Chapter 6: Successor

 "I better go check on my father," I said, walking back towards the house feeling quite satisfied with myself.

 I opened the front door and surprisingly found my father with one hand pressing on his bloody neck as he helplessly crawled down the stairs.

 "Quit your struggle, your wife is already dead," I said to him casually.

 His face twisted with shock and anger as he tried to get himself up, but then helplessly collapsed down the stairs. He knew not to doubt my words.

 "Why do you still have your hand on your neck? Did you not hear when I said your wife was dead?" I asked as I walked towards the kitchen to grab a set of knives.

 "Do you perhaps believe that you still have a chance to survive this? You're quite optimistic, old man," I said, laughing as I walked towards him with the set of knives in hand.

 "Pain is for all, and I intend on distributing it equally," I said to him, then proceeded to stab him on his foot with one of the knives.

 "You are even worse than your wife. You knew your parents better than anyone else. I know, to some extent, you knew what could have happened to me when you left me there," I said to him, then picked up another knife and stabbed him in his other foot.

 "No wonder you were always suspicious of me," I said to him as I stabbed him in his right thigh.

 "Was all that honor and glory worth it? Was it worth a five-year-old boy being beaten till his bones fractured, spending sleepless nights being frequently awoken by the pain? Was it worth the nails on his bleeding fingers falling off in search of his food? Was it worth the numerous nights spent starving as a result of not being able to catch his prey? Was it worth him going an entire year without seeing the sky or basking in the light of day? Was It Worth Woof!" I shouted at him as he began to lose consciousness.

 I then stabbed him in his left thigh, which slightly woke him up again, then said, "You can't go just yet, not until I'm done talking…"

 I looked at him with a warm, comforting smile and said as I watched the light in his eyes become dimmer, "Thank you, because what I learned was worth it all."

…

 "I've seen enough," the old skeleton said, then immediately disappeared into a dark, cloud-like void, leaving a dazed Lilith still gazing at Grayson through the cloud.

 "That...was beautiful…" she said, still dazed. It was only after a few more seconds did she wake from her stupor and follow the old skeleton through the cloud.

...

 Back in the living, I was still looking down at my father's now dead body.

 "Damn it, I've got blood all over me. I should go bury the bodies, but first things first, I need a shower. I've got nothing but time anyway," I said to myself, deciding to go to the upstairs bathroom. I took off my clothes and left them on the floor, right behind the bathroom door.

 Whilst inside, I felt a chill coming from the bathroom, which was odd because there was no window open here. This chill was different, yet familiar, like something I had felt before. However, it was much more concentrated; much more intense. It felt like billions of corpses were in the room, making it difficult to even breathe.

 'I can't breathe, I-… I need to get out of here!' I thought in a panic.

 I then immediately turned around to rush out, only to see an 8-foot, skeletal-like figure blocking the only exit. It had a dark cloud moving all around it as if it were a cloak in the wind. Its eyes were blazing gold and had a deep darkness about them that could not be described.

 'I- I can't breathe,' I thought as I tried my hardest to gasp for air.

 My back was drenched in sweat, and I was rendered frozen. The air felt like acid to my lungs.

 "Wha- th- the furk are you?!" I struggled to say.

 "Oh! You can still speak?" the skeletal figure said with what I would imagine being a grin on its skeletal face.

 "What does death mean to you, boy?" the skeletal figure said.

 "F-F-uck o-off!" I struggled to say, looking at its piercing eyes. However, the more I looked into the skeleton's eyes, the more I felt my eyes burn.

 'Am I going to die here?' I thought to myself unwillingly.

 "Interesting…let's get this over with," the skeletal figure said.

 A thick dark cloud then began to violently rush out of its mouth and eye sockets, and raged towards me. The dark cloud then mercilessly burned off my skin as it invaded my body through my mouth, nose and ears. I tried to scream out in pain as I felt my body melt from within, but the cloud prevented me from producing any sound.

 At that moment, my entire world was nothing but pain. Slowly, I began to give in and slip out of consciousness. Before I passed out, I could see my life flash before my eyes; a series of painful events; so much that had been left unaccomplished.

 'So this is the end!' I thought to myself as I finally passed out from the pain, unaware of the changes to my body taking place.

