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Skender walked back home, the air feeling thick. His throat dry, his eyes burning, and his stomach hurting. He stopped at a corner feeling his stomach turn and then bowing down he threw up. Finally, his nausea triumphed. He couldn’t hold in days of anxiety and fear. Every time he was close to giving up his heart, his past would come back haunting him. The fear of trusting again, when the ones he trusted the most had lied to him in the name of protection and love.

Love? Was that the way to treat the one you loved? Then he didn’t want it.

He walked back home, his mind going down the lane of memories. He was only a boy when it all started, the isolation.

“Skender! Where have you been?” His mother asked, looking angry when he came home after playing with a few children in the neighborhood. “What did I say about going outside?”

“Mother. I only wanted to play.”

She took a deep breath as if calming herself. “I understand but you can’t go too far. You know you have to be somewhere close where I can see you and no dangerous games where you can get hurt.”

“I know.” He said meekly.

He was never to go far away and while that worked while he was still a child, it didn’t work when he became a teenager. The boys of his age were adventures and wanted to try dangerous things and go to different places but he wasn’t allowed.

Why?

“We are demons.” His mother explained to him why he needed to be careful. His identity needed to remain hidden.

Skender thought that he finally found a solution to his problem. He needed to be with other demons.

“Can’t we live in the demon world?”

“No. We are defenders. This is where we belong.” His father said.

“But we don’t belong here.” Skender protested.

“You will get used to it.”

“I am not getting used to it, father. I want to go out and do what other boys do.” He felt alone spending his days at home and staring at boys in his age through the window.

“Skender. We talked about this. You can’t go outside until your powers grow and you become a defender. Until then it is dangerous and our enemies will try to hurt you.”

His parents controlled him through fear of shades. They made him think that he would one day grow his powers when they had numbed him and then made him forget. He thought it was his own recklessness and desire to be free that had cost his parents their lives in the end.

He remembered Ramona’s disappointed look when she found out he didn’t have his powers. But then she kept coming back.

“I will help you find your powers.” She told him.

“Why?”

She shrugged. “You said you had no friends. We can be friends and friends help each other.” She smiled at him.

Skender had suddenly found a reason to wake up other than just existing. Ramona had motivated him and made his days more adventurous, and more challenging. She made him wonder and question things. She showed him the world with different eyes. This, of course, concerned his parents. They warned him several times. Warnings he regretted not listening to when he found them dead.

“You are quick to learn.” Ramona had told him.

“You are a good teacher.”

They would spend a lot of time together up the hill. They would talk for hours sometimes. She would watch him with a tilted head and a slight smile. The smile that made him believe she liked him.

“You are a good man, Skender. Any woman would be lucky to be with you.”

Those words among many others had messed with his mind and emotions. It was that day when he decided to make her his woman. To find his powers, become the defender he was supposed to be, and then make her his. But all jokes were on him. There was no finding of his powers. It was all a lie and the woman he wanted to marry found someone else to protect her.

He chuckled like a madman as he walked down the dark streets, the pain in his chest getting heavier with each step. Nausea returning. He teleported himself to his room and realized he was sweating, his body trembling. He kept thinking of Roxana. The possible pain his words could have caused her.

This was his problem. Always thinking of others, feeling guilty for them and putting himself last. This is where it got him. Roxana’s feelings were not his problem. He shouldn’t care. He didn’t care.

He let out a sigh of pain and frustration, feeling his demon crawl under his skin and adding to the tremors in his body.

‘Could you at least spare me today?’ He told the destroyer.

‘I am trying to help.’ The destroyer said to his surprise.

Skender became confused.

‘How? Can you make this pain stop? Can you just… let me go. Let us go.’

‘You are remembering and I am trying to stop it. Can’t you just let it go? You don’t have to remember.’

‘Remember what? What are you stopping?’

‘This struggle between us is making us weak. Just leave the past.’

Were there other things he didn’t know?

‘I need to know. I have a right to know!’ Skender said. ‘I don’t want any secrets in the name of protecting me. At least YOU shouldn’t do that.’

The destroyer became quiet for a while. ‘Alright. Just remember. Nothing of what happened was my fault. Or yours.”

