《Darkfire》


 Prologue

    I see the sun setting down the forest outside my window, while I¡¯m surrounded by the loneliness of this house. I don¡¯t feel pleasure from such a view any more; I stopped feeling any kind of pleasure. Sunset for me only means that soon it will be time to fulfil my duty.


    I reflected on whether I should write a memoir for a long time. Those like me are not supposed to leave any trace of our existence. I''ll take great care to ensure this is never found.


    I told myself I need this. To make order within my mind, to reflect on all that brought me to this place. So I write this to spend my day, while waiting for the night to come.


    I see my own hands. From there spouts the power that defines my existence. An inner talent given upon my birth, discovered far too soon. Even now I struggle to think of the man who showed me this world. The one who showed me what I am. And so I write this memoir.


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    Now the sun has disappeared over the horizon, leaving only its last feeble light. The pen that scratches upon this page will be set atop the desk and if God is good, so will my mind.


    Soon I will go to eat, to prepare for the night ahead. Food is only sustenance, entertainment just a pastime. I live to fight what only those like me can fight. I''m told this is normal, I should feel nothing more.


    If by any chance someone finds this page, please do not be scared of what''s to come. I beseech you not to speak these words to anyone. Just know that our intent is the greater good. Perhaps you will have the strength to burn this story like I didn''t.


    My name is Hayden Darce, and to whoever you are: you have been warned.

 My future master

    PART I


    CHILDHOOD


    There was a time when I was just a normal child. A kid with two parents, who lived in a regular small house in a small town close to London. All my uncles and grandparents lived far away, in West Ireland, and I had met them maybe twice in my life. There was nothing special about me: I liked the same things a kid would do, like playing, sleeping and so on. My school grades were average and my problems were average child problems: homework, getting caught at doing something your mum disapproves, and bullies. I had just two or three friends at school, and very few occasions, if none, to meet them outside class. So my childhood was mostly spent in loneliness.


    I had an adult friend, though. It was our neighbour who lived in the flat next to ours. He moved there when I was three; at least I think I was three, not that it matters. The day he arrived, he didn¡¯t lose any time and rang our bell to introduce himself. He wore some very elegant grey suite and his face seemed relatively young despite his white hair. While he chatted with my mother, I was hiding myself behind a door, until she told him they had a child. As she said that, I ran into my room. But I still heard the newcomer asking her something.


    ¡°May I meet him? I love children.¡±


    While I tried to distract myself with a colouring book, my mother entered my room.


    ¡°Hayden, our new neighbour wants to know you. Don¡¯t be afraid, he¡¯s nice.¡±


    Out of force, I got out of my room with her. The new neighbour saw me and made a huge smile. ¡°Hello,¡± he said.


    ¡°H...hello¡± I replied, trembling.


    My mother excused herself. ¡°He¡¯s shy, sorry.¡±


    ¡°No problem,¡± he said warmly, Then he turned his head to me again. ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡±


    ¡°Hayden...Hayden Darce,¡± I answered.


    ¡°That¡¯s a nice name. I am Darrell. Darrell Kynthelig.¡±


    I smiled a little. My name was the only thing I liked about me. It sounded pretty cool at the tongue, and my surname is very similar to Dark, like my hair. After that, it all became easier. We talked a bit, as much as a little child can talk, but he still looked very interested in my childish affairs. We even played together with some of my toys. He was very lovely.


    There was a strange detail I learned that day: he had no family at all. I had never met someone who had no family. Despite that, he claimed to love kids. I couldn¡¯t resist asking him why: his answer mentioned some health problems that prevented him from having babies. I didn¡¯t understand very well then, since I still believed storks brought babies.


    That day, he became a close friend with my parents and me. Even my father, who would come back later home from work, met him and liked him. He became a sort of uncle for me, and I felt him closer to family than my real relatives, who all lived so far. I loved Darrell, and my feeling was requited. Whenever my parents would go out I was happy: I knew they would leave me to his flat, where he would serve me chocolate milk and biscuits, then play with me.


    The one day, he started becoming something more.


    It happened one afternoon when I was seven. I was in 3rd grade and I felt totally miserable because of bullies. I wasn¡¯t very tall, and I used to have protruding upper incisors, details that my black straight hair couldn¡¯t help on mitigating. Bullies made fun of everything about me, throw me in the mud, trip me in the canteen, sometimes extorted my lunch too. I remember asking my teachers if I could remain in the classroom during breaks, but apparently it wasn¡¯t possible by the school rules. So from Monday to Friday, twice a day, I had to go out, stay in my solitary tree, or in my solitary lunch table, and pray not to be seen, but every time it was a useless hope. A pair of times, I tried to hurt them physically, just to be readily punished by the school who pretended not to see anything they were doing to me. The only thing I could do was crying first in the school toilet and then crying again on my bed at home, always in silence, in order not to give them that kind of satisfaction, or worse, make my parents worry.


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    I didn¡¯t talk about them much with Darrell: I was too happy to stay with my ¡®uncle¡¯ to think about sad things. But that day had been so horrible that not even he could cheer me up. We were in his flat, and he had just brought me a new board game to play with, but I was so down I couldn¡¯t enjoy it at all.


    ¡°What¡¯s there, Hayden? You look unhappier than usual.¡±


    With that, I couldn¡¯t resist any more and hugged his legs, crying again.


    He looked at me with compassionate eyes. ¡°Bullies, am I right?¡±


    ¡°How do you know that?¡± I raised my head, surprised.


    ¡°Your parents told me something about it, but I didn¡¯t know you were suffering so much.¡± He patted me on the neck. ¡°It¡¯s fine, Hayden. I¡¯ll go prepare some milk and then you¡¯ll tell me everything, do you feel like that?¡±


    ¡°Ok...but only because it¡¯s you.¡±


    ¡°Good boy.¡±


    Darrell went to the kitchen and came back with the usual dish with milk and biscuits. I ate them contentedly, feeling better.


    He sat on the empty armchair. ¡°Now, dear Hayden, tell me everything. No need to be shy, I just want to help you.¡±


    I told him everything. I narrated about my daily routine of going out of class for playtime, go under my tree and be tormented by no less than three boys that made the worst fun of me, then ask at least once a day to go to the toilet and cry there, alone and in peace, and then, once home, stay the rest of the day mostly in my room with nothing but some comics for company.


    ¡°You don¡¯t deserve all this,¡± he said in the end, always with that charming, comforting voice, ¡°and if I tell so it¡¯s because I know you well. I want to help you face those bullies.¡±


    ¡°Thank you Darrell. I love you,¡± I said, with broken voice.


    ¡°I love you too, dear boy,¡± he replied fatherly, ¡°that¡¯s why I want to give you a gift. The best gift ever. You won¡¯t have any bully problem once you have it, promised.¡±


    ¡°R...really?¡±


    Darrell¡¯s smile was enlarging, so slowly that it was almost imperceptible. That smile, however, didn¡¯t make him more sympathetic, but rather gave him some kind of mysterious look, which made me perceive, for the first time ever, there was something more about the man that had been an uncle for me.


    ¡°You¡¯re special, Hayden. I¡¯ve waited for a long time to tell you this, but you possess capabilities almost nobody has. You¡¯re going to discover them very soon. This is my gift.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    He got up. ¡°You have powers. Like the superheroes in your comics. Don¡¯t you wish to be one?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but...are you saying they¡¯re real?¡±


    ¡°In a way, yes. And you are one of them.¡±


    I was divided between excitement and confusion. Imagine a child that is told that he has special powers. Some will be more sceptical than others, but for all of them, it sounds like a daydream come true.


    ¡°What are my powers?¡± I asked.


    ¡°I can¡¯t show you them here,¡± he answered, ¡°we need to go out, where nobody can see us. So get yourself ready, we¡¯re having a nice trip in the countryside.¡±


    Part of my excitement was lost. The countryside was so boring for me. What could a child grown up in the city do in the middle of nothingness? ¡°But Darrell, I don¡¯t like going there!¡±


    ¡°I know, but this must remain a secret between us. Nobody must be around.¡±


    Darrell had never been so enigmatic. That behaviour, back then, was totally new to me. Part of me felt scared...but he was my adoptive uncle and I trusted him. If he said I had powers, I could believe it.


    ¡°Ok,¡± I said.


    ¡°Good boy,¡± he smiled, ¡°go prepare yourself.¡±


    ¡°Wait, I still didn¡¯t finish my homework...¡±


    ¡°You can do those this evening. If your parents ask, we just had a nice walk together.¡±

 The power of bad emotions

    We got in his car, an old Volkswagen Golf, and travelled for a bit less than one hour. Whenever I asked for an explanation, he would raise a hand and tell me: ¡°I don¡¯t want to spoil the surprise.¡± But that, instead of raising my curiosity, created a sense of uneasiness in me: he had already told me I had powers, plus we were alone in his car, so why not just tell me right now?


    As to discourage me to do any further question, he turned on the radio. I spent the rest of the journey concentrating on the generic pop tunes and the DJs speaking, albeit that wasn¡¯t enough to make me feel more unwind. Darrell was turning from a lovable uncle into...I couldn¡¯t even understand what. The Darrell I knew wasn¡¯t so elusive.


    Gradually, the cityscape disappeared in favour of open landscape around a highway. The signs indicated that we were somewhere in Sussex. I didn¡¯t even dare ask why we needed to go so far. Finally, he left the highway, and the streets became more narrow with time, the houses rarer, until he stopped on a road made of dirt; around us was a meadow.


    ¡°Here it¡¯s good. We can get off.¡±


    I looked around, although it was useless. There was literally nothing but grass: it was almost like I and Darrell were the only living men in the world.


    ¡°Darrell can you...?¡± I cried.


    Again, he raised his hand. ¡°Not here, wait until we are far enough from the street.¡±


    He began walking onto the grass, and I followed him. Another time of waiting. If anything, at least I was doing something, which was walking, but I couldn¡¯t stand it any more. Ten minutes, one hour, it didn¡¯t make any difference any more: every second was infinitely long. A child cannot conceive the concept of patience, especially after such child has been told they have special abilities that can solve their problem with bullies. But I remained in silence: I didn¡¯t want to not be a good boy in Darrell¡¯s eyes.


    The meadow seemed infinitely wide, like in one of the video games I played back then, where the landscape was generated by the computer. Darrell kept walking in silence. There were no buildings, no trees, no flowers; nothing that could indicate the passage of time. It felt like entering another dimension, where the world was divided just into green below and light-blue above.


    Finally, he stopped.


    ¡°Yes, we¡¯re far enough from anyone.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s my power?¡± I asked at the very instant he finished talking.


    ¡°Hayden, dear. Now I can finally explain you what I¡¯ve kept secret to you for so many years. Please forgive me for not being honest.¡±


    With that, I lost it again. He had finally said it was a good place to tell me everything and still he played the mysterious guy. This wasn¡¯t the Darrell I knew at all, it was like some extra-terrestrial had taken his place. I stopped caring about being a good boy.


    ¡°WILL YOU EXPLAIN ME?¡± I shouted in anger.


    In that same instant, they appeared.


    Two small balls, made of something like fire, came up above the palms of my hands, only to quickly disappear.


    I watched my hands in a state of shock, half-opening my mouth in disbelief. Darrell smiled visibly.


    ¡°That,¡± he said, ¡°is your power.¡±


    After the first shock, however, what I immediately felt was a tip of disappointment. I expected something much bigger than some fireballs in my hand. All that wait had increased my expectations a lot.


    The biggest emotion, however, was confusion.


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    ¡°W...what...what is this?¡±


    Darrell took a long breath before answering.


    ¡°Hayden, telling you everything at once would be too much. I promise you, one day I¡¯ll tell you everything. Today you¡¯re only going to learn about your power, and have a first look on how to control it.¡±


    I didn¡¯t have enough force in my mind to protest. I nodded, accepting.


    ¡°First, Hayden. What was the moment when those fireballs appeared?¡±


    They had caught me so unprepared that already I had half-forgotten what was happening before. I had to make a long effort to retrieve it back.


    ¡°Ergh...we were walking...and then...well...¡±


    ¡°You shouted at me out of anger.¡± He was right, I had just yelled at him out of frustration.


    ¡°So...do I become powerful when I get...angry?¡± I didn¡¯t expect to be something like the incredible Hulk, but my child¡¯s brain didn¡¯t mind too much. However, I was wrong.


    ¡°Not quite,¡± Darrell replied, ¡°although you were close.¡±


    ¡°Darrell don¡¯t be mysterious again, please, tell me!¡±


    ¡°I will give you a help. What were your feelings toward me at that moment?¡±


    ¡°DARRELL PLEASE! JUST TELL ME ALREADY!¡± With that, the fireballs reappeared and disappeared.


    I watched him, he watched me. This time there was no shock, just all my anger towards this alien that pretended to be Darrell, who kept smiling widely and I didn¡¯t know why.


    ¡°You¡¯re more prone to negative emotions than I thought. You¡¯ll be a perfect soldier. You have the fire within.¡±


    I was so close to crying. It felt like he was having fun at confusing me.


    ¡°I bet that you¡¯re really hating me right now, eh Hayden? Did I frustrate you enough?¡±


    Finally, a clue. I began seeing the picture. I calmed down, and the tears retreated inside my eyes.


    ¡°I need to hate you to make them appear?¡±


    ¡°Not specifically me,¡± he said, ¡°but yes. It is through hate that you can make those fireballs. I can do the same, actually.¡±


    With that, two fireballs appeared in his hands: they were spherical and red, and looked like pure fire. But unlike mine, they remained on his hands, and he looked perfectly serene.


    ¡°Does it mean you hate me?¡±


    ¡°What? No, no,¡± he dismissed, raising one hand; that gesture made the fireballs disappeared. ¡°I could never hate you. You will learn how to control your emotions too, so you can store them anytime without falling in anger. You have a long path in front of you, Hayden.¡±


    ¡°But...but...what for? Why do I need this? I don¡¯t want to hate people!¡±


    ¡°So, do you love those pesky bullies?¡±


    That was a low blow. I actually felt my heart a bit aching. If there was someone worth of my hate, it was them. At that moment, I remembered what he had said back in his flat: I want to help you face those bullies. The journey and the impatience had made me forget it. However, I wasn¡¯t stupid.


    ¡°But if I throw them fireballs they will put me in prison forever...¡±


    ¡°I know. I¡¯m not telling you to do it. But if you don¡¯t learn how to control your power, it may happen. You¡¯d be treated like a dangerous creature to be caged, or worse, eliminated, if you just let your anger go like that, and I won¡¯t be able to train you in our fight against the-¡±


    He abruptly interrupted, like if he had done a terrible mistake.


    ¡°Against what?¡±


    Darrell made a gesture with his hand, like telling me to keep calm.


    ¡°Against the bullies, Hayden. Against the bullies.¡±


    I just nodded: it made perfect sense for me at that moment. Still, I didn¡¯t feel good at all. Powers activated by hating people? This is not how a child imagines superheroes, or anything similar. In stories, they are always amazingly good people. They protect them, not hate them. Or was I destined to be a villain? Villains were cool too, in a way...but they always did horrible things, and then died...


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, you aren''t turning into a villain, Hayden,¡± Darrell told me, like if he had just read my thoughts. ¡°You¡¯ll use your powers to do good things.¡±


    ¡°But how can I do it if I must hate people?¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t have to hate all people. Just your enemies, like your bullies.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t throw them fireballs!¡±


    ¡°I know, we said that just before. You¡¯re just going to give them a good scare, how about it? That can¡¯t be forbidden, right?¡±


    I reflected. I still didn¡¯t have the conception that death threats are just as illegal as keeping faith to those threats, so my obvious mind didn¡¯t find any objection, despite desperately wanting to find one.


    ¡°I can¡¯t think of anything against it,¡± I said eventually.


    ¡°Splendid,¡± Darrell said, his smile wider than ever: in fact, his smile had never been so large. ¡°Today we¡¯re going see how to give them a good scare, so they¡¯ll stop tormenting you. After they see your fireballs, whatever adults can say, none will believe them. Isn¡¯t it wonderful?¡±


    Something was starting to grow inside of me. A sensation of desire. I wasn¡¯t actually going to do anything bad, right? The fear started to fade away, slowly replaced by the naive hope of a child. My mouth was now stretching into a smile, just like Darrell¡¯s.


    I watched the sunset. I watched the grass. I watched my mentor. Out of instinct, I ran towards him and hugged his legs in gratitude and affection.


    ¡°I love you Darrell.¡±


    ¡°I love you too, Hayden,¡± he said, patting my head, ¡°now get ready to hate.¡± With that, he took me away from him.

 How to train your hatred

    Darrell took a long breath with a satisfied look, then watched me in silence for a handful of seconds before speaking again.


    ¡°We need to go back home soon, so today I¡¯m only going to show you the essentials. We have covered most of them already, so, Hayden, what have you learned so far?¡±


    I reflected.


    ¡°I learned that to use my power I must hate. I learned that I must not throw the fireballs at the bullies, but I must only show them.¡± There was still a part of my brain that told me it was something horrible, but I silenced that part immediately: I had enough of bullies, and this was my only opportunity to prevail on them.


    ¡°Very well,¡± Darrell nodded, ¡°what I ask you, now, is to concentrate your mind on the bullies. What are your feelings about them?¡±


    This was even easier. ¡°I hate them.¡±


    ¡°Oh, yes you do. And why do you hate them?¡±


    ¡°I hate them because they make my life awful. When I wake up I feel bad because I know who I¡¯m going to meet. They call me names all times and don¡¯t leave me in peace, and I have no friends because of them, and no adult does anything even when I tell them!¡± Tears of wrath escaped my eyes. I knew I could let myself go with Darrell.


    ¡°Oh yes, you¡¯re right, Hayden. They deserve to pay for it, don¡¯t they?¡±


    ¡°Yes they do!¡± I shouted. The fireballs reappeared, and vanished again.


    Darrell clapped. ¡°Your hate for them is genuine. Now it¡¯s time to make you concentrate on that feeling. The more you can concentrate, the longer the fireballs will remain.¡±


    ¡°What do I have to do?¡±


    ¡°Keep thinking on how much you hate them; this time I will not say anything. Don¡¯t just think of your hate for them: let it invade your whole body.¡±


    I made the best effort I could to keep that hateful feeling alive. I like to imagine my face was very reddish, because I was making noises similar to the ones I did in the bathroom. In little time the fireballs got back on my hands, but once again, as I looked at them, they disappeared in an instant. A wave of delusion took the place of my hateful feelings.


    ¡°It¡¯s just a matter of practice,¡± Darrell explained, ¡°when the fireballs appear, you must not look at them, but keep concentrating. The first times, it¡¯s normal to be amazed, but the more you do it, the less you¡¯ll be fascinated, so you can focus on your emotions and keep them longer.¡± He looked at the setting sun. ¡°Let¡¯s do it a pair more times and then we¡¯ll go back to the car.¡±


    So I did two more times. I was beginning to feel fatigued. Keeping on thinking about such unpleasant thoughts proved to be tiring. In the meanwhile, the fireballs still didn¡¯t want to remain. I knew I was supposed not to look at them, but it was too hard to resist the temptation: those flames, so perfectly spherical, had a certain beauty. Besides, knowing I had made them gave a certain satisfaction.


    ¡°That¡¯s enough for today. Let¡¯s come back home,¡± he announced finally.


    ¡°Let me try again, please...¡±


    ¡°No, it would be too much in one afternoon, and we need to go back. I already revealed you something huge, you need some rest now.¡±


    ¡°OK, then.¡±


    ¡°You will need to make practice with your emotions next days. Whenever you¡¯re with your parents or with me, think intensely of how much you hate those pesky kids. This will help you in getting your emotions in control.¡±


    Shivers crossed my spine. I had to think of them when I was with the only people who really liked me? I thought I would have to do it only when training with him.


    ¡°I know it sounds bad, but it actually isn¡¯t. If you trained alone, you¡¯d risk evoking the fireballs when you don¡¯t want them to appear. Instead, doing as I just said, you will counterbalance the hate with the love you feel for me and your parents. Practice as I said, and you¡¯ll be able to control your fireballs in no time.¡±


    ¡°O...only because it¡¯s you, Darrell.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a good boy. Now let¡¯s go.¡±


    He began walking back, to the car¡¯s direction. Nobody said anything. My mind was all a buzz of things. Whatever animosity I had felt for Darrell that day, it had disappeared. I loved him already, now I loved him even further. A pair of times, before reaching the car, I hugged him again. Both times Darrell laughed, patting my head and saying he loved me.


    When we reached the car, he said two last things. ¡°You mustn¡¯t try to use your powers until you have full control of it. You may evoke a quantity of energy that you can¡¯t control, and that would send you to reformatory forever. Promised?¡±


    ¡°Promised.¡±


    ¡°Another thing: this must remain between us. Not a word with your parents, not a word with your teachers, friends, relatives...no one. Nobody must know it outside of you and me.¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± I didn¡¯t put that into question: in all my comics, superheroes had to hide their second identity in normal life. At that moment, I felt like a soon-to-be superhero, though an unusual kind of it.


    During all the journey back home, I kept staring at the car window, daydreaming about myself finally winning over the bullies. They would see my fireballs...they wouldn¡¯t dare to get close to me any more...they would finally leave me in peace. Nobody would ever play with me likely, but I didn¡¯t care much: I felt like being destined to have few friends, if none at all. I had Darrell, and that was enough for me.


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    *??*??*


    The next days were awfully unbearable. I kept being bullied in the playground as usual, lifted by my uniform in the middle of everyone and told things like ¡°Who¡¯s a loser? You¡¯re a loser!¡± or malicious things about whoever had some sympathy to me; sometimes my parents, too, although they had never met them. Nothing different from the previous days, but this time I had to bear not only the bullies, but the temptation of showing them my awesome fireballs. Only my loyalty to Darrell kept me from trying to unleash them. Reporting everything to my teachers was useless: all they said whenever I told them was ¡°ignore them¡±. Thinking about it, that was a pretty bad school with pretty bad teachers.


    Still, once I almost used my powers. I was lying on the muddy ground, thanks to a guy who was some inches taller than me, when a fireball appeared for a short moment ¨C at least, what I felt was a great heat in both my hands, the same heat I felt when I evoked the fireballs. Instantly, I froze in fear. That¡¯s probably the reason the heat went away instantly, even quicker than that day. However, I was so petrified I almost didn¡¯t feel my bully lifting me up by my uniform for the amusement of his companions. In any case, all the sweat I was releasing gave him the occasion of contemplating how, according to him, I was a ¡®smelly chicken¡¯.


    Meanwhile, more training sessions with Darrell followed. We couldn¡¯t train every afternoon since we had to wait until both my parents were out for work. But when we did, usually twice a week, they were the only moments I really enjoyed in my life. My bond with him had never been so high. The excuse he provided to my parents was some trips around the countryside, ¡°of course after finishing homework¡±. Mum and dad never said anything against that: Darrell was a family friend for them as much as for me. I suppose they were just happy I could have a nice time with him while discovering the beauties of South England. We never returned to the same meadow twice: Darrell said that otherwise some countryside folks could get suspicious to see the same two strangers get back regularly. So we would change place each time, in counties like Surrey, Kent or Berkshire, and then look for a large field.


    Once finding one, Darrell would repeat me how worth of my hatred were my tormentors. Afterwards, he would stay silent while I did my best to concentrate on said hatred, until the fireballs appeared. Then the hardest part: controlling them. Keeping them alive was less difficult than I thought: before the third lesson, I was able to keep them for a reasonable amount of seconds. Much more difficult was resisting the temptation of throwing them: the feeling of hate dominated my mind, so much that I felt absolutely ready to incinerate something. The first time I held them successfully, instead of being happy for my result, I suddenly threw the fireballs at Darrell. I screamed in horror, but instead of getting out of the flames¡¯ way, he just lifted a hand and the fireballs weren¡¯t there any more.


    Fought between shame for myself and amazement for Darrell¡¯s abilities, I barely managed to whisper a weak ¡°sorry¡±. Darrell didn¡¯t show any emotions and just patted me as always.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I expected that to happen, and I was prepared.¡±


    ¡°I tried to kill you...¡±


    He looked around. As always, there was nothing but grass. ¡°I was the only available target. Don¡¯t worry, it was better this way. If you had targeted something else, they would have had no chance to defend themselves.¡±


    ¡°I...see...¡±


    He smiled. ¡°It¡¯s always a matter of concentration. Now that you have learned to hold the fireballs, you just need to keep training, so you¡¯ll control them instead of having them controlling you.¡±


    ¡°When will it happen?¡±


    ¡°With time,¡± he just said enigmatically.


