For this to make sense, I feel I have to explain who Reigh is.

Reigh is a Chaos demon (needs no further explanation, it is what it sounds like) who is trying to live as a human for some unknown reason.
The thing is that Reigh, to be able to live as a human, has to have people’s life force, or in other words their humanity. This is accomplished by Reigh killing them and inhaling their last breath. I suppose that you could say that he functions like a vampire, only in another way. The longer Reigh holds off killing a person, the more the demon in him takes over, and the more power the demon gains, the stronger, but also more cold-blooded, Reigh becomes.

There is, however, one rule Reigh cannot break, also for an unknown reason:
Reigh cannot kill anybody he does not know the name of.

Also, huge thanks to Channeller, for making this translation come true.

With that out of the way, here is now the first chapter.


It was dark, everything was dark and darkness was everywhere, closing in, excluding light. Reigh felt his way forward along a road covered in mud. His feet hit the mud with a squelching sound, again and again and again.
”There is something ahead, there has to be,” was Reigh’s only thought. He did not know where he was, but there had to be something further ahead. Suddenly there was a circle of howling emptiness, emptiness noticeable even in the dark, rushing towards him. Reigh turned, tried to run, but his feet had sunk too deeply into the dark mud... it was not mud any more, Reigh realised, it was something red... red and warm. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder and saw the empty circle. Felt its emptiness biting down on him, devouring him.
He was in a meadow. Above, a clear blue sky, not the cloudy grey he had grown accustomed to. The sun was beaming down from the sky as Reigh carefully walked through the long, dewy grass, filled with flowers. He reached a waterfall, the crystal water flowing down from the wall of an enormous cliff. The sunshine hit the water and made a rainbow, a rainbow ending just behind Reigh’s back. He followed it with his eyes and had to turn around to see the end of it.
When Reigh turned around he didn’t see a rainbow. The ground was scorched and covered in ashes. There was a lonely blue floor mop lying there. Then the world dissolved.
Reigh was floating. Nothing was anywhere. It was not emptiness, Reigh now realised, it was water. He was under water. Panic began to set in; he had to get to the surface. Where was the surface? Reigh swam, manically searching for a source of light.
Suddenly there was a cave. He moved towards it, desperately kicking. He got inside and swam upwards. He could feel his lungs, ready to burst as he broke the surface.

Chapter I – A small piece of rainbow

Reigh’s eyelids flew open, revealing two bloodshot whites, or should have revealed; the cramped flat was too dimly illuminated for anything besides contours ever being distinguishable. A thin, white ray of light, from a sign somewhere outside in the endless neon landscape his dirty window showed, fell in through a hole in the colourless blinds, cut through air and swirling dust, and bore into his eye. The large, black pupil, opened wide to take is as much darkness as possible and make it into a natural environment, fled, shrinking into a vanishing dot, shocked by the sudden shift in illumination. Around his pupils, the irises showed reddish brown, actually, more red than brown. A low, wordless moan was all that was heard, aside from the cars roaring past outside, the screams accompanying them and the chattering voices still lingering somewhere in the back of Reigh’s head, before he heaved himself out of the bed –it didn’t deserve to be called a bed, he sneered inwardly, it hardly even deserved to be called a floor. A quick look at his wristwatch, glowing numbers giving him the satisfaction he was looking for; 20:43:17. Sweat clung to his body, not that he disliked the salty scent, it was part of him, just like tears, urine and all the other wonderful bodily fluids humans had been blessed with. He groaned at the fading memory of why the sweat was flowing from his pores, if only he could sweat out the nightmares, one by one, but his thoughts failed him, ran through his fingers and landed with a splashing sound in the nothingness underneath, lost until the next time. He needed a shower!
Reigh opened the door to the tiny bathroom and dragged himself inside, still worn, over to the dirty sink. He turned the tap, waiting impatiently while the pipes in the wall started to rattle, inside nourishing a faint doubt about how long water would be a luxury he could afford. The beige goo that always preceded the water started to run from the tap and Reigh reached for the light switch, flipping it a couple of times before his brain cleared enough for the memory of a broken bulb floated to the top of everything spinning in his chaotic mind. Reigh gave up the thought; the light would only sting his eyes even more, now that they were once again set to darkness. It was dark in the room, but Reigh didn’t need light to see. The cream spewing from the tap had not yet turned to the clear, nice liquid called water, and he dedicated the rest of the time to a quick look in the mirror, the only, somewhat, clean thing in the tiny flat. Reigh didn’t care much about his appearance, it usually worked out somehow, but what did interest him were his eyes. He sighed deeply as he saw the red lines in the brown looks he exchanged with himself. It was bound to happen soon, that was clear. Reigh would be forced to kill again. The thought didn’t bother him much; he had gone through it countless times in his mind.
