Empyrean Prequel

A Horror Story by “George King”

(The following story contains violent imagery and language and is published as part of our Class of 2023 tribute)

The villain is titled “Satan”, a monster in a child’s body and the second son of the King of Hel* (*A global criminal empire), known for the destruction of his victims.

Before meeting his adoptive father, he was a child with an uncanny penchant for brutality. This is due to the unfortunate combination of powers he was given by fortune, Rend, giving the him the ability to slice through anything put in front of him, and Berserker, turning him mindless in exchange for inhuman strength and durability. His first mission that put him on the main stage of villainy was a simple nighttime escort mission, delivering a weapons shipment into Hel. The mission soured quickly due to it being a hidden assassination plot for the death of the shipment driver who’d been smuggling weapons out of Hel for extra profits.

A man named “Despair” was in charge of overseeing the attack, expecting to be bored due to the straightforwardness of the given assignment. He, as a blood starved beast couldn’t feel enjoyment in such a simple mission, there were no stakes. Despair had been absent mindedly staring down into the operation area only to focus upon a child not even 17 years old slaughtering the squad that he was assigned to watch over. This brought a massive crazed grin to his face, the scent of blood as drawing him into the fray. “Satan” however was at first terrified as men and women dressed in outfits black as midnight appeared from what seemed to be thin air and swiftly executed the man who was driving the weapons shipment, the assassins next turned their attention towards the witnesses, the mercenaries guarding the goods. In an instant the other mercenaries were wiped out and after a stray bullet found itself imbedded inside of Satan’s leg his Berserker switch had flipped, he had picked up a simple pocket knife from the driver’s corpse and proceeded to cut an assassin in twain and from thereafter he remembered nothing.

Despair was giddy to watch the boy turn his goons into minced meat, and when there was not one single assassin still in one piece he jumped down from his vantage and began his battle dance, summoning a simple single edge blade and engaging in combat. Despair was ecstatic, this boy less than half his age was fighting him without any hesitation, only pure maddening bloodlust was present in the boy. Despair was noticing something that made him even happier, as the boy’s body was taking more damage he became stronger, slowly overtaking the elite assassin in front of him. What was intended to just be a short fight that left him satisfied, and had now entered a life or death duel, the boy’s body was being mangled by itself, failing to accommodate for Herculean strength coursing throughout his body.

Despair had to act quickly or lose the opponent in front of him to the drawbacks of his own power, he stopped playing around and summoned three more blades, one for his non-dominant hand, and two more that hung in the air around him like silver wings. He then crouched to the ground and pounced, all one could see was the glint of his blades in the moonlight as all the tendons in the boy's body were severed simultaneously. Despair patched up the boy as best he could, he was barely breathing in his current state, and smiled warmly at the boy cradled in his arms, like an older brother’s first meeting of a newly born sibling.

To be Continued - George J. King