    The shame had been washed out, but there was still the other feeling of amazement. ¡°How did you stop the ball?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll learn that one day, too.¡±


    ¡°How?¡±


    ¡°Once you¡¯ll have full control over your emotions, Hayden. This one¡¯s a difficult technique, and I don¡¯t expect you to do it any time soon. But I¡¯ll give you a hint: what¡¯s the only thing that can defeat hate?¡±


    ¡°Love?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. To protect myself from your fireballs, I focused on love, which nullifies the effects of hate. Now, love can only be used for self-defence, as it isn''t a destructive emotion; hatred is what you need most.¡±


    ¡°Who were you thinking of when thinking of love?¡±


    He didn¡¯t answer immediately, but waited for a few seconds to pass.


    ¡°You.¡± And he patted my left shoulder. I hugged him happily. After some other two attempts at keeping control of the fireballs, we came back home.


    Outside our moments in the countryside, I diligently did the ¡®homework¡¯ Darrell had assigned me the first day. But just like real homework, they weren¡¯t funny at all. Whenever I was with my parents, I forced myself into thinking of the kids I hated so much. Thankfully, I never evoked the fireballs in front of them; however, eating dinners became a very unpleasant experience for me. Of course, they could see something was wrong, and they¡¯d ask me if I was alright (I wonder what kind of expressions I was making in those moments), to which I¡¯d just reply I was tired.


    As the day passed, the first effects of the training appeared. I¡¯m not talking about the improvement in my control of emotions, rather a mental symptom. I usually felt it when I was alone, mostly when in my room reading my comics: out of nowhere a weak, but persistent burning sensation would disturb my brain. It wasn¡¯t related to remembering my activity with Darrell: it always happened when my mind was focused somewhere else. Neither was the kind of burning hate I felt when I thought about the bullies: I would have recognized it. It was a mild, but persistent sensation of discomfort for something undefined, which would first fade away after a handful of minutes, then around half an hour and finally it started lasting almost half a day.


    I refused to associate that sensation to Darrell, though. Darrell for me was the man that made me the happiest in the whole universe, despite the evidence of the opposite. If I had admitted that, it would mean I had no one else to make me happy, apart from my parents. Instead, I tried the best to convince myself our afternoons were now pleasant trips in the countryside.


    So my training continued, and finally, after two months, I managed to evoke the fireballs and keep them at a reasonable duration, without throwing them out of rage. If I remember correctly, it was Saturday, and we were in a meadow not far from Cambridge. I called the usual stream of hateful thoughts ¨C by now, it was so natural ¨C and the fireballs, instead of vanishing, remained there, in the palms of my hands. They didn¡¯t become smaller, like in the last sessions before that one, nor did I feel the urge to throw them: they just stayed on my hands.


    ¡°Excellent, Hayden!¡± Darrell clapped: the joy in his face couldn¡¯t have been more evident. ¡°I am so proud of you!¡±


    ¡°T...thank you.¡± Whatever I could think about how I suffered to achieve that, it was all swept away. Receiving such heartfelt compliments from him was worth everything. It didn¡¯t matter any more that I had felt the disturbance in my mind for the whole duration of the journey in his car: I had done it, I had finally done it.


    ¡°Very good, Hayden,¡± he said again, ¡°you worked hard and you got rewarded. Now those bullies will finally get the scare they deserve, eh?¡±


    I laughed, not much a laugh of contentment rather than a laugh of triumph over an enemy. The moment I had waited so much for was finally arriving.


    But still there was something to ask...


    ¡°Is it over? Is it all I have to do? Will I never have to throw these fireballs?¡±


    Darrell watched the meadow that extended over the horizon and sighed. ¡°For now, this will suffice. Now you can show those bullies who they called a loser, eh?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t wait for the next day.

 Revenge

    The next day, I woke up earlier than usual, too excited to keep sleeping. I had my usual breakfast with cereals and milk and then enthusiastically prepared myself in a hurry. My mother didn¡¯t miss noticing my strange behaviour.


    ¡°You look very excited today, Hayden. Are you going on a school trip today?¡± she asked, smiling at me.


    ¡°Well...¡± I couldn¡¯t tell her the truth: I had to invent something very quickly before I¡¯d miss the bus. ¡°No, no...our science teacher will show us his...pet lizard. Yes, he has a lizard. And I like...lizards, you know...¡± Effectively, I had showed interest in reptiles a pair of times: once they brought me to Regent¡¯s Park Zoo and I was more interested in the Komodo dragons and all the snakes than anything else. But that isn¡¯t important right now: the important thing was to give her a credible excuse. I don¡¯t even remember if my teacher had actually a lizard or not.


    ¡°Ooooh, really? What¡¯s its name?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, he said it¡¯s going to be a surprise...oh, the bus is here!¡±


    ¡°Have a good day, honey!¡±


    I literally ran out of the kitchen and towards the bus stop. As I sat in the bus, however, worry finally started to hit me. The possibilities that my revenge would go very bad were far from low, and I knew it. I began scratching myself nervously through all the ride.


    Once inside class, it was impossible for me to listen to any of the lessons. The teachers¡¯ words became a buzz in my ears among the chaos that was my brain. Why was time passing so slowly? Would I keep control of my hate? I didn¡¯t know three hours could be so long, even considering they were school hours! I had a mission to d-


    ¡°Mr Darce, will you stop scratching yourself?¡±


    This time I heard my teacher¡¯s voice perfectly. Everyone else was looking at me and whispering between themselves insinuations about my hygiene. I began sweating coldly, and that didn¡¯t help their impression. Undoubtedly, that would be today¡¯s bullies topic: two of them sat just two benches behind me.


    Then finally playtime came. All the nervousness and impatience of those hours vanished, replaced by a cold determination. I got out of the building...


    ¡°Hey Hayden!¡±


    ¡°Oh...hi, John.¡± John was one of my few ¡®friends¡¯, a guy with glasses that loved fantasy books, with whom I would sometimes trade my comics. ¡°What¡¯s there?¡±


    ¡°I wanted you to show this book I got yesterday,¡± he said, ¡°maybe you would like this one? I know it isn''t your favourite kind of story but...¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s Ok, what¡¯s about?¡± Ugh. Of all moments, he had to come to me now. I faked some mild interest, just not to ruin one of my few good relationships at school.


    ¡°Well, the title is Lou-hi-kay-¡­Lou-hi-key-r-ma...oh whatever, it¡¯s impossible to pronounce, But I read the first seven chapters and it¡¯s a cool story.¡±


    ¡°I see.¡± Stories with knights and dragons and things like those weren¡¯t my cup of tea: I was more of a sci-fi guy. But it didn¡¯t matter, whatever kind of book he had to show me: I grew up with impatience in the very moment he showed me the book cover. I hadn¡¯t waited all those hours to talk about some mediocre books.


    ¡°Sorry John, can you show it to me later? I have to do something.¡±


    ¡°What is?¡±


    ¡°Just...something.¡±


    I left my friend, and resumed walking to the playground, where Richard and Zack were already there, waiting for me. I smiled.


    ¡°Hey, look who¡¯s there!¡± Richard shouted.


    ¡°Look? Hadn¡¯t you realized he was coming from the smell? I could sniff him from that tree!¡± Zack added.


    ¡°Ugh! Can¡¯t your parents even afford to have a shower at your home?¡±


    ¡°You guys should have seen how sweaty he was this morning! I swear the chair was all sticky from slime!¡±


    ¡°Yeah, he scratched himself all day! Might have lice, stay away from him!¡±


    I kept smiling, keeping getting closer to them.


    ¡°What¡¯s up, chicken?¡± Richard said. ¡°want to play with us? Go, take the ball!¡±


    He threw the football that was between his feet to my direction, the most violently possible. It hit my chest; I staggered for some seconds, but neither the pain nor their laughs stopped me. I made further steps.


    ¡°You¡¯re trying to look like a thug?¡± Another one, called Brian, said. ¡°We all know you spend your time crying!¡±


    This hurt me a bit, for it had been true. But not any more.


    ¡°You may be the next doing so,¡± I said, plainly.


    ¡°Ooooooh, how scary! Run for your lives, you all!¡±


    ¡°Fear me, for I am the weeping smelly chicken!¡±


    This was the necessary amount of names I needed. The hate inside me was now burning at the right dose. Best of all, I felt in control. I didn¡¯t perceive within myself the wish to be able to set them down, like I used to. The hate I felt wasn¡¯t produced by their mean words, but it was the same feeling that had been repeatedly rising up in the last months. It was my new state of mind.


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    ¡°That¡¯s right. You must fear me.¡±


    Finally, I felt the familiar warmth in my hands. I raised them, showing the fireballs in front of my tormentors¡¯ eyes, so that they could see it wasn¡¯t a mirage. They were hot, fierce and menacing. I rotated my arms, pretending to be ready to throw them.


    The bullies became petrified. They were motionless, like in a state of shock, like if they couldn¡¯t believe how dangerous that smelly chicken actually was. I could literally see the single sweat drops running from their heads to their chins. Eventually, they found the force to make two steps back.


    ¡°Is this a joke, Darce?¡± Zack barked.


    That was interesting. When has it been the last time they called me by my real name?, I thought, laughing mentally. His trembling voice made everything more enjoyable.


    ¡°It isn¡¯t...¡± the other one said, pointing at me with his shaking finger. ¡°I can see the smoke coming from them...¡±


    With that, I slowly walked towards their position, keeping the fireballs pointed at them. It was at that moment that those pathetic beings fled in fear.


    My mission was done. I had taken my revenge.


    It was then that I realized what was happening around me.


    All the children were looking at me. They were no less scared than the bullies I had just terrorized. Everyone had just witnessed the whole scene.


    ¡°Hayden...what was that?¡± John cried, in the middle of the crowd.


    My breath became short. Dozens and dozens of eyes were judging me with their accusatory looks. My sense of pride vanished. Although the warmth in my hands had gone, I didn¡¯t dare watch them.


    I was in deep trouble.


    Suddenly, the bell finally announced the end of playtime. My schoolmates, who normally would do their best to remain those two extra minutes, raced to get back to class. Had I tried to get back with them, they would have run.


    I tried to convince myself I didn¡¯t care at all. I was a solitary child anyway, so why bother? All I needed in my life was Darrell and my parents. Sure, maybe John wouldn¡¯t talk to me any more, but for me, he was only someone to spend time with in the morning.


    But that wasn¡¯t true. My first emotion was fear. I was going to face consequences for sure, and it was hard to foresee which ones. Plus, the accusatory looks of the children, the way they were terrorized by me, didn¡¯t feel good. Not at all.


    I walked in the school corridors in complete loneliness. I was just about to open my class¡¯ door, when someone touched my shoulder. I turned my back. It was my English teacher.


    ¡°The headmaster wants to talk with you, Mr Darce,¡± she announced.


    ¡°Why?¡± I said, trembling.


    ¡°I think you know why. Follow me.¡±


    Yes, I was in very deep trouble. Those bullies had gone blurting everything out. I should have seen that coming: how stupid was I?


    The corridors felt much longer than normal. What had they told the teachers, exactly? Had anyone else reported what happened too? What had they said? Had they mentioned the fireballs, or something else? And if they¡¯d mentioned them, did the teachers believe their story?


    I would discover all the answers now. We had arrived. My teacher opened the door.


    ¡°Mr Darce for you,¡± she said ceremoniously.


    ¡°Thank you, Miss Wallace,¡± the headmaster, a thin, bald man, said. ¡°Please sit down.¡±


    I obeyed. The headmaster looked at me for some moments, like for studying me. I couldn¡¯t even perceive if I was sweating or not.


    ¡°So Mr Darce, I was informed you threatened two of your schoolmates during playtime.¡±


    ¡°I...¡± I gasped, making an effort to make words come out of my mouth. ¡°I didn¡¯t do anything.¡±


    Banal. Too banal. But that was the best my mind was able to produce.


    The headmaster assumed a more concerned look. ¡°They have said that you walked towards them and then you did something, but I didn¡¯t understand very well what you did exactly. They said you threatened to set them on fire, or something similar. Is this true?¡±


    ¡°It...it isn¡¯t,¡± I blabbed.


    The headmaster didn¡¯t look impressed at all.


    ¡°The testimonies are not on your side, Mr Darce. Everyone confirmed us you told your two schoolmates something like ¡®you must fear me¡¯, and then they fled.¡±


    I lost any capacity to speak. I was an open book.


    ¡°However, now comes the absurd part. Some claim some sort of fireballs appeared in your hands and you moved them like for throwing them at your schoolmates.¡±


    ¡°Uh, what?¡± I said, making an effort to do the most credible surprised face possible.


    ¡°Fireballs.¡±


    ¡°How could I have made fireballs?¡±


    ¡°With a lighter, maybe,¡± he suggested.


    ¡°I don¡¯t own one,¡± I protested.


    ¡°Then I suppose it isn''t a problem if I ask you to empty your pockets.¡±


    I did. As I knew, they were completely empty. The headmaster¡¯s eyes made a full rotation.


    ¡°Well,¡± he said, scratching his head, ¡°they may have seen something else. I don¡¯t really know what to think.¡±


    ¡°So I¡¯m free to get back to class?¡±


    He breathed heavily. ¡°No, Mr Darce. Whatever they¡¯ve seen, I have no doubt that you threatened them, in some way or another.¡±


    ¡°But I didn¡¯t...¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s your word against a good number of witnesses. Also, you¡¯ve been really nervous all the time I¡¯ve talked to you.¡±


    ¡°Sir, I swear I didn¡¯t do anything that involves fire!¡± I shouted.


    ¡°For now I believe you, because there¡¯s not enough evidence, so I can¡¯t really take any provisions by my side, but I must ask your teachers to put you in detention. As for me, I¡¯ll have to inform your parents anyway.¡±


    * * *


    Once home, I spent that whole afternoon in my room, wishing desperately to meet Darrell. Not to seek comfort though, but to discuss with him. What was next, now that I did my mission? Had it been worth it, now that all the adults around me were against me? What were his plans?


    But I wouldn¡¯t meet him today. As I went back from school, my parents, who had received the headmaster¡¯s call, were ready for action. At least one hour of awful discussion followed, in which I¡¯d try to convince them I hadn¡¯t done anything menacing, with the same success I had obtained with the headmaster.


    But they had one more point.


    ¡°Hayden, I don¡¯t know what¡¯s happening to you, and I¡¯m not even sure what you actually did today,¡± my dad said, ¡°but I must confess it. Since you and Darrell have been going out together to those trips you¡¯ve not been yourself.¡±


    ¡°W...what do you mean?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve become colder. I mean, we know you¡¯ve always wanted tranquillity, and that¡¯s ok, although we wished you had more friends. But now you¡¯re hardly ever talking and sometimes you don¡¯t even answer us. I don¡¯t even remember the last time you smiled, damn!¡±


    ¡°Dad is right, Hayden. We¡¯ve always trusted Darrell because he¡¯s our friend, but we must ask you¨Cwhat do you two do exactly, when you¡¯re out?¡±


    No. I couldn¡¯t tell them. They had to be the last ones to know it.


    ¡°We...we just hike together...he likes to bring me to nature places...¡±


    ¡°Is that the truth, Hayden?¡± Mum asked.


    ¡°Y...yes...¡± I blabbed.


    My parents looked at each other, with doubtful faces. It was dad speaking again.


    ¡°I think it¡¯s better if you two don¡¯t do these trips together for at least a while. For this week, you won¡¯t see him as a punishment, and also you¡¯ll have to do housework after homework. After, I think it¡¯s better if you two only limit yourselves to spend some time together in our house or in his one. I want the Hayden I know back. The Hayden I know wouldn¡¯t have threatened a schoolmate, even if it was a bully.¡±


    ¡°But they tormented me!¡±


    ¡°Hayden, these problems are solved by talking to an adult, not taking matters into your own hands!¡±


    ¡°I did! I talked to you, and to all the teachers, but nothing happened!¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll find those little thugs¡¯ parents and have a talk! I promise!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve already said that a million times!¡±


    ¡°HAYDEN, ENOUGH!¡±


    That was the end of our horrible conversation. I went out and closed myself in my room, covered with unhappiness. But not for the punishment or for the quarrel, but because that was the end of my training with Darrell, and maybe also my time with him. If I couldn¡¯t have Darrell, then I really was completely lonely.


    ¡°Do your homework because I¡¯ll check them in an hour!¡±


    I opened my bag, thinking that at least my homework would make me think of other stuff.

 Respected, feared, isolated

    I couldn¡¯t verify immediately how much my revenge had reached its original purpose, since part of my school punishment consisted in being kept in classroom during break for one week. But even if I couldn¡¯t go outside during playtime, I could still see its effects. The very day after, as I entered the school bus, all the other children fell into silence. While I searched for a seat, their eyes pointed at me like one. Some whispered between themselves, indicating me with the finger. Finally, once I found a free place, the guy who sitting next watched me with a sight of pure terror. Mind you, all I¡¯d done was asking if that seat was free. He didn¡¯t say a single word, instead watching me as I sat down, like if he was about to have his face mauled alive. Well, I had the capacity if I¡¯d wanted, right? Only, his face would be burned, not eaten...


    For the whole duration of the trip, the guy insisted in watching outside the window, his t-shirt turning a darker colour because of sweating. When the bus arrived to its destination, everyone around me almost raced to get to school first, just like they had raced to get inside after recess the day before. Kids trying to get to school the earliest possible! Fear can do great magic.


    The same scenario I witnessed in the bus repeated in the school building: everyone keeping a distance from me, either whispering among themselves or pointing at me with the finger or not daring watching me. Two kids of the first year even ran away at my sight. Nobody said a word to me. Just the day before, I would have lived all this as a great improvement, but now I was realizing the difference between solitude and loneliness.


    Once in front of my class¡¯ door, I did not have the courage to enter. I could not stand the idea that the unlucky kid destined to sit next to me would sweat with fear the whole morning. It was only when my maths teacher shouted me not to act stupid that I found the force to move my legs and come in. I was ready for her to mention the incident in front of me, to further humiliate me for punishment; but instead, she just continued explaining her maths. Had I been a little braver, I would have thanked her, but the last thing I needed was being called a teacher pet too.


    When school day ended, I looked for the only person that, I thought, wouldn¡¯t avoid me. I remained in front of the entrance just before it was time to take the bus again, and waited for him. Then he appeared.


    ¡°John!¡±


    ¡°Oh...hi, Hayden.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m so happy to see you...¡±


    But he didn¡¯t look as happy. His legs kept slightly bending, like for begging their owner to keep walking.


    ¡°Hayden, hem, since you¡¯re here...what happened yesterday?¡±


    Of course he would mention it. I had told myself the illusion he¡¯d just like to talk about his fantasy books as always, and for once I would have even enjoyed that kind of conversation.


    How could I ever explain it? Even if I did, who would believe me without evidence?


    ¡°John please...those two bad guys were torturing me every day and the teachers kept doing nothing...what did I have to do? Please don¡¯t avoid me, at least you!¡± I finally cried, desperate.


    ¡°Hayden I stand by your side,¡± and when saying that, his legs shook stronger, ¡°but it isn''t like you see everyday someone creating fire from nowhere, and then pointing them to someone else!¡± He snorted. ¡°Everyone in my class today talked about you. They all kept me doing questions because they knew I was a friend of yours, and I didn¡¯t know what to answer. You¡¯ve just become...strange, Hayden, recently. It¡¯s like whenever we talk you barely react, and then yesterday it turns out you can make fire out of nowhere and threat people!¡±


    I don¡¯t know if it would have hurt less, if John had just ignored me and walked towards the bus. But it hurt. What had Darrell turned me into? Yet, that was our secret. If I betrayed it, if I said I was being trained to hate for gaining power, he would not believe me in the best scenario. Who knows what the worst scenario would have been.


    ¡°I...I can¡¯t tell anyone what happened...¡±


    ¡°Then I don¡¯t know what to say. Sorry, we should take the bus.¡± He walked away from me. Everyone else around just stayed away from me, like if I had the deadliest infectious sickness that ever existed.


    I got what I wanted to get from my revenge: to be respected, even feared by my bullies. But I hadn¡¯t calculated I would be feared even from others, and eventually isolated. It is true that I¡¯ve never had an outgoing personality, but I still needed to be loved.


    I did not enter the bus. The driver shouted me if I had intention to enter or not, and when I cried ¡°NO!¡± he just left. I sat on the stairs in the entrance and cried like an obsessed.


    A sense of hatred started growing while I let my vocal cords scream their protest. Not any more towards my bullies, but towards all my classmates, and eventually the school as a whole. I felt hate for how they made me so miserable. I felt hate for John who hadn¡¯t given me support when I needed it most and...


    ...no. This was all because of Darrell. It was him who turned me into this. It was him who made me feel that burning hateful sensation every day. It was him who made me do what I did...I immediately redirected my hatred to him. But it faded out immediately. Darrell was the person I loved the most in the world, together with my parents. Why would he do me this? Did he only want me to help, or did he want to harm me? I needed to talk to him. I had enough of him playing the game of the mysterious man: I need to know the truth, what were his purposes. Next time I would see him, I told myself, I would ask him everything and I wouldn¡¯t let him go until...


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    ...I couldn¡¯t. My parents had forbidden me to see him for a long time. There was nothing I could do at the moment. Apart from abandoning myself in a state of disgust for myself and hate for what Darr-no, I needed to turn off that feeling. Darrell loved me, I was sure of it. With time, I would learn everything, I was certain.


    * * *


    Avoided by the whole school in the morning, kept from staying with Darrell in the afternoon: instead of solving my problems, my power had amplified them. I didn¡¯t even dare spend too much time with my parents, because I feared they would ask once more what I really did that day. Once home, I¡¯d leave my room only to eat: my afternoons were nothing but homework, comics, and going to bed immediately after dinner. My mum would make some attempts at comforting me, and I liked it, because she never asked me about that day. She came to my room, talked to me about other nicer things, told me a bedtime story and then hugged me. It was the only nice moment of my day. My dad...well, he tried too, but much more clumsily. Whenever I asked him when I could stay with Darrell again, he abruptly changed topic. He was still doing his best, so I hugged him anyway-I needed some affection so badly¨Cbut then I¡¯d run away from him and his possible questions.


    It was only after two weeks that they let me stay with Darrell again, though only inside his home. I was so glad to manage to see my mentor, but not for the reasons my parents thought. It was time to claim explanations, loudly.


    I entered his apartment.


    ¡°Hello, Hayden,¡± he said, less warmly than usually.


    ¡°Hello, Darrell,¡± I replied, less warmly in turn.


    ¡°So, you have done it. You managed to evoke the fireballs without my presence.¡±


    That made me turn on a fire, not in my hands, but inside my mind.


    ¡°I wish I hadn¡¯t done it.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡± His tone was genuinely surprised. ¡°Are the bullies still tormenting you?¡±


    ¡°They gave up. But since then, everyone else avoids me at school.¡±


    ¡°Oh...I¡¯m sorry,¡± he said, making up some sort of credible compassion. He came closer to me and put a hand on my shoulder, but his movements now looked to me unnatural, almost mechanical. ¡°It was a bad idea. I should have never proposed you that. But I hope you won¡¯t wish to interrupt your training.¡±


    This was enough information. He said he was sorry, but still wanted me to continue. I was completely certain about it now: he had second plans.


    I spoke. ¡°Darrell, I¡¯ve waited two weeks to ask it.¡± I took a deep breath. ¡°I want to know why you made me take this training. It isn¡¯t just for the bullies, otherwise you wouldn¡¯t ask me to continue.¡±


    There was a single sweat drop that flowed from his front down to his left chin in his otherwise impassable face.


    ¡°If I told you now, you¡¯d hardly believe me.¡±


    ¡°I am tired of half-truths. I want to know it NOW!¡± I shouted.


    That last scream of mine seemed to make him more agitated. His hips were moving uncomfortably, and he was opening and closing his right hand repeatedly.


    ¡°All right then. How about telling you half of the truth for now, so when the time comes, you¡¯ll believe me more easily?¡±


    I felt teased. The man I had called my adoptive uncle refused to be transparent with me. But unfortunately for him, he had made me too hungry for the truth to be content with half of the meal.


    ¡°No! I want the whole truth!¡± I was burning with rage. My feet were stomping on the floor with furious energy and my voice finally exploded. ¡°I WANT IT NOW! GET IT? NOW! NOW!¡±


    My hands became hotter. My arms, without any input, rose up and the face of Darrell became yellow from the light of my fireballs-


    Someone knocked at his door. The fireballs in my hands disappeared as they had come. Darrell made a huge ¡®oof¡¯ of relief. ¡°Excuse me,¡± he said, as he walked to the entrance and answered whoever had just saved Darrell from my fury.


    It was my parents. ¡°Is everything alright? We heard Hayden¡¯s voice saying that he wanted something...¡± my mum asked.


    ¡°No, no, don¡¯t worry...he just wanted to go on a trip, but I tried to explain him you said I can¡¯t-¡±


    That made me explode again.