“Every species strive for survival. No hare would hesitate to eat grass, no wolf would hesitate to eat a hare” and Reigh would never hesitate to eat, kill, a wolf. Or a human being. Man was a very strange species, Reigh though. For her, it was not enough to use all subordinate species; she also strived to mercilessly use her own kin. People killed each-other for money, people stole each-other’s money; there was not much a man wouldn’t do for cash, and for most, the question “do you want to survive?” was not something they needed much time to reach an answer to. But man was fickle, often a turncoat, but sometimes, at rare occasions, she would sacrifice everything she owned, throw away her entire life, everything she had fought for decades to build, just to save a child from death. Rush to the kerb, throw yourself in front of the truck and push the little girl out of the way, the girl who, just a few seconds ago, happily had chased the ball her friends happened to kick. The girl who was now frozen in fear, incapable of even screaming. Knock her out of the way, only a couple of metres, out of reach from the rushing truck with the terrified driver behind the wheel, and see your whole life’s jigsaw, every piece you managed to find in your search for the completed collection, scatter and crush along with your spine when the careering grill of a five tonne monster squashed your limbs, crushed your organs and intestines and tore you over to the other side, like a ghost train. Reigh’s eyes closed at the memory, his head shook slowly.
Water started flowing from the tap, the drops hitting the grey metal of the sink, ricocheting in all directions and splashed Reigh’s damp body with their icy cold. Reigh smiled, for the first time since his eyes opened. Partly because of the wonderful, life-giving water that ran along his body, leaving clean trails on sweaty skin. Reigh shivered and smiled, partly due to the water, but also because of where his thoughts had taken him, again. Suddenly he remembered why it was so wonderful to be human, remembered why he endured the disgusting flat, day after day, remembered why he continued to take another step, further along the rails of time. Humanity was a drug, and Reigh was addicted. He filled his cupped hands with the cool liquid, filled them and threw the contents in the weathered face that was his. If only he could get away from the killing. Reigh immediately shook his head, throwing drops of water out of his thick, dark hair. He mustn’t think that, he must never think that! He repeated to himself:
“A wolf never hesitates!” He locked his eyes on himself, pierced his own eyes, would not be defeated by the mirror. He raised a warning finger at his reflection.
“I never, ever hesitate! I won’t bend, I won’t ever give up!” Suddenly his hand was knotted tight, on its way towards the mirror. Too late did Reigh realise his mistake, tried in vain to stop the fist that was shooting towards its mirror image in the shiny glass. The knuckles met for a time too short to hold any meaning, before Reigh felt the glass shatter between the force and the wall, before Reigh saw the shards flying through the air. For a split second, the room was filled with swirling shards of glass, shimmering for Reigh’s light sensitive eyes, for a split second Reigh was the centre of a howling inferno, before the shards jingling and crunching, hurting his ears, fell on the dirty tiles and came to rest.
Reigh sighed, annoyed at his lack of self-discipline. That had been a good mirror, the only clean thing in the entire bathroom, but now it was in pieces, impossible to repair. He took a step back, towards the room, frowning slightly as the glass cut into the toughened soles of his feet, but he forced himself to take another step, and another, as many as it took to get off the path of pain the shards were forming. Another quick look at the watch, 20:47:14, time was a bit short now. Reigh hated feeling stressed, not to be able to do things at his own pace, but he could never help glancing at his wristwatch.
Minutes later, Reigh closed the door to his apartment. “Apartment” was at least what the landlord had the neck to call this rat hole. Wasn’t the rent due soon? Reigh hadn’t seen the landlord for weeks, maybe he was already dead. No great loss, Reigh didn’t know him. Reigh knew few people, and of the few he knew, his disliked most. He got enough social interaction at work, where he was heading now. Bouncer at night clubs like Wicked Mansion sort of got that for free, usually accompanied by some sort of flying objects, preferably a bottle.
