Monster

An unknown amount of time passed before I sensed anything again. The first thing I felt to wake me was the dominating power I had come to know. The oppressive force that pinned me down like a cat caught beneath a freight train. My eyes flew open at the feeling of the entity’s presence. When I opened my eyes again, I saw a familiar sight. The dark shadow-cast forest on the outskirts of the fields hung above me. My body was half sunk into the loose soil of the forest floor. Massive roots crawled away from the gigantic pale trees all around me.

“I told you that you could be trapped in other places,” the entity stood over me, still presenting himself as Jon, the former monster.

I stood quickly to my feet to meet him. I was a little frazzled honestly at where I was standing since the last thing I remembered was standing in a world being eaten by the void.

“Yeah… thanks for the help,” I said, exhaling, thankful that it was over. Violent flashes and images ripped behind my eyes. Everything that happened in that world was so loud, so distorted.

Its voice came out monotone as usual, “Take this as a lesson. There are other places like the one you were just in. If you end up in one unintentionally, you could be trapped like you felt initially. Specific things need to be in place for us to do what we did. I’m not faulting you… since this plan has been set in motion for lifetimes. Cut and pruned by your predecessors to be executed by you in your time as my herald.” The entity smiled… disturbingly like it was trying to force a look that came naturally to human beings. He looked like a robot reading the definition of a smile, trying to imitate it. “It is nice to see well-laid plans come to fruition.”

“So this… all this was part of it? To kill Peter’s Primeval… his benefactor?” I asked, snapping my mind back from the grand scale of everything that had just happened, to my home. Back to my smaller life, and my friends. “Can I kill Peter now? Will it stick this time?”

The entity nodded. “Yes.”

I waited for more… but he remained silent. “Are you going to explain anything about what just happened there? Did we… did we destroy a whole world?” My mind was struggling to fathom the immensity of the things I saw taking place. Things that I would have never imagined or dreamed. “Why did it call me brother? It was like it knew…” I looked down at my body and touched my chest, which was fully healed. “It was like he knew this thing inside of me…” I trailed off, replaying the words that were spoken inside of my mind.

The entity stopped looking at me and began to pace around between the looming dark woods. “Now that you have firsthand knowledge, I may speak more freely.”

I stood there waiting, but he never spoke again. I was confused. Didn’t he just say he was about to spill his guts on this shit? “Well?”

“You must ask specific questions. I can answer questions that are allowed, but I cannot just spill my guts.” He answered like he knew my thoughts.

“That thing was a Primeval… what is that?” was the first thing I thought to ask.

“Primevals were creatures of specific power and purpose. They hold great power; aspects of the world itself. Their time was set for when the world was young. Each Primeval held a domain, a center point to control forces that were… natural for them to wield.” The being paced circles around me as he spoke, like a predator circling its prey. “When their time ended, they did not want to surrender the power they were granted.”

“That thing… he called you a thief… murderer of their world? Why?”

He stopped pacing and stood still, looking straight at me. “Because… when they wouldn’t give up what they had, I came for it. That is when they all began to hide.” The entity began pacing again, continuing with his calculated explanation. “He sensed within you, the power of the first Primeval to fall. Your language doesn’t have the reach to encompass its full name, but I believe you heard it, and your brain registered it as, Myoordrakien.”

That name sent chills down my spine as we talked beneath the trees. I said it in my head, over and over again. I felt the monster shift inside me, almost in recognition or something.

“So this thing… this monster I turn into is… a Primeval?” It was world-shaking. I knew I had something dark in me… but this… this was something I was not prepared for. Something more powerful and more dangerous than I ever could have imagined.

“Yes, but it is a mere fraction that I allow you to contain. He was the first of your kind… the first to do my bidding in your world.”

At those words, the black forest seemed to disappear as Jon was no more. His body shifted to black and grew to towering heights. I was a speck of dust in the presence of something greater. This was not the form of the entity… it was the form of the first Primeval… Myoordrakien.

The sky split open with a deafening crack of thunder, jagged forks of lightning briefly tearing through the blackness, revealing the nightmare before me. In that fleeting flash, I saw it… a colossal shadow that blotted out the horizon. For a heartbeat, its form was revealed, and terror gripped me. Towering black, craggy scales rose like mountains into the storm-darkened sky, vast wings spreading wide as if they could consume the heavens themselves. Their unfurling was a threat, their vastness an omen of doom, swallowing the light until the world beneath was drowned in suffocating darkness.

