Warning: This chapter contains violence, abuse, and cursing

“I never wanted you…” the words of a woman above him would never ring in his head. He would never remember her face. She mattered to him just as much as he mattered to her. She meant nothing to the mind of a newborn child. He could never know who she was.

“Ill take good care of him,” the words of the man who took him from the woman would spark recognition years down the road. Being the helpless baby that he was, he didn’t know the danger and malice that leaked from the man’s lips as he spoke. The fact that his smirk was every present while red glowing eyes beamed down at the child held no meaning currently.

“You wish to leave your son?” an older woman with a gristly voice took the child and held him close to her. It was a caring act that was likely practiced. She had cared for far too many children for this gesture to hold any meaning behind it. She didn’t like the look of the man that was handing him over either, and after the man explained fully why he was leaving the boy here her eyes filled with more contempt than could be placed on the boy in a lifetime.

By the time the boy was old enough to know what an orphanage was he had already shown that he had a knack for getting into trouble.

“Young one!” he heard Nana shout his name after he had stolen a knife from the kitchen to carve pictures into his wall. She never said his name; he wasn’t even sure that he had one at this point. At age four he was unlabeled, just “hey you” or “young one” never anything like anyone else.

Even at this young age it wasn’t hard for him to tell that no one liked him, not even Nana. It was apparent in the way that she never got quite as physical with the other young kids when they acted out. The boy dove under the bed to hide from her, but she snatched him by the leg.

“You know what you’ve done…” she said quietly. The boy nodded in response. If there was anything she hated more than acting out from him, it was ignorance, like he was always supposed to know that what he was doing was wrong.

It never ended pretty. Once his wounds from the last beating had almost healed, he went and did something else. He was starting to learn what was acceptable and what wasn’t until he was practically a model child. But being perfect didn’t seem to be cutting it for her either. She would always find something to blame on him anyways.

After a year of this he learned to just sit in his room and draw. The only time he ever left was for the essentials like food. Nana didn’t seem to like it, but at least he didn’t seem to be constantly aggravating her with his presence this way. Though today he was hurting.

Normally when he was sick or in pain, he just hid away to make sure that it didn’t get any worse. Today however, was very different. The poor toddler’s head felt as if it were splitting open and his back felt torn to shreds. He couldn’t keep it to himself when he felt like he was dying. This hurt worse than any beating he had received up to this point.

“Nana…” the pained boy croaked as he stepped up behind her, “It hurts…”

The woman turned to the child and knelt down to examine him. The boy hadn’t expected to be treated well like the others; in fact, he expected the bare minimum when it came to getting help with the pain. What he wasn’t ready for however was the horrified gasp that came from her lips.

“You’ve grown horns and wings… like your father. Disgusting creature,” she said with disgust lacing her words, “You really are a demon…”

It wasn’t the first time that the boy had heard the word, but it was certainly the first time he had heard them directed at himself. He looked over to a mirror that she had leaning against the wall. Sure enough, he could see two nubs sprouting from his head and the back of his shirt was poking out weirdly as if something was displacing it.

His eyes widened in horror, “Nana, you can fix it right? I’m not a demon. I’m trying my best to be a good boy!” he spoke urgently.

Nana said nothing as she grabbed the boy by the arm, hauling him to the center of the cathedral. He had always thought that the back room was prettiest. It was quiet and serene, only for other members of the church. The best stained-glass windows were back here, and he loved to try and redraw them. But now he wasn’t so sure if he liked it anymore.

The boy was held against a cross of wood when Nana instructed the other members to do so.

“N-nana?” the boy looked up fearfully as she pressed a nail to the skin of his arm, “What did I do wrong?” His small voice quivered with worry.

“Many things child… but we are to try and purge you of your sins so that you may be pure before the Lord. You are half human. You can be saved…” she said as she drove the first of many nails into his skin. The blood curdling cry that came from the boy made the other members of the orphanage staff shudder, but Nana was unwavering in the task that she set out to do.

Many more nails were driven into him, each with their pleading cry accompanying them, “Please Nana! It hurts worse than the horns! I’ll be good!”

When she was done with the nails the boy was heaving sobs and cries, his chest shook in an attempt to gain air. His supernatural body wouldn’t let the pain knock him out or kill him. He was as awake as he had ever been, and he cried for every minute of it. He knew this wasn’t the end though. He could see it in her eyes.

She wrapped chains around his wrists and ankles just in case, then tore the shirt from his back to reveal the wings that had grown from him. She wrapped the chain around the base of them to keep them unfurled.

“We will purge you, child… do not fret,” she brought out a small torch, he knew it well. It lit with holy flames during times that healing remedies would be burned into the air that they breathed to cleanse them.

“May the name Belial be just a cruel judgement placed on this boy. He was given this name by his demon father, let it be revoked,” she murmured things as she set the tips of his wings ablaze using the torch. He felt the burning sensation and squirmed against the chains and nails, the metal tearing into him, blood dripping down to the hot floor below him.

He almost hadn’t noticed that she had grabbed another device. One she would use to grind his horns down to nubs with. His screams had reached a high note during the torture. The other attendants had left the room in fear that they would either retch at the unholy sight or break from the shouts that fell from his mouth. Nana, still with an unwavering gaze continued.

How could he ever forget her? Out of the three people that had held him in his life she was the most prominent. She was cleansing his hateful creation by torturing every last shred of willpower out of him. By repressing his urge to create and destroy. By taking everything, he never knew he had from him, all at once right here.

At one point, his screams stopped, he took the pain that was coming to him with a dead expression and for a moment the woman actually thought that she had killed him.

“Does your name still stick to you, Belial?” she asked when she had finished and he was sitting in a bloody heap on the ground, “We will see in due time boy.”