    ¡°NO, THAT IS NOT TRUE! HE¡¯S TEACHING ME TO DO HORRIBLE THINGS AND I HADN¡¯T REALIZED IT AND HE¡¯LL NEVER TELL ME WHY HE DID IT!¡± I clenched my own fists in the hope that would prevent the fireballs from appearing. I felt the warmth, but the glowing light didn¡¯t appear. As I finished, I realized what I had just done. I had just admitted openly that Darrell had corrupted me. I had just put myself in the most complicated position possible.


    ¡°What do you mean, horrible things?¡± dad said. ¡°Darrell, I think you owe us some explanation. Hayden has not been the same since a long time now. What is that you¡¯re doing with our son?¡±


    ¡°Neither I know what he means by that,¡± Darrell said, his voice trembling more and more. ¡°Listen, he¡¯s just a bit agitated because he¡¯s had some bad times recently, you know-¡±


    ¡°Give back my son,¡± my dad said with decision, ¡°now.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s nothing to be worried about, really-¡±


    ¡°Give back my son, Darrell!¡±


    I came to the entrance, not afraid any more. I had just thought about what to say to them.


    ¡°Dad!¡± I hugged his legs, who hugged me in turn. Then I did the same with my mum.


    ¡°It¡¯s ok, Hayden. We¡¯re here.¡± They both looked at Darrell, who looked unable to make any movement, and had an idiotic look in his eyes.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go home,¡± my father finally said. ¡°Goodbye, Darrell.¡±


    And we turned back to our home.


    Once in our living room, we sat up all together in our couch. I told them as much as it was safe to tell them, while my cries interrupted my words.


    ¡°During those trips...he was teaching me how to threaten those bullies...because I had told him nobody was helping me...we¡¯d go somewhere...and then he would show me how to do things that...that...¡±


    ¡°What kind of things?¡± My mother asked, her hands caressing my hair.


    ¡°I...I think I just I want to forget it forever...¡±


    ¡°Oh, Hayden,¡± she said, ¡°it¡¯s fine if you don¡¯t want to think about it again. We¡¯re just glad you finally told us. We¡¯ll always be here for you.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to see him any more.¡± I wasn¡¯t lying.


    ¡°You won¡¯t,¡± mum kissed me, ¡°forgive us if we didn¡¯t help you enough with your bullies problem.¡±


    ¡°E...everyone is avoiding me at school...¡± My face had more tears than skin on its surface by now.


    ¡°Well Hayden,¡± my dad said, always with his practical attitude, ¡°the only way you can solve it is being open with your schoolmates.¡±


    Once I got calmer, we stayed in the room in silence for a long time. Nobody couldn¡¯t believe that Darrell had turned suddenly that way, refusing to give any explanation, using our affection to his mysterious, sinister plans. It was now time for me to forget him and begin a new life.

 The end of innocence

    Six months passed since then. During this whole time, I didn¡¯t spend a single moment in the company of Darrell, nor did he seem to look for mine. Slowly, but constantly, my situation at school improved: with that I mean that John was talking to me again. I took the initiative by myself, and I did it the very next day after I declared to my parents I didn¡¯t want to see Darrell any more: I just came to him during break time and greeted him. At first, he first only did the same, without daring to look at me in the eyes, but that didn¡¯t discourage me: three seconds later, I told him sorry for my behaviour and that I didn¡¯t want to lose his friendship. With that, he smiled, then said he wanted to show me a new book he had started reading. The rest of the school still wouldn¡¯t trust me much-nobody else would talk to me yet-but at least in the school bus, instead of being left alone, I had John next to me, which was perfectly fine: I never wanted popularity, I just didn¡¯t want to be perceived as some kind of monster.


    During those months, I spent a lot of time with my parents. Almost every day, after I finished my homework, my dad would take me to playing outside. We played a lot of football together: I still remember how happy I was when I scored my first penalty against him. If it rained, he would bring some board game. My mum, who was an English teacher in a high school, would read with me many books, which I discovered to like more than my comics, like Treasure Island or The Hobbit. Those stories had a magic atmosphere that I had always underestimated; that only reinforced my friendship with John, because now we were able to exchange books.


    Most of all, my parents would bring me on several trips somewhere. On weekends, we travelled to places like South Wales, Yorkshire and Oxfordshire, spending time by walking in the nature or visiting the local towns. I was particularly enthusiast about Oxford because my mother had told me it was where the author of The Hobbit had lived. Once, during a bank holiday, they even brought me abroad for the first (and only) time in my life: we went to France, a place called Mont-Saint-Michel. I kept for many years a photo with me and them posing in front of the monastery, hugging all each other, just like a perfect, happy family. It was fantastic to do these trips, which were much better than going into in the middle of nowhere and standing for hours in the same place. I think their idea was to replicate those afternoons I had spent with Darrell outside, but in a much more pleasant formula. Even if they couldn¡¯t know the full truth, I liked to think that.


    I was finally forgetting all Darrell had taught me: I didn¡¯t need him any more in my life. I must have seen him three or four times in total during those six months, and whenever our paths met I would always avoid his sight. A pair of times I think he whispered to me ¡°Hayden...¡± but I ignored him with all my strength.


    I was finally happy.


    It was a Friday night, and it was my parents¡¯ wedding anniversary. We went celebrating in an Italian restaurant around our neighbourhood, which apparently was one of the best in the whole county, or so they had said. In any case, I was just happy to go eat outside, because it meant I¡¯d eat some very fancy stuff. The restaurant had a nice, cosy atmosphere and the waiter who served us had big black moustaches, just like they say Italians do have¨CI cannot truly say if it¡¯s true, since I don¡¯t think I ever met any Italians, but it was fun to watch. I still remember myself indicating it loudly and my mother scolding me, despite the waiter being clearly amused.


    It had been just another nice evening with my family: we came out of the local with full stomachs and good humour. We paid, left the local, went to our car and finally we were back at our neighbourhood, in front of the building where our flat was.


    It was there where it happened.


    Just before my father could reach the small door that was the entrance to our building, appeared a man all dressed in black, with a black balaclava and a gun in his hand.


    Out of instinct, my father stood in front of me and my mother, making resistance. He shouted us to run and call the police, but just before we could do anything, behind us other two men came out, dressed exactly like the first and holding two guns, identical to the one the first man owned. We were trapped.


    I began crying.


    ¡°Shut up kid! We don¡¯t hurt children. We¡¯re gentlemen.¡±


    My lament only grew up. My parents, instead, were completely frozen, unable to do anything.


    The first thief, suddenly, shouted:


    ¡°Do it!¡±


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    at that moment, I heard my mum whispering something.


    ¡°We love you, Hayden...¡±


    And then the two men behind us shot two bullets.


    I shouted the whole hell out of me while the two small metallic cylinders trespassed my parents¡¯ heads, making them explode with blood. Their torsos fell on the concrete and left a wide sign of red, illuminated by the cold street lights. The three men rapidly assaulted my mother¡¯s bag and my father¡¯s wallets, and they finally disappeared in the night, leaving me in front of the door.


    I was alone, in the middle of a pool of blood, in an effort of breaking my own vocal chords, incapable of seeing well because of how liquid my eyes had become.


    All the windows in the building emitted white light from their rooms. Everyone was looking at the scene.


    ¡°Is that the son of the Darce¡¯s?¡±


    ¡°What happened?¡±


    ¡°Oh my god! Oh my god!¡±


    However, I looked for one window in particular. There he was: the face of the man who I used to call uncle, who I had deliberately ignored for six months.


    ¡°DARRELL! DARRELL!¡± I screamed.


    ¡°H...Hayden? I-I¡¯m coming!¡±


    After one minute, Darrell came out of the entrance, with the face of someone who has seen the devil himself.


    ¡°Hayden! What...what happened?¡±


    It was then that his eyes saw my parents¡¯ bodies, their lifeless expressions, the lake of blood.


    I hugged his legs; the strongest hug I ever gave to someone. He brought me to his chest and gently petted my head, letting me cry on his shoulders while at the same time doing the same, just more quietly.


    ¡°Hayden...oh Hayden...¡±


    He brought me inside the building, where my screams rumbled through the wall. I didn¡¯t care about how many I was waking up.


    The lessons Darrell had given me returned violently in my head. An ocean of hatred was flowing in my mind like lava from a volcano: it was more powerful and more comforting, more terrifying and more pleasant than whatever my ex-bullies could make me feel. I didn¡¯t want those assassins just to die: I wanted them to suffer slowly. I wanted them to live a death worse than the one they had caused.


    The fireballs showed up in my hands, after a six months hiatus. I was ready to throw them, screaming all my odium-


    ¡°NO!¡± Darrell shouted, lowering my hands. I reconnected with the world: we were in the elevator. Had I thrown them, I¡¯d have killed both of us. ¡°Remember what I told you? Controlling your emotions is important.¡±


    He held both my hands strongly as we reached his flat.


    ¡°Here. You can stay my home, but please Hayden, sleep, okay?¡±


    ¡°Yes...¡± I managed to say, with great effort; I wasn¡¯t in the condition of pronouncing longer words.


    ¡°I¡¯ll put you in my bed and we¡¯ll sleep together.¡±


    ¡°Thank...you...¡±


    He let me lie down on his bed and stayed there for a long time. Suddenly, my love for him was fully restored; a part of my mind, the one that could still think, tried to remember what bad things he had done to me, but that wasn¡¯t what I needed to remember at that moment. Slowly, I got calm enough to start falling into slumber, although the pain remained equally intense.


    After a while, someone knocked on the door.


    ¡°Sorry Hayden,¡± he said, and left the bed to the entrance. There were some voices I couldn¡¯t recognize, to whom Darrell exclaimed: ¡°Please, would you be so gentle to come back tomorrow morning for your questions? He¡¯s just lived a very traumatic experience, and absolutely needs some sleep. You can ask me what I witnessed, for now.¡±


    I covered my ears with the pillow. I didn¡¯t want to listen and live all again. The best thing, for now, was to pretend the world didn¡¯t exist any more, but it was utterly useless: I just wanted Darrell to come back again to me. I just waited with my face wrapped in the pillow, until he finally got back to me.


    ¡°Hayden,¡± he said, ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but tomorrow you¡¯ll have to tell the police what happened. I know it¡¯ll be awful, but if you do it they may get those assassins and deliver them to justice. It¡¯ll be alright, I promise.¡±


    The police...I felt a small shiver of fear. ¡°I¡¯m scared...¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Darrell, they¡¯re here to help us.¡±


    I nodded weakly. Suddenly, I realized I had the force to ask him something. I had thought about it...well, not sure when, but it was the only prospect I had for my future.


    ¡°Darrell...can I...can I go live with you?¡±


    I studied his reaction. I expected him to hesitate, that he¡¯d tell me that I had my relatives who¡¯d accept me, that he wasn¡¯t fit to take me after what happened between us. But those relatives I had were so far away and I barely knew them, that I¡¯d never be happy if I went live with them, at least that was what I thought.


    With my surprise, Darrell¡¯s face got a radiant smile, just like the one he used to show when we played together.


    ¡°Yes, Hayden. I¡¯ll make sure you¡¯ll be able to stay with me.¡±


    I cried again, this time out of commotion, and gave him another hug. He reciprocated it with affection.


    ¡°Just make me a promise.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°That we¡¯ll resume our training.¡±


    I stopped the hug. I remembered how he had second plans about me. I remembered what he had done to me.


    ¡°...why?¡±


    ¡°Hayden, tomorrow I¡¯ll tell you everything. You were right for being angry with me, but I¡¯m not joking this time, I really mean that. You¡¯re going to discover all you need to know about yourself, me and everything that I haven¡¯t told you. I will not abandon you.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to be a monster...¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t turn into a monster. I should have never suggested you to try those things at school. Please forgive me, Hayden. Forgive me for that, and also for...I would avoid it if I could...but I can¡¯t. You¡¯re too important.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m...important?¡±


    ¡°Yes. It¡¯s all related to your powers ¨C our powers. You¡¯re a very precious gem.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Tomorrow, Hayden. Now it¡¯s time to sleep.¡±


    I didn¡¯t have the force to insist on asking for explanations. Besides, he had just said he¡¯d tell me everything, and if I didn¡¯t trust the only adult I had who loved me, I¡¯d be lost. I had no choice.


    ¡°I promise,¡± I said as my eyes closed into sweet slumber.

 Darkfire

    The next morning, I was awakened by the sound of the ring bell, and a voice asked for me.


    ¡°Is Hayden Darce at home? We need to make him some questions, if you please.¡±


    The police was back. I covered myself in the blankets from the terror, instigated by the mental image I had of police from cartoons.


    Darrell called me from the door. ¡°Hayden, are you there? I know it¡¯s difficult, but...¡±


    I retreated inside the blankets further.


    ¡°Hayden, be a grown up boy!¡±


    I didn¡¯t answer.


    Eventually, he had to take me out physically and bring me to the two policemen sitting on the couch.


    ¡°Excuse me gentlemen. He¡¯s very scared...¡±


    ¡°We totally understand, Mr Khyntelig.¡±


    To my great surprise, the two policemen were quite gentle with me. They asked my name, sat with me on the couch, spoke to me calmly. The questions they did were one worse than the previous one, but they looked genuinely sorry to have to do it; each time I cried, they caressed my head.


    ¡°We¡¯re sorry, Hayden,¡± the one on my left said, ¡°we wouldn¡¯t ask you these questions if we could, but we need to know exactly how it happened, so that we can arrest those thieves.¡±


    ¡°I know...¡± I sighed. Encouraged by them, I somewhat managed to continue, until they finally announced they were satisfied and got up. As they left the flat, Darrell turned back to me.


    ¡°Now that we¡¯re alone, you can finally learn the truth about me. And you, most of all.¡±


    The truth, finally. For the first time since the previous night, the memories of I had witnessed left me alone.


    Darrell proceeded to close all the windows. ¡°Before I begin, you must swear to me that you won¡¯t tell anyone anything.¡±


    A shiver of fear was crossing my body. A truth that involved invoking your worst emotions to make fireballs appear in your hands could never be a nice truth.


    Did I really want to discover it?


    Regardless, it was too late to decide...


    ¡°You must know, first of all, that you and I are not the only ones in the world with our powers,¡± he began, standing still in front of me like a menacing statue. ¡°Some happen to have a...let¡¯s say, a natural capacity to extract a highly destructive energy from their worst feelings, which manifest themselves in the form of those fireballs. All of us, with absolutely no exception, are reunited into a worldwide secret order.¡±


    He took a deep breath. ¡°It¡¯s called the Darkfire Order.¡±


    ¡°The...what?¡±


    ¡°Darkfire Order. Its first purpose is to track any living human being with our same powers. We cannot leave anyone like us to roam free in the world: the consequences may be catastrophic. You¡¯d likely hear the triple of tragedies you normally hear on the news.¡±


    Darkfire. I let the word enter into my brain and be memorized.


    ¡°You¡¯re a member, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes, and soon you¡¯ll be one too.¡±


    With that, I realized something.


    ¡°Is this what made you move next to my house?¡±


    He sighed. ¡°I suppose it was only a matter of time before you¡¯d realize it. Yes, Hayden: I moved here specifically to find you. Many years ago, I discovered a descendant of a deceased Darkfire who lived south-west from London, someone who belongs to the line of the Darce family. The gene that gives our power is transmitted over several generations, but rarely does it get activated: usually, it takes several centuries. The last one of that line, according to my research, had lived around four hundred years ago; a decent timespan to assume the gene had a high probability to reappear. So I came to this town, with the goal of finding the home of the Darce family and spying their son. Trained Darkfires like me can perceive that distinctive aura only one of us has; it was very easy for me to find that descendant and feel the aura I was looking for. That descendant, of course, was you.¡±


    Yes, indeed it was an awful truth. Darrell had spent time with me only because he had to. I couldn¡¯t believe how happy my life seemed to have become until yesterday.


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    Worst, he hadn¡¯t even finished. He had one last detail to share.


    ¡°However, tracing and recruiting Darkfires is only one of our two main missions. The second one is the most important. Without this last mission, you wouldn¡¯t just listen to more tragedies: all life on Earth would cease to exist.¡±


    I sweated heavily. What horror was he going to unveil to me? I didn¡¯t even have the force to say ¡®What?¡¯ or any other simple word.


    Insensitive about me, Darrell continued with the same solemn tone. ¡°Even when a human is blessed by not being marked by the Darkfire gene, they remain a creature deeply maneuvered by fear and its dearest children, anger and hate. Those feelings give life to the most horrific monsters you could ever imagine, creatures only those like us can to perceive. They¡¯re made of the same energy your fireballs are made of; but they have their own, independent mind. Their kind of mind, though, is completely different from humans¡¯: their only purpose is destruction. The more people feel hate close to each other, the more of these demons take life.¡±


    ¡°Are you p...laying with me, Darrell? It isn''t funny...¡±


    ¡°I wish I was playing.¡± He was deadly serious. ¡°I¡¯d have a normal life, and so would you.¡±


    ¡°No...that...can¡¯t be,¡± I said, trembling.


    His eyes, for a moment, seemed to shine with a red light that reminded me terribly of the fireballs. ¡°Tell me, Hayden. What makes you think I¡¯m joking?¡±


    ¡°I...don¡¯t...know.¡±


    ¡°Then you know what I am saying is true.¡±


    ¡°Yes...I...do.¡±


    The red light in his eyes disappeared ¨Cor much more likely, I stopped imagining it. ¡°That¡¯s a good boy. Now let me finish my explanation. These demons I talked about, we call them Apollonids. There¡¯s only one thing that can kill an Apollonid: the very thing it¡¯s made of.¡±


    ¡°Hate...?¡±


    ¡°Precisely. That means, only a Darkfire can defeat them.¡±


    ¡°By throwing fireballs at them?¡±


    ¡°I see you have understood. Very well.¡±


    ¡°And so this is what you have reserved for me all this time?¡± I said, my fear and sadness beginning to be replaced by anger. ¡°You looked specifically for me, befriended me and my parents, trained me to make those horrible fireballs...all for this? To make me become a man full of hate whose only goal is to defeat demons I¡¯ve never seen? I bet you¡¯ve also-¡±


    It came out all at once, like lava from a volcano. Now I knew he didn¡¯t really love me: he had stayed with me only because it was his duty. But at a certain point, it felt like that same volcano was suddenly covered, and the rest of the lava returned to the depths of the Earth. I did not dare saying something else I had just realized; it was obvious, it was necessary to say it ¨Cbut I didn¡¯t dare. Darrell was still everything I had left now: I couldn¡¯t break with him, even though I knew how false he had been. New tears left my eyes, for the effort of holding the question that was burning so atrociously within me.


    ¡°You bet I have what, sorry?¡± He said, remaining calm.


    ¡°Nothing,¡± I answered, letting a sigh escape my mouth.


    ¡°Hayden, I know what you¡¯re feeling; accepting all this was difficult for me too. But without us...¡±


    ¡°...everyone would die. I get it.¡±


    ¡°Quite that. We have to feel hate so that the rest of the world is free to love.¡±


    ¡°How can we protect the world if we have to hate it?¡±


    Darrell smiled. ¡°Hayden, Hayden, I was expecting exactly this question: every member of the Order asks it before or after. Unfortunately, I cannot give you the answer through words: one day, you¡¯ll fully understand it by yourself.¡±


    ¡°Why can¡¯t I know it now?¡±


    His eyes narrowed. ¡°Because as your mentor, I have very good reasons to decide it so.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re my what?¡±


    ¡°Mentor, Hayden. The one who¡¯ll follow your growth inside the Order until you¡¯ll no longer need me.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± I simply said. The suspicion I had stopped before resumed at those words. Since his mission was above everything else, then he wouldn¡¯t even mind doing certain things...but first I had to come through it with some related questions.


    ¡°How do the members of the Order remain in contact?¡±


    ¡°We don¡¯t organize ourselves in meetings; in fact, you may never meet another one from the Order outside me, for several years. If we met all together, it would be like declaring our existence. But in case of need, we know where to find other Darkfires. You¡¯re going to learn that too when it¡¯s time.¡±


    ¡°You mean like how it happens in some books? You know, those stories where there is a group that must stay undercover or people will panic...¡±


    ¡°Sort of. Well, more than sort of.¡±


    I looked at him. ¡°So you say you don¡¯t know any other Darkfire in real life.¡±


    ¡°Quite true.¡±


    ¡°And that if you ever need to find one, you¡¯d know how to do it.¡±


    ¡°I have some quick contacts. I never met them, though. I don¡¯t even know their names.¡±


    I was ready. ¡°So...if I wanted to hire two people to do something-¡±


    ¡°Hayden, what are you thinking of?¡±


    Now it was time to reveal my thoughts. But I completely froze. No, I didn¡¯t have enough bravery to ask for more truth. I couldn¡¯t ruin my life even more. I would just ignore those voices that were keeping suggesting me that scary possibility.


    ¡°...nothing,¡± I said.


    ¡°It looked like you wanted to ask something.¡±


    ¡°I just wanted a confirmation of how it works,¡± I minimised.


    Darrell resumed like no interruption had happened. ¡°Anyway, you have learned what you needed to know. If you want more, I must ask you to wait until your training fully begins.¡± He looked outside the window. ¡°Tonight I¡¯ll take you out, so you can witness the demons by yourself. This should remove any doubt inside your mind ¨Cbecause trust me, I was full of doubts the first time I had it explained. Therefore, I¡¯d suggest to rest until dinner time. Understood?¡±


    ¡°Okay,¡± I just nodded, and without waiting for his reply I went to the bedroom. I needed to be alone as quickly as possible.


    I was a member of the so-called Darkfire order. I would fight for a world I would learn to hate. I would never have a friend, nor parents to be loved by. And if I refused to follow this infamous path, no one else would be alive.


    This couldn¡¯t be true. No, Darrell had to have dementia, something similar...how could I believe all this? I could accept the fireballs, but all this sounded too much like some really sick fantasy book.


    But no matter how much I could deny it, if I could make fireballs out of hate, what else could prevent the Darkfire and those demons he mentioned to be real, apart from my desire for it not to be true?


    OK, Hayden, I told myself, let¡¯s do this way. If those demons are real, we¡¯ll just stay and follow him. If they aren¡¯t, we¡¯ll escape somewhere. There must be an orphanage somewhere, or maybe find a way to contact your relatives...


    How hellish my life had become so suddenly. And that was only the beginning.

 The Apollonids

    When Darrell came into the room and told me food was on the table, I felt the sensation that at least eight hours had passed, but watching the clock I realized it had been three.


    During the dinner, there was perfect silence. Neither did I want to talk, nor did he seem about to start any kind of conversation. I enjoyed that silence: I feared if we kept speaking, more horrible truth would come out.


    But that wasn¡¯t supposed to last. Once we both ended our meals, Darrell looked at me and announced:


    ¡°We¡¯re going to leave before ten.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°By that time it will be completely dark. Also, there will be the news on BBC One.¡±


    ¡°Why do we have to go out when the news is on TV?¡±


    ¡°Because,¡± he said with a severe tone, ¡°few things raise hate more than murder and corruption.¡±


    He raised a hand and moved it horizontally, like for indicating he wouldn¡¯t tolerate more questions.


    Not wanting to fall into my heartache again, I sat on the sofa and watched some TV by myself, looking for cartoons. Much better. For the first time in one day, I succeeded in not thinking of anything unpleasant. Just what my mind needed: some freaking break.


    Much earlier than I hoped for, Darrell put himself between me and the TV. ¡°Go prepare yourself.¡±


    I watched him incapable of saying anything. Words didn¡¯t look necessary, since he quickly added: ¡°Hayden, as long as you stay next to me, you¡¯ll be safe. Now, I repeat, go prepare yourself. Immediately.¡±


    That authoritative tone he had just used...it was a tone that admitted no replies. It felt so weird from him. I went changing my clothes ¨C Darrell had moved all my belongings from my former house in the morning ¨C and then I was ready, my mind tormenting me with images of what the demons could look like. Horned beasts dripping blood? Zombies? Or what?


    We went out of the flat, then into the elevator and in the road. The very first thing I saw was the silhouettes of my parents¡¯ bodies, marked by the police and occupied by a sign which ordered everyone to not cross it; just like in films. I hid my face into my coat, in order to not see anything.


    ¡°Hayden, you need to watch your step- oh whatever, I¡¯ll pick you up until we¡¯re far enough.¡±


    He maintained his promise. Now my face was in his coat instead. I stayed like that until he announced to me the view had disappeared. He put me down, and I realized it was true.


    ¡°Tonight we don¡¯t need to go too far,¡± he commented, ¡°I¡¯m perceiving the demons very closely.¡±


    ¡°W...where do they appear, usually?¡±


    ¡°It depends. Tonight I was lucky: usually it takes longer,¡± he stated. ¡°Each Darkfire controls one wide area. Right now I control the south-west of London metropolitan area, for example. In London itself, there are some who control single districts. Those who are located into less inhabited zones control entire counties: this happens especially in Wales and Scotland.¡±


    ¡°And tonight they¡¯re...¡±


    ¡°Here. I¡¯ve perceived them since night came.¡± He checked his wristwatch. ¡°Ah, now it¡¯s the time...ten o¡¯clock. The news has just started. Stay next to me, Hayden, and don¡¯t you ever think of making any movement.¡±


    The street, an absolutely normal residential neighbourhood, was desert. The houses showed the lights of the living rooms. No voices could be heard, only the buzz of the television of the closest inhabitation. A lamp was emitting its light discontinuously. Nothing was happening. Nothing was perceivable. I stood there, tense like I had never been, waiting for something I couldn¡¯t even imagine.