He loosened the worn, white belt a little around his trim waist, followed the chain attached to it up towards his armpit, underneath the dark, long coat, where the chain hung on a small hook. It ran down to his waist, then up again around another hook, before finally heading for his left hip, where his hand gripped the familiar, friendly handle of his well balanced katana, neatly stuck in a plain sheath of hard, black leather. The weapon gave Reigh a sense of security, the only security he needed, where it lay hidden beneath his dark coat. It was a pity he had to use it so often, a pity that life and death had such a complicated symbiosis. He didn’t always carry the sword, he told himself. Only when he needed it. He walked down the badly worn hallway, down three graffiti covered stairways, up a fourth and felt the cold air, vaguely smelling of diesel, hit his face as he opened the door and headed out towards Wicked Mansion.
*
Each step Reigh took yielded a splashing echo in his ears. It wasn’t raining anymore, but he supposed it was nothing more than a short break. Life isn’t really more than rain, Reigh thought as a moped droned by, close enough for its rushing tyres to splash a cascade of rainwater over Reigh’s dark boots.
Seemingly unaware, Reigh took another step ahead, without as much as twitch. He was vaguely aware that the woman, the girl, on the back of the moped turned around and called something, but the sound was completely blocked by the rain that once again started falling over anything the drops could find. Reigh smiled. Life was nothing more than rain. One long, torrential rain, with rare breaks. He closed his eyes for a moment and turned his gaze downwards, still. The wet rain hit his neck, colliding softly with dark hair, ran down, dripping from the tangled strands on his forehead, down towards the black cobbles that made up the street. Reigh sighed. Rare breaks, but it was better than the alternatives.
He took yet another step, imperceptibly increasing his speed to make up for the lost seconds. He looked around. The facades were adorned with neon signs, advertising product after product, service after service. Despite the rain there were a lot of pedestrians on the streets, it was a big city after all, and it was Friday night. Sounds cut through the pouring water, vehicles of different kinds honked their horns, excited screams from somewhere in the crowd.
A man and a woman were walking together under a shared umbrella, a red one, as opposed to Reigh cut off from the world in a lively discussion. Suddenly the woman started laughing, a light sound that almost made Reigh smile. The man under the red umbrella gave her a surprised look through his glasses, like he was thinking about what he had just said, that deserved such a reaction. A glimmer of understanding reached the man’s eyes before his face cracked, first into a smile and further into laughter. Then they were gone from Reigh’s vision, probably from his life.
Reigh continued through the rain; he was getting closer, closer to most things. Better than the alternative. A woman, not a girl but not quite a woman yet, suddenly rushed towards him from a dark alley. The girl –was she fifteen? Seventeen?- smacked into Reigh’s right side and stopped for a second. Reigh looked, slightly surprised, down on her. Her head sported two large tufts of hair, one dyed light blue, the other a bright purple. She threw a slightly wary look at Reigh’s dark eyes with her own innocent blue, before she quickly looked down the black alleyway, making her violet fringe dance. She turned back to Reigh, presumably to start some form of conversation, scratched the back of her neck with a blue mitten -all the fabric around the fingers had been cut away, except for her little finger- and frowned.
“Where did he go?” she asked.
Nobody answered, and she ran off on impulse.
Reigh turned around, just a few feet away, and saw her dart through the crowds. She looked like a lost piece of the rainbow, like blue and purple had lost the rest of the colours. He sighed. Except black and grey. He wouldn’t have minded talking to her for a bit, she had seemed nice. But Reigh knew; if he got to know anybody tonight, they would no longer be tomorrow. She had been about to tell him her name, Reigh could feel such things, and if she had, he would not have been able to control himself. Reigh sighed again; he started to feel like one big, empty sigh, as the girl turned a corner. Reigh could not kill anybody he didn’t know the name of. Why was not really something he thought about, but the fact that everybody whose name he didn’t know were safe –safer- only meant one thing to him; the people who trusted him with their names were in danger.
He shook his head and suppressed a last impulse to run after her. He looked up quickly; the sky was dark with clouds and night, before shrieking red numbers caught his attention: 21:14:02. He checked it against his own watch. Three seconds out.
Reigh growled and picked up speed.
There was something in the air, Reigh could sense it the second he –soaked in rainwater- slipped past the queue outside Wicked Mansion. It was nothing he hadn’t felt before, quite the opposite, he started to almost get used to the tense, verging on the hateful, mood that was created when the less worthy people who were denied entrance to the club saw him, a guard, a bouncer. Reigh walked right past them, met nobody’s eye. He was too experienced to react to the little things, to tired to deal with a riot. Besides, the chance that one of the little scumbags would have time to squeal of their name in a riot, was too small. The queue was long. Wicked Mansion was a place that many people wanted to see the inside of, and most people in the queue stood out in one way or another.
