One in Ten

CHAPTER 18 – I

Huddled in the corner of an old factory whose insides were gutted and floors damp, Stievo shook with rage. He should have seen this coming! How could he be so blind?! Geryman was pure evil and not even his own son was immune to his thirst for power, supremacy.

As he contemplated his next moves, Stievo became acutely aware of the burning sensations over his battered body. Geryman had sliced him up good. Slowly at first – and then faster as he concentrated on the wounds themselves – his skin began to bind back together. Stievo was healing himself. He then decided to test a technique he had read about but never tried himself. With closed eyes and razor-sharp focus, he scanned the surrounding vicinity for signs of life. He would steal…kill for what he needed. First: a starving dog in search of food behind the factory. Stievo put the beast out of its misery, welcoming the rehabilitative powers of its life force. He then sensed another life nearby, a wounded man, one of Geryman’s mindless soldiers, tending to a stump that once held a leg. (The casualties of this war continued to pile up.) Stievo shut his eyes and took in a deep breath, dropping the monopod lifeless to the ground. Fully healed, Stievo again felt drunk with power and potential, similar to the intoxication he felt when he and Geryman incinerated downtown Portland. Back then, a seed of unease was buried in the excitement. As war was waged before his eyes, so too was it fought within them. Now, the sense of conflict was fading. He was purifying himself – pure in mission and in being. He had just ended two lives that had ceased to be worth living. In doing so he helped himself, helped his cause, helped to destroy evil. He would cleanse the world. And that is when he realized who he was…

I am the Champion of Dark
Champion of Death
A truth, withheld from me by intention
An inheritance, denied by abstention
The capacity of the human mind to shield itself from evident truth
But the empowering of my Other at Carenf’s death was proof
Blind to this reality, I didn’t want to believe what I was, what my father could take from me
The human capacity to operate against itself with sabotage, espionage, and secrecy
Denial eradicated – the self embraced
The inevitable ruler of the human race

Stievo bit his lower lip until his teeth pierced through. As the blood trickled down his chin, he again closed his eyes and scanned the surrounding blocks. It took some time to find life, but then he honed in on a teenager…A young adult…No! A child…No matter! That boy’s life would not belong to him for much longer. Slowly, and with a serenity that he had never experienced, Stievo reached for a shard of broken glass by his side, held his left hand before his face, and sliced off his pinkie finger. As he inhaled – dropping the teenager’s lifeless body into the gutter – Stievo exhaled to the sight of bone regenerating up and out of the wound, followed by flesh stitching itself back to normal. His hand, whole again, clenched into a fist. Stievo laid down in the fetal position. He would need some rest for what was to come.

Battered and bruised, terrified and terrorized
The primal instincts activated once more
No real consideration of retreat; gore implored
Won’t turn my back; lash out and attack