 "Lilith, I will not survive this, and do not have much time left. I'm aware that you have yet to approve of this boy, but Theós has chosen him…after so long, Theós has finally chosen my successor; after so long… I can finally rest.

 I am grateful for your much-needed services throughout these past centuries. You truly made this curse bearable. I only ask that you to do the same for this boy," the skeletal figure began to say in a rush.

 "For centuries, I was forced to serve because of this curse. For centuries, I had to endure the screaming in my head. For centuries, I had to experience excruciating pain... Lilith, it finally stopped…the noise…the pain. Brother... I am coming," the skeletal figure added faintly as the last of the smoke exited his body. Immediately after, his bones began to wither away.

 "As you command, it has truly been an honor to serve by your side..." Lilith replied with a straight face as a tear rolled down her cheeks. "Cain." she added in a whisper.

 A bright turquoise light filled the bathroom as I opened my eyes. I began to look at the familiar surroundings and noticed a brown-skinned, naked woman with a rather long, black, furry tail next to me. She was crouching down, picking up a pile of sand and putting it in a black vase.

"Who are yo-…?" I tried to ask. 

To my surprise, I found it hard to even speak due to the pain I felt all around my body. I looked at my hands and saw what looked like thick smoke rising out of them. What was even more weird was that my flesh rose with the smoke, continually burning off, and withering into the air.

 I quickly got up to look at myself in the bathroom mirror. Each movement I made multiplied the pain all over my body. I tried to forget about the pain and looked into the mirror. As expected, it was the same situation on my face. My flesh was continuously burning off. The only parts of my body that didn't burn were my turquoise eyes, but they seemed to be brighter, as if they had been set ablaze.

 "What happened to me? Who are you? What's wrong with my body?" I asked, turning to the only other person in the room.

 The pile of sand and the black vase were nowhere to be seen. However, that was the least of my problems.

 "I'll answer your questions later. There's a much more urgent matter to deal with right now. Quickly, you see that dark cloud around your body? You need to cover the earth with it. Focus and begin to feel every life and every death on this planet!" she said with urgency.

 "Are you mantle? What the heck are you talking about?" I asked, annoyed by this tailed woman. "How do you even have a tail?" I added.

 "I said I'll answer your questions later, just do it; Theós will guide you," she said impatiently.

 "Who is Theó…." I tried to ask another question, but suddenly got whipped in the face by a black, furry, 6-foot tail.

 "DO IT, NOW!" the tailed woman commanded.

 I gave her a deep glare and said in a low voice, "I am going to kill you!"

 Everything around me then began to decay as the house began to tremble. The tailed woman seemed unaffected and kept her impatient appearance. However, her black, furry tail curled up and trembled in fear.

 I decided to put the matter aside for now, as I knew nothing about the situation and this actually sounded urgent. I then thought about what she had just told me. Soon, after a simple thought, the thick, dark cloud around my body began to spread to all the corners of the world.

 I began to feel each and every human being. I could feel their life forces and see their lifespans. Other than this, their mental state, and images of what each person is most likely to die from became visibly clear to me. I could also see different methods of reducing one's lifespan. I could only observe one human at a time, but it was at such an incredible pace that it seemed like I was seeing them all at once.

 The moment I felt a person's life force, a part of the dark cloud, separated from me and formed a 6-foot, shadow-like, humanoid figure. The humanoid shadow tied itself to the person's soul. For some unknown reason, there were a few million exceptions, in which the shadows only followed closely behind and didn't dare get closer.

 "There seem to be some other beings dressed in white that are not human. The humans don't seem to notice the shadow-like figures, but these beings in white are looking straight at them. What are they?" I asked as I kept observing them.

 "I will answer you. For now, just focus on getting to every human being. The world has stayed nearly 5 minutes without death. There have been a couple of hundred undead that cannot be explained. Souls have been leaving and returning to their bodies in a loop, not knowing where to go," she said, a lot more calmly now.

 I then continued the process. This took around 2 minutes. Within that time, I observed the situation around the world.

 "There are quite a lot of people in need of enlightenment… I don't know what's happening to me, but I can use this to my advantage," I said to myself, then turned in pain to face the tailed woman.

 "Now, how about some answers," I said to her.