    ¡°They¡¯re coming here,¡± he finally said. ¡°Wait...now! Here they are!¡±


    ¡°But I don¡¯t see anyth-¡±


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    ¡°Use your hate!¡±


    So I did. I concentrated, for the first time willingly, on the killers of my parents. Those who had marked that unbearable scar that made me a destined boy forever. How they deserved to be punished, how they deserved to...


    With that, I finally saw them.


    The street wasn¡¯t desert anymore...but also, it didn¡¯t look like a street. The light had suddenly become so vivid, it looked unnatural.


    All around were bipedal creatures made of something that looked like pure fire. They were taller than any man. None of them had a clear face, but they all had two empty spaces where there should have been eyes. Despite that, they had a clear expression: it was pure rage. The rest of their body had no details at all: just masses of flames, each of them penetrating inside the buildings, or attempting to destroy whatever they found on their path. Their number was uncountable.


    As I saw them, I screamed, like I had never done in my whole life.


    ¡°Hayden you¡¯re safe with me!¡± Darrell said loudly, while launching fireballs from his hands in every direction. ¡°I¡¯m used to handling them.¡±


    One of the demons turned to us, floating above the ground. I screamed even louder, but with just one gesture, Darrell threw a fireball, and that disintegrated into several small pieces of fire that dissolved suddenly after. Then he resumed fighting the rest of the demons, while tapping my mouth with his coat. He was so fast and precise, he gave them no time for doing their destructive plans.


    Slowly, but constantly, the road became less and less set on fire, until it was now only some small pieces of flames, which disappeared as they came, disintegrated by Darrell¡¯s fireballs. The yellow glare faded out, giving rest to my eyes; all turned back to be the empty neighbourhood it was. With that, Darrell took my hand. ¡°We must move out of here, now!¡±


    We ran quickly, until he made me stop in a desert public park. I was shaking uncontrollably, covering my eyes for the fear of another possible appearance of those atrocious beings. ¡°It¡¯s alright, Hayden. I¡¯ve driven them out for tonight. They won¡¯t come back.¡±


    I uncovered my face and looked upon Darrell, who had again assumed his severe face he made when he was about to say something important.


    ¡°Now you see,¡± he said gravely, ¡°why you must.¡±


    ¡°W...w...what are those things?¡± I cried.


    He began his new explanation. ¡°The Apollonids, as I explained today. Now I can give you some more details about them. They have been given this name by the first who discovered them, a priest called Kleopiros from Delphi, in Ancient Greece. Delphi was a settlement sacred to the god Apollo, so when he first saw them, his first thought was his god had just manifested in the form of a blinding light, since Apollo is the god of the sun. But he soon discovered he was wrong. He then realized fireballs had appeared in his hands, so he threw them at the demons and realized it was effective. It took time for him to discover this happened to him whenever he felt intense hatred or distress. Kleopiros was the first Darkfire.


    ¡°The Apollonids are creatures made of pure hatred, and it¡¯s the hate felt by humans that generates them. Each time a person hates, this gives life to a new Apollonid, which will manifest only at night, when the fear of the people, and the consequent negative feelings, reach their highest peaks, so that it will get the most nutrition. Being solely composed of odium and anger, they have no purpose but destroying whatever stands in front of them. Had I let them go tonight, had I been absent, that road would be reduced to dust, and its inhabitants carbonized.¡±


    My brain, despite feeling totally devastated, was working fast and coming up with more and more questions.


    ¡°But if we must hate to fight them, don¡¯t we create more of them?¡±


    Darrell sighed. ¡°Yes. It¡¯s the tragic irony of the Darkfire Order: we constantly create the very kind of beings we fight, many more than a normal man does. Nevertheless, we¡¯re the only ones in the entire world who can fight them. We do our duty aware that this is an endless battle, which can end only if one day we surrender. Remember, Hayden: you¡¯ll win several battles, but never the war. You can only delay your final defeat.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re preventing them to let them burn a world you hate,¡± I underlined venomously.


    ¡°When years have passed, you won¡¯t even feel it any more. Hatred will become just a constant companion inside your mind, ready to be used at every time. The inner me hates it, but the conscious me doesn¡¯t even realize it nowadays.¡±


    He watched me again. ¡°It is late now; let¡¯s go back home. As your first exercise of your official training, I must ask you not to cover your eyes once we pass next to the place where your parents have lost their lives.¡±


    He had used those words on purpose to make me raise my hate. Still, I couldn¡¯t fight it, and I know I had to let this overcome me.


    ¡°Next days,¡± he added, ¡°we¡¯re going to move to Devon, where my real house is. There, we can make you practice without having to travel. Now that I must train you, I won¡¯t operate any more here; I have already messaged those who take care of where each Darkfire is. Its inhabitants had better forget you as quickly as possible, and you should forget them too.¡±


    I swallowed, with no more force left inside me, accepting this last announcement passively.


    Too much had just happened in twenty-four hours. Last evening, I was almost a normal boy, just with a weird unexplained power, within a happy family; suddenly I had become an orphan who had to fight demonic creatures of flame and hatred, soon even to move permanently and never be heard again.


    Worst of all, I¡¯d had in front of me the definitive evidence that it was all true. I could not escape my fate in any way, or those horrible demons would take everything over. But still, I was sure it would be much better if Darrell and whoever was within this damn order just let the world burn. I was still too young to know why it is not better. Besides, I was still too young to rebel anyway.

 The dungeon

    That night, I woke up hours before morning, screaming in panic. I¡¯d got a terrible nightmare, again. A peculiar thing of nightmares is they¡¯re so easier to remember, unlike pleasant dreams.


    This time, the nightmare consisted in me descending into hell ¨C literally. There was Darrell, forcing me with his hand to descend a long, long stairway that went into the belly of the Earth. Then everything became red, and around me were tall demons made of fire. As they saw me, they came closer, ready to throw their fireballs at me. I tried to evoke mine in my palms, but I felt no fire. I had one in front of me...


    It was there that I woke up, screaming.


    ¡°What¡¯s happening?¡±


    It was Darrell, entering the bedroom.


    ¡°I had a bad dream...¡±


    Now, a proper parent, or just someone who cares about you, would give you some comfort. A hug, something hot to drink, anything. All Darrell did was saying this:


    ¡°You¡¯ll get used to it. Now go to bed.¡±


    And he closed the door.


    Still disbelieving that man would be now my tutor, and that there had been a time when I¡¯d have loved this, I tried to get back asleep, to no avail.


    ***


    Some days later, arrived my last day in my home town. Ignoring Darrell¡¯s several calls to prepare my luggage, I stood all the time in front of the window, looking at the town living its apparent peaceful life, as always. Now I knew what I was watching wasn¡¯t truly peaceful. I mean, it isn''t like I ever loved my town: it was nothing special, just your usual suburban English settlement, and I didn¡¯t have many human connections, apart from Darrell and my parents. Probably John too, but he was just my best friend at school, not my best friend in general. It was more about what the town would represent for me in the future: the place where I had the illusion of a normal life. So I desired to prolong that illusion for as long as possible.


    ¡°Are you ready, Hayden?¡±


    ¡°Hem...just some more minutes...¡±


    He entered, and looked at me for one moment. ¡°More than some minutes, I¡¯d say. Did you stare in front of the window all this time?¡±


    ¡°I...¡±


    He sighed. ¡°You¡¯d better not letting yourself go too much with sentimentalisms, Hayden. You have to look at your future now. I¡¯ll give you a hand, I¡¯ve already prepared everything else.¡±


    While he packaged my stuff, I didn¡¯t say anything at all. There was nothing to say, and in any case, I lacked the required mental energy.


    As we exited the flat, none of us gave a last look at the building where our homes used to be. But I was burning with desire of doing it: only, I knew Darrell wouldn¡¯t approve it. I just sat on his Volkswagen after helping him with the luggage. Next to us was a big van that would transport the rest to Devon. Darrell sat on the driving place, turned the car on and left. I sweated copiously, from the effort of avoiding both looking back at my former house and evoking the fireballs by mistake.


    ***


    Although I was pretty much used to travelling with Darrell within the country, we had never gone so far yet. It took over four hours to reach my new home, during which the environment became less and less urbanized, especially after getting past Reading. Darrell said the motorway we were crossing passed through a natural reserve; to spend the time, I tried to enjoy the landscape as much as my mind could afford. Then after Bristol we went south, and then countryside again, with nothing interesting to be seen at all, unless you¡¯re a fan of sheep. Suddenly, a road sign announced we¡¯d just entered Devon; but I saw no dramatic change in the environment. Finally, the motorway ended, and Darrell brought the car into Plymouth before taking another route that lead north. Eventually, he took an unpaved track surrounded by a forest, ending into a majestic Victorian manor: my new house. In front of the entrance stood an old woman, who walked towards us as we got out of the car.


    ¡°Mr. Khyntelig,¡± she said, looking at Darrell, ¡°welcome back. I have been taking care of your inhabitation for the whole time during your absence: you will find it just as you left it.¡±


    ¡°Very good, Tajana. I knew I could count on you.¡± Then Darrell turned to me. ¡°Hayden, this is Miss Tajana Ward. She¡¯s the caretaker of the manor, which has hosted many generations of in-training Darkfires throughout the centuries.¡±


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    ¡°Wait...she knows?¡± I asked, surprised. I had imagined his house was kept in secrecy from everyone around, and I definitely didn¡¯t expect someone else to be present. In any case, I doubted she would act as a maternal figure, considering what I was supposed to train on.


    ¡°I¡¯m a descendant of an old lineage of members of the Order from Devon, young one,¡± she explained, with a voice that showed no emotion. ¡°Many of us are caretakers of manors, where an older Darkfire trains a youngling. Despite not having your same powers, we belong to the Order just as you two.¡±


    Just as I figured out. If she belonged to the Order, she¡¯d never be an amiable figure. I wondered how cruel she would act. Then, I realized something else was included in what she had just said.


    ¡°Wait...I¡¯m already a full member?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Yes, Hayden,¡± Darrell answered, ¡°as long as others get notified of your existence, you¡¯re a member. I took care of that these days.¡±


    I gulped. They had thought of everything.


    ¡°What¡¯s the boy¡¯s name, Darrell?¡±


    ¡°My name is Hayd-¡±


    ¡°I was asking Darrell, not you.¡±


    ¡°His name is Hayden Darce, Tajana,¡± Darrell said, apparently ominous to how brutally rude Miss Ward she had just been. But that had to be standard procedure, of course. It was still awful. I could only hope I¡¯d get quickly used to it.


    With that, we entered the building. I got surprised once more when looking at the internals: I expected something straight out of an evil lord from one of the fantasy books I¡¯d read. Instead, it was amazingly beautiful and sophisticated, totally unlike the suburban flat I and my parents lived in. The manor opened in a large entrance hall of yellowish marble, with a long series of portraits on the wall, which probably belonged to previous Darkfires. Two great rosewood doors were located side by side: the one on the left leaded to the dining room, which had a big television screen just in front of the white table. The other door brought to a living room with high windows and a second, bigger television located in front of a large, brown couch, above a brick chimney. Many bookshelves contained lots of volumes whose titles proved to contain boring, academic subjects: for sure, nothing I could enjoy reading all by myself. The entrance had two curved stairs that ended in a corridor overlooking the downstairs, whose doors conducted to the bathrooms and the private rooms. As we continued the tour of the house and went upstairs, Miss Ward showed mine: it had a wooden canopy bed on the left, an armchair, a desk and nothing more. A window gave me a nice sight of the surrounding forest. All this majesty almost made me forget of the reason I was here.


    ¡°So now you have seen your new home,¡± Darrell said in the end, while we left my room (they had refused to show their own bedrooms), ¡°but that¡¯s not all. I will now take you to the dungeon.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°The dungeon, Hayden. It¡¯s an underground floor, and it¡¯s there where I¡¯ll train you. I had been trained there too.¡±


    ¡°Were you born in Plymouth?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°You had a mentor too, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Where is he now?¡±


    He paused. ¡°He died a long time ago.¡±


    ¡°Was he like a father to you?¡±


    ¡°I already had my parents, at that time. He had to train me on hating, so he couldn¡¯t give me as much love as a father can. I just knew that I had to follow him. Now, enough with questions. It is time to go to the dungeon.¡±


    He began walking down the stairway to the ground floor, without even waiting for me. I followed him until he stopped in front of the back of the left stairway, a solid marble wall.


    ¡°Look very carefully, Hayden. There is a secret mechanism that will open the passage.¡±


    I was sceptic. That marble seemed unlikely to open in any way. But then, he made a gesture with his hand, touching the solid wall, and incredibly, a door opened, revealing a new, darker staircase which went down.


    ¡°Follow me, and close the door.¡±


    This wasn¡¯t like the rest of the beautiful manor at all. The walls were no more of wood or marble, but of dark grey stone. A dim illumination was provided by a series of candles on the side. My uneasiness grew with each step: my dark imagination had turned to be, in the end, real.


    Then an arch conducted to one single room. The first thing I noticed was its immensity. It was as large as the whole area occupied by the entire manor and beyond, with the same weak illumination provided by the candles. At first, it seemed to contain nothing at all, but a better view of the environment revealed to me a set of stone statues that depicted, without any doubt, Apollonids.


    ¡°This is where I¡¯m going to train you,¡± Darrell announced.


    Unable to control myself, I let my uneasiness be confessed. ¡°I think I preferred when we went into the countryside...¡±


    ¡°This place is far more efficient. In the countryside, we wouldn¡¯t be able to capture Apollonids without provoking damage.¡±


    ¡°You...can capture Apollonids? In our house? But...¡±


    ¡°No need to worry for now. Once your training has made you develop a sufficient level of hatred, you¡¯ll be able to attract them, but that¡¯s an advanced technique that requires years. This dungeon is empty enough to make them find nothing to destroy. Except for us every now and then, but we never bring too many at once. You¡¯ll be safe with me.¡±


    I stared at the vastness of that room. This was where I¡¯d spend most of my time now...a cold, dark underground dungeon. A hidden, unfriendly settlement with no illumination but trembling lights and the occasional Apollonid. Its atmosphere was, nevertheless, very suited for the purpose. What better place to train as a Darkfire than a gloomy secret room that looked like a prison? Plus, wasn¡¯t the whole house going to be my prison?


    ¡°I don¡¯t like it...¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re going to, Hayden.¡± He paused one moment. ¡°Today, we won¡¯t begin your official training because we¡¯re tired for the journey. It¡¯s a fortune we¡¯re in July and you don¡¯t have to go to school: we can start tomorrow morning and make a long session. Speaking of which, you won¡¯t go to school any more. Your existence must be shown as little as possible. Therefore, starting from September, you¡¯re going to receive education at home until you¡¯re still obliged to receive it.¡±


    Well, at least I would have no more bullies problems.


    ¡°Shall we still play together?¡± I asked.


    ¡°This dungeon is where we¡¯ll play together, from now on. I¡¯ll call you back at half past seven for dinner. For now, go rest in your room. This is an order.¡±


    We got back to the manor and I immediately went to my new room. The journey, with its humdrum landscape, had actually drowsed me: without thinking, I lay down on the canopied bed and I thought no more.

 Rage and disdain

    Miss Ward woke up, announcing dinner was ready. I hadn¡¯t got up yet as she left the room. I went downstairs to the entrance room and then opened the door to the dining room. Chicken was already on the table and Darrell was sat on, with the TV screen turned on BBC One.


    ¡°Sit here, Hayden. The news are coming.¡±


    I already used to dine every day with the news on background when my parents were alive, so I didn¡¯t see anything special on it. Then I remembered, that first night when I saw the Apollonids, that Darrell gave a lot of importance to it. I didn¡¯t care anyway; there was always the same stuff, over and over. Somebody killed somebody else somewhere, some politician said something, and then something about football. Sometimes they reported big things that caused a lot of deaths, and they talked about it for many weeks, but I never cared. It was just what news were supposed to be: tons of corpses on the screen.


    That day, it looked like it had been one of those days. Apparently, a bomb had exploded in London, killing many. Whoever the responsible was, it was a foreigner who belonged to some group who regularly made these attacks, in the name of their ideology. The reporter named the killer¡¯s ethnicity a lot of times, and I was sure Darrell was smiling whenever he heard that.


    ¡°Look, Hayden,¡± he said, while I chewed, ¡°they all want us to be dead. They are killing machines.¡±


    I snorted. Did he really think I wouldn¡¯t realize he was saying that to raise my hate?


    ¡°Hayden, whatever you may think, you cannot deny the facts,¡± he said, like if had just read into my thoughts. ¡°Do you know how many attacks they have done to our civilization? This is not the first time they do so. Try to criticize them and they¡¯ll threaten you. They think we should all bow to their ridiculous beliefs.¡±


    His speech, indeed, sounded quite in accordance to what they were now saying on the TV. For the first time in my life, I actually felt afraid in front of the news. Did really those want us all dead? It seemed so. When you hear about them killing dozens, sometimes even hundreds, in some foreign country, after the third or fourth time you just think they¡¯re some crazy foreigners; then they put their bombs within your country, close to you, you suddenly feel fear, and fear turns into hate.


    But out of a sudden, I remembered something they always told us at my old school: everyone is equal and we should all love each other. I even had some classmates whose parents belonged to that ethnicity, who were actually quite nice, unlike my bullies, who were 100% English.


    I told Darrell, and he readily replied.


    ¡°Your ex-classmates may not be mean, but be sure their parents are. Believe me, once they¡¯re adults they¡¯ll force them to marry only other people belonging to their race, and if they don¡¯t, they¡¯ll beat them to death.¡±


    I felt a shiver down my spine. I couldn¡¯t imagine anyone doing something like that. Having no way to disprove him, I could only convey it was the truth.


    ¡°Do you fight them, too?¡±


    ¡°Oh no, we can¡¯t,¡± Darrell laughed in a joyless way, ¡°we would come out to everyone. Besides, fighting the Apollonids takes too much time of your life.¡±


    Finally, the report about the bombings in London ended. As the next news began, I fully realized what I was going to hear. They were going to report the murder of my parents.


    I attempted to leave the table, declaring I was full, despite my plate being only half-emptied.


    ¡°Stay there, Hayden.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think I can handle it, Darrell...¡±


    ¡°This is an order.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want!¡± I shouted.


    Darrell got up. He rapidly came to me with flame in his eyes, took my arm by brute force and literally forced me to sit back.


    ¡°If you still haven¡¯t understood, you¡¯re under my responsibility now. And if I tell you to finish your dinner, then you must obey.¡±


    Those harsh words felt like a knife in my brain. The contrast between this new Darrell and the Darrell I used to know made me lose it.


    ¡°You¡¯re this mean only because you must train me to be your little hateful soldier! I know it!¡±


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    ¡°Then go. Go away. You¡¯re free to leave this manor. But tell me, where shall you stay?¡±


    He won. Of course I had nowhere else to go.


    He turned off the TV. ¡°The news is over, they¡¯re just talking about some celebrity¡¯s love story. Now finish your dinner. In silence.¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ***


    Next morning, we had breakfast with the TV turned on the news again. They talked about the attack in London for at least half of the time. Would they attack Plymouth too? I wouldn¡¯t go there often, since I was going to be homeschooled, but what if I had to go there for some reason?


    ¡°They could attack everywhere, Hayden,¡± Darrell said. ¡°Of course, should we need to go in town, we can¡¯t shut ourselves, but you never know with them.¡±


    Finally, crime news. Although every inch of my body begged for leaving, I knew Darrell would force me to stay. Three murder news in a row, and each time I shivered in fear, expecting my parents to be the next news; but they never came.


    ¡°They were on the news some days ago. It¡¯s time for them to pass on the next corpses.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡±


    ¡°Now we¡¯re going to the dungeon.¡±


    He turned off the TV and got up, walking towards the door, without waiting for me. While I walked, I couldn¡¯t stop thinking about what happened in London. I used to live close...what if I had never moved here, and for some reason I had been there yesterday? The vision of the long, dark spiral staircase only amplified those feelings as I descended them and entered the gloomy dungeon.


    ¡°So,¡± Darrell began, as I put myself next to him, ¡°in your case, we already covered how to evoke the fireballs. Call them.¡±


    Remembering our training sessions in the countryside, I thought of the bullies at school. But nothing came.


    ¡°Looks like you¡¯re a bit out of shape,¡± he commented.


    ¡°I just need some time...¡±


    But I didn¡¯t feel anything against my old classmates: they already belonged to a distant past.


    Then a picture in my mind appeared...


    A family returning from a pleasant dinner outside, about to get back into their comfortable house. Two faceless criminals, with guns. A series of shots. Lifeless bodies on the street. A child screaming his pain...


    Immediately, without even needing to make an effort to think, the fireballs reappeared for the first time in six months.


    ¡°Now throw them at the statues.¡±


    My brain recorded some kind of order to follow, but it was no more able to decipher it. My fireballs were getting bigger, and it felt like they were in control of me. A primitive, uncontrollable state of mind was possessing me: I wanted nothing more than burning up everything around me...


    ¡°HAYDEN!¡±


    I reconnected. My hands were no more burning. Every inch of my skin was covered in sweat. I kneeled, feeling like I was about to vomit, but nothing came out of my mouth.


    ¡°What...happened?¡±


    ¡°You threw some very big fireballs at me,¡± he answered, emotionless.


    ¡°I...¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t care. You know I can perfectly defend myself from them.¡± He took a deep breath. ¡°You were thinking of your parents, didn¡¯t you?¡±


    I was still recovering myself: it took me a while to realize what Darrell had just asked me.


    ¡°What...how did you...know it?¡±


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t hard to figure out. You were feeding your fireballs off rage. That isn¡¯t the right way to do it.¡±


    That left me puzzled. We had practised on my ancient feelings for my bullies, and that wasn¡¯t so different on an emotional level. Much less intense, sure, but its nature was the same. Why wasn¡¯t it good any more, I asked?


    ¡°You partly said the answer yourself: it was much less intense, so I could teach you the basics quicker. However, that wasn¡¯t supposed to last. Now, why, according to you, do I make you listen to the news?¡±


    ¡°Because they make me feel hate.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s only half of the truth. The other half is, because it isn¡¯t personal. It generates a form of hate which is equal and opposite to rage: disdain. Rage, as you have just experienced, takes the whole control of your mind: it is the kind of hate Apollonids are made of. Disdain, instead, is rational, aimed at something very specific. For disdain, destruction is not the end, but a means; for rage, the opposite is true.¡±


    ¡°What does disdain have to do with the news?¡±


    ¡°It has everything to do with the news. As a Darkfire, it¡¯s also beneficial for your spirit: once you¡¯re accustomed to disliking the world for what it is, and not for what it has done to you, you¡¯ll feel superior to it.¡±


    I nodded, despite my mind buzzing with confusion. I was still a child, and back then, things were simpler: I would either love or hate something, no shades of grey.


    In any case, I understood one thing: I had to avoid personal memories. It was one of the best news I¡¯d heard recently, knowing that I had to forget everything. But then I remembered the fear I felt in front of the television while the anchorman described the bloody attacks in London, and couldn¡¯t see how that was better.


    ¡°So I must think of the news starting from now?¡±


    ¡°Precisely. Although you¡¯ll still need some of your memories ¨C your positive ones. To learn how to stop attacks thrown at you.¡±


    Damn. How was I supposed to remember those happy moments with my parents without exploding again?


    ¡°Enough with explanations. You¡¯re going to figure all out by yourself with time anyway. Hayden, try another time.¡±


    I recomposed myself, almost choking from the effort of not recalling the memory of my parents. I had to think of the news...those foreigners...who came living here to murder us...filthy and uncivilized...


    ...the fireballs appeared. I looked at the stone statue in front of me, with absolute indifference. I threw them, missing my target by a mile, but Darrell was very pleased.


    ¡°Very well, Hayden. You understood the concept quite quickly, I must say. Now you only need to train your precision when throwing the balls.¡±


    He was looking at me with an encouraging look. I felt a bit strange. It felt like if I was...reinvigorated, more in peace with myself, solely for my status as an English citizen, something superior to those murderers. Darrell was right: it felt much, much better...almost pleasant.


    After one hour, I still couldn¡¯t direct the balls to the right statue, but nevertheless, Darrell¡¯s look expressed satisfaction.


    ¡°It is sufficient for now, Hayden. We shall now go up for lunch, then you¡¯ll rest and at 3:00 PM we¡¯ll come back here in the dungeon.¡±


    I could get used to this.