Its talons… monstrous, blackened spikes of bone that speared into the earth like blades driven into flesh. They anchored its enormous bulk, though it moved with dreadful ease. On all fours, it was already towering over me like a god of death, yet the dark, primal knowledge crept into my mind… it could stand. It could rise on its hind legs and eclipse the world itself. This was no mere beast, it was ancient, something older than fear itself. A creature born from the very fabric of nightmares.

Every inch of it screamed violence. Its body was a fortress of jagged, lethal angles, a living weapon, every spike and scale designed to destroy. Thick, sinuous tentacles, sheathed in razor-edged scales, writhed down its back like prehensile cables, alive with dark intent. They bristled with malice, each one poised to lash out and tear the forest from its roots, to shred anything in its path with brutal efficiency.

Its maw remained closed, but the silence was somehow more terrifying than any roar. It didn’t need to open its jaws to assert its dominance. Its mere presence crushed me beneath an invisible weight, my insignificance laid bare. Black, soulless orbs sat deep in its skull, each the size of a towering building. Those eyes… they weren’t just looking at me. They consumed me, hollow voids that swallowed hope and breathed annihilation. Inside the emptiness of those endless eyes, a single command reverberated from them and into my mind. Primal and absolute. KILL.

Then, as soon as the next flash of lightning lit up the nightmare, it was gone, and I could breathe again. The entity didn’t form in front of me, but its voice spoke like he was right there.

“He was the first to enact my will. The only of his brothers and sisters to submit to their purpose. When he bowed to his death, that’s when I came up with a plan. The other Primevals fled, using the power they would not release to create hidden places, worlds, and plains of existence to hide from their fate. I cannot go into those places on my own. But someone else could, given the right circumstances. So… Myoordrakien, the first Primeval, the embodiment of annihilation became my hand. He wanted things the way they were meant to be, as was his original purpose. To kill… to destroy… to prune the growth of the world and make way for the next wave of life. He saw his sibling's revolt as a direct opposition to his work… all the work to be done.”

The world around me suddenly shifted, reality twisting and warping with such violent speed that the ground vanished beneath my feet. One moment I stood amidst the thick shadows of the forest, and the next, I was thrust atop a colossal cliff. The disorientation struck like a hammer, but I steadied myself, gasping as I took in the scene before me. Vast, endless fields sprawled out in every direction, stretching beyond sight like a sea of silent, untouched land. It was breathtaking and yet eerily still, as if time itself had stopped.

Then, from the crushing silence, a voice emerged from behind me, rich with ancient authority.

“Yet the work was vast, and much was still required. It took too long, the Primevals proving to be elusive and hard to pin down. My chosen could not walk the earth anymore, its power growing too great. After he killed a select few of its brothers and sisters, we had to make adjustments. To kill the Primevals, we still needed Myoordrakien, but he could not be in your world anymore. He was growing too strong. So I brought him here.”

As I turned, my breath caught in my throat, and my gaze fell upon a sight that twisted my stomach with terror. A crater, vast as an ocean, carved deep into the earth. But this was no tranquil sea. Instead of water, it housed the decaying, monstrous remains of a titan, a corpse so immense it defied reason. Its broken body stretched endlessly, rib bones the size of mountains jutted from desiccated flesh, jagged and cruel, spearing upward toward the sky like a forest of skeletal spires. The ground around it seemed to have withered beneath the weight of its death, cracked and dry, as though the land itself had been drained of life.

The titan’s length sprawled toward the horizon, disappearing into the distance, its bulk too great for my eyes to comprehend in full. Its flesh, once thick and powerful, had turned to leathery husks, split in places where the bones tore through, like sharpened blades trying to escape the rotting prison of its own body. The air was thick with the sickly stench of decay, mingling with an oppressive silence that made every inch of me scream to run, yet I could not tear my eyes away.

And then, at the center of this grave of bones and ruin, I saw it; an opening, a gaping wound in the petrified flesh, oozing with ancient malice. From within, something pulsed. An ominous red glow emanated from deep inside. Its rhythm slow and deliberate, like the beat of a massive, cursed drum. It wasn’t just a light. It was alive. The titan was still alive, its heart still beating, thudding with the force of ages long forgotten.

Every pulse sent a tremor through the air, vibrating the very ground beneath my feet, each beat a reminder of the monstrosity’s lingering power. That grotesque heart, lodged within the decaying titan’s chest, radiated malevolent energy that pressed against my mind, filling me with dread beyond words. It was as if the corpse itself still hungered, still thirsted for destruction… for death; and the heart was the center of that insatiable craving.

