Fires of Destruction
I do have many memories of my childhood left, when I used to live in a small human village. I believe them to be brief flashes of my own remembrance or perhaps some drawings I made out of my brother’s words. True or made up, It won’t make any difference, now. Past is past.
They said that it happened in a stormy night, our birth. The village had previously suffered from an harsh winter and from a summer as dry as a desert under the afternoon sun. Everyone was trapped in misery, trying to survive the best they could. I also heard that many children had died from undefined causes, leaving most of the villagers in terrible sorrow. Maybe all of this was already our fault, after all? Yes, despite all these bad events, my mother was waiting to give us birth. A miracle, some thought, a blessing! Despite those dark times, we would have been a beautiful gift.
Alas, the gift was poisoned, corrupted and tainted with evil. That night, my mother brought to the world my brother and I, twins with reddish skin; spawns of a succubus. Those tiny bumps on the forehead, those piercing red eyes… I learned, later on, that my mother thought she could hide us and perhaps even change our nature. On the other hand, my dad had always been against it, believing the rumors above anything else. Sad.
Nonetheless, we were not killed on that night. We were only children, after all. Children able to learn like any other. Our family kept it as a secret for a few years, as long as my mother had hopes we could turn out to be something else, better, good. Sadly, as the years passed, I remember noticing the black circles around her eyes grow darker. Malachite and I were uncontrollable and potentially dangerous, just like fire.
One evening, we caught a private conversation between our "parents". Our dad was trying to convince Mother about the fact that we should, once and for all, be destroyed. It couldn’t continue like that, she was sinking more and more into depression and had almost completely stopped eating. Worry and remorse were feeding on her.
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The flames were dancing, lighting up the night sky with shades of reds and yellows. It was pretty. It is true that such an arid summer had made the hay so dry and extremely flammable… Malachite and I were watching, from the top of a hill, our entire village turn to ashes. I still do remember the screams of those trying to escape this hell my brother had created. I also remember myself feeling nothing at all, as if it was nothing more than a nest of ants being destroyed. Emptiness, a feeling that I would soon learn to know well.
We deserve to exist too, don’t we?