‘What happened?’

‘You will see.’

Suddenly it was as if a veil was lifted off his eyes and he could navigate through his memories without any blocks.

The most prominent memories he could find easily. They were the ones that had been hidden because they were painful.

It started with a horrified scream. Skender could see the scene of horror through his mother’s eyes. His clothes and hands were covered in blood. The blood of innocent small children.

“What- what have you done?” His mother whispered, her face turning pale.

Skender looked around at the bodies of his small friends. “I was just playing mama.” He told her.

His mother hurried to pick him up and teleported him away. She was crying as she removed his stained clothes.

“Why are you crying, mama?” He asked her.

She couldn’t speak as she choked on her tears. “Nothing.” She said, her face hardening as she stopped her sobs.

Skender was suddenly staring into the wall in his chamber again, leaving the memories behind. He killed before he was numbed and it wasn’t only that time. He felt his stomach turn again.

He lay down, feeling his blood turn cold. He shivered and then closed his eyes, forcing himself to sleep to escape this reality. He didn’t want to stay here anymore. He wanted to disappear. Anything to end this nightmare. But the nightmare followed him in his sleep.

He found his head under the water, drowning. He tried to pull himself out but a strong grip on his neck held him under the water. Skender struggled, his lungs burning from the lack of oxygen until he gave in and he began swallowing the water. When he thought he was going to die, he was pulled out.

He gasped for air. “Grandma, please…” he called but she pushed his head inside the water again.

“I am not stopping until you save yourself. Your parents are stupid for numbing your demon. They should have taught your destroyer instead. I am going to teach you.” She told him.

Skender gasped and choked swallowing the water in an attempt to breathe. His heart quickened in fear and then slowed down as his vision slowly darkened. Just then his grandmother pulled his head out.

“Is this all you got? Do you think I named you Alexander to become this useless?”

Tears streamed down his already wet face. He tried to speak but his lungs were filled with water.

He coughed and coughed but it took forever until he could breathe again. Thinking that he finally found peace she grabbed him and drowned him again. He called for her, called for his parents but she just laughed.

“No one is going to help you, young boy. You have to help yourself.” She said.

When he was on the brink she pulled him out again. Pain struck his chest. He felt like his lungs exploded inside his ribcage.

“Do I need to find other ways to awaken your demon?” She threatened.

He shook his head, desperately trying to get away from her but to no avail. His demonless, still-small body was nothing compared to her strength.

“What are you doing?!” His father finally came to his rescue. Skender pushed himself away and crawled toward his father.

His father helped him up. “Are you alright son?” He looked at him worried before turning to his grandmother. “Do you want to waste the effort we put into helping him?”

“You made your son useless. He is paying for your sins.” His grandmother spat.

His father pulled him close into a hug. “You will never touch my son again. Stay out of this.” His voice was deadly but his grandmother wasn’t the least intimidated.

“If you can’t make him a defender, he is better off dead. This life you are giving him is a lie and will cause him and others a lot of suffering.” She said.

“Just leave him alone!”

“When you become strong enough to save your son, then send him to me.” She said and then disappeared.

“Father, no please.” Skender held onto his father. He barely reached his waist and his tiny arms came around his father’s hips. He didn’t want to drown again.

“It is alright,” his father said, stroking his hair. He took him home and helped him change into dry clothes before tucking him in bed. Skender wanted to stay there, in the safety of his home. He didn’t want to hear more about how he was better off dead or that he was useless. Why did they call him that?

“Father. Did I do something wrong?”

His father shook his head. “No son. It is not you. It is me.” He said, stroking his hair gently. “I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me one day.” His father had tears in his eyes.

“I am not upset with you.”

His father smiled faintly. “Good night, son.”

“Good night.”

His father placed a kiss on his cheek and Skender crawled under the warm covers. He would stay here and never get out, but more painful memories awaited him and as he continued down the lane of memories, reliving each pain mixed with bittersweet moments, he became overwhelmed. He got buried under the weight of his past, unable to pull himself out.

Well, as much as the destroyer hated those memories that also affected him to some extent, this gave him way to take over without a fight. He emerged in full force.

“Rest Skender, while I take care of the rest.”