 Life in the dungeon

    PART II


    ADULTHOOD


    The days passed, then the weeks, the months, and finally the years. All the same, all monotonous, all spent inside the manor, with no company outside of Darrell and Miss Ward. Years passed uniquely training, hating (or rather, disdaining) and doing little else, hardly ever leaving the area around my home. Had I died, only the two adults who took care of me would have realized it.


    The death of my parents, after a while, ceased to be a constant thought, becoming some passive knowledge that had no more role in my everyday life; just a drop in that immense ocean of dog pee that was the world, albeit certainly one of the biggest ones. I couldn¡¯t bask myself too much into sad memories, if I couldn¡¯t turn them into mental energy to evoke my fireballs.


    As Darrell had announced, I stopped attending public school, something that I lived as a relief. Instead, Miss Ward took responsibility of what remained of my mandatory education, through private lessons at home. However, as she and Darrell reminded me constantly, I had to study only the essential, to not distract myself too much from my duties as a member of the Order. There was still one subject they deepened in particular, though: history. Miss Ward loved to describe with accurate details all the most horrible and violent details of every war, massacre, pestilence and genocide: her eyes almost shone while doing so, and her lips¡¯ angles contracted into a half-smile, when for the rest of the time she would maintain the same look of indifference. Even if I was being trained to dislike everything around me, sometimes my mind collapsed after hearing all that suffer. When I was around thirteen, at one point, after one entire hour of her talking about Nazi concentration camps, I couldn¡¯t hold myself. Her descriptions of tortures, mass killings, survivors¡¯ testimonials and the tons of photos, including one of a guard walking in the middle of a pit full of corpses, made me interrupt her and shout, furious:


    ¡°Then why do we have to protect humanity, if they do things like this!¡±


    Miss Ward, unemotional like always, raised her eyes from the book she was reading and lay it on the table. Her lips returned horizontal.


    ¡°Once Darrell, when he was your age, had a similar reaction. Then he announced he did not want to be a Darkfire anymore. Can you imagine what happened later?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± I answered.


    ¡°He abandoned this house, and then, when night came, the Apollonids attacked him in the middle of a road. His training had made him look at them without any effort, but he was still too young to fight them: he would have died, hadn¡¯t his mentor been around, looking for him. When he went back here, he said that he would never give up his task again. He cried so much I had to wash the floor twice,¡± she concluded, scornful.


    The Apollonids. I hadn¡¯t encountered them after that first day in the dungeon: Darrell didn¡¯t still judge me ready to fight them directly.


    ¡°We have been condemned to living this world, Hayden, and we can¡¯t find any other one. As humans, and not mere animals, we have the ability, and the duty, to make the best out of it. As Darkfires, making the best out of it means guaranteeing the rest of mankind can live in peace, for what the circumstances permit.¡± She paused one moment. ¡°I suppose you remember our lesson about Schopenhauer.¡±


    I did remember it. He was a German philosopher who claimed all the things in the world are born to suffer, and suffer is the main truth of the world. The way they chose to deepen topics that dealt specifically with death and suffering was almost comical.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°What does he say about suicide, Hayden?¡±


    I tried to recall that particular topic inside my mind, but I wasn¡¯t even sure we actually talked about that. ¡°I don¡¯t remember.¡±


    ¡°Suicide is useless,¡± she explained, ¡°it does not destroy a man¡¯s will to life; on the contrary, it is the greatest expression of desire of better conditions, and as you know, for him, desire leads to suffer.¡±


    I was confused. ¡°What does this have to do with Nazis?¡±


    ¡°It has to do with your desire of giving up your destiny as a Darkfire. You want to end everything, to stop having to protect a species capable of such great evil. Your desire, however, is futile: only those like us can stop the Apollonids, and you know it. The only way to get over with this battle you can¡¯t win is leaving behind any desire of something better. This is the world you live in, and this is your life. All we can do is avoid making it worse. And this is what we, in the Darkfire Order, do.¡±


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    ¡°But wouldn¡¯t letting everything burn up cease our suffer? Isn¡¯t feeling nothing at all better than feeling bad?¡±


    She answered mechanically, like if she had been forced to give that explanation a million times. ¡°Unfortunately, nature always finds a way to reflourish again and continue the suffer.¡±


    After these happy lessons, we had lunch, rigorously with the television turned on BBC News. Politicians working for their own benefit instead of the nation. Foreign, underdeveloped countries killing their own people. People from those underdeveloped countries coming here and attempting to destroy ours. Murderers slaughtering their own families. And after all of this, baloney about some useless celebrities and their love relationships, which sounded surreal and insulting, coming after all the horrors of the world. ¡°Thousands of people dying, and still the most important thing is the flirts of some woman who¡¯s famous only for having big breasts,¡± Darrell often said.


    Next, the training in the dungeon. I was fast in getting used to the gloomy atmosphere: after four or five times there, my uneasiness had completely gone. Although Darrell had announced it on my very first visit there, for me it was still a shock to have an Apollonid in front of myself the first time; it happened when I was fifteen, five years after the Order had entered into my life, when Darrell decided I had acquired the necessary level of precision and cold disdain. Still, now that a caged Apollonid was standing in front of me, fear, and not disdain, was all I could feel inside of me.


    ¡°In case something goes wrong, I¡¯ll intervene immediately,¡± Darrell said, his hand already on the padlock. I strived to concentrate on all the things I had learned to hate ¨C the news, the shabby suburbs of Plymouth Darrell forced me to visit every weekend, my life ¨C but nothing helped me. In front of me was a demon made of fire, ready to incinerate everything it would find, including me; my brain was activating a primordial instinct I still hadn¡¯t learned to suppress, which made me actually care about my life.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to free it,¡± he announced.


    He did. He unblocked the chains, and the demon was free. I immediately evoked the fireballs, but I missed it every time. The Apollonid was getting closer, his fury made of pure, uncontrolled hatred, already attacking. A fireball was coming directly towards my body: I desperately tried to concentrate to use the technique to turn it off, but in those eternal instants I realized what was happening to me: I wasn¡¯t able to do it. I was too petrified with fear. Immediately, Darrell ran in front of me and blocked the demon¡¯s attack.


    ¡°Stay behind!¡±


    He faced the Apollonid with his own fireballs, managing to extinguish him. I was leaning to the cold, stony wall on the opposite side, panting and sweating copious amounts of liquid. Still, I was no more a kid: despite the fear, I was bursting with (negative) energy.


    ¡°Let me try again! I won¡¯t fail you!¡±


    ¡°Not now, Hayden. It¡¯s going to take some time to regain full control of your emotions,¡± he said, impassable. ¡°You¡¯re crossing an age in which your mind is learning to deal with them. With this new phase of your training, you¡¯re going to learn to do it much earlier compared to a normal teenager, but it¡¯s still a long way. Besides, you hadn¡¯t seen an Apollonid for a long time. So I¡¯m going to let you rest before I am sure you can resume your training.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Darrell.¡±


    ¡°Yes, master.¡±


    ¡°Master?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re growing, now. I should have ordered you to call me master long ago.¡±


    I swallowed. There was no more pace inside me for discouragement; only resignation. ¡°Yes, master.¡±


    Starting from that day, I have seen at least one Apollonid almost every day of my life, apart from short periods when major forces like sicknesses made me stay home at night. It took me another three years to manage to win over one of them. By that time, I was almost an adult; whenever I looked in a mirror, I saw a boy with a pale skin, caused by the lack of enough sunlight, and a permanent look of disillusion in his eyes. Two heavy dark circles under them completed my look. I knew nobody except for my master and Miss Ward. I didn¡¯t feel any carnal desire: I felt nothing when a female was shown on TV, and by that time I felt no more the urge of sexually relieving myself, something that had been explicitly forbidden to me. Instead, it was replaced by a constant sensation of having been deprived of something that I couldn¡¯t figure out, which I now could easily convert into even more hate for the world.


    The day I took down my first Apollonid in the dungeon, I finally was no more scared. I was determined to end it. I didn¡¯t need to focus on something particular by now: the fireballs came out instantly. Emotionless, I threw them against it with perfect precision, and the demon disappeared.


    I didn¡¯t feel happy or ecstatic for my first kill: I had lost the ability to produce those emotions long time ago. Neither did my master, who just nodded in approvation. I looked at the dark, stony point that was previously illuminated by its infernal fire.


    ¡°Very well, Hayden. Starting from tomorrow, you¡¯ll make practice in the field. I¡¯ll take you with me starting from tomorrow evening.¡±


    I nodded, like he had just done. This was quite an improvement: until then, my evening consisted of just having dinner and then remaining alone in my room, without turning on any light, letting the thoughts slide through my head. The only moment when I would go out of the manor were those rare trips to the worst parts of Plymouth, making me look at the waste left in the streets, pointing to houses where a crime had been committed, and things like that. Now, however, I knew I would go there as a soldier, to take action, not just for mere observation.


    ¡°Today¡¯s training is over. You may go to your room.¡±


    I obeyed, feeling no happiness at all, but still full of satisfaction towards myself.

 For lack of a better world

    The next day, I didn¡¯t visit the dungeon: Darrell ordered me to spend the afternoon in my room and concentrate on my usual thoughts. ¡°We¡¯re leaving immediately after dinner. There¡¯s going to be a TV debate for Plymouth¡¯s elections, and I can tell there¡¯s going to be a massive amount of Apollonids.¡±


    I shivered. It was my first time! I had to fight a massive amount?


    ¡°B..but...¡±


    ¡°But what?¡± Darrell thundered. ¡°Do you consider yourself not to be capable? Do you think I¡¯ve wasted my time in training you all these years?¡±


    I looked at him fiercely. My teenage pride refused to be submitted to those harsh words: I was ready to prove him the opposite, and after my success from yesterday, I was more determined than ever. Yet, as I fixed my sight on him, a vision invaded my mind, a vision I still had serious difficulties in controlling: images of Darrell entertaining me as a child, with that happy smile he used to have. Darrell playing football with me and my dad. Darrell giving me presents for my birthdays. Darrell comforting me when I felt too lonely...


    I closed my eyes and desperately forced myself to quit those images. It had all been a staging. An act. This was the true Darrell: Darrell ordering me things and expecting me to obey. Darrell showing me how disgusting this world was. Not a friend, but something else, and I had to call him like that.


    ¡°No, master. You didn¡¯t waste your time with me. I am ready to come with you tonight.¡±


    ¡°Very well,¡± he nodded.


    I hated him. Yes, I was trained to hate everything, but I gave him more hate than I would normally give. I hated him for being a mask all those years, but also for forcing me to hate him, which was ironic and paradoxical. In a way, though, the fact I hated him more than anything else was a depraved way of showing affection. After all, when you can¡¯t have friends, all you have to take care of is your enemies. But sometimes I still forgot it: there was still a part of me that hoped in the delusion I could live like a normal human.


    I went to my room and lay in my bed motionless, something I did whenever I didn¡¯t have to do anything in particular. When I do it, time passes so quickly. I don¡¯t even have the time to feel bored: just apathetic, like if nothing else existed besides me and the bed. Indeed, those were the best moments of my days, the only moments when I didn¡¯t feel that constant ache in my heart that prayed me to set everything on fire and enjoy it.


    In no time, Darrell opened my door and called me for dinner. I followed him and we sat together, with the TV turned on the news, as always.


    ¡°Once we¡¯re there, Hayden, remember this: your determination is more important than their number, no matter how much they are.¡±


    ¡°Yes, master.¡±


    Watching the news helped me remain relaxed: there was always some reason to feel indignant, so I wouldn¡¯t think of what made me nervous. Plus, it gave my mind the negative charge I needed. Indignation is a bit like lying in my bed for me: it makes me feel better.


    ¡°Time to go.¡±


    I and Darrell left our table and then the manor, where his old Volkswagen was waiting for us. Five minutes of dark forests later, we entered the suburbs of Plymouth. Usually Darrell would park his car somewhere in the dirtiest suburbs. This time, he parked the car just once we entered the town. We went out.


    ¡°The first thing to do,¡± he began explaining, ¡°is to find Apollonids¡¯ traces. First, you clear your mind, like when you do when you¡¯re in your room. Then you can perceive the streams of hatred the Apollonids emanate.¡±


    ¡°How, master?¡±


    ¡°The streams are like the usual burning sensation of hatred you¡¯ve been trained to feel, but since Apollonids are made of pure hate and not flesh, they¡¯re so much stronger, us Darkfires can perceive it. The more intense the stream is, the closer an Apollonid is. With experience, you¡¯ll also learn to figure out the direction they¡¯re located.¡±


    ¡°Why did I never feel such streams when I battled the Apollonids in the dungeon, master?¡±


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    ¡°Since they are not made of hatred produced by you, they¡¯re easily overwhelmed by your own emotions. When you¡¯re afraid, you cannot perceive the Apollonids¡¯ streams, nor when you¡¯re producing hate by yourself. It is then very important, during a battle, to be able to call your inner hatred at will, so you can perceive when other Apollonids come. You are now capable of doing so, thanks to your training, but you must remember to be confident and cold.¡±


    ¡°Y...yes, master,¡± I answered nervously.


    ¡°Think of something else to help you.¡±


    I tried to remember the news, but they sounded so similar every time, that they had lost every importance. The only kind of news which was easy to remember were terrorist attacks, but there were none in that period. Anxiety was conquering me fully. I could only imagine myself surrounded of dozens of Apollonids, all ready to set me on fire, and myself on the ground in the fetal position...


    ¡°I can¡¯t do it, master,¡± I confessed.


    Darrell snorted. ¡°Well, it¡¯s your first time, I can concede you that. But you must learn it quickly.¡± He stood still. ¡°I sense them coming to our right. Let¡¯s go immediately.¡±


    With that, he ran, and I followed him. My anxiety only got worse, until the first pair of Apollonids appeared between two suburban houses. Once I saw them running through the street, I immediately changed. I wasn¡¯t any more anxious: I was full of hate. Those were the demons whose existence had marked my life forever. Albeit I couldn¡¯t win over them, albeit I couldn¡¯t save my soul, I still wanted to release my frustration into those things. With that, the fireballs appeared in an instant.


    The first Apollonid turned itself and rapidly floated towards me, its flaming body emanating unbearable heat; but I threw a fireball, and the demon disappeared. The second came, and it ended the same way. Darrell was staying behind, watching me. Immediately, more Apollonids came: my hate had to have just attracted them. Slime was running under my lips for adrenaline. Those things, with their black, faceless eyes, had to perish all. I hit them, one by one.


    The amount of hatred I was releasing was so high, their number rapidly became dreadful. Now I was completely surrounded by them, a reddish light pervading my savage face. As I destroyed one, another one came out in its place. Wherever I turned my face, I could only see red and yellow. Understanding my defeat, I let my mind succumb and be crushed by fear, waiting for the fire of my enemies, until suddenly they disappeared. Darrell now stood in front of me, the last glimpse of the fireballs still in his hands.


    He turned his head.


    ¡°You used rage to evoke the fireballs, didn¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°I...¡± I was heavily panting. ¡°I couldn¡¯t...control it...I saw them and...and...I couldn¡¯t hold myself...¡±


    ¡°I expected you to have mastered that. Now you¡¯ve spent all your energy.¡±


    ¡°Sorry...master...¡±


    He looked around. ¡°The night is still young. You will stand next to me while I face the rest of the Apollonids. It won¡¯t take long, after all those you attracted.¡±


    ***


    After coming back home, I fell into slumber the same instant my body touched the bed. I woke up almost before lunchtime, and as I reached the dining room, I abandoned myself on the chair very heavily. Darrell didn¡¯t lose any time and readily announced me he would take me to Plymouth again. ¡°For this afternoon, I suggest you to prepare your mind.¡±


    ¡°Maybe,¡± I dared questioning, ¡°I need one day of rest-¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t ask for your opinion.¡±


    I swallowed. He was my master, and I had no choice. I ate my lunch as quickly as I could, went back to my room, but this time I didn¡¯t let myself be thoughtless: I concentrated to find the right attitude for my next battle.


    Disdain, I remembered, disdain and not rage...


    I looked outside the window and watched the world I lived in. A small forest stood in front of me, pleasant hills were on the horizon, and the sun was shining. I baffled. Forests hid dozens of dangers behind their apparent calm. Hills offered no repair from nature. The sun procured life on Earth only by accident. All around, men damaged themselves by lying, stealing, sometimes killing.


    And still, I could not escape. This was where I lived, and this was what I had to do. I was trapped there, inside that reality, inside the Order. I had no choice. The best thing to do was to honour what I was called to do the best way possible.


    I¡¯m only protecting you, I mentally proclaimed, for lack of a better world.


    I kept looking at that apparent beauty outside my window, and slowly found the right attitude. That evening, during dinner, I didn¡¯t even need to concentrate on the news to relax: it was like if my mind had stopped existing, apart from my continuous scorns to the world.


    When Darrell and I got on his car, I kept thinking of nothing. We arrived in Plymouth before I could even perceive the passage of time, and he parked the car at the same point of the night before.


    ¡°They¡¯re coming west now,¡± he announced.


    Indeed, now I could sense it: it was a stream of hate that didn¡¯t belong to me. Only, I couldn¡¯t understand where it was from. I walked west with him, indifferently. Once the Apollonids appeared, I evoked the fireballs without even thinking about it, without thinking about what they represented to me: the fireballs came from my heart, not from what my eyes saw. The determination I now had was not of killing my enemies, but more like doing my duty.


    I destroyed a group of Apollonids, and then another, and then another one, with little intervention from Darrell himself, apart from sensing their position. After the last one was defeated, Darrell, who was behind me, came closer. ¡°I see you have learned quickly the lesson from yesterday. What you only have to learn is to sense their position. Understood?¡±


    ¡°Of course, master,¡± I said proudly.

 The boy

    In few sessions, however, I learned how to perceive the Apollonids¡¯ position. It was easier than I thought: I had become so secure of my strength and my motivation, that mastering new skills didn¡¯t require any more years. There was nothing else that could stop me, except death.


    Each night, for me, was (and is) battle, a battle that was just routine, with nothing memorable or epic about it. Whenever Darrell¡¯s car reached the city, my mind thought of only one thing: to get out and calmly walk down the road, in search of my prey, with absolute indifference for the rest of the world around me, until I¡¯d sense the first streams of hatred that weren¡¯t produced by me or Darrell. Then, we would run into the right position, and once the Apollonids appeared, I¡¯d just snort in contempt; the same contempt that made me evoke the fireballs which destroyed them


    One night, Darrell told me: ¡°I think I can say I¡¯m proud of your performances, Hayden.¡± I just nodded. I didn¡¯t feel content, or satisfied: I was only doing my job, the way I was supposed to. But it was still an important moment: it was the first genuine compliment Darrell had given to me in years. Something awoke inside of me, but I repressed it instantly. I knew why Darrell had said that: he knew I would now react in the appropriate manner, that is, with absolute indifference.


    One and a half year later, I had become skilled enough not to have to stay next to him all the time. That made our nightly battles quicker: we could just take a different zone of the city each night. Fireball after fireball, victory over victory, my sense of power grew up. It was the power to defeat creatures that deserved to be hated, the sensation of being stronger than the enemy. More, it was the power of looking at the rest of reality from above, of knowing its real truth. It felt good ¨C very good. My persistent sense of hatred had turned enjoyable. This immensely improved my life; of course, it didn¡¯t make me happy, but at least I had one nice sensation within my brain.


    Why, then, do I care for beings I consider to be inferior, I told myself? The answer wasn¡¯t so complicated: that¡¯s just my duty. The best ones take care of the others, I concluded. Darkfire¡¯s burden.


    With this feeling of megalomania, I reached the legal adult age. I obtained by diploma, which for me only meant I wouldn¡¯t have to tell the Ministry of Education that yes, I had studied French, Maths and History. Far more important was the moment I got my driving licence and my first car, which finally made me fully independent from Darrell, although that happened a handful of years later: I was nearly twenty. My days weren¡¯t spent all the time in the manor any more: I got various part-time jobs that covered the bureaucratic aspects of my life, just like Darrell. All of them were during the afternoon, in order to rest during the morning. There was no more formal training left for me either: I was totally free to go around with my car in town and around Devon, not to enjoy the scenery, but to keep boredom away, and most of all to get a sane dose of disdain. I would hang around and attend some pubs for a beer or a full meal, looking at the other customers with silent contempt, refusing any possible approach to talk with a gaze that turned them away from scare.


    It was during one of these hangouts that I met the human that almost destroyed the castle of complacency I had built for nearly a decade.


    It was a February late afternoon, just after work, when there¡¯s nothing better than some alcohol to get some relief from winter. I was sitting on the counter of one of the pubs in Plymouth (I never entered the same pub twice in a row, or people would remember my face), drinking my pint in silence and solitude, while thinking about where the Apollonids could possibly appear that night. Around me, groups of friends chatted loudly, or made their stupid drinking games with some dice. Nobody gave a look at me, and that was the way it was meant to be.


    Except for someone.


    It was a young boy, probably not many years older than me, with short, brown, straight hair, grey eyes and no beard at all. He wore a plaid, white and green shirt and blue jeans, in total contrast with my all-black suite that was designed to blend with the night. The first time he looked at me, my first reaction was to think he was just looking at the whole crowd. But when I saw again in his direction, he was still staring at me: without doubt, he was looking for a drinking mate, or something like that. Well, he would soon understand I wasn¡¯t the kind of person he was looking for. I gave him my most venomous look, the one that always worked in repelling other humans away. However, after one minute, the boy hadn¡¯t turned his eyes. Instead, he just smiled for a short moment and drank a sip of his pint.


    Cold sweat was now running on my front. I was fighting to keep my shaking hand calm. Who was this guy? What was he looking for? Had he seen me or Darrell during our fights against the Apollonids? Maybe he had seen the Apollonids directly? No, impossible, it would mean he¡¯s a Darkfire like me, and I¡¯d know it if there were other Darkfires in the county...


    I couldn¡¯t remain there one second. Abruptly, I left my beer at half and fled out of the pub. Darrell had to be alerted, the soonest possible: that boy could mean trouble.


    I had already reached my car parked in a suburban road, and painfully oppressed the desire to run, in order not to be noticed, when my body froze completely.


    The boy was there, looking at me from a distance.


    Now I was certain: it had to be a spy. For what organization, I didn¡¯t know; but if I just kept ignoring him, he would certainly find out the manor. I had to face him. I walked towards his direction, angry as much as I could without letting my fireballs escape. The boy remained still; his eyes opened a little, but if he was starting being afraid, he didn¡¯t show it. He had to be a very stupid boy.


    ¡°You tell me what the fuck you want from me right here and right now, or you¡¯re going to regret it. GOT IT?¡±


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    His breath finally became heavier. I really wanted to see if he¡¯d keep following me like the creeper he was.


    Finally, his mouth opened.


    ¡°I...I like you.¡±


    It took me some seconds to be fully aware of the sound I had just heard. I was ready to hear many things, and they all involved something related to the police. My mind was finally calming: nobody was spying me or Darrell. But another part of it, one I didn¡¯t even know I had, was awakening, producing a sensation I was completely unable to decipher.


    No one had ever told me something like those words, not since the day I lost my parents.


    I was shaking again.


    The alien sensation in my mind was assaulting me. It was more familiar than I initially thought...a sensation I was used to in the past. But what was it, I wondered...?


    I scrolled my head. I understood what was going on. That boy wasn¡¯t a threat: he was something else.


    ¡°Oh,¡± I whispered, using my cruellest tone, ¡°you¡¯re a fag.¡±


    Darrell had told me about homosexuals, too. Badly, of course ¨C he couldn¡¯t let myself hear of something that was supposed to be nice. My parents hadn¡¯t ever told me about this, so when Darrell described them to me, they sounded to me like one of the most wrong things in existence. And lots of countries were even letting them get married! What the hell was wrong with the world I even had to protect?


    ¡°Don¡¯t you dislike yourself for being a fag?¡± I pronounced, the spirit of hatred guiding me. The boy didn¡¯t look at all intimidated. Instead, he just smiled.


    ¡°I know you aren''t serious,¡± he whispered, giggling.


    ¡°What do you mean, I¡¯m not serious?¡± I answered, irritated.


    ¡°Do you think you¡¯re the first one who tells me so? Someone like me gets quite talented to recognize those who think it for real and those who don¡¯t,¡± he said, ¡°and I know you don¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°And how do you know it, you sodomite?¡± I shouted. That guy...how dared he insinuate I could return his perversion?


    He giggled again. ¡°Your eyes. I could see it, right now. Your eyes are clearly those of someone who¡¯s suffered a lot. Just like me.¡±


    Without even thinking about it, I made one step back. He could read what was happening in my mind? Or was I being such an open book?


    ¡°What¡¯s your story?¡± He asked.


    ¡°It¡¯s none of your fucking business, dog!¡± I shouted.


    His expression didn¡¯t change at all.


