“Where am I?” I was inside a large library, filled to the brim with books of strange titles. In the shine of a candle, I read some of them, but couldn’t really understand what it was.

A whole shelf was completely filled with cooking recipes, another one with combat techniques and strangely enough, one with knitting.

“We are in the library of your memories, or however you visualize them subconsciously. How did the others call it again … mind space!” Said the person I desperately wanted to see again, standing there with an open book and smiling shrewdly at me.

“Aska!” I exclaimed, already running towards him with open arms.

“Aye, the one and the only one!” He said while dodging my attack. I pouted as he denied my attempt but didn’t let my euphoria be hampered by his usual behaviour.

“I´m sure you have many questions and such, but sadly we don’t have much time, ask the wise king instead. You know, I have a meeting in my function as the boss of a successful fruit company in a few minutes. I´d rather want you to look at this.” He turned the book around and showed me how beavers were slaughtered one after the other. “Before you ask ‘what is this?’ like a complete idiot, let me explain. These books contain all your memories and this book is currently being written. It even has the glorious name of ‘how to be a monster’, isn´t that great?”

“Wait, I am here, so who is writing these memories right now?” I asked, already fearing the worst. What if there was an even eviler me up, steering my every action?

“Well, the good news is you aren’t schizophrenic … yet. The bad news is that your soul has some issues apparently …” Aska explained and looked like he rather wanted to be somewhere else.

“What are you talking about?” I questioned, entirely in the dark what he meant.

“Well, your soul isn´t meant to be in the body of a vampire and now you are kind of fucked because of that.” Aska said and looked away.

“Aska …” I squinted my eyes and observed his every action.

“Yes, it´s my fault, I´m sorry.” He said meekly. “So you didn’t exactly experience how it is to be a vampire so far, but rather the light version of it because you didn’t drink enough blood in purgatory. But you know me, I always have a solution on hand ... Just live with it.”

“You got to be kidding me. Live with this? Aska, I lost control of myself!” I shouted and threw my arms in the air. Whatever was happening now couldn’t be called living.

“And you will regain it. The current predicament you are in is mostly because of stress.”

“Mostly?” I asked, incredibly suspicious about his wording.

“Stress was about fifty per cent the reason for this ... It had to happen at some point anyway and it isn´t exactly bad that it did right now, isn´t it?” He tried to justify his carefree attitude, but I wasn’t really falling for that. If I would question him further now about his involvement in the matter, he would just crack a few jokes and I wouldn’t get any answers. Instead, I chose to focus on something practical.

“Fine … how do I regain control of myself.”

“Lucinda … I am not your psychotherapist, how should I know.” Apparently, I asked the wrong question.

“Thanks for the great help! If you could at least tell me what you meant earlier to live with it then?”

“Uhm … oh, I just got a message from my co-founder, I kind of need to go right now.” I didn’t ask the wrong questions. He just didn’t want to answer any questions at all.

“How did the devourer escape purgatory?” I asked with a stern gaze. He didn’t even look at me, but rather kept staring at the shelves to his right. I did hope this question would interest him, but apparently, it didn’t.

“Aska!” He vanished right in front of my eyes before I could grab onto him. I began to panic, not because he left me again, but rather because I forgot to ask him something. “You owe me one for messing my soul up! I want to see Luna again, you can do this, can´t you? I won’t forgive you if you leave me hanging on this one!” I screamed into the slowly dissipating library full of books until there was nothing but one book left of it that was currently being written.

If what Aska told me was true then this thing that was entirely driven out of my instincts just awoke because of my mistake. Furious, I threw the book away and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to go out there as I was still scared of the water, but I needed to control my instincts somewhat and steer them in the right direction, no matter how. I didn’t know if this was the right way, but I calmed my mind and thought only about two very important topics.

‘Mana generator, fire. Mana generator, fire …’

My mantra was my everything and engulfed my whole being, even my instincts. While I was doing so, the me in charge suddenly stopped and touched the wall. It vibrated softly and closing my eyes, I heard a soft humming. I turned around and ran through blood-splattered corridors which slowly filled with water and just relied on my ears. The humming grew louder and louder as I approached it and as I opened a certain door, the sound of machines greeted me. Blood was splattered on the walls already and I remembered I was already here once.

Growling, I waded towards a large glass sphere, filled with blue water and connected to two different wooden machines. I punched the bottom side of it and snarled as I broke my hand.

