Freak

Chapter I

He stood looking out of the gates, into the eyes of the girl that he had seen so long ago. She hadn’t changed much aside from the fact that she was wearing some sort of post apocalyptic apparel. They all were; an unnecessary reminder of the destruction he had caused. As he looked beyond them, Lampâ saw what resembled a forest from hell. Trees were burning, bushes burning, everything just burning. The ground was cracked and fire gushed out like a liquid.

“We hoped you were coming out soon.” She said with a melodious voice.

“Well your friends there don’t look too happy to see me. Maybe I should go back and resurrect angry back there and let him deal with you.” He said grimly. The mob was getting angry, and voices of unrest and dissent spread through the crowd.

‘I better wrap this up.’ He thought

“Well I am glad you defeated him, now if could you please step beyond those forsaken gates, we could talk this out like civilized beings.” It suddenly occurred to him that he never learned her name, having only seen her a few times

“Well your friends don’t look too ‘civilized’ to me..." There was a pause. "I don't believe I ever learned your name.” ‘After all we have been through I should have learned it.’ He thought, mentally slapping himself.

“I am surprised you haven't learned it by now. It’s Felicia, and you have my word that we will not harm you.” She said. He studied her; she had gotten good at concealing her emotions, he couldn’t even peer into her soul, for he found an impenetrable barrier surrounding her thoughts. ‘This has to be a trap.’ He thought ‘They wouldn’t risk bringing her to meet me, too many hellspawn around.'

“Well, thank you but no thank you Felicia. You see I actually want to talk civilly, and to do that I have to stay here or your friends would tear me to shreds.” He saw a flash of surprise in her eyes. His suspicions were correct, it had been a trap.

“What do you plan to do with me? After all, I saved your asses from destruction.” He asked, glaring at the mob.

“After being the one that caused it in the first place, I say we have every right to ‘tear you to shreds’ as you put it.”

“Hmm well, Felicia, I have seen what I've done. I see now that it was wrong. I no longer wish destruction upon the world, despite being the one to bring it to it's breaking point in the past. I wish to redeem myself. Perhaps we could, strike a deal?”

“What kind of deal?” She asked with suspicion, inspecting him in a new light.

“The kind where you get your revenge and I get to redeem myself.” He said matter-of-factually. “You let me live in order to help with clean up detail, and I will face your new justice laws once you establish them.”

“That sounds fair,” She said “But how do we know you aren’t lying? What’s to stop you from running off when we let you through?”

“Good question,” He chuckled and procured a small piece of crystal from a formation on the ground, snapping it away with immense heat. “I will bind a part of my soul into this stone. Take great care to protect it, for if you destroy it I will not die and I will be able to leave. But so long as you hold it, I am subject to your will.”

A moment of silence, as Felicia considered the deal.

“Fine do it; then you will face justice.” She snapped, and the mob reluctantly backed down.

“The spell takes several hours, as it is physically separating part of my soul from me. I will need protection from any hellspawn that attack me, and you need to not kill me when I step from the gate.”

“Fine," She snapped again, "Just get it over with.” He quickly stepped forward, and the mob parted before him, like water from Moses. Sitting down into a kneeling position, he held the stone tight with two hands and began to pray in Latin, a long and complex prayer. Slowly, after several minutes, the stone began to glow a unearthly green; slowly at first, then brighter. It had been several hours before he slumped over, and let the stone drop to the ground.

Panting heavy breaths, he gently sat up and handed Felicia the stone. She took it.

"So you have to do what I say now?" She asked.

"Y-yes..." He was panting heavily, having trouble speaking. "I... Do..."

“What happens if it is not within your physical abilities to do it?”

“Well..." He took a deep gulp of air, "I would have to do it even if it,” He stopped for a breath again “Was not within my energy. It would kill me, if I didn't know how to do it; I would have to try my best.” He was on one knee again; the world spinning around him.

“Mind you... I will need at least a day to recover, severing ones soul is no easy feat.” He slurred out.

“Noted. Now you will march back to base, with no water or food until tomorrow morn.” He looked up at her with an incredulous expression, and she returned it with one of firm anger. She wouldn't stand for anything. Quickly nodding, he got up and took a few steps forward.

‘I refuse to fall over in front of them. I won’t give up.' He thought drearily, and managed to make it to their base, where he passed out before walking another step.

He awoke in the morning in a cell, a tray of skewered and burnt rats, with a filthy water glass sitting before him. There was a note; it read:
Eat up ye freak, you don’t know when the next meal is coming.