    ¡°My parents were Christian preachers. I waited to be at least eighteen to tell them what I was, because I knew they¡¯d probably throw me away from home. But it was still horrible...my mum kept crying in an angle of our living room and my dad was like ready to burn the world. I¡¯ve been living all by myself without any help since then, and I¡¯m quite free to live my life, but I still tried to reopen my contacts with my parents. Do you think I did it?¡±


    I didn¡¯t answer.


    ¡°No. I didn¡¯t, and I¡¯m starting to think I will never see them any more.¡±


    I kept not saying anything. The alien sensation had become stronger. Worse: there was a second one. This time, I had a word for it...compassion, wasn¡¯t it?


    ¡°Listen,¡± the boy finally said, ¡°I understand if you don¡¯t like me, and I¡¯m sorry for being such a creeper. But I know it from your eyes...you need love, somewhere inside you. If you ever need to be loved and tell your story, like I¡¯ve just done, you can find me in that pub almost every day. If you don¡¯t, I promise I won¡¯t chase you again like this.¡±


    With that, he turned back and left. Finally.


    I took some moments to close my eyes and breathe, one of my most frequent mental exercises to control my emotions during my training. After some seconds of that, I finally felt my clothes under my coat stick into my skin more than the usual: Despite the winter climate, I was all covered in sweat.


    I began wandering, without even thinking of what place to reach. The longest I walked, the better I would surely delete this experience with that creeper fag.


    You¡¯re superior to him. You¡¯re a Darkfire. You know what this world¡¯s like. And you¡¯re straight. Don¡¯t get down to his level.


    I was sure I was straight because even though I had been forbidden to touch me there, when I was young and felt sexual excitement it was for women I saw on TV. But even if I was gay, I just couldn¡¯t accept that boy¡¯s offer. Hell, I did not want his offer, that was sure...


    ...then why was I still thinking of him after one hour? The sound of his words were still in my ears, especially when he told me about his parents. I will never see them any more...just like me, with the difference his parents still belonged to this world.


    I sat on a corner, my hands on my front, closing my eyes so tightly that tears escaped.


    ¡°I am a Darkfire. I don¡¯t need love. Love is useless.¡±


    I repeated myself this mantra until it was time to do my nightly duty again.


    ***


    ¡°I sense a group to the east,¡± I told Darrell.


    ¡°There¡¯s another one from the opposite part,¡± he replied.


    ¡°See you later,¡± I said, before leaving him to the east side of the city.


    I was back into action. Whatever had happened some hours before, it was already a distant, irrelevant memory. That wouldn¡¯t stop me from doing my duty.


    Here they were, the Apollonids, like every evening, ready for their savage destruction and ready to be destroyed. My fireballs appeared instantly. One hit, two hits, several hits, I almost finished all the Apollonids. But it wasn¡¯t over: a new group was coming behind me. I turned myself at the speed of light. There happened to be more than usually: Darrell had mentioned something about some terrorist attack having happened somewhere in Europe, so I should have expected it. I didn¡¯t mind, I was good in my job, and some more Apollonid couldn¡¯t beat me. One, two, three, more; I repeatedly beat them, but their flow never stopped. They were surrounding me. Making an effort to prevail over the fatigue, I prepared myself for a special technique to be applied in these cases: rotating around yourself with one leg and throwing fireballs all around, in a constant flood of hate. I stayed on the ground with only the top of my left foot, and I opened my hands, concentrating on my task...


    But my fatigue was winning...something else sounded in my mind...


    Your eyes were clearly those of someone who¡¯s suffered for long. Just like me.


    The fireballs didn¡¯t appear.


    ¡°What the hell?¡± I rotated again, sure they would appear next time.


    No fireballs at all.


    I rotated again.


    Nothing.


    I panicked.


    ¡°DARRELL! DARRELL!¡±


    The demons were very close. Their mortal heat was on my skin...


    ¡°HAYDEN!¡±


    The Apollonids disappeared. Darrell was in front of me, the last glimpses of his fireballs in his mind. I was on the ground in the fetal position.


    ¡°What happened?¡± He barked.


    ¡°I...I don¡¯t know.¡± Despite being in a state of shock, I knew Darrell would want to investigate further if I admitted I couldn¡¯t produce the fireballs. ¡°They were too much...¡±


    To my astonishment, Darrell dismissed everything with a hand gesture.


    ¡°Tonight was more difficult than usual. Good chance I had finished all my Apollonids. These terrorists are really producing an amount of hate I¡¯ve never seen in my life...we must be careful next days.¡±


    I didn¡¯t need to be careful, I needed to forget that boy. If I didn¡¯t, I would perish, and then so would the world, in flames of hatred.


    But how could my inner part forget that someone liked me for the first time in a decade?

 Self-weakened

    The next days, I somehow managed to contain my new, dangerous feelings and resumed being the efficient Darkfire I was. No fag could destroy my strength, not when I had been trained to ignore that kind of stuff. The Apollonids kept falling at my feet: Plymouth and all Devon kept being protected by the threat of hate in its purest form. I was invincible. I was indestructible. I was Hayden Darce.


    But...


    When it was afternoon and I hanged around the city, there was like a disturbance in my mind. An inner call that came when I wasn¡¯t fighting anything, screaming all its distress, like if it hadn¡¯t been allowed to scream for a lifetime. I knew perfectly what that call was: it was a part of me that had been silenced until meeting that damn fag. No matter how much I avoided like hell to walk in the proximity of that pub, sometimes I found myself to walk there, without even thinking; I¡¯d immediately turn back, stop for a moment and gnash my teeth to summon all my hatred. Sometimes, fireballs appeared in my hand doing so. I refused to admit it to myself, but I was losing my mind¡¯s control.


    After two weeks, that scream had become unbearable. I was almost acquiring a taste for my own blood, so hardly I gnawed my own teeth almost every hour. Worst of all, my performance against Apollonids had gone down drastically. One night, I let one of them hit me on my right arm. It wasn¡¯t only my skin, but my arm and bone being in flames: I screamed all the force of hell outside my throat, falling on the ground. The last thing I saw was Darrell¡¯s hand throwing fireballs all around before I lost consciousness.


    Then, I woke up in a hospital. Diagnosis: second level burn. I was kept there some days, during which the scream in my brain drove me mad. At nights, the face of the fag invaded my dreams like a beautiful, evil angel, and I woke up sweaty, for reasons that were not correlated to my injury. The first afternoon after being released, I didn¡¯t even have any force left to prevent myself from walking into that pub.


    Just once, I told myself, just once and I can be content, right? I can¡¯t survive the Apollonids if I keep thinking about it. Just once and I¡¯ll stop...


    I entered the pub. He was nowhere to be found: just the usual mass of students playing drinking games. My heart, which had pumped uncontrollably for ages, relaxed slowly.


    Maybe he¡¯s given up, I was telling myself while walking, maybe I won¡¯t see him and I won¡¯t have to worry about-


    A new customer opened the door: it was him. Same short, brown, straight hair, same grey eyes, same red bag, although this time he was wearing a white shirt. He didn¡¯t even proceed to order something, but instead took my hands without consent.


    ¡°You¡¯re back,¡± he greeted me.


    ¡°It seems so,¡± I said nervously.


    Suddenly, he gasped. ¡°Your arm! What happened?¡±


    I sweated.


    ¡°Oh...this...it¡¯s just a...well, I accidentally poured hot water on me while making tea.¡±


    ¡°Oh no. I¡¯m very sorry for it. Hope everything else is fine.¡±


    I watched him badly. Or at least, I tried to do so, but the way I was sweating would betray my true emotions to anyone.


    ¡°Thank you.¡± I paused. ¡°I...was looking for you.¡±


    He smiled triumphantly, but only for some short moments, before getting back to a more serene look.


    ¡°Shall we go out of here?¡± He proposed.


    I looked around the local. They were all watching us. It was unacceptable for me, so much used to reservedness and secrecy, to stare at all those inquisitive male eyes, that I just nodded to the boy and left the pub. He followed me.


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    ¡°Where do you want to go?¡± He asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care.¡±


    ¡°How about the park?¡±


    I raised one eyebrow. ¡°Are you proposing to hide in some bush and-¡±


    ¡°No, no,¡± he raised one hand laughing, and with horror I realized how pleasant his laugh was to my ears. ¡°Only for a walk. To get to know each other, you know.¡±


    I nodded. He basically lead the way onto Saltram Park, just down the river. Despite my mental attitude, I had to admit it was a good park to walk in.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know your name yet,¡± the boy asked.


    ¡°Hayden.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m Douglas. Do you, well, feel like telling about yourself? Last time I told you my story.¡±


    This tricked me. Of course I couldn¡¯t tell him about my life as a Darkfire; however, my whole life story centred around the Order. What should I tell him?


    ¡°There¡¯s not much to say about me,¡± I just said, hoping to quit that topic, while looking decisively at the streaming water. ¡°I¡¯m afraid I¡¯m a very boring boy.¡±


    His eyes pointed at me with a devious look. ¡°Aw, really?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± I said with force. ¡°I can tell you I was brought up not far from Plymouth by my...uncle.¡±


    ¡°Your uncle?¡±


    ¡°My parents died when I was a baby. A...car accident.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± Douglas whispered, in a mortified tone that sounded to me pretty sincere. ¡°That¡¯s so terrible.¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter,¡± I cut out, ¡°it happened long ago.¡±


    We kept walking around the park and explored all its paths, in silence. Ah, silence. I just loved it so much, to finally be able to elaborate my thoughts in freedom. Although he constantly looked like he wanted to say something, only to close his mouth immediately.


    He was a pleasant guy, that was true. After the initial, creepy approach, it was a peaceful experience to stay with him. The way he had remained gentle after all my rudeness, his clean face...it felt good. I felt good. I had forgotten how it feels.


    But I couldn¡¯t continue meeting him, I knew it. It couldn¡¯t be difficult, right? I¡¯d just have to go elsewhere, let him forget me slowly...I had got my moment of warmth in my heart, now I could finally stop begging for it.


    As we instinctively began to leave the place, he finally take the courage to say what he wanted and said to me, trembling.


    ¡°So, Hayden, do...do you...like me or...?¡±


    I looked at him, unsure of what my face looked like. Two halves of me were fighting furiously. One was my adult part, the one that had been learned to feel hatred for anything and anyone; the other one was the child that still ¨C and I had found it out thanks to Douglas ¨C lay deep in my subconscious, the one who was still capable not just of loving, but producing love. Darrell didn¡¯t really care about me: he only cared about what I had to do. Not that he had much choice: if he started loving me sincerely, he would become less powerful. But this boy was interested in me, something that had never happened for years.


    ¡°Hayden...?¡±


    No. I had to resist. I was a Darkfire, damnit, I shouldn¡¯t have such temptations! Come on, it isn''t hard...just say ¡®I¡¯ll never date with a fucking fag like you¡¯ and it¡¯s over...


    ¡°I¡¯ll nnnn-¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll...never¡­date...with a...ffff...a fag like-¡±


    He smiled. ¡°You don¡¯t look very convinced, you know?¡±


    I grunted loudly and put my head out of frustration. I couldn¡¯t stand it any more. He had won. Time to admit my defeat.


    ¡°Okay then yes it¡¯s true! I like you! But don¡¯t think I won¡¯t fight it! And it isn''t because you¡¯re a fag, I have my reasons!¡±


    With that, I moved my legs to leave him definitely. I didn¡¯t care if everyone else was watching me at that moment: it was now or never.


    But as I walked, every step became more difficult. As I proceeded, I urged to come back and solve it, do whatever I could do not to lose that guy who was so interested in me. It was so good to be loved...to be loved unconditionally like Douglas did...


    Without thinking, I ran back. Douglas was still there, smiling at me in an ironical, yet beautiful, way.


    ¡°Okay...¡± I panted ¡°don¡¯t know...what...I¡¯m doing...but...okay.¡±


    ¡°I knew it,¡± he said happily, putting a hand on my shoulder, and this time I felt no urge to remove it. ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯re a nice person, after all.¡±


    ¡°Yes...¡± A nice person. Something I had forgotten...


    ¡°Well, now I must go, but we can meet again at this park tomorrow if you want.¡±


    ¡°Fine.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s your Facebook contact?¡±


    I watched him confused. ¡°What¡¯s Facebook?¡±


    ¡°Never mind,¡± he cut out. ¡°5 PM. Is that good for you?¡±


    I nodded.


    ¡°See you tomorrow, Hayden.¡±


    He left. I went sitting in the nearest bench and put my hands in my head, full of butterflies in my stomach but also despaired. I had let myself do what I should have never, ever done. The feeling of being nicely approached by another person again had been too much a shock to my mind, that a decade of training suddenly had faded out.


    I had been so stupid! Meeting him didn¡¯t turn off the scream in my brain: it only made it louder. My performances during the night were surely about to get even worse, and Darrell would investigate about it. I knew he would. Our mission was far too important not to investigate if I was surrendering to the main thing that weakened our power.


    Yet I didn¡¯t dare think of leaving Douglas. Ever.

 Burned corpses

    From that day, I hanged out with Douglas on a regular basis, without Darrell and Miss Ward suspecting anything. We would meet in front of our pub and then have long walks together, while he¡¯d talk of his life, his experiences and I...well, I¡¯d do my best to hide my real occupation. It was terribly hard: Douglas wouldn¡¯t stop telling me things like ¡®You can tell me¡¯ or ¡®There¡¯s no need to be ashamed¡¯, with that sweet and at the same time demanding attitude he was a master of. Douglas had a talent for convincing people to be confident with him. Eventually, I had to take off that danger once and for all, and took the only possible solution: inventing. According to my new story, I had been brought up by my uncle who lived in the countryside, too far away from any village to make friends, I had moved to Plymouth only recently and I was working as a night guardian in some building. Luckily, he believed me.


    Love...what a wonderful privilege to feel it. Years and years of hate and training hadn¡¯t foreseen this kind of attack. Darrell took for granted my training would make me avoid everyone by myself. He hadn¡¯t thought someone would offer me unconditioned love. He should have done something to make me forget my memories where I was loved. What if someone with worse intentions than Douglas had baited me?


    But all these are thoughts I made much more time later. Those days, there was no other thought for me but Douglas. Douglas, the first one after years to be interested in me. Douglas, who took me by the hand when we were together, just like my parents used to do. Douglas, the guy who was making me see the beautiful side of the world once again, who was reminding me that being human could also feel good.


    The day I remember most, the most beautiful memory I have, is one that happened after not meeting him for three days, because of a massive presence of Apollonids in Exeter that had required me and Darrell to settle directly there. Three awful days. Despite being with other three Darkfires, and being my first time meeting other members of the Order, we never introduced ourselves, and we¡¯d talk only when necessary. Not a single smile, not any kind of interest to each other. It had always been like this, that¡¯s true; but before Douglas, it was pretty easy not to realize it. I hated those days with a passion, not the cold hate I was supposed to feel, but the passionate one that lead to loss of control. When we came back to Plymouth I was so happy, happy like I had never been for years, but I had to hide it behind the usual inexpressive look, until I was alone again in Plymouth the next afternoon.


    Once there, I ran onto the pub¡¯s direction, deprived of all mental chains, and at the same moment I saw Douglas waiting for me, I hugged him, tightly, for the first time. He laughed, another sound I had missed so badly, caressed my head and said quietly: ¡°It¡¯s all right dude, I¡¯m here.¡±


    ¡°I missed you,¡± I cried.


    ¡°I missed you too,¡± he confided.


    Reluctantly, I let him go.


    ¡°Remember when you didn¡¯t want to see me because I was a fag?¡± he joked.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry for that,¡± I said with a little voice, my state of mind like the one of a child. ¡°I¡¯ll never do it again...¡±


    ¡°Yes, yes,¡± he patted me. ¡°Well, have you ever been my home? We may have dinner together and then you can stay the night if you want...¡±


    I wanted to accept it so bad, that my tongue was already bending itself to say yes. But it was readily blocked by what remained of my sense of duty. Instead, I said: ¡°I...I can only stay for dinner, Douglas...¡±


    ¡°Oh right, I had forgotten you work by night.¡±


    ¡°Well, we still have a lot of hours together,¡± I said happily.


    ¡°You¡¯re right!¡± he laughed again. ¡°Let¡¯s go then.¡±


    His house was in one of the residential suburbs, a flat similar to the ones I and Darrell used to live in when we still lived close to London. It wasn¡¯t luxurious, but it was furnished with good taste: the white of the sofa and the shelves in the living room, the lively tones of light-blue of the wardrobe and the sheets in his bedroom made it so bright and cosy, unlike the manor I lived in, mostly made of opaque solid stone and dark wood. We stayed some time in the sofa, chatting happily, with the company of some drinks he had in his fridge. Half of me urged me to escape, to come back to what I had to do, repeating to me I was putting into risk the entire world; but whatever it kept saying, I couldn¡¯t give any more a damn about it.


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    ¡°Douglas,¡± I whispered after a while, posing one glass of wine in can, ¡°thank you for being the first one to give me love. I do not feel anymore lonely or angry with the world.¡± I started crying tears. ¡°Thank you...¡±


    ¡°Oh, Hayden,¡± he said. His arms wrapped me like the softest blanket ever made, keeping his head close to mine. My arms were moving by themselves, like if they had a will of their own, closing around his body.


    Suddenly I felt a very strange sensation somewhere. It was so new and intense, yet so familiar for some reason.


    Our lips were touching each other, then our hands started moving.


    Suddenly, our hands touched each other¡¯s body, and then our chests.


    The sensation became stronger. I didn¡¯t know any more what I was doing and why - all I knew is I needed to do it.


    I took off my shirt.


    He did the same.


    That new sensation was now in full control of my brain.


    It was unlike anything I had ever felt, it was ¨C I knew it ¨C something that had deliberately denied to me for my whole life.


    It was FANTASTIC.


    I was in a totally WILD state of mind, I wanted NOTHING but HIM, EVERY PART of HIS BODY.


    MY WHOLE ESSENCE was in contact with HIM, NOTHING ELSE existed any more.


    It was LOVE, it was LOVE in its PRIMORDIAL FORM, the ANIMAL side of ME that I had finally taken out of me.


    IT WAS THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD.


    Finally, we both screamed, and suddenly a I felt great prostration, taking place of that wonderful state of mind. We just lay down on the sofa and hugged each other with all the strength we still had left. He was so lovely, so delicious, so everything. Our hair was a mess, but our eyes were like those of children on Christmas morning.


    ¡°Wow Hayden,¡± he weakly said, out of breath, while caressing me, ¡°have you never done it before?¡±


    ¡°N...no,¡± I trembled, still full of emotion for what I had discovered, ¡°w...what...wh...what...happ...happened?¡±


    Douglas made me a tiresome smile.


    ¡°You just became a fag, too.¡±


    ***


    When night came, I was completely dazed. I had a stupid smile on my face that I couldn¡¯t cancel, and as I walked, my body kept wobbling. Darrell, at our usual night meeting point, noticed my state at the same moment we met.


    ¡°Hayden, you look strange.¡±


    I didn¡¯t record instantly someone was talking to me: I was reliving that wonderful sensation of wild love once again.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°You look strange, Hayden,¡± he pointed out severely, ¡°you¡¯ve been acting strangely recently, but now it¡¯s worse.¡±


    ¡°I am fine...¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll see that soon,¡± he commented. ¡°I sense Apollonids coming to the East part of the city this time. Let¡¯s get a move and see to act properly.¡±


    No smile, like always. After that, while we ran into the East part, I remembered vividly that once I knew a very different Darrell, much more similar to Dougl-


    No. I would betray myself I kept thinking about it.


    But I couldn¡¯t feel any hate; not after what happened that afternoon. The world wasn¡¯t the horrible place I used to believe: I had discovered something that was truly good. I was in love.


    My powers had vanished.


    ¡°Hayden!¡± Darrell shouted. I reconnected with the world, and suddenly Apollonids were all around me.


    ¡°Can¡¯t you even concentrate? Use that damn hate of yours, you idiot!¡±


    He had never talked to me like this. He had been cold and distanced, but never so rude. My powers started to come back. The fireballs appeared. Darrell, the one who had taken me away to that wonderful sensation. Darrell, the one who ruined me forever. He came out of my life and took me away from my natural being. If it hadn¡¯t been for him, I could have maybe just set up to Ireland, with my relatives, have a normal life, grow up there and love them...but no. Darrell destroyed everything. Who cares if the world was destroyed? At least I would end my life surrounded by people who loved me. Apollonids didn¡¯t matter any more.


    It was Darrell the one I wished to be dead.


    My hate was pumping throughout my veins...


    ¡°WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!¡±


    I looked around myself, like waking up from a nightmare. What I saw filled me with horror.


    The Apollonids I should have fought had just burnt down three houses.


    ¡°DON¡¯T DO ANYTHING ELSE, I¡¯LL TAKE CARE OF THEM FOR TONIGHT!¡± He roared, hopping mad. I remained motionless, the carbonized corpses in front of my eyes. Some were children. Darrell, empowered by his rage against me, defeated all the Apollonids.


    I had killed those children.


    It was me. It was my fault.


    ¡°LET¡¯S GO OUT OF IT BEFORE THEY FIND US!¡± He abruptly took my arm and forced me to run. I ran spontaneously, desperately, to escape not only from the arrival of the police, but from what I had done, from my negligence. I was in my car, and I drove as fast as I could, fleeing to our manor, where no one would find me.

 A love worth a hundred deaths

    Once in the cold, unfriendly entrance of the manor, Darrell took me by the shirt and hurled me inside. I fell on the floor. When I looked at him, his look was almost homicidal.


    ¡°I¡­¡± I blabbed.


    ¡°Shut that mouth up,¡± he said, gnashing his teeth.


    ¡°What¡¯s happening?¡±


    Miss Ward had just come out of her bedroom. She looked at the scene from the stairway, in pyjamas.


    ¡°This scumbag,¡± Darrell said, pointing with his finger at my pathetic figure, curled up on the floor, ¡°has just killed several families at once with his ineptitude. Tomorrow morning, I¡¯m going to tell you all the details; for now, you can leave him to me.¡±


    I turned to Miss Ward¡¯s direction, silently asking for a slice of pity that would never come. She gave me a look that could have been the look one gives to a spot of dirt that needs to be washed out.


    ¡°Have you told the Order?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Tajana. I took care of everything while I was in the car.¡±


    ¡°So I can go to sleep, I assume.¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    She turned back and entered in her bedroom.


    ¡°To the dungeon,¡± Darrell ordered. Before I could react, he took me again by the shirt and literally dragged me to the door. ¡°Get up, you scumbag, you got the stairs to do.¡± I obeyed, and he forcefully took me down. Once in the gloomy, stony dungeon, he made me fall again. A wound in my left knee opened, adding even more pain to what I was feeling.


    ¡°I had realized there was something wrong with you this last period, but evidently, I trusted you too much. Starting from tomorrow, you will not leave this manor. Ever. You can only go out if I take you with me, and this isn¡¯t going to happen soon.¡±


    ¡°NO!¡±


    I screamed, kicking my feet despite the wound on my knee.


    ¡°Stop there, I have no use of you with a broken leg.¡±


    I stopped obediently.


    ¡°I knew the cause, but I didn¡¯t want to accept it. It would mean accepting I have done something wrong in all these years of training. Even when I saw it in front of my eyes...¡±


    I looked at him in horror.


    ¡°You...what do...you mean...¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s there? You thought I¡¯m as dumb as you? I¡¯m forty years ahead of you. I can recognize when someone has surrendered to that kind of temptation. I saw you with that boy from a distance.¡±


    I frozed. The harsh truth filled me with dread and horror.


    He knew. He had always known. He spied on me.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t even realize I was there, eh? Right. You had eyes only for him. And I was so stupid to believe you could still contain your feelings. Well, I was wrong. I gave you too much trust. That period is over, though. You won¡¯t see him any more. Or anyone else except for me and Miss Ward.¡±


    I had enough. I found the force to get up. The amount of things this man had done to me were enough to at least make me try to stand against him.


    ¡°I AM SORRY, MASTER! OKAY? I AM SORRY! FOR EVERYTHING! I JUST WANTED TO FEEL GOOD FOR ONCE! SORRY IF I¡¯M YOUNG AND IDIOT! YES, I KNOW SHOUTING WON¡¯T BRING THOSE PEOPLE BACK TO LIFE! I DON¡¯T CARE! FUCK! FUCK! FUUUUUCK!¡±


    Darrell looked at me impassable, moving his hands only to take care of the fireballs I was accidentally evoking. I was wishing so much to make him yell at my delirium, to listen to what I was screaming and hear him reply to me, have a verbal fight, even an actual fight if necessary. I was ready for chaos. But nothing. He just kept looking at me, like if I was the most disgusting thing in the world. Something not too far from reality, maybe.