A figure emerged from the shadows, materializing before me. It was a man, but not just any man. He looked as if he had stepped out of time itself, from an ancient and forgotten world. His light brown skin was etched with intricate tattoos, symbols whose meanings had long since been lost. Piercings adorned his face and body in patterns that hinted at rituals and beliefs long buried. His eyes were black as midnight. They matched the darkened void I had glimpsed in my own reflection before a transformation… as the beast clawed at my mind. Those eyes carried a weight, a darkness familiar to me.

“New deals were made. New people to bear the burden of being my hand in this world,” the entity's voice echoed through him, hollow and dispassionate. His mouth moved, but the voice did not belong to the man. It belonged to the entity.

Without warning, his form shifted. His features melted away, reconfiguring into a woman. Her face, though equally ancient, bore the hallmarks of a different time, a different place. Her clothing was ornate, with symbols and styles from a culture I could not place, but it was clear she, too, was marked by the same curse. Her eyes, black as the first man's, locked onto mine. They were a mirror to the abyss that threatened to consume me.

"Every bearer," she began, but her form twisted again, this time into an elderly man, frail and withered with age. His skin sagged over his bones, but his eyes, still that same endless black, held the same lifeless gaze. His voice was monotone, unchanged despite the transformation. "There is always one, in every age, to carry out the duty."

The figure began to shift faster now, the transitions between faces and bodies becoming a blur. I saw people from all walks of life… warriors, royalty, peasants, shamans… each with the same inky voids where their eyes should have been. Their expressions remained eerily calm as they passed before me, their faces becoming indistinguishable from one another, yet each was unique, a different person. Every one of them bore the same burden, a piece of the monster inside. I watched as the faces multiplied. Men, women, young, old, their features dissolving into one another like shadows. Some wore ornate jewels and cloaks, others the rough garb of the earth, but the blackness in their eyes tied them together, revealing their shared fate.

These were the ones who had come before me. The predecessors. Their names, once carved into the blade I carried, now danced before my eyes in living, shifting forms. I was not merely looking at faces… I was witnessing the weight of countless lifetimes, the horror of the task they had been forced to endure. The curse they had carried. And then, the shifting stopped. The figure settled into one final form. Jon, my direct predecessor. His familiar face, now tainted with the same blackness in his eyes, stared back at me.

"Every single one of you has housed a portion of him within yourselves, passing from one to the next," Jon said, his voice low and foreboding as he pointed beyond me, out into the crater. My gaze followed his hand, dread creeping up my spine. He was pointing directly at the pulsing, red heart of the first Primeval.

“Is that why… Is that why I feel it all the time? Why it craves death… why it’s only satisfied by killing people?” I asked as the terrible realization hit me. “Because what’s in me is… that thing?”

“Yes,” was all Jon said.

I shook my head… in relief. The answer. The very thing I had searched for my whole time as this cursed being… it was right here. I had something so ancient and so destructive inside me that I would never have figured it out in this world with the sliver of knowledge that these people in this time had. It was a truth that was on a whole other scale… and what it would even mean… I don’t know. But… somehow… I felt calm. I felt a peace settle over me as the realization hit. I couldn’t explain it, and I didn’t want to. I just stood there on the cliff, staring out at the great expanse, and watched the red light pulse from within the behemoth's corpse.

“The monster gives you power, the blade gives you a connection to me, in this place. Which, is how we killed the Unseen.”

"The Unseen? The Primeval?" I asked, a sinking feeling tightening in my gut. I could sense a flood of information looming, something I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

His words were measured, and deliberate, like he was unspooling some ancient, forbidden truth. "The true name of that Primeval is unimportant. What it did to the world, throwing things off balance is what mattered. When people like Peter... or Mucia... reach out into the void, seeking power beyond their means, it’s usually the Unseen who answers. He had immense strength within his own realm, as you saw, and through those who submit to his will, he magnifies their abilities in the living world. But it's a twisted gift. His influence causes untold chaos, disrupting the order… the balance. He had many in your world that served him, and they were pruned precisely to only one. If any others survived… the threat of his power growing in a human, and reforming remains. This is why it takes centuries… eons to kill a Primeval. One must wipe out every branch of power that extends from them first, before felling the tree."

“What do you mean?” I asked, confused. “I thought a Primeval could only have one… like you… like me?”

“We are different… and I believe I told you once already. I am no Ancient… which in turn would mean, I am not a Primeval.” Jon’s eyes were cold orbs of void and detachment.