A group of youths, he had learnt to use the expression derogatorily, in black mirror shades, luminous purple jackets and equally migraine-inducing purple mohawks asked him to insert their reproductive organs in various orifices, but Reigh knew better than to attack them. He reasoned that they could not pay the trial fee if he destroyed them, and without trial fees, Wicked Mansion would never make ends meet. Still, he knotted his hand into a fist in the fingerless black glove, knotted it until it was shaking. It was always like this; Reigh growled silently, it was always like this when he didn’t get enough humanity inside. A little voice in his head started to whisper, tempting him with death, with killing and butchering and violence, but Reigh forced himself to ignore it. He had to get through the night, he needed the money and the job, but after work, Reigh could not help smiling diabolically before his weakened human side took control over him once again. One victim, he told himself. One victim had to be enough, and he would make sure it was somebody who deserved it.
Reigh noticed suddenly that he had stopped and turned towards the gang of the colour-blind. One of the mature young men exposed his backside and the others laughed, or made some kind of sound anyway, excitedly. Reigh’s top lip retracted, but he forced it back down into a nondescript facial expression, turned around and walked on.
Suddenly, as if he’d given in to an impulse, Reigh reached out with his right arm behind him and, at the same time, opened the tightly knotted fist wide. The whole thing in the blink of an eye, he didn’t even have to think. Something hard, cylindrical, smacked into the palm of his hand and at the same moment he got a grip on it, still at the same moment the hand was opened, Reigh spun around half a turn, using the extended arm’s length and the weight of the object as leverage, and launched the object back in the direction he assumed it had come from before his other five senses caught up with the sixth. The crunching noise of a nose breaking was deafened by the sharp sound of the brown glass bottle shattering in the face of one of the purple gang members. The youth was knocked down by the force and landed with a gurgling sound on his back, his mirror shades broken.
Reigh tried to remember, had he had a bottle in his hand a minute ago? It didn’t matter; he had deserved it. The other youths looked at the gang member’s broken nose, all but one, who looked straight at Reigh, or at least at the spot Reigh would have been had he remained.
“Here already?”
The guard boss’ voice was dripping with sarcasm.
“I’m on time, you know I’m always on time.”
Reigh resisted looking at his watch. The guard boss, luckily Reigh had never bothered memorising his name, searched for a suitable comment for a second but didn’t seem to find one. He sneered:
“You’re on garbage duty tonight!”
Reigh knew it wasn’t his turn to take care of the garbage, to escort –sometimes drag- the ones who didn’t pass the test and were not prepared to accept such defeat, off the premises, preferably avoiding any fatalities. He knew it wasn’t his turn, but there was no use arguing. He nodded and walked over to the trial circle.
The monotonous music was booming in Reigh’s ears, the same worn two bars repeated ad nauseam. Laser beams shot out through the barred windows and hit Reigh’s face once every six seconds. He crouched down just outside the trial circle, lazily eyeing up person after person. Yet another one handed over the trial fee, Reigh could not have afforded trying twice on a month’s wages, to be inspected and see if they were trendy enough to be let into Wicked Mansion. A lot of people hated the system, called it discriminating. On the other hand, none of those who got in complained. Envy, Reigh shook his head as the woman in front of him pulled off her fur coat, showing what she wore underneath, such an unnecessary emotion. Sadly, people –he didn’t feel like saying “us”- had many such emotions.
Reigh flinched, a testee, a big man, filled to the brim with alcohol, handed over a large sum of money to the guards, the judges, and wobbled into the trial circle. Reigh stood up, this smelt of trouble so strongly that everybody around would have wrinkled their noses if they weren’t already due to the large man’s breath and sweat reeking armpits.
The judges smiled, one of them held his hand over his mouth, and shook their heads. The man didn’t seem to understand; maybe he wasn’t capable of understanding, and started slouching towards the entrance. Reigh reached him before he had taken a single step.
Reigh could smell the man’s putrid breath much too clearly for comfort where he was standing, two hands taller than Reigh and probably half as wide. Reigh couldn’t be bothered.
“Come along,” Reigh’s voice was calm and controlled, almost.
The man tilted his head down and looked at Reigh with glassy eyes, hands hanging slack at his sides and his mouth opened slowly.
”Huuuh?”
Reigh exhaled and grabbed a firm hold of the man’s arm, turned him around and gave him a shove that got him walking, staggering, forwards. He collapsed just as he was exiting the trial circle, but Reigh was already there, slung the man’s arm over his shoulder and started dragging him towards an alley outside Wicked Mansion. The crowd’s laughter followed him around the corner. As soon as Reigh rounded the corner into the dark, wet alley, silence descended around him. He could feel his own heartbeat, could hear it. Inside him it whispered, beckoned, even hissed at him.