    ¡°KILL ME! I AM USELESS! COME ON, DO IT! I KNOW YOU WOULDN¡¯T CARE, YOU HAVEN¡¯T EVER FELT LOVE FOR ME OR ANYTHING ELSE!¡±


    With that, it was like a ghost of something trespassed Darrell. He looked away for a short moment, while still making my fireballs disappear. Then he inspired deeply.


    ¡°I may or may not have a wish to do it. Unfortunately, I have spent too much time of my life looking for someone with your gift. If you think I desire to restart everything from zero, you¡¯re wrong. Now go to your room and calm yourself down. In silence.¡±


    I let my arm be taken by him again. In tears and screams, I made to the stairways and up to my room, too emotionally exhausted even for making any fireball come out.


    ***


    The next morning, I refused to go out of my room, or at least I tried. The insistent knocks of Miss Ward, who called me for breakfast, and her refusals to my requests to bring it there, forced me to take the steps out and prepare myself to see my master.


    As I arrived in the large kitchen, Darrell didn¡¯t give any sign of recognizing my presence. Not that he would usually greet me ¨C in that house, nobody greeted each other - but at least, everyone would give a quick look at whoever had just entered a room. The usual background of the TV tuned on the news was present.


    ¡°A witness report about two men fleeing on the north-west side of Plymouth as a fire started in a nearby home, which costed ten people their lives, including three children, made authorities believe the fire is the work of arsonists. The police are currently investigating on the scene to find possible evidence that could lead to...¡±


    My hands were trembling too much to be able to handle any cutlery. Ignoring the cramps in the stomach, I got up, ready to get back to my room and abandon me into sweet nothingness-


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    ¡°Stay there,¡± Darrell barked.


    I sat down again, defeated. Darrell...now he had truly become the total opposite of the Darrell I had known first. To think that the nice family friend that would play and laugh with me was the same person I was witnessing-


    ¡°Stop your thoughts,¡± he barked again. ¡°You must be re-educated, and I¡¯m going to do it starting from now.¡±


    I looked at my hands: they were glowing. It was impossible to hide anything from him. My powers spoke the words he needed.


    ¡°Darrell,¡± I said, ¡°I am sor-¡±


    ¡°Yes, yes, who cares,¡± he snorted, ¡°you aren''t the first one to succumb to forbidden feelings.¡± All of a sudden, he looked away, and as if it was a memory from another life, I remembered Miss Ward words¡¯ from long time ago: Once Darrell...announced he was no more interested in being a Darkfire...he abandoned this house, and then when night came the Apollonids attacked him in the middle of a road.


    ¡°All that¡¯s important is you resume your old training and cancel from your mind that little boyfriend of yours.¡±


    I used what remained of my best efforts to stop the fireballs from reappearing. I wouldn¡¯t give him that kind of satisfaction. The effort called my rational side, which in exchange gave me a very good argument to face him with.


    ¡°Wait a moment,¡± I said, venomously, pointing a finger, ¡°if you saw me hanging out with that little boyfriend of mine, why didn¡¯t you stop me earlier? Instead of waiting for me to let those Apollonids kill those children? Eh? Maybe those deaths are both our responsibility?¡±


    Darrell put a hand where his heart was. Ah, he has a heart? Interesting. I had hit the mark. He looked away from me for some moments. However, when his eyes turned back to my side, they were almost in flames.


    ¡°If you are trying to make me lose control,¡± he whispered, breathing heavily, ¡°you¡¯re fighting a lost battle.¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t answer me.¡±


    Darrell banged his fist on the table, making all the dishes tremble. I boggled, but at the same time I felt incredibly satisfied. He had never been like this. I had penetrated one of his inner defences. The scholar was beating the master.


    ¡°To the dungeon. Now! Before one of us does something regrettable.¡±


    That had to be enough. I wasn¡¯t that stupid to insist. I just got up, took the dishes to the sink, and then proceeded to the usual secret passage. Darrell followed me immediately after, making heavy steps against the cold, grey floor.


    ¡°Starting from today, until you are fully recovered, we¡¯re going to meditate.¡±


    ¡°On what?¡±


    ¡°On what I decide to be opportune.¡±


    The next hours were one of the most boring I ever witnessed, even worse than studying maths at school. I didn¡¯t know if it was because Darrell had never had to deal with such a situation or something else, but for an unfathomable amount of time I was forced to remember why this world sucked and why we had to protect it: nothing but a bunch of stuff I knew by heart, stuff I had been forced to learn better than my own name, which he repeated like a robot and I had to repeat as well. How a man was a wolf to men (it was someone called Hobbes who said it, if I¡¯m correct), how love was only some chemical reaction and something people do for profit, speeches about terrorists, criminals and so on. Other than boring, it was ridiculous the way he thought those sermons would have a new effect on me: now that I knew there wasn¡¯t just that in the world, I had the means to disprove him.


    But your love for Douglas made you kill those children, an irritating voice told my mind.


    Like if they wouldn¡¯t have died later anyway. Better them than my love.


    A third portion of my mind told me this latter thought was utterly wrong, but I knew better that I had no better option. In the meanwhile, Darrell continued his useless preaches about hate.


    His attempts at rescuing my minds continued for two weeks straight, two weeks of absolute hell. Not because of Darrell, I couldn¡¯t care any more about him and his actions. It was my distance from Douglas. I had no clue to contact him, even though I used to have his number, because Darrell had confiscated my mobile phone, just to avoid the possibility I¡¯d fall again into temptation. Each day would start with me crying out of frustration. Inside me, I had the absolute certainty Douglas would think I had abandoned him. Maybe, one day, I¡¯d be once again in front of his door, and he¡¯d just slam it in front of my face. Eventually, he would forget me. Every morning, before heading to breakfast, the heaviness of this possibility made me fall down a vortex of despair, where I would just verse my tears all over the floor of my dark, solitary room. Afterwards, I would have to go to the dungeon, listening to Darrell trying desperately to raise my hate once again.


    His attempts became less and less boring by day, but I don¡¯t mean it in a positive way. He was trying anything he could. First, he attempted to use only words.


    ¡°Lots of gays are also rapists. Are you sure he¡¯s not one too?¡± Bullshit. If he had really been a rapist, he wouldn¡¯t have waited for me to let myself fall into his embrace to get my body.


    ¡°Many are also paedophiles. He could have hurt lots of children.¡± Bah. Maybe some gays were paedophiles. Not Douglas. Damn, Darrell, I know what you¡¯re trying to do. It just doesn¡¯t work on me any more.


    ¡°Have you heard about AIDS? He may have infected you. AIDS is a typical gay disease.¡± You wish. One of the first things Douglas told me was he tested himself no less than twice a year. Hah. You failed, Darrell.


    At the end of the day, his sweaty and frustrated expression would become more and more evident with the days passing by. With great joy, I would go out, have quick dinner, and continue crying on my room.


    Eventually, Darrell¡¯s methods became much more extreme. When he realized words had no power, he tried to literally brainwash me.


    After failing with his infamous words against Douglas, he began forcing me to watch disturbing videos. Images of children being sodomized and then slaughtered. People with horrible mutilations. Men inside a prison, in female dresses, being humiliated in the most absurd ways. But I knew what to do. I would just pretend to watch them, and in the meanwhile, just think of Douglas.


    Then he passed to the next step of folly. Darrell locked me inside the dungeon. Passing me food from the door and leaving immediately, with nothing but the same disturbing videos around me, I effectively began to lose my mind, scratching the walls just to have something to do that wasn¡¯t watching those things again. But even in this case, all that I had to do was thinking of my love, and immediately a pleasant heat in my heart would help me resist.


    The last stage was physical harm. Darrell, one day, finally opened the door of the dungeon; not to set me free, but to beat me. He gave me kicks. He gave me slaps. The visible portions of my face became more red than pink. I cried more from the pain than for Douglas. But even now that Darrell had reached his highest level of madness, the thought of Douglas saved me from succumbing. Eventually, when he asked me to evoke my fireballs again, only small, weak, almost transparent spheres would come out.


    ¡°I...can¡¯t believe it...¡± he said with short breath, looking at me in the dungeon. I was lying on the floor, face down, standing up only with my sore hands; I was the dirtiest I had ever been in my life; I smelt like a wet dog, if not worse; I had blood running in one cheek and both my knees; I could barely walk from the fatigue. Yet, he was still failing. ¡°If I can¡¯t restore you...all these years have been wasted...¡±


    With incredible effort, I smiled. I had won. The torture I had to endure had been worth it. It had made me stronger against the bullshit Darrell had put me into. I said nothing, like I just hadn¡¯t said anything during the whole two weeks.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t want to do it...raising hatred through inner emotions should never be done¡­but you left me no choice...¡±


    I raised one eyebrow. What was he going to say?


    ¡°This is likely the last day of my life...¡± My body started shivering. If Darrell was acting like this, especially after abusing me unsuccessfully for all those days, there was something big. Something atrocious.


    ¡°...but you are too precious...and I have nothing left to make you a good Darkfire once more...¡±


    He paused. He was shivering, too. I wasn¡¯t sure if I had seen correctly, but I could have sworn there was a tear in his left eye. He had never been so emotional, not even when he used to be my childhood friend. ¡°Besides...I will finally get free of what has tormented me all these years...¡±


    He looked at me.


    ¡°Hayden.¡±


    No. No. Those almost sweet eyes. Suddenly, the Darrell of my childhood had come back?


    ¡°What the hell?¡± I snorted, but I was keeping shivering as well. ¡°After what you¡¯ve done to me, you think you can suddenly act like this?¡±


    ¡°Hayden. It¡¯s time for you to know something.¡±

 The fire of rage

    ¡°What do you mean?¡± I shouted, out of frustration, my angry voice reverberating over the dungeon stones. Then all of a sudden, I understood. I had buried that possibility a long time ago, even trained myself not to revive that thought at all. But now it resurged, like lava from a volcano.


    ¡°You mean...mum and dad?¡± My voice became louder. ¡°You¡¯re saying...you want to tell me you¡¯re involved in their death?¡±


    Darrell did not say a word for a long time.


    I waited, holding on my madness with excruciating effort as long as I could, until it became impossible.


    ¡°IS THAT SO? SPEAK, YOU ASSHOLE!¡± I exploded.


    But even after that insult, Darrell still said nothing. However, with a quick, almost imperceptible movement of his head, he nodded.


    At that moment, everything looked very clear to me.


    ¡°Ha, nice try,¡± I dismissed him with a sarcastic gesture of my hand. ¡°You must be really desperate if you¡¯re trying to pretend you, like, are responsible for that. Why don¡¯t you lock me in isolation some more days?¡±


    Darrell¡¯s expression turned deadly serious. ¡°I may be desperate,¡± he whispered, ¡°but this is not a lie.¡±


    I shook a little. It was a bluff, I knew it. It had to be a bluff.


    ¡°I¡¯m not stupid, you know.¡±


    ¡°If you need to be convinced, I¡¯ll tell you all the details.¡±


    ¡°YOU¡¯RE LYING! YOU ONLY WANT ME TO BE A GOOD DARKFIRE AGAIN! YOU NEVER DID ANYTHING ELSE IN YOUR LIFE!¡±


    But Darrell had already begun narrating.


    ¡°It all began when your parents were keeping you in detention, after you caused some accident at your school. After a while, you dared reveal them our training sessions, and as a result, they prevented me from spending time with you forever. That couldn¡¯t happen. Finding a Darkfire is so rare, we just cannot let that happen. So after some period, I consulted myself with the heads of our Order. I explained them the situation. You and I lived on the same floor of the same building, yet I hadn¡¯t seen your face for a long time. We concluded that as long as you were under your parents¡¯ protection, we would never get access to you, or even if we did, it would happen too late. You would enter into your teenage years and start becoming a man, too independent to decide to follow me, too aware of what taking the Darkfire route would mean for your psyche. We had to take you while you were still a child, with any means. Your parents were our obstacle. An enemy, just as much as the Apollonids.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t interrupt him at all. Despite trying with all my might to believe it was all a bluff, I just couldn¡¯t stop listening to his story. His words just kept flowing inside my ears like dozens of spines.


    ¡°We took care of everything. We personally searched for criminals to pay for staging the robbery and then the murder of your parents. It took so much to plan everything: it had to look like a normal murder, like the one you see on the news. At the same time, we had to find some scum who would do the dirty job for us. But where to look for, without the plan coming to light? Then someone said something interesting. They talked about a place where, once taken all precautions, we would find them. So I took a computer and entered there. The Deep Web. There, you can find anything. The vastest markets of services that would get you arrested. You can even hire assassins to do the job for you. It didn¡¯t take too long to find the men we needed, and once we did, we planned everything together with them. They would disguise themselves as thieves, while the Order would monitor the building we lived in, to communicate when you and your parents would go out. They never asked my name or why I was asking them to kill those people. They know very well the importance of minding their own business. After that, all that was left to do was waiting for you three to go out some evening, call the Order and watch the show.¡±


    ¡°Please, master...¡± I said, breathing more heavily ¡°I won¡¯t get fooled...¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s you who is fooling himself right now,¡± Darrell said, triumphant. ¡°Even after I abused you, even after I made you suffer so much ¨C see, Hayden, I¡¯m aware of what I have done ¨C there¡¯s still a part of you that views me as that gentle neighbour that made games with you. Well, it¡¯s time for you to accept the truth. A Darkfire, to reach his goal, has to get rid of any obstacle. I had to get rid of your parents, once and for all.¡± He paused. ¡°And I did it. This is the damn truth, and I¡¯m not saying it now to make you hate me. Heck, I don¡¯t even care any more if you prefer that fag of yours rather than doing your duty. I just know I have to try. But before I definitely declare the failure of my mission, before your negligence sets the world on fire, I wanted at least to free myself from this weight.¡±


    I was panting. My fingers were making small movements on their own.


    He didn¡¯t look like acting at all...


    ¡°I am not a man of great fantasy, Hayden. Maybe another Darkfire with my same experience, but more intellect, would have found a more elegant solution. Some were successfully trained while their parents were still alive, staging something with the Social Services, or whatever. But not me. I had to act really quickly. It may be problematic and definitely risky as an approach, but destroying an obstacle is still effective to defeat it. Besides, such a plan would provide you with an experience horrid enough to better make you shape the vision of the world you needed.¡±


    My parents. An obstacle. An obstacle to his plan. Their plan.


    But still. Some part of me, somewhere in my brain, kept telling me it was a hoax. A cruel joke.


    No. There were too many details in his story to really believe he was acting. But couldn¡¯t he have just prepared everything long before? Maybe that same day? That made sense.


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    ¡°I don¡¯t believe you until you give me proof. You could have invented everything this morning.¡±


    Darrell looked at me with eyes full of hate.


    ¡°I planned the death of your parents. I didn¡¯t invent anything! Either you surrender to the truth or-!¡±


    ¡°Shut up.¡±


    I was shaking. My hands started closing on themselves, on the gesture that made me evoke the fireballs.


    I wasn¡¯t even caring about whether it was true or not. It was a frustration produced by love that was now guiding me. I had been abused for days, deprived of Douglas, deprived of a normal life, because of the man in front of me. Whether he had planned to make me become an orphan or not, it would have added little to the ocean of awfulness he was.


    The uncertainty only fuelled my hate.


    ¡°You¡¯re an uttermost idiot! Go to that fag of yours if it¡¯s really important, and think of me while you burn alive while he¡¯ll play with you with his-¡±


    ¡°I SAID SHUT UP!¡±


    My roar of agony resonated throughout the stone walls and almost pierced my own ears. The smoke from the fireballs was intoxicating.


    ¡°DIE!¡±


    I threw one fireball, then another, and then another, in the direction of his head, his chest, wherever his vital organs could be. Darrell could have easily defended himself, but to my surprise, he didn¡¯t move a muscle. It was as if he had not only waited, but also hoped for my explosion. There was almost a glimpse of a half-smile as his hair was set on fire.


    That only fueled my anger. Soon, the creature in front of me became a living, agonizing fireball. My hate erupted in all its purest form, not the ridiculous disdain I had been taught, but the true, destructive nature of hate that destroyed everything. The flames finally began consuming his flesh; his mouth was no more forcing any smile, but was wide open, screaming a pain of death.


    The dungeon was no more dark and gloomy; it was instead resplendent, full of yellow light. The smoke was taking the place of the air, but I didn¡¯t mind. His screams rumbled through the stone walls, creating a symphony of pain and horror. But that morbid spectacle didn¡¯t disgust me at all; on the contrary, I was enjoying it immensely. It was the greatest enjoyment I had ever had.


    Darrell¡¯s figure was completely hidden behind the flame that touched every part of his agonizing body. The screams of pain became more and more intense, until all of a sudden, they were replaced by lamented coughs.


    Time became liquid; whether it had been one minute, one hour or one day, it didn¡¯t matter. I remained there, uncaring of the smoke hitting my eyes, watching the flames slowly extinguishing themselves until the thing they had hidden appeared in front of me.


    The skin was reduced to black dust; the bones were now visible. Nobody could ever guess the dark thing that lay in front of me had been something sentient, except for its shape. In silence, I made two steps towards what remained of my master.


    I laughed.


    Just like a villain from a film, I erupted in a long joyless laugh of triumph, a laugh of victory against an enemy. With all the fury I still had in my body, I spat on the big ball of black dust, kicked it, threw more fireballs, did anything to rub my hate on that lifeless thing, like a warrior from a primitive time who had just won a battle.


    ¡°I¡¯ll see you in hell as a winner.¡±


    Slowly, the rational side of me started returning. I had committed a homicide, this time willingly. I couldn¡¯t stay there one second more; there was nothing left for me in that cursed place. I ran towards the staircase. I opened the secret door. I ran towards the entrance room; Miss Ward was in the kitchen. I took my car keys. I exited towards the garden, where my car was parked. I opened it, and in no time at all, I was driving, directed to Plymouth. Drive, reach him; that was all I could think of. The death of Darrell, for a while, was nothing but a scratch inside my thoughts.


    ***


    I rang his doorbell with my own fist rather than the finger. Only then did I realize how I looked like. My black shirt and my arms were full of all the possible kind of dirt one could think of: sweat, tears, carbon and, unmistakable, blood. But I knew once he¡¯d answer my call (I did my best not to think if), everything would get better.


    He could just be out of home, though. It was Thursday afternoon: he likely was still at work. But I needed him right now, and I couldn¡¯t even think of the idea he would be away, for whatever reason.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry! I need you! Please! I am so...so...¡±


    I didn¡¯t even know what else I was, apart from sorry.


    ¡°Please...open the door...I was forced...open...I need you...I-¡±


    The door opened. There, standing in front of me, was Douglas.


    ¡°What the...Hayden?¡±


    I hugged him, delirious.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t want to disappear so long!¡± I cried out. ¡°I was forced...I was abused...I...I...¡±


    ¡°Hayden!¡± He exclaimed, hugging me. ¡°It¡¯s alright, I believe you! Just...just come inside!¡±


    He took me with his smooth hands into his living room. We sat on the red couch.


    ¡°Thank...you...¡± I said with great effort.


    ¡°No problem, Hayden. I never stopped waiting for you.¡±


    His hand caressed me. How good it was to have someone who did that to you, a sensation that only two other people had given me in my life. I could finally be a human again...have a normal life, a normal job, return from home and then have someone who loved me, without having to worry about whatever was outside...


    ¡°I am here for you, Hayden.¡± He brought my head to his chest, where I was sobbing. ¡°You can explain me later. Now, I¡¯m going to take you to the shower, then we¡¯ll rest together.¡±


    He accompanied me to his bathroom, where a wonderful shower cabin was waiting to purify my skin from the filth of the last weeks. After I got out, we sat back on the sofa, and stayed like that for who knows how long, in silence, in need of nothing else but our bodies being in contact. I wasn¡¯t hating the world any more. Now my world became Douglas. Only Douglas and the sofa where we lay.


    Rapidly, I closed my eyes and fell asleep, exhausted for the emotions, while my love caressed my black hair.


    ***


    When I woke up, the clock indicated it was evening. Douglas wasn¡¯t on the sofa, but in front of me, with a plate of chocolate biscuits and some milk, while his TV was turned on. ¡°For you, my dear,¡± he smiled, while the screen showed images of people escaping in a large crowd.


    ¡°What¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°Oh...it seems there has been a terrorist attack in Manchester today, so I was looking at the news.¡± He turned off the TV. ¡°It isn''t important for now. All that matters is that you get better.¡± He sat on the sofa. ¡°Do you feel like telling me what happened?¡±


    I opened my mouth. ¡°I...¡± and nothing else came out of it.


    He looked at me intensely.


    ¡°Hayden,¡± he said, with that tone that was at the same time lovely and demanding. ¡°Whatever it is, I will listen to you. You don¡¯t have to be afraid. I¡¯m here for you regardless.¡± He looked at the window with the night city shortly. ¡°But if I¡¯m going to take care of you, I need to know at least what happened. Not the full story, I don¡¯t mind if you can¡¯t tell me, even though I always thought you were hiding something important. I never asked you further, because it would have been bad for both of us if I cared too much. But now, seeing you like this, after two weeks...¡± he closed his eyes and put a delicate hand on my cheek. ¡°If you just let me know what happened, at least, it¡¯ll be better. You¡¯ll feel better too. You trust me, don¡¯t you?¡±


    I trusted him more than anyone else in the world. That was what I begged my mouth to speak. Instead, it said something else.


    ¡°But it¡¯s horrible...really horrible...¡±


    ¡°Here, have a biscuit. You need something sweet.¡±


    ¡°T...thanks,¡± I sighed. ¡°I just need some moment...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll wait for you,¡± he said, smiled again.


    All my mental defences had been brutally destroyed, like a sand castle taken down by a nuclear bomb. It didn¡¯t matter any more what I had been told to do, to behave like, to be: my collapsed mind couldn¡¯t defend himself from that lovely assault.


    I began, inspired by the sight of the comforting smile of the only person in the world who cared for me unconditionally.

 Human for one night

    While talking, my words came out far easier than I had ever imagined. In my mind, I was always forced to speak about my true story in front of a police officer, who had just seen me throw a fireball into an innocent person instead of an Apollonid. Instead, there was no police officer in front of me, but the love of my life; and most of all, I was telling my story from my free own will.


    First I talked about my childhood, my parents and the bullies that tormented me at school, from whom everything started. Then I talked about Darrell, the first day I met him, the time we spent together, how I considered him my only friend. It didn¡¯t take me long before I arrived at the point when Darrell took me to that field and showed my powers for the first time, that sunny day of twelve years ago.


    ¡°What powers?¡± Douglas asked.


    ¡°I need to stand up for a moment,¡± I said. I got up, drank a sip of milk and then concentrated myself. I was now calm enough to use my hate safely. The fireballs appeared in my palms as always. It was the first time since that incident at my old school that I showed them willingly to someone else, apart from Darrell.


    ¡°W...what is that?¡± Douglas said, astonished and terrified.


    ¡°This,¡± I answered, ¡°is my power. I am a member of the Darkfire order.¡±


    ¡°A member of...what?¡±


    ¡°I have the ability of evoking these fireballs by concentrating on...on feelings like rage, disdain and hate. Especially hate.¡±


    ¡°You...¡± his eyes opened wide for a moment. ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°I mean, when I feel hate towards something, anything, these fireballs will appear on my hands,¡± I said, and turned them off. ¡°I was trained for all my life to use this power on command. It was Darrell who revealed me I had this power. He taught me to hate everything and everyone, so that I could master these fireballs according to his wish.¡±


    Douglas watched me in silence for a long time.


    ¡°But...why? Why would someone do such a horrible thing?¡±


    ¡°There are creatures...creatures made of fire, only those with my same abilities can see. They¡¯re made of the hatred produced by men, and only something else made of hate like these fireballs can kill them.¡±


    Douglas didn¡¯t say anything. My body was trembling. I had just revealed the existence of the Order to a regular human. I didn¡¯t care, though; in fact, I couldn¡¯t give a damn about the security of that gesture. Rather, would he believe me? Would he refuse me despite his promises, escape from the demon I was?


    ¡°I understand if you don¡¯t want to believe me. Sometimes I don¡¯t believe all of this myself. I always hoped to wake up suddenly and be still a child with my parents.¡±


    ¡°I believe you, Darrell,¡± he replied, ¡°you showed me those...things.¡±


    He was hesitating. I could perceive it¡­


    ¡°If you want me to leave, it¡¯s fine-¡± I replied.


    ¡°No!¡± He shouted, getting up from indignation. ¡°I don¡¯t want it.¡±


    ¡°A...are you sure?¡± It was unbelievable. Nobody could be so pure of spirit to decide to stay with someone, even after that someone had just revealed to be a cursed being like me.


    ¡°Yes, Hayden. After waiting for your return, you think I¡¯m just going to tell you to leave? I kept phoning you, but all I¡¯d get was always the voice of the operator. I couldn¡¯t get in contact with you whatsoever, but I knew you hadn¡¯t left me, because I knew there was something tragic in your life, and that it was hitting you really hard.¡±


    ¡°What would you have done if I had never come back then?¡±


    Douglas looked away. ¡°I don¡¯t know...I¡¯d have moved on, I think. But here you are, so it¡¯s pointless to think about it.¡±


    Somehow, my lips managed to produce a smile. He was right.


