Sleeping peacefully in the bed was a man and woman. Their bodies were intertwined, his hugging her from the back with their fingers laced and held over her heart. The dark circle of chaos within their centers was as small as a pin prick, barely enough to conjure a shadow in the palm of his hand, but every drop was imperative to survival.
The first few rooms were going to be the most painful. He didn’t have enough power to ease the transition from life to death. However, there was no room for remorse or regret.
Chaos approached the couple and stood over their prone forms. He placed a hand on the sleeping man’s shoulder and used the connection to call forth the chaos residing in his soul. It was hesitant at first, fighting to stay latched onto the essence that kept it alive.
It was the only flaw to his power and one that he could never fix. The universe demanded balance, and even he was not capable of defying it. If the chaos was removed, so too was thesoul. Whatever force brought him into existence decided long before his birth that one could not be the master of souls and chaos at once.
Chaos gripped the bead of power with more force and tugged. Although the power fought, it was no match for him. The man sat upright with a gasp, his pupils blown and eyes bulging. He grabbed at his chest as he fought for air, every vein in his body swelling near to bursting. He turned that panicked stare on Chaos, but his body already knew what his mind couldn’t yet comprehend– he was going to die.
The woman rolled toward her thrashing partner, her eyes still foggy with sleep, until she opened them enough to see Chaos standing overtop her dying partner. She screamed and threw the sheet aside, her legs tangling in the flying fabric and forcing her to the floor. She kicked as she crawled away from the bed and huddled against the furthest wall and sobbed, her body too fear stricken to flee.
Desperation urged the man to fight. He threw his body to the side and kicked his legs, but he was no match for Chaos. Chaos rolled the man back over and placed a knee on his chest to keep him still as he forced the bead of power out in earnest. The man's body seized as his chaos drifted past his lips and into the air above. Different shades of red and purple bloomed along his torso as the organs burst, his muscles clenching and releasing in relentless spasms as the last shreds of his soul were torn free. Chaos closed his eyes and inhaled the floating orb of power. Though it had given a valiant fight to stay inside the man, it joined his well eagerly.
He turned his eyes to the woman huddled against the wall, her pleas unintelligible through the screams. Chaos rounded the bed and stopped to kneel in front of her. Their eyes met, hers bloodshot and brimmed with tears. She dug her heels intothe wooden floor in a desperate attempt to run, but there was nowhere for her to go.
“I am sorry,” Chaos murmured. “Your sacrifice is necessary.”
She screamed as he placed his hands on her cheeks, inky shadows crawling through her veins in search of its likeness.
Chaos held her stare and watched every moment of her death through her eyes. She clawed at his wrists and she coughed blood, the spatter dotting his face and neck as it ran in rivulets down her chin. When he’d taken the last ounce of chaos from her soul, he stood and let her body slump to the side in a heap of useless flesh.
All through the night, Chaos went room to room gathering bits of power to store and, when he was done with the top level, he moved to the tavern. His shadows enveloped the room and pulled chaos from every patron before the thought to fight could cross their minds. He didn’t stop until every last drop of chaos was torn from its soul.
Chaos stood and gazed upon the desecrated bodies strewn about, not a single bead of remorse dripping from his blackened soul. When the sun rose, whispers of his massacre would travel with the breeze to every shadowed corner of the universe and, under the grand menagerie tent of the Freakshow, every daemon would know his name.
Not the Father of Darkness. Not Chaos, the Deathless God or the Void Between the Stars. The Soul Eater was coming, and they would pay in blood for their crimes.
“Get up,” a voice hissed. “Xia, you have to wake up!”
Xia pulled her mind from the depths as her body shook back and forth.
“Xia come on, please! We have to go!”
Her eyelids opened and blinked against the rays of sunlight, stomach lurching as adrenaline forced her into motion. Xia sprang up from the bed and away from the intruder, her arms up defensively as she called on her chaos.
“It’s me,” the blurry figure whispered. “We have to go.”
Xia wiped her eyes to clear the fog and opened them to see a figure clad head to toe in cream robes. Her pink irises looked desperately between Xia and the door, a single strand of fuschia hair falling over a freckled cheek.
“Ruby? What are you doing here?”
“Something’s happened at Avyssos, Xia. Something bad, but Idon’t have time to explain it to you right now. We need to get out of here before he comes back.”
Xia’s heart pounded in her chest as her mind worked to both wake up and take action. She needed more information but couldn’t focus on which questions to ask first.
“Please, Xia.”
“Where’s Brooks?”
Ruby set her jaw, but pity touched her eyes.
“Ruby! Where is Brooks?”
“We have to leave him.”
“What? Why? What happened?”
Ruby looked away. “They’re dead, Xia. The villagers. He–” she choked, “he killed them all.”
