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My body inflates, and I grow taller, the muscles beneath the scales swelling with an unfathomable amount of anger and despair.
Two dark elves, handsome and far more elegant looking creatures than the orcs, beckon to me near the entrance of the town. The orcs still have one of the women and are dragging her further away, into the inky darkness, away from their potential death.
I smirk, the strain of the embedded arrow fading away into the black of my subconscious.
“Fools,” I muttered.
I began to run. The elves are panicking, struggling to reload their weapons, while I observe the orcs watching me with a similar, uncertain yet awed expression.
Unfortunately for them, their awe will not last long.
I struck the orcs first with lightning speed. While I sliced through the neck of one, successfully spraying blood over the landscape of ash, I took the woman by the wrist, helping her duck and keep her safe from harm. She follows suit as I go for the second orc who was harassing her, but I miss his wrinkly, vomit-shaded throat by a hair. This gives him time to cut at my shin with a rusty knife, another sear of white hot misery surging up my body like a lightning bolt.
“FUCK!” I call out.
The orc snorts, and this only serves to irritate the towering monster I have become. My body inflated even more as I tossed the woman aside for safety and grasped the orc's head between my two dinner-plate sized palms.
He cowered, and I gave him no time to atone. I squished his skull in my hands, the bones turning to dust between the wet, poor excuse for brains and blood that splashed onto the landscape below.
The woman ran, and I was glad. I feel a whoosh of wind fly past me, and I see that they are arrows implanting themselves into the ash below. I waste no time and run for the elves, too, proving how pitiful their attempts to take me down are.
I swiped my sword blindly, only to see two blurs of tall, lean color as an arrow fires up into the air and lands somewhere distant and silent. Their heads fly off cleanly, dramatically shooting up into the air and landing somewhere unknown. I don’t waste time with their remains. I have to make sure the village doesn’t succumb to this obscene battle.
I scour the village, coming across multiple dead bodies of varying creatures, orcs, naga, dark elves, and humans. The sight of the humans laying still, quiet forever, makes me think of Tessa, which only encourages the thirst for savagery I feel pushing through my bones.
I fight the remaining enemies, who have all done their damndest to destroy this innocent little place. I stopped a few fires that had broken out, likely lit by the torches from the orc, who enjoy unfair and barbaric tactics. I gathered the villagers into the center square and searched the area for the enemies, some of whom were stealthy enough to hide but who found the end of my blade and met their death anyway.
The energy of my anger begins to dwindle once I find that there aren’t any more creatures to fight. That is when a wretched truth returns to me, and I fall to my knees, my injuries pulsing but irrelevant.
“Tessa …”
My hands become weak once more, and the grip on my weapon falters. It falls to the ground, caked in the blood of my rivals, blunted by the loose skin and organs hanging off its edges.
Tessa is all I can feel. Her shaking body after making love, her smile beneath my lips, the alluring mystery of her whimsical mind. That is all gone now, taken from me, like a thief in the night.
I hear familiar voices, but they are muffled. I stare at the ground, wishing it would open up and vanquish me from my entire existence.
“Varzig!”
Distant hands are shaking my shoulders, and although I feel the inclination to slap them away, when I look up, I see that it’s Tessa’s parents. Their faces are stricken with grief and desperation.
A whole new wave of sorrow takes me over.
“We know about the book!” her mother says, weeping. “We know everything about it. We are so sorry about what we’ve done!”
I’m only at their precious human eye level while I’m on my knees. Her mother’s eyes are the same shade as Tessa’s, and they are bright now, with a sadness no parent should ever have to endure.
“We know what she did, for us, for you,” her father adds, his chin trembling to maintain a growing loss of control. “I wish she … I wish she would have told us!”
As an anguish previously unknown by Tessa’s father takes over his body, he drops what he had been clinging to his chest. It falls before me, and an idea wraps around my mind like an embrace from my beloved.
I pick up the book and rise to my feet. I have shrunken down to my average size since the battle commenced, yet, I’m still towering over the feeble humans.
“Come,” I say, desperately pulling at their clothing. “I have a plan.”
I carry both Tessa’s parents on my back as I race back to their homestead. Once we are there, I go to Tessa in her bedroom, but they cannot face it.
“You go,” her father says, consoling his wife in his arms. “We cannot lay our eyes upon her. It’s too devastating.”