He turned his head slowly, his expression dark. “I cannot reach into dimensions, not directly. The only reason you gained entry was because Peter Grimwood took you there himself. He had the power… the connection to the Unseen’s corruption. He was given the ability to traverse between your world and his. He got us in, but it was the power of Myoordrakien that allowed you to survive. To keep you moving in that world long enough to find the Primeval hiding there.” He turned to face me again. “When I was ready, when everything was in place, that’s when I spoke to you, and you pulled the blade.”

I remembered his words. They cut through existence itself as I prepared to die before the domineering power of the Unseen. Its green orb of flames blotting out the sky above me, on its way to eat my life force away.

“The blade, once pulled from the void, allowed me access to bleed into that plain… into its very realm. Once the door was open, he had nowhere to hide. His power, finally returned as it all should be.” Jon clenched his fist tightly, satisfaction was evident as one of the only emotions I ever witnessed on the entity’s mask.

“So… we just keep doing that? Slip into their world, pull the blade, and let you wipe them out? Then we’re done?” I had a glint of hope shoot through me as the thought of just doing a rinse-and-repeat kind of deal would end this set of circumstances.

Jon actually laughed at me… the second emotion I ever saw. I couldn’t tell if it was another forced emotion or not. Either way, this guy was turning into a real living, breathing, sarcastic asshole.

“If only it were that easy, Sam. As I already said, this is a battle over lifetimes, we must prune their energy… their lifelines that are stretched out to individuals across the world. Then we must gain access to them. You will not see all of them wiped out… but there is other work you will do. The Primevals are not the only threat… just the oldest.”

"What else is there?" I asked, my voice sharp with frustration, irritated that my plan to rush through this cursed existence had just been shattered. The weight of it all pressed down on me, my impatience bubbling to the surface, but Jon said nothing.

He didn’t even turn to look at me. Instead, he simply turned his back, his silence like a heavy wall between us. I felt a familiar and unsettling shift in the air, the world bending and twisting around us as if reality itself had been pulled apart. The ground beneath me vanished, and the landscape unraveled in a violent blur of shadows and light.

Before I could even process it, we were ripped back to the dark forest of pale, bone-white trees. They stretched impossibly tall, their branches clawing at the blackened sky. It was the same place where I had first awakened in this nightmare after watching a world be eaten by darkness. A cold breeze swept through, rustling the dead leaves underfoot.

Jon remained silent, his figure barely distinguishable in the gloom, but I knew the answer to my question wasn’t coming. His refusal to speak hung in the air like a judgment, and I was left standing there, once again at the mercy of this dark, twisted world. The eerie stillness of the forest pressed in around me, and it became clear that I wasn’t getting an answer. Not here, not now.

“So, I guess I only have one more question, then,” I said, my voice low, already knowing deep down that he wouldn’t answer. Still, part of me hoped he might. He had already told me a metric shit ton of things I hadn’t expected, after all. “What are you?”

He turned slowly, his eyes locking onto mine with that cold, blank stare that seemed to drain the warmth from the air around us. There was no emotion there, just an eerie emptiness, like looking into the void itself. “You’re almost there…” His voice was calm, and distant, like he was speaking to someone far away. It held an eerie warning.

“But I still have to come to that on my own?” I repeated what I knew he would say; what he had said before.

He only nodded once, a slow, deliberate movement that carried the weight of inevitability. For a moment, the silence between us stretched, heavy and oppressive, before he spoke again. “You’ll need clothes for where we’re going.”

I glanced down at the dark shadows pooling around my feet. “Where are we going?”

Without a word, he reached out and placed his hand on my shoulder. His touch was cold, almost electric, and before I could react, everything around me went white. Time seemed to hang there, suspended, until the whiteness began to dissolve, clearing away like fog burning off in the morning sun.

Suddenly, I was standing inside a house. At first, it didn’t register where I was, but there was something familiar about it, something that tugged at the edges of my memory. Then it hit me. It was Shelta’s house, the place we had all gathered before to see if Shelta could look inside me somehow.

My clothes had been burned away, scorched to ash in the hell I had endured. They had been torn from me during my transformation, yet when I looked down, I was fully clothed. My usual attire was back as if nothing had ever happened.

I could hear crying… soft, heart-wrenching sobs that seemed to echo through the walls. My heart pounded in my chest as I moved toward the sound, creeping through the silent house. The moment I stepped into the living room, my breath left me in a sharp, painful gasp. Shelta was there, kneeling over Annabelle’s lifeless body, her form stretched out across the floor like a broken doll. Patrick and his mother were huddled on the couch, their faces streaked with tears, their bodies wracked with silent sobs.

