end to the source of her suffering in life, he would destroy all reality of the witch, all evidence of what she had become, to return the young woman to his mind, he would kill Baal!
Upon resolutely swearing this to himself, the boy turned back toward his village and sprinted. News must be delivered as quickly as possible: the witch had died, demons had emerged near the village, and Baal had joined them! Any one of these three pieces of news was sure to resound throughout the village, and all three together would create a storm which would throw their tiny village into complete chaos. The boy smiled, knowing that no matter how chaotic the village became, his own heart would be at peace.