“Look in his pockets, look in the pockets, find a name, in the pockets, find his wallet, look, look in the wallet, find the name, want it so badly, find the name!”
Reigh’s breathing quickened, the voices swirling inside him. But the man was... he was innocent, it wasn’t right to take just anybody’s life force.
“No!”
Reigh closed his eyes and dropped the man, who collapsed in an unconscious heap at his feet.
“A wolf never hesitates...” the voice was singing inside him, humming his own words.
“No...”
Reigh felt his fingers starting to search the man’s ill-fitting suit, he felt something... a leather case!
“If you were going to rob him, can I have half?”
Reigh twitched and spun around, his hand was going for his side. He took in as much as he could of his surroundings, the man at his side could wait. Something blue? Reigh’s clouded mind cleared somewhat so that he could see her.
“Hi! Be cool!” the girl, Reigh saw her clearly now, it was her, the girl with the smile and the blue and purple hair. She was casually leaning against the wall next to him, just as if she had been standing there for hours. His white and blue clothes were almost luminous in the darkness, shining against the grey concrete wall.
Reigh opened his mouth, the voices had started singing again, had started chattering about a new target. Reigh didn’t want to, not her; she deserved it least of all.
“What...” Reigh closed his eyes in an attempt to make her go away, it failed, “What are you doing here?”
She smiled at him, the same smile as in the street. This was not good, but Reigh remained still, fighting his lust.
“Maybe I followed you?”
She winked at him and bounced back a step. She put her hands to her sides:
“It’s not very polite to just run off on somebody like that,” she eyed him critically for a second. Her resolute face broke into a smile and she flexed her knees in a curtsey.
Reigh wanted to scream, but couldn’t, this was not right. It was so unnecessary. So typical!
“My name’s Luanna,” she said and Reigh could see her lips moving in slow motion, slowly sounding the words. He looked at her, helpless as she finished her death sentence: “but my friends call me Lu!”
Reigh took a staggering step towards her; he was tearing at his body to stop it from proceeding. This was so wrong, the girl in front of him was such a wonderful person, and all he could do was delay her suffering for a few seconds.
She took a step towards him.
“Your eyes are all red, I’ve never seen anything like it...”
Reigh’s feet moved closer.
“Aren’t you going to tell me your name?”
Reigh’s feet moved closer.
She took a hesitant step back.
“What’s wrong?”
Her voice sounded worried rather than scared.
Reigh’s hand shot out, he could feel the soft fabric of her dress. His other hand grasped the sword, he would end it quickly, he had to.
Suddenly, there was a sound of breaking glass in the alley. Reigh looked down. There was a broken glass bottle. Accompanied by a choir of laughing voices Reigh turned around. It was the gang from Wicked Mansion.
“If you give up, we’ll let your cute girlfriend live!” the leader, as so often in street gangs the one with the biggest muscles, pulled out a switchblade and spun in between his fingers, safe among his companions, three arrogant guys who Reigh recognised from the queue.
Reigh had mixed emotions. This would probably turn bloody, but he couldn’t help feeling somewhat relieved. Would he not have to kill Lu?
The leader with the foregone conclusions pointed at him.
“Nobody hurts a Purple Devil and gets away with it!”
Reigh smiled, he could feel the aggressions flow from the gang around him, absorbed them and lit his own cylinders.
“Who’re these?” Lu sounded really afraid this time where she stood pressed against Reigh’s back.
Reigh growled, rushed forward and met three of the “Purple Devils” halfway. They were armed, two with baseball bats and one with a chain, even if one of them immediately was hit by Reigh’s kick and swearing saw his implement landing five metres from him, rolling away.
Reigh twirled among them, spun around and gave the other baseball bat-carrying opponent a hard blow to the chin. He fell, unconscious, and Reigh fell at the same time, landing on his back, grabbing a hold of the empty-handed youth’s led with his own and twisted in a motions that threw his opponent down on the ground.
The man with the chain swung for him where he lay, but Reigh rolled half a turn, grabbed the lying man’s arm and used it as a human shield. The chain wrapped around the arm and Reigh took this opportunity to shift his weight onto his shoulders and shoulder blades at the same time as he stretched both his legs towards the dark sky above. In one explosive motion, Reigh pushed off with his hands and folded his feet under his body. He was up, and the man with the chain had still not detangled it from his screaming partner’s arm.
