Chapter-3: Thira’s Lament
I wandered the halls which once, reeked of joy—filled with music, laughter, and the scent of feasts.
Now? It lies in decay. The air was thick was filled with the stench of rotting flesh, the moans of the dying, and the screeches of the damned. The chandeliers above hung crooked, draped in crimson. The golden banners, once pristine, were soaked in bile and despair.
I walked through it all, my footsteps leaving bloody echoes in the hollow silence.
And then, I arrived at the throne room. A graveyard of a court.
The flowers that once bloomed in vases now lay withered and gray. The throne itself, once an emblem of peace, power, and joy, was now painted in the blood of the lord's family and his most loyal aides. Their bodies slumped, their eyes hollow, their throats slit where they once whispered false prayers for mercy.
And there, amidst the ruin, sat the Lord of Thira. He was a husk of a man.
His once-proud robes were torn, and his crown hung loose on his sweat-drenched brow. His eyes—wild, hollow, desperate—locked onto me as I strode toward him.
I did not speak. Instead, I sat upon his throne.
I leaned back, resting my arm on its blood-slicked armrest. I exhaled. "Bored." I sighed.
The Lord of Thira trembled. Then, finally, he spoke. “Why?" His voice cracked. Raw. Empty. "Why, Thira?" His hands clenched into weak, useless fists. "Why me?"
His breath hitched, his lips quivering as if the very question pained him. "Why did you weave your curse upon me?" His words shook along with his body. "You showed disrespect to me, and yet I still treated you fairly! I fed you, I welcomed you! And yet you cursed Thira to death!" His voice rose in agony.
"Thousands of innocents are dying! A city with centuries of history, its culture, its people—it's all turning to ruin! And for what?! For a single loaf of bread?!" His breath came ragged and choked.
"Why?" His voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper now.
"Why are you so cruel? So heartless?" He shuddered, his broken body sagging under the weight of his grief. "We treated you with kindness... and yet you destroyed us."
I tilted my head. Then, I chuckled. I was Soft, Mocking, and Distant as I replied “I was bored.”
My voice echoed through the ruined court, a whisper of death in the halls of the dying. "So, I came to see how the Lord of Thira was holding up." And I smiled—a smile as cold as the grave.
I let his despair fester. I let the silence weigh upon his soul. Then, at last, I spoke. "Kindness?" I mused, tilting my head.
"You mistake my tolerance for kindness as a mercy for fairness. You forget what I am." I rose from the throne, my fingers tracing the armrest, still sticky with blood.
"Oh, Lord of Thira, you think too much." I paced slowly; my gaze locked onto his trembling form. "Did you believe your wretched city was destined to stand for eternity? No, time itself would have swallowed it whole. I simply dragged it into the abyss before it could wither. Thira’s death was not its fate or its punishment it was only my amusement."
I let the words sink in. And yet, he still did not understand. His ignorance was exhausting. "And yet, you speak to me as if I were a man of reason. But I am not."
I leaned down, watching the horror bloom in his eyes. "I am Malphas, the Lord of Malevolence." I watched him flinch at my name.
"The heavens shudder at my cruelty, while demons carve shrines from my wrath." I laughed softly, mirroring his despair. "You dare forget what am I?"
My smile widened, my teeth glinting in the dying torchlight. "Each time you stand before me, you insult me with your ignorance, speaking as if I were a lord of virtue, a king of mercy. I am neither."
My voice dropped to a whisper. "I am the harbinger of malice. The architect of despair. The lord of ruin."
I straightened, casting a long shadow over his trembling form. "Even in your downfall, you disgrace yourself; you still fail to understand me."
His breath hitched. His lips parted, but no words came. "I am Malevolence incarnate." I let the weight of the truth crush him.
"Every breath I take spreads poison. Every step I walk leaves a scar on the world. I cannot be reasoned with. I do not grant mercy. I do not forgive. I exist to break, to ruin, to delight in agony." I turned away.
"Yet you ask why? Why? Why?" I sighed, feigning disappointment. "Your greatest sin was never insulting me; it was failing to see me for what I am."
My voice was silk, wrapping around his final shred of hope like a noose. "And now, you kneel before me, drowning in your ruin, whispering prayers that will never be answered."
I exhaled, shaking my head. "All things die, oh Lord of Thira." I glanced back, meeting his broken, hopeless gaze.
"And death always begins with ignorance." I took a step back.
"Had you truly understood me, Thira's demise might have come later," I smirked. "But make no mistake. This was never my burden to bear. Thira did not fall because of me."
I turned fully toward him. "It fell because of you."
The words struck him like a blade to the gut. His body sagged, his lips quivering. I inhaled, savoring the moment. "The world is a canvas, and I paint it with suffering." I leaned in, my breath ghosting against his ear.
"Thira's fate was sealed the moment it crossed my gaze." And then, I smiled, "And you... you are merely the last to understand it." I turned away, letting my voice settle like a death knell.
"Now, do me one final kindness." I walked toward the exit, my presence lingering like a plague in the dying court. "Drown in the madness."
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I walked through Thira, the City of Joy—or rather, what was left of it.
The streets were slick with filth, a river of blood and bile winding through the ruins. The air was thick with the reek of rot, burning flesh, and the stale musk of decay. The screams had dulled into a low, wet whimper—a chorus of the dying too weak to beg, too wretched to be granted the luxury of a quick death.
I listened. I savored. This was what lay beneath the mask of a "paradise."
Thira did not fall just due to my presence. I simply revealed what it had always been.
They called this place a city of joy, and yet its joy never strayed beyond its palaces, beyond the perfumed corridors of the rich, beyond the gates that separated wealth from waste.
Bhira learned that truth with every beating, with every thrown stone, with every gnawed bone stripped of its last shred of meat.
Had Thira been what it claimed, he would have known warmth, kindness, and a life beyond the gutters. But the same city that gorged itself on feasts let him starve. The same people who prayed for kindness left him to rot. And now? They rot with him.
I stepped over a noblewoman's corpse, her jeweled hands clawing into her own stomach. Rats squirmed beneath her skin. I passed a priest, still wearing his sacred robes—though the holy embroidery was now indistinguishable from the festering wounds splitting his flesh. The lords, the merchants, the scholars—all those who built this city on its gleaming throne of lies—twitched and convulsed in the streets, their eyes glassy, their lips foaming with disease.
How poetic.
The people who turned their backs on Bhira's suffering now choke on it.
The city that sang of joy is now a choir of the damned. The priests who preached virtue now gag on their hypocrisy.
The lords who feasted while children starved now cannibalize their own in madness. Thira's end was inevitable.
It did not die because of me. It died because it was weak. It died because it was fragile. It fell because its walls were built of arrogance and its foundation was rotted with self-righteousness. All I did was peel back its skin and let the infection fester.
And Bhira? Bhira, the child they crushed beneath their heel, has painted his revenge onto these walls.
Red for the blood of the guilty.
Green for the bile of the dying.
And silence—for those too far gone to even scream.
I let the carnage linger in my wake, drinking in the ruin with nothing more than idle amusement. And as the last remnants of Thira crumbled into filth, I turned away.
Not because it was over. Not because it was enough. But because I was done playing with it.
With every step through Thira's carcass, my joy swelled, malevolence fulfilled.
The beauty of destruction unfolded before me, a masterpiece painted in blood and despair.
The screams—raw, guttural, hopeless—were a symphony, each wails a perfect note in the orchestra of suffering.
And as the city gasped its final, wretched breath, I turned.
I placed my hand upon the gates.
And I closed them.
Let Thira rot for eternity.
1Last revised: 12th February, 2025
