On This Hallowed Ground of Evil

The child did not utter his first word until he was four.

Terrified by the prospect of nurturing such a child whose intellect already seemed severely lacking, the parents rushed him to the highest authority they knew - The Dark Lord.

The child was given no say in the matter - but the ability to do so was lost to him anyway.

The Dark Lord saw the child, and gave his pronouncement on the matter:

The child was deficient, and it needed to be killed. Leering with all the self-hate and cruelty he could muster, the Dark Lord gave the 'mercy' of killing the child to its parents.

But if his intention was to make them suffer, he was mistaken. For too long had he taught his followers the elegies of hate and death. Sacrosanct was the act of pain and torture, and even holier was the bringing of death. There were no more small mercies left in the hollow voids he called his followers, and they were only to happy to oblige his wishes.

The black haired boy watched the proceedings in silence from his corner. Too young to attend the meetings formally, but in the charge of parents too ambitious to allow him a childhood, the boy had been dragged to gatherings such as this from the start of his young life. He stood behind the pillars, and watched as the poor child was dragged to the center of the room, where of course he would meet his death. The black-haired boy allowed himself a glimmer of sympathy, for the doomed child was too ignorant to even comprehend his own impending doom.

An expectant hush descended over the meeting hall as the child was forced to lie face down on the pedestal in the center, while his fiendish parents whispered a debate over which manner of execution the Dark Lord would prefer. And the black haired boy lay low behind a pillar, for the scene was too gruesome to watch, and yet that was what made him stay.

But before the killers could make a decision, the arm of the Dark Lord rose. And to the black haired boy's horror, the deathlike vision that was the Dark Lord's eyes made contact with his own. Trembling from head to foot, the boy rose from his seclusion and stepped into the hall toward the master - his master.

The Dark Lord watched him approach, but as to what his thoughts were, no one could tell. Only when the black haired boy knelt before him did he deign to speak.

The torches flickered softly, casting the already sinister hall into a glow that made it seem like the hallowed ground of evil from the bottommost depths of hell. Kneeling there, the black haired boy froze in shock as the master gave him his first orders as a follower. He knew what he had to do, and as he had no wand, he grabbed the scythe that hung beside the torch near the master's chair.

The raucous laugh of the Dark Lord echoed the halls as the black-haired boy approached the other child with a lack of emotion in his eyes that disturbed even his parents. The followers watched his progress down the hallway like scavengers waiting for the predator to strike.

Standing over the victim, the black haired boy raised his knife high, and for one instant wondered why he dared not refuse the order. When he brought the knife down and watched the gushing life fluid make red patterns on the stone floor, the black haired boy finally understood the Master's intent. It was not the child whom he had just sacrificed on the hallowed ground of evil.

It was himself.