His horns were gone; ground back to his skull. His wings had been charred to the bone and hacked cruelly off of his back. His arms and legs were torn beyond recognition. But he was still there. Still breathing. And for reasons that he didn’t know or understand at his current age.

“It hurts doesn’t it…” a voice called to him. One he had heard long ago but would dare remember at the age that he had been. It was deeper and dripped with the same malicious feelings as before, but Belial still held no understandings of the tone’s meaning.

“Yes sir… it hurts a lot…” he was barely able to croak out more than a whisper, and if it weren’t for the chuckle that he had received in response then he would’ve believed that the man hadn’t heard him at all.

“I see, they’re mean, aren’t they?” the man stepped forward and asked in amusement, carding a hand through Belial’s blood-soaked brown locks. The act was soothing for the small boy who hadn’t felt affection in his life at all. The simple gesture almost made him cry again.

“N-no sir… Nana does what’s best for me,” his small voice whispered again in the silence of the empty room he had been left in.

“Really? Is it because you’re a demon?” the man hissed amusedly and tried to hold in his laughter. If the boy were older, he would be able to tell the amount of sheer enjoyment that he was deriving from Belial’s pain.

“That’s what Nana said…” he closed his eyes. The exhaustion really was something else. His body needed time to heal, and although it’d be faster than that of a human, the infections and scarring would still take place.

The man stood, leaving him with a sneer, “That’s right my son… let it fester. I need your urges repressed. The longer they are the grander they’ll be when they’re released.” He left with the snap of his fingers and the boy was alone again.

Belial, who’s own name he had just learned, healed on his own in his room. Again he would only leave for the essentials and perhaps a change of bandages whenever the ones he had currently became too gross. Though he was starting to see something that scared him. He thought that the little torture session was the only one that he would ever be put through, but he was sorely mistaken.

About six months later he looked in the mirror and saw that his horns and wings had grown back once again. To his horror, Nana found out almost immediately and looked visibly upset with the boy as if it had been his own fault that his body grew like this.

“Your wings were severed… but still they replace themselves… we will have to try again…” she dragged him back to the room kicking and screaming. The same routine repeated itself, and it did for years to come.

Over time Belial noticed things during his torture. His growing mind also began to see things for what they were. Nana never looked like she hated what she did to him, and though she didn’t look like she enjoyed it, it still twisted his stomach. The man who had spoken to him the first time was always there, in the back watching. Though he seemed to disappear before anyone else in the room could see him.

“Nana…” Belial called to the woman when he was nine years old.

“What is it child?” she asked, turning to him and noticing the noticeable horns that were growing back yet again despite many failed attempts over the past few years to get rid of them.

“Who’s the man who comes by while I’m being tortured…? Why does he watch me without a word?” he asked quietly.

“Man…?” she held a look of remembrance at a past conversation, “He’s your father, a despicable demon such as yourself. He’s unworthy of redemption.”

“My… father… why doesn’t he help me?” he asked.

“He despises you and enjoys the torture, like any demon would. They care none for their spawn,” she said in distaste.

“But… you care for me, right Nana?” he asked while looking up at her with a dead expression.

“Of course, child,” she said with no shred of care or love in her voice. Nothing but contempt, just as she had the first time she had spoken to him. At his age now he could tell. She wasn’t doing this because she cared for him. She wanted to rid the world of another demon and prove that she could exorcise one if needed. Though he was becoming a failed attempt.

He could feel the feelings festering deep within him. Not quite at the boiling point, but definitely becoming more noticeable. The were feelings that he had never hear of a human possessing, and they were ones that he wasn’t sure how to deal with. The boy slipped into his room and sat there for a moment before his red eyes flared to life and he tore up his pillow, not stopping until it was unrecognizable as such.

It felt good to get out the at least a little bit of the violent energy that pooled within him. He was unaware that his father watched with a proud look on his face from where he sat in hell. Belial was playing right into his hands. Soon he would have a dog that could carry out any task given just to be able to release a little bit of his need for carnage.

Belial spent the next two years reflecting on the fact that he was a demon. Nana still tortured him every time that his wings and horns grew back, and every time she seemed to become even more impatient than last.

“Demons… are bad,” he whispered to himself in his room after a bout of gruesome torture, “Which means I’m bad. That’s what I’m good at. I’m good… at being bad.”

He looked to his bloodied hands and smirked. He was eleven now and those emotions had been pooling for far too long. They were bubbling to the surface. He grabbed the knife from the kitchen and began to carve up the walls in the main room while the others slept, leaving sigils and other ominous messages there. He made a mess of everything in the public room and broke several of the windows that he used to think were the prettiest things he had ever laid eyes on.

“What’s the meaning of this?!” Belial heard Nana shout after he had broken a third window. She had a look of sheer horror at the scene before her. No doubt she knew this was coming though. The look of hatred returned to her face as she looked at him.

“You were right Nana, being bad makes me feel good,” he growled at her with glowing eyes. Claws extended from his hands as he felt his adrenaline pumping at deliberately acting out against her. It was the best thing he had ever felt in his life.

“Get over here! You’ve taken things too far!” she hissed at him, and for a moment Belial flinched and looked scared.

The look soon faded into a smirk, “As if I’d spend another second in this shithole.”

“Child-!” she looked genuinely offended at the words escaping his mouth. The look suited her in his mind, after all, it was her fault he was like this. It was her fault that this was what he had to become.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he glared, “That’s not my name. I’m Belial, you old hag.”

“You accursed demon… I knew you were going to be more trouble than you were worth the moment that your father left you in our care!” she snapped at him and stepped forward.

“Can you not call it care? I feel like the cathedral shouldn’t lie so blatantly like that,” he said nonchalantly as he stepped out of the church and ran into the night. The older woman couldn’t keep up with the child, and she would never keep him again.