4 July 2012
"Stop there." The One Who Influences spun round, meeting Tpek's eyes. Tpek almost took a step backwards. The One's gaze held no hatred, just a kind of contemptuous curiosity, like a child pulling the wings off with a fly. "What are you?" The One's question came just as Tpek was about to ask the same. "I could ask the same question to you." Tpek answered. The One smiled. "I'll show you." The it raised a hand and touched Tpek's forehead. A flood of knowledge washed over Tpek's mind, knowledge about the thing in front of him.
It had always been there, since one man told another a story around a campfire. The thing had influenced people to live in its beloved story, repeating patterns over and over again. It was The One Who Influences that meant a heavily fortified city could be taken by a few people hiding in a wooden horse, or a king would be judged on his ability to remove a sword from a stone. But The One's influence ran deeper than that. Every dramatic break up, every tragic death was like a small dose of a drug to The One. This... Thing fed on people and their dreams.
Tpek stepped back, shocked at the entity standing before him. The One smiled at the response, but the grin froze as the thief looked up. Tpek's glare was like sunlight. "You understand now?" The One asked, "You human's would be nothing without me. NOTHING!" "You don't know anything." Every one of Tpek's words rang with barely controlled rage. "Humans would be the same without you. We don't live because of you, you live because you play with us. YOU ARE NOT MY GOD!" He raised his fist and punched The One Who Influences as hard as he could. The One staggered back, snarling. "How did you survive my attack, human?" Tpek raised his hand, the symbol of his Hellbinding glowing faintly beneath his skin. "You gave me the only thing I could use to escape ape from you." "Escape this." The One launched a mental assault on the thief's mind. Tpek struggled to think through the pain clouding his brain. He could not survive a mental battle like this for much longer. But why fight the way The One wanted him to fight? All he had to do was use his head. Tpek's headbutt knocked The One off its feet and his foot slammed into its head. The mental attack stopped. "Leave this world alone." Tpek said to the stunned creature before him. It's features were shifting, changing madly. "I can't survive without stories," The One said, defeated. "You don't live off stories, we both know you live off control over others. You may not even live off it. Maybe your just an addict." Tpek said, "And I'd rather you starve than course any more suffering."
And he walked off and lived happily ever after, and the evil villain was defeated. The end. (\) Or so stories would have us believe... There will be more Hellbound, at least one more part, maybe two.
Hellbound - 9 • Opuss № I