Something was wrong… horribly wrong. I watched their grief unfold in front of me, but it felt... disconnected. It was as if I were watching a silent movie, the scene playing out without sound. Yet, I could still hear crying. The sound of it was clear, raw with pain, but it didn’t match what I was seeing. Shelta’s face twisted in agony, but her sobs didn’t align with the movements of her body. It was like an echo, a distant memory playing over itself in a loop, and none of it made sense.

The difference between what I saw and what I heard gnawed at me, a creeping realization that this wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. But the pain, the grief... it felt all too real. I stood frozen, unable to look away as my mind screamed for answers.

“Shelta… what happened?” I asked, even though I knew what had to have happened.

Shelta didn’t respond. I spoke again, but nothing. I talked to Patrick and Sarah, but they never acknowledged me.

I looked to the corner of the living room to see something even more peculiar. There in the corner, looking down at Annabelle’s body, was Annabelle herself.

“Annabelle,” I sputtered, confused.

“Oh, Sam. I knew you’d make it,” she actually hugged me at my approach. “I knew you would be here, but I was confused when you didn’t come. We had to carry on without you… but now I can see why…”

“I don’t really know what’s happening,” I told her.

“That’s all right, my boy. I believe I understand now. I thought I could see you now for some unknown reason, but… I was wrong. I caught the smallest glimpse of you because we would both be on this side of life, at the same time,” Annabelle spoke, but stopped quickly at the sight of something behind me.

I looked back to see what she saw. It was Jon, he was right there behind me. His facial expression looked different though. He usually looked stern, stone-cold, and unfeeling; when he looked at Annabelle, he looked… welcoming.

“Oh my…” Annabelle's eyes went wide for a moment, and then slowly softened in relaxation. “I see now,” she let out a sigh of relief. “Well… at least now I know they’ll all be safe around you.”

“What do you see?” I looked back to Annabelle as she gazed upon Jon. I did a double take, looking back and forth between Jon and the eldest Wicklow.

“No, Sam,” Jon spoke as he stepped around me, grabbing Annabelle’s hand. “That is not what we are here for.”

“Michael… I’ve missed you so much,” Annabelle spoke warmly to the person I knew as Jon but called him her dead husband's name. “Where’s Bartley?”

“We’ll be with him soon, my dear. Everyone is waiting for you,” Jon spoke to her.

When Annabelle looked at Jon, I wasn’t sure that she saw who I saw. She was calling him Michael; her late husband’s name was Michael.

“Will they all be okay, dear? I hate to leave them all like this… with so much still to do,” Annabelle asked Jon about her family.

“This is how it is meant to be. They’ll make it out okay. Peter’s time has already come to an end, his power to come back is cut off, and his life will soon be over for good. No one else will be taken by him,” Jon assured her.

“Good,” Annabelle smiled. “If that is the case, then I am ready to go.” Annabelle reached up and braced herself against Jon’s arm.

I watched them walk out of the silent house as the rest of her family still grieved and cried amongst the sorrow of the home. Two very different worlds existed in the same space; the living and the dead. Shockingly the dead seemed happier than the living. Was this right? What was Jon going to do to her?

I followed Jon and Annabelle outside where they stopped in the front yard.

“Annabelle…” I was at a loss with what to do with any of it. “What’s going to happen? What do I do…?” I asked them both.

Jon was as cold as ice per usual and said nothing, but Annabelle spoke.

“Be with the ones you love, Sam. You only have so much time with them until it’s over. Then you’ll have to wait until you see them again… but we will see all of the ones we love again, Sam. That’s the thing to hold onto, my dear.”

I was frozen, locked in fear and uncertainty of everything. So many things had happened, were happening, and still needed to be done, yet things were becoming more evident.

“You’ll go back, and you’ll put an end to Peter,” Jon said.

“Then, it’s over?” I asked.

“Peter, yes… but the work… the work will never be done. The names will come,” Jon assured. “Now, it’s time to part ways,” Jon said as I felt the earth beneath my feet begin to shake.

A humming ring tore into my eardrums louder and louder as things started turning white again. Before the last bit of the world was blinded from my view, I heard the entity one last time.

“Peter Grimwood,” his ominous voice commanded. It was his sentence... and the sentence... was death.

At his final word, everything was gone, and I was taken someplace else.