They fought incessantly, the woman’s shrill voice coming out of a short, squat form that favored shapeless t-shirts with slogans like “I’m a delicate fucking flower” or —in tiny type that stretched across her chest —“If you can read this, go fuck yourself.” The man, who was over six feet, at least wore button-down shirts without writing printed on them. His khaki trousers kept sliding down over his large gut, despite the extremely long belt he had threaded through the loops. He resembled the largest Russian nesting doll to her smallest one, and just like theMatryoshkadolls, they were both gourd-shaped.
Micah had been suitably horrified. He was determined that his height and coloring was all that he would inherit, as he observed his mother screaming at his father to watch his blood pressure, and he screaming at her in return to back off, it was her fuckin’ fault that his fuckin’ blood pressure was through the roof.
The woman who had given birth to him would then run into another room to have a meltdown, complete with reddened face, ugly-crying and loud wailing. Which was entertaining at least, until after the first three times he watched, when it became tedious. It was a continuous cycle.
Micah’s killing them would be a mercy. They were already headed to an early death, either from their respective health issues which were obvious — if not from looking at them, then from hearing about in their raised voices— or by each other’s hand. But his hastening their demise would be a gift to everyone around them.
Micah had carefully considered all the ways in which to take their lives, and even whether he wanted them to know it was by their son’s hand. He decided to spare them knowing how completely, and irrevocably, he rejected them. In the end, he collected the materials he needed to cast a spell, one that would accelerate the paths they were on already.
The woman’s final meltdown led to her stomach acids erupting, eating her up from within. The agony lasted for a few hours as her body feasted on itself, and the man’s blood pressure soared to fatal levels so that he was first rendered unconscious and immobile, before finally biting it.
He made sure he collected blood, and other materials from each of them for his darkmagicksbefore their bodies cooled.
It was poetic, and Micah saw the beauty in having been ordered to do this. He had decisively rejected his shameful origins by personally, and quite vividly, eradicating them, and he felt a deepened sense of gratitude to the Merciless for having rescued him from that fate.
It had been his initiation into the leadership track, as the Merciless regained its strength and size, in readiness for His Terrible Majesty’s awakening.
But it was also a critical error for Cadmus. Micah had been too good a student of theDark Magicks. In killing his birth parents, he gained access tomagickalingredients that he was able to collect and store. Parts of their bodies, after death by his hand. It was material of great potency, and an important part of how Micah continued to ascend through the ranks, ahead of all the others.
It was what allowed him to be sent to for schooling in the outer world. Where his skills with computers and the Internet were discovered and honed. Perhaps even more importantly, he learned how to live in and manipulate a world that was fast outpacing Cadmus’ outdated ways.
And basking in HTM’s favor, Micah was more than ready to assume the leadership of the Merciless.
And as he had done with his birth parents, he would eradicate his origins with Cadmus.