Reigh was on him before he had time to think. His fist crushed the man’s nose at the same time as his boot exploded into the lying man’s ribs. The sound of breaking hit like a chord in the alley.
Reigh was starting to panic; he had to time. His thoughts circled increasingly closer around violence and death, chaos and destruction, and less around humanity. He needed humanity now, or lose it forever!
“Nice show...” Purple Devils’ leader was standing with one arm around Lu’s throat. Judging from her expression, she had great difficulty breathing. Her arms were pounding and scratching at him, but he didn’t even seem to feel it.
“A nice show, but I don’t need an encore.”
“Let her go.”
Reigh’s voice was not his own any longer. He could feel the chaos demon inside him getting the upper hand. He had to hurry now!
“What’s wrong?” the leader of the gang scoffed, “Afraid? You’re nothing but a lucky punk with a pair of idiotic, red glow-in-the-dark contacts.”
Reigh felt like throwing up, his breathing was getting more and more laboured, it felt like he was going to be torn apart from even trying. He had to take a chance. Reigh sunk down on one knee.
“You give up?”
The man in front of him laughed cockily. Lu tore up the skin on his arm and he grunted, grabbed hold of one of her pigtails and tore it off her head in one quick motion. Lu screamed, or tried to, his grip around her throat turned her cry into a whine.
“That’ll teach you to mess with the Purple Devils, you little bitch,” the man smiled a sweaty smile, “Mark Thompson,” he whispered into her ear, “is the name that will haunt you in your dreams,” Reigh smiled diabolically, “My name.”
Without being aware of it, Reigh drew his katana, it seemed to spring into his hand and in the same motions leave it, flying through the air like a dart through the dark night. The man, who was apparently named Mark, opened his eyes wide and made an attempt at getting out of the way at the same time as Reigh felt the hooks on the chain of the katana come loose with two silent rattlings.
The razor sharp edge cut through Lu’s chest, she didn’t understand what was happening, hardly even felt the pain, and further into Mark’s stomach. He understood what was happening. He felt the pain as his internal organs were punctured by the cold steel.
Reigh dragged himself the few remaining steps over to them with the last of the power his humanity could muster. The demon was screaming inside him, screaming for violence, chaos and murder, Reigh was screaming for violence, chaos and murder. He sunk down in front of Lu’s dying body, his shining red eyes meeting her clear blue.
She was crying.
Reigh leaned over, didn’t know her anymore, she was just a body like all the rest, he pulled his sword from the piece of meat in front of him. A body to feast on. He leaned over her face, his mouth closing in on her lips.
“Why?”
Lu gasped, silently, like an infinitely quiet whisper. Then the focus went out of her pupils and her last breath left her lungs together with her life force.
Reigh’s lips met Lu’s; her last breath swirled into him, down into his lungs. He closed his eyes. His thoughts returned. The voices muted, stopped screaming, stopped speaking, stopped whispering. Reigh could feel his inner returning to human form, how the demon’s fires within were put out by the cool breath and came to rest.
Reigh opened his eyes. Lu was lying dead in front of him, he blinked, and she was still there. Reigh could feel something inside. Something was screaming inside of him, roaring, as if somebody was falling and knew they were falling forever. Reigh knew what it was. It wasn’t the demon screaming anymore.
This time it was the man.
“Please...”
A gurgling sound came from behind Lu’s lifeless shape. Reigh got up. Mark’s face was contorted with pain, his insides were slowly leaking onto the cobblestones and his eyes were terrified.
“Please,” he said again.
Reigh felt the humanity inside him, wanting to help, wanting to put right what had gone wrong. But it also wanted revenge, wanted justice. Reigh growled. The man inside him was divided, but the demon was unanimous.
Reigh looked into Mark’s eyes. Somebody had to pay for Lu. Somebody had to pay.
“I don’t hesitate,” The sole of Reigh’s boot crushed Mark’s adam’s apple and his windpipe with it. “Not when it comes to a monster.”
Reigh squatted down and picked the sword up off the ground. He wiped it on Mark’s bright purple jacket before he wrapped the chain around his waist and sheathed the sword.
Reigh’s eyes fell on something. He stooped down one last time and picked up a light blue tuft of hair from the bloody cobblestones.
He looked at Lu.
A tear sprung from Reigh’s eye, rolled along his cheek and hit Lu’s own.
Reigh turned around and left. It started to rain again.
The time was 02:16:43.