“Mana generator …” I said as I punched the glass once more and made a slight crack in the glass. Furiously, I hammered onto the glass continuously until the area was completely covered in my own blood. Whenever I punched this glass, even more blood flew everywhere, but something in me drove me to destroy this thing. With one last punch, the glass splintered and fell to the ground. The fluid was incredibly corrosive and began to burn the remains of my fist for a short time until I jumped backwards. It was around that time where bits of my reasoning returned and I started to wade away from the quickly spreading blue liquid. Everything screamed at me to run away and so I did exactly that.

It filled me with a strange satisfaction as the humming stopped completely and the machines shut down. I waded through the door towards the outermost corridor. The water reached me to my hips as I kicked a wooden plate, expecting it to open right away. Serve headaches made me scream in pain once more and this time, I was successful in regaining control. My sense of being returned, my thoughts and intellect took control again and my instincts were successfully restrained although they didn’t return to the levels before. My thirst was driving me insane and coupled with the lingering scent of blood in the air, I was dangerously close to losing control once again.

In an attempt to focus on my task, I bit into my hand and focused entirely on the pain. The water around me still drove me crazy, but not enough for me to overlook the simple locking mechanism at the wall. Directly after unlocking the board, it fell outwards, only held by the hinges near my feet and the ropes above my head. I waited fifteen seconds before I couldn’t bear it anymore and jumped out, only to be caught by a harpy who was flying nearby.

“Fire …” I mumbled with a hoarse voice.

“It´s already burning like crazy! You did it!” I looked behind us, only to see large portions of the dam already on fire. I grinned at the sight, especially as the dam began to leak water through several gaps in the wooden construction.

“No … fire.” I pointed towards smoke that came from a tall hill in the distance. This was where I needed to go now. He flew towards the place, but backwards. The male harpy wanted to look at the spectacle and I had to admit that seeing the dam slowly but surely crumbling under the water pressure and the ongoing destruction was a grandiose sight. At last, it looked like an explosion as the damn budged outward and was then catapulted outwards by the masses of water that spewed out of the artificial lake. Tonnes and tonnes of water were added to the waterfall, all directed to follow the river by its natural boundaries. These boundaries were soon flooded as well, and water spilt into the forest, ripping trees out of the ground, killing the animals living with it and eventually, the human and elven army who camped around fifty kilometres downstream at the riverbank.

To drown every single one of them was my plan all along. It did have the highest success rate after all. I already confirmed the worms would die in water and as I had no way of actually separating the infected ones from the healthy humans, they all needed to go. I felt a little bit guilty about drowning so many, especially Arthur as I could still use him, and the children I met, but I didn’t see any other choice here. We were already lucky enough that this possibility existed after all.

In any case, I was satisfied as the harpy flew towards our destination, but also still struggling to contain my instincts within me. It wasn’t all bad that my vampiric side awakened fully though. The smell was more nuanced and even while flying, I could make out the sweat of the harpy above me or the smell of the forest beneath us. I could also make out objects in the distance I previously wasn’t able to. A squirrel was climbing a large tree in the distance, a few harpies were flying above the destroyed dam, throwing rocks at the evacuating beavers and a fire was burning a kilometre away from me.

“Land there.” I commanded and was swiftly set down on a clearing. The harpy turned around to look at me and opened his eyes wide. My mouth was slightly opened and I licked my lips with my tongue. I was hungry and unable to fight this hunger right then. I jumped forward, grabbed the harpy by his bird feet and threw him on the ground in one swift motion. He broke his neck as he hit a stone which was a rather good ending for him.

Feathers were flying everywhere as I tore the corpse apart and drank as much blood as possible from him. While it tasted like normal chicken, it still sent shivers down my spine to taste it. It was the most satisfying thing I ever ate, my cooking didn’t even come close to the sensations blood provided me. I only stopped ripping the corpse to shreds as water licked my feet and reminded me of the flood that was definitely coming towards this place.

It was at that point where I realized the monster who took control never left me fully. It was still there, influencing my every action with this burning sense of thirst. It awoke that day and it was here to stay. At least I could contain my thirst somewhat now after feeding on the harpy.

Angry at myself, I undressed the tatters that were once my dress and washed them in the muddy water as best as I could. Well, I only dipped them into the water as I definitely didn’t want to touch more than I had to, but even that was enough to remove the largest portion of gore that stuck to my whole body and gave off an intoxicating scent. Still smeared in blood but free of any bits of organs, I wore the dress once more and made my way towards the campfire.