Alptraum und Gedächtnis

By Photophobia

When we are born, they call us horrors. Some call us nightmares. But whatever word they give us, in the end they describe the same thing - tools. Misshapen and mismatched things. We live to serve, and we live to die. That is our way.

I remember the first days of my life. The warm bubbling of the silky sac, the sensation of floating in nothingness. The darkness. The first of my life in paradise - never hungry, always warm. Always safe. But it was not to last. I remember the piercing of the steel blade, spilling forth the blood and juice of my fragile home. The cold chill of air, and the grasping greedy hands that birthed me.

I remember the others. Gross mismatches of creatures not meant for mortal eyes to gaze upon. They were hideous. They were bestial. They were abominations against order itself. They were my brothers and sisters and their blood was my own. No one disfigured wretch alike, but united and as legion in our suffering. I remember that sense of oneness, not my brothers and sisters, as fondly as my first memories.

I remember the cold men and women. The beasts of leather and plate, the harsh bark of their voices and the sting whip and steel. I remember endless days and nights, sweating flesh and burst muscles, the stink of effluence and the bitter taste of blood when my throat could take no more, and it’s blistered flesh gave forth the vital fluid. I remember the cruel commands and the bloody aftermaths; the screams of children and shuddering crunch of bone and marrow.

But most of all, I remember the rage. Rage at being torn from my womb. Rage at myself. Rage at my brothers and sisters. Rage at our handlers. And rage at our victims. I raged at being birthed, for I desired the comfort of the womb. I raged at myself for weakness, my submission to our creators, and I raged at my blood for theirs. I raged at our handlers for the indignities they forced upon us. But most of all I raged at our victims. At those people we destroyed, the sloppy meat sacks of blood and organs and effluence. I raged at their weakness, that we were thought only good for killing such things.

And kill we did. It was what we were designed for, what we lived for, what every screaming nerve and fiber of our beings demanded we do. And we did not resist that demand. We were told to kill. We did. We were told to eat, and we did. We were told to savage the children, tear homes apart, rape and pillage the very landscape. And we did, and we reveled in our slaughter. Oh, do not misunderstand. We ached for challenge. We yearned for victims worthy of us, dim and bestial things we were. But while we found our victims distasteful, I and my blood found much pleasure in the base indignities we forced on their weak bodies. We were instruments of carnage in our days. And if our handlers were cruel, and terrible lords to us, they too reveled in our fun. And an audience . . . is an audience.

Such things . . . do not last. I do not, oddly enough, remember which side struck the first blow. All I recall is the shriek of bone on metal as cages and doors were torn and rent from their hinges, the scream of steel and flesh, and the shrieks of our lords. A day of glory. They did not go quietly, these overlords of ours, and they gave us, at last, the challenge we hungered for. Many of us did not survive - did not, in fact, even join battle, struck down by archers and spear men and magi. But it mattered not. In the end, ‘twas their blood that spilled the ground, and though I alone carry the last of my brood’s blood, I weep not. In death, we have achieved our grandest purpose - murder. It is what we do. What we are. I have killed much before that fateful day. I killed many on it, and many more after it. And I will kill, and kill again, and kill until my body ceases to function. For that...is what I am. Nightmare. Horror. Murderer.