[Auxiliary Chapter] The Guards

You all know the drill by now. Free chapter, you can skip if you want; Why? Because I enjoy it. This one is about malevolence. Aero182.

~Journal extract of Strenholm Lugatticus; the saviour and liberator of slaves~

• 5 years before he fought back against his own king, the tyrant king Velothore -

I found something, in the depths of a dungeon. I had never delved deeper, and never will again.

Of course, I was rewarded.

At first, I thought this reward was a curse, utter madness, but instead it made me truthful, a bringer of light; knowing now that evil is a part of me, I’m able to stand against any evil, seeing it through any mask or veil, compliment or empty platitude.

Down in that hole I found a pit of darkness.

I threw a rock in, and heard no noise as I gazed into it, listening.

Yes; I gazed into the darkness - and it changed me.

It showed me something that became a part of me… No, actually.. It revealed a part of me. This was what I saw.

We were slaves with no names, having outlived our usefulness and destined to die.

All gathered up for the slaughter.

I was there, a slave… something I will never forget as we walked to our death was the look on the faces of the other slaves; defenceless like lambs to the slaughter. Utter fear.

All I could do was shiver.

Guards with spears prodded us from each side.

They had no reason to hate us, yet they did. They only wanted to destroy.

Caged in from each side like livestock; we were being fed into the fiery mouth of the beast.

How could my fellow human do this to me?

How can they kill the innocent as if they are emotionless machines?

How can they destroy without reason?

They would force us to be quiet, beating us.

Though I knew I was about to die, so I may as well speak up.

“You are a monster!” I yelled at a guard.

This was when I realised something, something primal in me opened its eyes.

Suddenly, I was in the body of the guard.

Somehow I had become a guard and was being yelled at by my former self.

“I called myself a monster?” I thought to myself, utterly confused.

Yet I knew it was now true.

I looked back at my former self with anger and despised my weakness.

Truly, I looked like a hopeless wretch, so naive… I was not naive about others, but about myself.

Now, I am the guard.

Staring back into those desperate eyes, I looked at them with a stern and emotionless stare; I only had two words as I funelled my former self towards the mouth of the beast.

“I know.”

My former body then disappeared, ceasing to exist; It did not enter the mouth of the beast.

Many entered the fiery mouth, never daring to speak up.

I stopped prodding the slaves with my spear, yet they still entered.

I stopped the other guards, yet they still entered.

Finally I stopped the slaves. Their endless march to suffering stopped.

The fire from the beast’s mouth raged, and was then spat out. Flames washed over the crowd instead.

Many perished from the flame, but it was soon held back.

The only ones who survived its direct flames were the guards.

Fire came from their own mouths and matched the beast, for inside all of them their own monsters had been awakened; no longer powerless against beasts.

No more slaves were burned hereafter - yet it was not the slaves who were liberated, but the guards.