    ¡°Thank you, Douglas.¡±


    He put a hand on my shoulder and his face returned my smile back. ¡°You said something about your parents, right? Where are they now?¡± he asked.


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    ¡°Dead,¡± I said, without any emotion. ¡°Killed by two thieves. On commission by Darrell.¡± I had changed idea while driving in the car and decided I wanted to believe that revelation. It made my murderous action more righteous, it gave it a meaning. Whatever could help me in making the name of Darrell live in infamy, I would gladly take it.


    ¡°Oh Hayden...¡±


    ¡°It happened long time ago.¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter! You were forced to live with someone like...this Darrell...¡±


    ¡°I know,¡± I said plain.


    Then I continued with all the details about my life in the manor, the dungeon, my separation from the rest of the world, my first battle against the Apollonids, how our relationship had weakened my powers, how Darrell had known everything and tortured me in the hope of raising my hate once more, and finally the events of that day.


    ¡°When he told me that, I didn¡¯t want to believe it at first. I thought he was bluffing to make me hate again. But then I understood he wasn¡¯t making up anything.¡±


    ¡°And then...?¡±


    ¡°I lost my mind. I killed him. With my fireballs.¡±


    Finally, I saw fear in his eyes for the first time that day, probably ever.


    ¡°What?¡± for the first time, he got alarmed. ¡°You need to hide from the police?¡±


    He was still with me. After discovering I had killed someone, he was still with me. His first thought was still about protecting me: unbelievable. Maybe my subconscious, the part of me that has been brainwashed by Darrell, was trying to find a way to make him kick me out of his house, out of guilt, so I would get back to my duty. Whether it was true or not, it was failing.


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t have to. Nobody of the Order would ever call the police: it would disclose our existence. Besides, it all happened in the dungeon, nobody outside it will ever know it. For all legal purposes, when something like this happens, Darkfires are declared to have committed suicide. Miss Ward will probably now declare he burned himself, or something like that.¡±


    I let my face fall on my hand once more, exhausted. I gobbled up the glass of milk that still was on the table and finally proclaimed my abandon of the Order.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to be a Darkfire any more. I don¡¯t want to come back to that manor. I want to love. I want to give you love. It feels so right to love and not hate. You made me feel like a human again.¡±


    ¡°Hayden,¡± he gave me his arms once more. ¡°You won¡¯t come back there, ever. You have me now.¡± He kissed me on the cheek. ¡°Thank you for telling me your real story. I recognize it was difficult to tell me. Now that I know it, we¡¯re more intimate than ever.¡± He looked at me. ¡°You will live with me starting from today.¡±


    I exploded into happiness, the purest form of happiness in twelve years.


    ¡°Oh Douglas...yes! Yes! I will!¡±


    I lost any sense of dignity, unused to feel such a positive feeling, that I jumped on the floor and shouted out of joy. I almost couldn¡¯t remember what had just happened: that happiness was so overwhelming.


    ¡°WOO-HOO! WOO-HOO! WOO-HOO!¡± I screamed, bouncing and bouncing.


    ¡°Okay, okay!¡± Douglas stopped me, laughing. ¡°Sorry dude, there is a family living below...¡±


    ¡°Oh, sorry...¡±


    ¡°No problem, love.¡±


    We hugged again, and without any need for thinking, we kissed on the lips.


    What happened suddenly next, I remember it only from the amount of groans that came from the bedroom. Our hands, our legs, our whole bodies expressed the love for each other in the most complete form ever. My spirit was filled with adrenaline, with a lust for love and being loved. This wasn¡¯t the dirty thing I was taught it was: it was a declaration of affection, the closest affection ever. When it all was over, we finally collapsed on our pillows, touching each other¡¯s bare chest.


    ¡°I love you,¡± I whispered.


    ¡°I love you,¡± he whispered as well.


    And we fell into deep slumber together.


    ***


    All of a sudden, I woke up, but my body felt like it hadn¡¯t got enough sleep. I gave a look at the clock: it was 2 AM. Douglas woke up too.


    ¡°Morning...¡± Douglas said.


    ¡°It¡¯s still night,¡± I said, showing him the clock.


    ¡°W...what?¡± he asked, still sleepy. ¡°Then why did we wake up together?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± I answered, as confused as him. ¡°Maybe something fell and the sound awakened us?¡±


    ¡°Maybe,¡± he said. ¡°Well, guess we should just come back to sleep.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d say so¡± I replied. ¡°Wait a moment...¡±


    I looked at the window. There was something very wrong. The sky wasn¡¯t dark: it was red. Not the reddish light of the city lamps, but actual, vivid red.


    Then I heard them.


    Cries. Several cries that sounded all like the same. Male, female, adults, children.


    I knew what it was.


    ¡°No...¡± I blabbed ¡°no...¡±


    ¡°What...what are these screams?¡± Douglas said.


    ¡°I...¡± I rushed in front of the window, still naked.


    All my worst expectations were confirmed.


    The whole street was on fire ¨C the whole city was. Cars, lamps, houses had become a huge fireplace. The windows on the lower floors of the other houses showed the inhabitants screaming in agony, or already roasted. It didn¡¯t take long to realize the palace where our flat resided was on fire, too. The street was full of carbonized corpses. All around, Apollonids. More Apollonids than I had ever seen in my life.


    It was just like the last night I fought them, the night I let those houses burn down. But this time, there was no Darrell to cover my ineptitude. In fact, there were no more Darkfires in the city. And now, in front of me, there was what happened when there were no Darkfires.


    ¡°We have to go! If we stay here, we¡¯ll be burned too!¡± I shouted while putting back my clothes.


    ¡°W...what?¡± He said, the terror appearing in his eyes that pointed in front of the window. ¡°Hayden...what¡¯s happen-¡±


    ¡°IT¡¯S THE APOLLONIDS!¡± I shouted. ¡°If we don¡¯t get a move, they¡¯ll take our house!¡±


    ¡°But-¡±


    ¡°NOW!¡± I became delirious. ¡°ELSE YOU WILL DIE!¡±


    Without waiting for any response, I violently took him by his arm and with my free hand evoked a fireball that destroyed the entrance door, to the concert of flames that was Plymouth.

 The end of my training

    I descended the stairs and took Douglas with me, as fast as I could, yet every step felt like one million years, as thoughts of despair and sense of guilt assaulted me.


    This had been caused by me. I had renounced my duties as a Darkfire. I had underestimated the true power of the Apollonids. Darrell had never been able to offer me an opportunity to see what happened when there wasn¡¯t anyone stopping them.


    Worst of all, now I knew one thing: I would never be able to leave the Order. Ever. Now that Darrell was dead, I wouldn¡¯t be allowed to abandon myself to those beautiful feelings, not even once. I was a trapped soul-


    No! I desperately tried to say to myself. Enough with that SHIT! There are others who can solve this mess!


    Yes, it was like this. Wasn¡¯t the Order present everywhere in the world? Wouldn¡¯t they realize they had to come here?


    No. I had a responsibility. I was the only one who could stop those creatures.


    ¡°Go hide in the cellar! I¡¯ll be back when it¡¯s over!¡± I barked once we reached the ground.


    ¡°Hayden...¡± Douglas said ¡°...promise me you will be back?¡±


    ¡°I will, my love.¡±


    Like a fury, I exited.


    All around me, there was only a huge red light and a deep fog of smoke. Immediately, I recalled my powers out of habit, and the fireballs cleared the way for me. The Apollonids were literally devouring the city out. Collapsed buildings, carbonized bodies, screams and sirens assaulted me.


    For a moment, I almost fainted.


    Then, I resisted. I would commiserate myself later. Now there was a battle to win.


    The Apollonids started approaching me all together. I called all the hatred that I had accumulated inside me for my whole life. The hatred for the bullies that tormented my time at school. For the assassins of my parents. For Darrell, the man behind my misery. For the Order, the prison I would never escape from. For this wicked world full of evil, including the Apollonids. All the pain I lived was still better than this, though. I would fight to make it more bearable. For Douglas.


    Fireballs came out of my palms. I killed one Apollonid, then two, then more and more and more. I released my anger in every direction, without any pause, getting like a fury to the creatures created by the hate of the people I had to protect. Progressively, they disappeared as my fireballs hit them.


    But they were too many.


    As one disappeared, three more replaced it. The demons soon encircled me, reunited against the only element present that could threaten them. I shoot, I shoot, I shoot more, but I was alone. Even if I was still in couple with Darrell, it wouldn¡¯t be sufficient. The Apollonids had taken the city.


    Gradually, my anger became despair. The despair fuelled my hatred, letting me shoot three fireballs at the same time: but this only slowed my enemies a little. I hadn¡¯t even left the road where Douglas flat was. I could not do it: all the hatred that had been inflicted upon me was sufficient to beat a regular amount, not a whole army.


    Exhausted, I kept waving my arms left and right, my eyes burning from the smoke, my breath becoming more and more faint; there was nothing but fire all around me. The feelings of hate were fading away, becoming a distant glimpse of dark light in the middle of that luminous abyss.


    I was too tired.


    I was alone.


    It was the end for me.


    I stopped moving at all, ready to accept death, even welcoming it. The fire of the Apollonids was coming, ready to take me together with the carbonized corpses. Who knows, maybe there was a heaven, I hoped...for the first time I sent my thoughts to God, supposing there was one, asking him forgiveness for whatever sin I had committed...


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    At that moment, in that extremely short moment, I realized it.


    There was still something I still didn¡¯t truly hate.


    All my feelings were directed towards those elements that ruined my life. My heart, all this time, had still cried for injustice, begging for a reparation in my favour. Here was the final element of the puzzle, the final moment of the training Darrell had prepared for me, the only thing that would, possibly, give me the final victory.


    To beat the Apollonids, I had to hate myself.


    There was only one way to do it. Energy came back to me, while tears already were running from my eyes, no more only because of the smoke, but because of what I needed to do. But if I didn¡¯t make that sacrifice, I would lose.


    After all, wasn¡¯t he just a fag?


    I turned back and ran. My reinvigorated determination gave me the necessary hatred to clean my path from the Apollonid. I was now back to the building, on fire like the rest of the town. I got inside. The fireballs cleared for me the vision from the smoke that dominated the interior, and crushed the door to the cellars.


    Douglas was still there.


    ¡°Hayden!¡± He hugged me strongly. ¡°You kept your promise...I am so happy! Is it safe now?¡±


    But I knew what had to come next. With my hands, I dismissed him, silently.


    ¡°Hayden, are you fine?¡± he exclaimed in shock.


    My eyes, by now, were more liquid than solid.


    ¡°Douglas...I am sorry...¡±


    ¡°Hayden, what¡¯s going on? The demons are still there?¡±


    I couldn¡¯t hold it any more. I shouted all my despair and the hatred I finally felt for myself, as the fireballs appeared once again in my hands.


    ¡°I AM SORRY!¡±


    Then came Douglas¡¯ scream of terror. The fireballs hit his body and the shout stopped, replaced entirely by my scream of pain.


    My throat exploded as the sight of the burned corpse of the love of my life stood in front of me. I had done it. There was no turning back from this. I had proved myself I was able to overcome the futile weakness of affection all by myself, and it felt atrocious. I was a monster that I would gladly kill, if only I could.


    My training was complete.


    ***


    Like in trance, I went back outside and the Apollonids assaulted me again. I was no more: I was pure hatred. The scream I had begun when killing Douglas accompanied the fireballs I threw, several at the same time, three times bigger than before. The demons succumbed like in a domino: one by one, they exploded into thousands of pieces of light that dissolved into the smoke.


    The first road was clear. Now it was only a matter of doing the rest of the town.


    It was hatred, not my brain, that commanded my steps. I cleaned up the destroyed town from its assassins, without thinking, without crying for my love, just a burning pain in my heart that directed every movement of mine. The hate I had for myself was superior to all the Apollonids together.


    Quickly, I cleaned up that neighbour. I proceeded to the next one immediately. I defeated all the Apollonids still there. Then I passed to the next one and did the same. Then the next...and the next...I had to continue...I had to do it...Plymouth was in flames...I was the only Darkfire left...I had to...I...


    Suddenly, I could no more evoke the fireballs.


    ¡°What...?¡± I only managed to think, too exhausted to think of anything more elaborated.


    The light of the demons around me had never been so beautiful like at that moment. It was growing more and more intense, like for giving me the sweetest, most hurtful hug ever...


    Then it got dark all of a sudden.


    Instead of the Apollonids there was someone. A man. He was thin, with white, short hair and looked a lot like...just like...


    My heart went crazy, almost as if it begged to escape my body.


    ¡°Darrell...?¡±


    No answer.


    ¡°Darrell...?¡±


    Nothing.


    Then the man spoke. A gruff, hoarse voice, totally unlike Darrell¡¯s, shouting something harsh.


    ¡°Leave the rest to us!¡±


    No. Of course it wasn¡¯t him. It was another Darkfire.


    Wait...


    Another Darkfire?


    I didn¡¯t have to fight any more, then? Was I free to leave, free to do whatever I could do with my life? This guy would take Darrell¡¯s place, wouldn¡¯t he?


    No, my mind replied my thoughts immediately, and I knew it was right.


    But still, another atrocious truth had materialized in front of me: I didn¡¯t have to sacrifice Douglas. Other Darkfires were ready to save what could be saved of Plymouth: I could have simply hidden myself with him. I could have still had my love next to me.


    Now it was too late. I had nothing else in my life but the Order.


    The figure of the man disappeared immediately, without giving me any other second thought. There was no more light around me: that man had already extinguished the ones in the road I was in. The sky, however, kept being dark red instead of black. All around me were only destroyed buildings. There were some other figures running, but whatever they were shouting, I couldn¡¯t understand.


    I had saved the town, just after destroying it with my stupidity.


    I had destroyed myself, just after saving myself with the love I still had.


    Incapable of bearing those thoughts any more, I finally gently let myself fall on the ground.

 Apathy

    Douglas was in front of me.


    His angelic face, surrounded by a beautiful light, was inviting me to come towards him, to a world of peace and affection. I got closer, and his smile became more luminescent with every step of mine. But as my lips touched his, it changed. I was kissing the rotting, putrid corpse of Darrell, and around me was nothing but fire. His decaying body had an empty, black abyss where the eyes were, from which suddenly jumped a storm of worms that assaulted my face and entered my cavities. In the meanwhile, the arms took my hips and got me even closer against the corpse, while the flames already burned my feet. The arms then elongated around me, and I lost my breath while Darrell laughed cruelly...


    ***


    I woke up, and screamed for maybe one whole minute.


    There was a white light, and I was surrounded by white walls. A bad smell of sanitizing alcohol hurt my nostrils. Voices were speaking, hands were touching me. My scream continued. A hand was put in front of my mouth. Out of instinct, I pulled the arm violently, releasing my scream again. Then something pierced unto my right arm. I wobbled, and thought no more.


    ***


    ¡°He¡¯s waking up again.¡±


    ¡°Be ready with the sedative, just in case.¡±


    ¡°Of course.¡±


    Slowly, I opened my eyes. Two figures, a man and a woman, both in white robes, were looking at me.


    ¡°Sir?¡± The woman asked me. ¡°Are you feeling better?¡±


    ¡°Where...where am...I?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re in Brixham Hospital, in Torquay,¡± she said. ¡°My name is Elisa Pierrick and this is my colleague, John Scott. We are transferring all the injured people from Plymouth to all the hospitals in Devon. We found you in relatively harmless conditions, but there are still some burns we need to monitor.¡±


    Torquay...it was around thirty miles away from Plymouth. I had come plenty of nights there to do my job. I was there for some burns? Bah. If I only could tell folks what I am...


    ¡°We did not find any documents with you, sir,¡± the woman continued, ¡°what¡¯s your name?¡±


    ¡°Hayden...Hayden Darce.¡±


    ¡°Residence?¡±


    I told them the manor¡¯s address. It wasn¡¯t a secret place anyway: the real undisclosed part had always been the dungeon.


    ¡°Do you have someone there we can contact?¡±


    Miss Ward...there was still her. I didn¡¯t recall ever seeing her driving a car, but she could activate the Order and do all that was necessary. Then I remembered the other Darkfire who had appeared last night. She had to have called him. Maybe that guy would come up here...?


    I gave the doctors Miss Ward¡¯s phone number. I stood there, in a white bed of a hospital ward, watching the woman making the call. It was a good thing my body was too tired to do anything. If I just let my emotions rule my brain, the hospital would be already engulfed in flames, and me with all of them.


    It all had happened because I fell in love. Because I let Douglas enter my life. I was the real scum of the Earth. Not even one thousand successful battles would fix the destruction I caused. And I had wasted the last opportunity I had to live the rest of my life with him.


    If only I could let myself die, to join my parents and Douglas, and stay with them without any consequences...but those like me were the last who were allowed to die.


    ¡°She will be here in one hour,¡± the woman told me, interrupting my thoughts. I just nodded, divided between annoyance and relief.


    They gave me some magazines of questionable quality to spend the time. None of them was a newspaper, probably not to remind me of what happened.


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    Finally, she arrived.


    ¡°Miss Ward,¡± I said weakly. It was then that I realized she was the only human left that I personally knew. A mere entity whose only scope was to be the legal owner of the house where Darkfires could hide away.


    ¡°Hayden.¡±


    ¡°I...I am sorry...¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll talk later. I have ordered the doctors to let you go now.¡±


    ¡°But...they said they¡¯re going to hold me for days...¡±


    ¡°You are good at what you do, but, ahem, you always have suffered a weak personality. I¡¯ve witnessed it several times.¡±


    I swallowed and just nodded, accepting her venomous remarks about how pathetic I was. I deserved it totally.


    Eventually, we went out of the hospital and into a car. The panorama of Devon crossed my eyes, but that was far from being enough to cheer me up, implying I was ever allowed to cheer up.


    If Darrell had been on the wheel, he would have done remarks about the atrocity I had caused the whole journey. Miss Ward, however, didn¡¯t seem to be inclined towards that kind of behaviour, preferring silence: which was exactly what I needed. It was probably the nicest thing she has ever done to me. She didn¡¯t even scold me for closing my eyes when passing next to Plymouth.


    Then we reached the manor. The manor that only two days before I had thought I¡¯d leave forever.


    ¡°Enter,¡± she ordered.


    I did. The entrance stood there as always, giving me its silent, despicable welcome back. She followed immediately after. We sat in the living room.


    ¡°I...I am sorry,¡± I said, just like in the hospital.


    ¡°Being sorry is useless now. The Order is working like mad to cover the disaster in Plymouth. The only useful thing you can do right now is not leave this manor for a long time to come.¡±


    With that, I exploded.


    ¡°I HATE YOU ALL! Fuck you and the Order! Why do you keep me here anyway? This world is just a huge pile of shit! Just let me set everything on fire so nobody has to suffer again!¡±


    At this point, I expected her to counter-attack. To do something Darrell would do ¨C shout me back, even close me in the dungeon for days like he did. I was hoping for it: I was burning so much with hatred, I would be glad for a fight. Instead, with my great disappointment, she just shook her heads.


    ¡°You and Darrell were so stupid. I used to serve so much better elements in this Order.¡±


    Me and Darrell...? I could see why I could be called stupid, but Darrell?


    ¡°If he hadn¡¯t waited ten years to tell you the truth, he may have taught you properly to control your emotions, instead of just making you those speeches about disdain and so on. But no, he would never leave behind that part of him that still saw you as a little kid to entertain. How idiot. I don¡¯t regret him.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± I shouted. ¡°He hated me! He only befriended me when I was a kid so he could take me out and grow me here as a little obedient Darkfire! He has tortured me for days when he found out I had dared get a boyfriend! And...and...he planned the murder of my parents!¡±


    She just replied with a scornful sound.


    ¡°Before I tell you how things went, let me ask you something. When you fled, did you ask yourself why he didn¡¯t stop you immediately, when he found out about that guy you had sex with? Why he just wasted time in spying you instead of just blocking you, as he should have done?¡±


    I remembered when I asked the same thing to Darrell. He had left that question unanswered, and proceeded with describing what he would do to make me resume hating.


    ¡°Then I¡¯ll tell you why. He didn¡¯t feel like depriving you of some happiness. He wouldn¡¯t listen to me at all, when I kept telling him it was stupid, that he had to intervene, but no, he kept blabbing just a little amount of love wouldn¡¯t be too hurtful and that you deserved it. Like if he wasn¡¯t taught anything for all his lifetime.¡±


    Even if I had something to say, I doubt my mouth would manage to open up. Darrell...had just let me meet Douglas? Out of affection?


    ¡°And what¡¯s worst, once he finally listened to me, once I convinced him to stop loving you that much, he didn¡¯t even say the whole truth!¡± She shouted. ¡°First, he lost his mind completely and kept you prisoner in the dungeon for long, while I had told him repeatedly that putting you under observation would have been sufficient. Then yesterday, he finally told you the truth, but decided to deform it, out of despair.¡±


    ¡°How do you know it? I killed him before he could even leave the dungeon.¡±


    ¡°He announced me his intentions the morning before, like always. I alerted him, but I am only Miss Ward, and he is ¨C oh sorry, was - the great Darkfire, eh?¡±


    ¡°What is the truth, then?¡±


    She watched me, grinning.


    ¡°The truth is it was me who planned the murder of your parents.¡±


    I stepped back. This time I wasn¡¯t even sure if I would take it as a joke or not. I expected my body to tremble, some sense of horror coming; but nothing came.


    ¡°I remember that night I planned it with the Order. Darrell came here to speak to me in person, to convince me to abort the mission. Like if it was the first time the Order did something similar. We have always sacrificed a pair of civilians to continue our noble work. I had to threaten him to kill you in front of him if he didn¡¯t find a pair of criminals. Thankfully, people in love are so easy to manipulate, something he missed observing when he had to correct you.¡±


    I listened to all this with complete indifference, like if she was just commenting the weather outside. I finally realized it. It couldn¡¯t matter to me who had really done it. So much had I endured, that the death of my parents had become old. It was nothing compared to the fact the love of my life was killed by my same hands. Nothing.


    The big news was that Miss Ward¡¯s role within the Order was not just the keeper of this wrecked house, and she was the real responsible for my misery. I didn¡¯t even have the force to kill her anyway. Besides, there would be big trouble if I did. In the end, with the powers I had, if not her, wouldn¡¯t someone else had come for me?


    ¡°Interesting,¡± I said.


    She watched me badly.


    ¡°What do you mean, just interesting?¡±


    ¡°I just don¡¯t care any more. I am a member of the Darkfire Order, so whatever shit can rain on me, it won¡¯t make things any worse. Therefore, I¡¯ll just forget this world exists when I can, since I cannot even kill myself without making the apocalypse fall on Earth.¡±


    I got up towards the door.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you dare leave again!¡±


    ¡°Leave? I know I can¡¯t. I¡¯m just going to my room. Call me when it¡¯s dinner.¡±

 Epilogue

    The rest of the story is not really worth narrating. All you need to know is I didn¡¯t leave the manor for one year, the time for the government and for the Order to repair the damage I caused. Someone else took care of the Apollonids in the meanwhile, according to the calls Miss Ward made. I don¡¯t know who did, and I don¡¯t care.


    Most people may lose their mind, closed so long inside their home, but for me, it turned out to be probably the best period of my life after the death of my parents. I was free, for once, to ignore the world I had to live in. I would do nothing than wake up, eat and stay in my bed, practising in keeping my thoughts disciplined. Darrell had made me do half of the job already.


    For the first period, however, I would give up to the weakness of emotions too often, and cry for Douglas. Now that years of nothing have passed for me, I can think about it with the highest indifference possible, but for a good amount of weeks my favourite activity happened to be crying on my bed. But I was determined to end it. I had a duty, after all.


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    Eventually, all the feelings I could have for Douglas died of a natural death, and so was any remaining glimpse of my emotions for anyone; except for my everlasting hatred, contained under the form of disdain, free to be released only when fighting.


    So have the years passed for me, and nothing remarkable has ever happened. After all I endured, this is so much better. Of course, during the night I still have to fulfil my duty, so I still hate my life.


    Miss Ward passed out recently of natural causes (something quite rare in the Order, she really made a great achievement), so I inherited the manor. It¡¯s now legally mine. Therefore, I have the full responsibility of the dungeon and all its secrets. I am a senior member now.


    That also means that before or after, I will have to find someone to take my place once I die: just like Darrell, or I should say Miss Ward, did. I will have to live again all that I passed through, and force it on another kid born with my same powers, deprive him of their family and their affections to replace them with nothing but disdain and hate. I will have to show no remorse for any of my actions, to never stop in front of any mental obstacle. My curse will be passed from a mentor to another, in a never-ending chain to protect this hideous world from something way worse.