“Jace Serac, you are chosen to be bestowed the power of those fallen. Claim your right.” The man grabbed his hand, firmly holding it over Matthew’s body, jolting Jace back to reality.

“No!” He yelled suddenly, he wouldn’t! He couldn’t, not to Matthew! To anyone but Mathew..

The man started to speak an incantation and the world began to rumble with a sinister energy. He tried to pull away, but he felt weak and the man would not relinquish his grip. Mathew’s body began to glow with a red aura, the warmth that accompanied it would have been pleasant had Jace not realized what was happening.

“No, I won’t! I won’t!” Jace continued to struggle, even as he felt the aura envelop his own being. “I won’t!”

The world around them darkened, and Matthew's corpse gasped for air as the body convulsed. Jace’s eyes blurred, he felt his palm burning. He heard Mathew scream, the reanimated corpse’s leg brushing against his shin as the body continued to writhe on the floor. The red aura gathered in the center of Matthew's chest and with one final, agonized scream, he was dead once more.

Jace had stopped resisting; he could feel the warmth of Matthew's energy enter through the palm of his hand. Every nerve ending in his body tingled with a feeling akin to ecstasy. His world was tinged red, he could see through every shadow in the room as if it were the middle of the day. He looked at the man, who was shrouded in a swirling whirlwind of shadows that was pulling energy out of everything around it.

Suddenly his hand was released and he stumbled back against the wall. Body soaked with sweat, heart racing, he gasped in air as if he’d been held under water. The tinted world began to change back into the dark nightmare he had in the rush forgotten.

His gaze fell on Matthew's face. All that was left of his brown eyes were smoldering sockets. His body was contorted; his skin was a sickening yellow, mouth still open from his final scream.

He had consumed his best friend’s soul. Matthew would never walk the afterlife. He would never find peace. And it was his doing. He had wanted power. He had wanted to be in control. He had plunged a dagger deep into his chest, while those brown eyes had asked why, and then he had ripped his soul from the fabric of eternity. He had destroyed the only thing in the world that had ever mattered to him.

Something cracked deep inside him then. Something that makes good people hold tight to their morals. That separates men from beasts. He looked at his hand, blood stained and smeared with ash; the burns were gone. Where the soul had entered his body a black swirl had formed. The warmth it had brought him was quickly fading, and he could feel an unearthly cold creeping into his core. The same cold he had felt when the man had touched him.

“What is your name?” The man’s tone was one of self satisfaction, knowing the battle was over.

Jace’s gaze moved from his hand, to the remains of Matthew, and finally to the man. The Sinder was gone, and the world was silent. The inn keeper had told him that almost all the rooms were full when he had paid for their beds. No one had ever come to investigate the screams.

“Ruin.” He whispered, his green eyes had grown several shades darker. “I am Ruin, my Lord.”