My existence is a funny thing. From lying half dead in a mass grave to the sudden darkness. Everything had been weird as far as I knew. My biggest confusion and definitely annoyance was my sentience all through that darkness.
One would think that in such darkness there would be no will, no thoughts, or nothing at all. Wrong.
I was very much awake. Just trapped in unending darkness that refused to relinquish its hold. A prisoner put into a cage of my own making.
Yet somehow I still felt hunger. I still felt need. I still felt weak.
It started then when I acted on my desire. My will was unknown to me fueling the very castle I lay in. A place that had been haunted already due to the event that took place in it.
My will and desire to feed awakened something within the core of the Castle, something that I fed on. I didn't know what. There were no runes or voices to tell me what I ate in here. All I know is somehow my desire attracted food to me and I ate.
With each feeding I made I grew more and more energetic, like a pressure pot, whatever that is.
It was a long time before I got any company. A certain feathered foe suddenly appearing in my dark cage. His beady eyes glared at me as if I was the one who pecked at his eye and not the other way around.
We fought, him lashing at me with his claws and beak. Me bashing him into the void again and again. Our wounds mended and we began again.
We fought for so long that we bonded in a stupid sort of way. We healed so much and felt so much pain that we grew numb to it. Our fights went from life critical to just the occasional friendly bout that still ended up gruesome.
Finally, somehow he connected with me. Both our desires and will strengthened the other and fueled the Castle in ways we didn't know.
There was no bright to help calculate how long had passed. But in there with nothing but a bird to talk with my mind grew cold.
Just when I had given up on ever seeing the bright light again sometime weird happened.
A tug at my soul. I felt something bind to me like a strong fetter. It seemed even Feathers felt it as he glanced around his black beady eyes searching for whatever had grasped onto me.
A few moments later we both forgot about it shrugging it off as something strange in here.
Then a crack sounded in my head. For the first time in who knew how long the voice echoed in my head. I would be lying if I said I didn't miss it. Yet its words had me pausing.
- Your Butler has met the hidden requirements -
- Your evolution is complete -
'Butler? How and when did I even get a butler? Wait, I'm still evolving?.' Yet my surprise was only momentary as I heard the voice again. Its excitement was very annoyingly obvious.
- You are waking -
I didn't know what the voice was so excited about but I didn't care. All I wanted was to wake up and get as far away from this Castle as I could before I got thrown into another cage of darkness.
A bright light shattered the void, its ray primed onto me. I felt like an angel ascending back to the Bright realm. My body rose to hover for a second when a caw sounded out.
Looking I saw Feathers trying to reach me and unable to as the void seemed to trap it in its hold. Eyes narrowed I reached out with a hand grasping for the only friend I had made within this cage.
A first nothing happened, then slowly a shattering appeared in the void this one dimmer and less bright, unlike mine. Slowly I watched as Feathers ascended with me.
By the time we reached the peak of the light, it was so bright that we had to seal our eyes shut.
The sound of cracking and breaking filled my ears as something shattered around me. My body which felt stiff loosened up like a bind was released.
Then my feet touched the ground. My eyes opened taking the familiar yet a bit strange sight before me.
I barely hesitated as I rose to ignore everything around me, even the weird red-eyed guy standing and looking up at me with immense horror in his eyes.
'What's he staring at me like that for? ' uncaring for his gaze I walked to the edge of the room where the wall blocked me.
I felt stuffy in here. A long time within a dark cage didn't help my thoughts and I wanted out. Without waiting or thinking I leaped forward expecting to punch the wall and crack it a bit. Then repeat till I got out. I didn't want to head through the dark Castle as I could feel my new aversion to darkness in my mind. I wasn't allergic to it or anything like that.
Just fed up. I wanted light.
My body met the wall and went through it. There was no crack no shatter no explosion of debris or stones. The wall simply eviscerated, turning to nothing but dust where my body touched.
I was outside now. The air and the light of the moon on my skin robbing my mind of the thoughts running through it.
I fell my body plummeting till finally, I met the ground shattering it beneath me. My body was now in a huge hole that luckily had more depth than width. I leaped out once more and landed as lightly as possible already noting different things by now.
Yet once again my mind was scrubbed clean of those thoughts, my nostrils filled with the fresh scent of the evening breeze. The wind tickled my skin as my feet scraped the ground. My hands clenching and unclenching.
"Air, ground. I can feel again, I can breathe again. " My voice was deep unlike what I expected. Exhaling for a moment I then breathed in looking up to the moon as it bathed me in its energy I yelled out.
"I. AM. FREE!!!"
My voice like a shockwave rushed in all directions spreading as far as it could stirring up the waves of sand and dust even collapsing houses along the way. Not like I knew.
My eyes raked my entire body as I noted things that weren't present before. The most important though was the two huge wings that stretched out behind me.
"That's more like it" remembering the stumps from before my evolution I couldn't help but nod in appreciation of the new ones. The wings spread over twenty feet in length, not just long but wide.
"Wait. That would mean.." accessing my height I realized I was even taller. No not just taller, towering. I was like a behemoth standing at about twelve ft in height.
"Lovely" I muttered before feeling out my wings. The leathery thickness of them protected with silver scales beneath black feathers. Two large horns grew out of the joints where my wings folded giving it a more devilish look than angelic.
The wings raised their tips pointing to the skies showcasing the sharp pints that resembled blades.
"Magnificent." I crouched a feeling in me that I was capable of more now than before when I was just an angel with stumps. Then I leaped and the floor beneath me disappeared. The ground caved in creating yet another large hole that I almost didn't notice.
"Skip the jumps them" I muttered to myself. Halfway through the leap that had already taken me up to the castle's topmost still standing spire my wings which were still stretched out and flapped.
It was thunderous. The gale that they created blew the tip of the spire to smithereens while my body shot up like a rocket. While I had no mental way to calculate my speed I was certain that I just crossed two miles in one flap. Hovering there I looked at the still-bright moon feeling its energy filling my body endlessly.
Then I looked down and my joy was snuffed.
"It's still the same huh". I muttered.