He briefly considered purifying the water and hunting his own food when he left their presence, but he decided to eat it; showing that he could still defy them to some degree might enrage some of the citizens, and that would only end badly. Downing the water and munching on the bland rats, he thought about how things would fare for him from there. Getting up and stretching, he found the door to his cell open slightly. Pushing it open and walking out, he was greeted by glares and a few titles. He ignored them, as he had before.

Walking to the base's gates, he found Felicia standing on guard with a rifle, and a group of hunters surrounded her. She nodded to him; it was time to go hunting.

A few months passed, and eventually they moved from their small village into the city of New York, it being the closest to them. After a well thought out attack, they took the majority of the city with minimal casualties. Stretching his muscles, he looked at the sky, which was once the nice light shade of cyan blue, was now stained red, as if the blood of those who had died had seeped into the sky. He sighed once and then got back to work.

Another few months later, Felecia declared the city free of the hellspawn, and she kept the name New York, but instead raised a new flag. It depicted a flame, golden in color, surrounded by Latin writing. The phrase said: Quamquam flammas, portabantur on; Despite the flames, we carried on. She named the city the first to be freed, and the start of a new nation. It was time for him to go. Felicia declared him a threat to their new society and had to be killed.

Waking up a few days later, he blinked several times before getting up and going about his daily morning routine. Get dressed, head outside, go to his favorite part in the park before it was destroyed, and sat there for many minutes. Eventually, he felt the presence of another. Looking behind him, he saw Felicia looking at him with a neutral expression.

He chuckled slightly and gave a small smile.

"It's time already?"

She kept a passive expression. "Yes."

Standing without another word, she led him through the city towards an old football stadium. Inside was a well perfected gallows platform, with a single noose.

"Seems a little old fashioned, don't you think?" He asked dryly. She didn't respond.

He sighed for what seemed like the thousandth time in the past few days and walked up to the gallows. The noose hanging from the beam above him was fit around his neck, nice and snug.

“Do the Condemned have any last words?” Said the executioner.

Lampâ said nothing.

‘Don’t give them the satisfaction of struggling.’

The lever was pulled and a black blanket was pulled over his eyes. Letting out his last breath, which he inadvertently been holding, he fell slack as the rope prevented him from breathing.

He awoke, struggling against the veil that was blocking him from his body. Squirming through the small cracks of light he say in the black void, his whole field of vision was suddenly flooded with a blinding light, and he instinctively slammed his eyes shut again. Peeking out through his eyelids again, the light didn't seem as blinding, so he slowly fluttered them open and found staring at a blue sky. Blinking once, he shook his head and slowly pushed himself up , groaning as he did so.

His heart began to pump faster, supplying his brain with oxygen, and he slowly looked around, taking in his surroundings. He was in a small clearing in a dense, dark green forest. There looked a lot like a jungle, except that the trees were one you would find in a forest. Bringing a fist to his mouth, he coughed several times and got up, smacking his lips.

'What the hell happened?' Was his first real thought, as his mental faculties slowly began to return. He remembered, ... Something...

Groaning and rubbing his face drearily, he set off with no real goal in mind, but something drove him that way. The half asleep human simply followed his urges till he came upon a small stream. Slowly shuffling into it, a blast of cold hit his legs and he tripped, falling face first into the water and he finally snapped out of his trance and let loose a brief scream, accompanied with a flounder of his limbs before he caught himself, and stood up in the chest deep stream. Grabbing hold of a nearby root of some kind, he pulled himself out of the freezing water.

Looking at his surroundings with real clarity, his calm expression changed to one of confusion.

"What...?" He asked, looking around. "I died." He said, grabbing his head with a grimace as a headache slowly worked its way into his head, as it tried to make sense of the logical paradox. Then again, most things he wouldn't have even thought of before all of this were true; but this was quite possibly the weirdest.

Another particular of the area around him struck him as odd. Nothing was burning. Looking up, he confirmed this again. Everything on Earth was burning right now, yet here was this little patch of paradise.

"Oh man, this definitely tops the list." He mumbled, running a hand through his hair. Doing a quick inspection of his body, he found he was whole, and one-hundred percent alive. He coughed again. Getting up again, he set off in the same direction he was going before, and walked for several minutes before realizing he was getting nowhere. The forest around him looked the same as it did ten minutes ago.

A branch rustled. Quickly turning around and bringing his arms up, he fell into a fighting position. The bushes rustled again, but nothing emerged. Cautiously approaching the bush, he pushed it back slowly and it revealed... Something. What he was looking at was quite possible one of the weirdest things he had ever seen. It was something that looked like a horrible mishmash of a chicken, a bat, and a lizard. It was slowly slithering around, and paid him no attention before disappearing from his view behind another bush.

Scratching his head quizzically, he turned around slowly, before coming face to face with the thing, and it was staring right at him with blood red eyes, a hostile expression on it's face.