Humans are resilient creatures: when pushed beyond their limits, they can overcome any situation. With appropriate willpower, human potential cannot be measured; as such, the Will of the World dotes on and intervenes on behalf of humans. Of course, this does not mean that humans will not encounter struggles. The Will enjoys seeing humans overcome trials and provides the opportunities for them to do so. The Will always finds itself being taken by the strong will to live that most humans have, and sometimes it finds that it has pushed its trials too far. It tends to break the humans it cherishes most, leaving it feeling most distraught regarding the situation. When that happens, it pulls out all the stops to ensure that the human in question is rewarded- though, the human may not always see it as such.

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Neil felt the last sonorous tones of the voice reverberate through his body, leaving behind a scorching energy that flooded his veins like fire. His fingers twitched in response, and he slowly drew himself to his elbows. Each movement cost him, his bones crunching unsettlingly as he tucked his shattered knees under himself, forcing his torso off the floor. The physical torment brought on by his injuries forced him to grit his teeth so hard that he felt something crack, but he did not scream. He would not allow his attackers the luxury. He paused a moment, blood filling his mouth as his lungs burned with each labored breath.

“His will to live is admirable.” The man standing before him, the owner of the tenor voice, looked down at Neil as he watched the child’s broken body being forced to move. The child’s deep gray eyes looked almost black in the shadows of the ruined building they were in, but they almost glowed with a determination to overcome the situation he was in. “It’s a shame he had to be tied up in this,” the man murmured.

The heavy footfalls of the other man drew near as Neil forced his feet under him, shaking hard as he stood. He was almost certain his legs would betray him and allow him to fall back to the wood floor underneath him, but his strong will made him stay upright. He clutched his left arm to his side, bruises yet to bloom on his skin pulsing with each motion. His knees were bent toward each other, unsteadily supporting his weight. Neil’s heartbeat was in his ears, each desperate thump marching in time to the blackness encircling his sight as pain washed over him yet again.

“He would have made an excellent knight,” the baritone-voiced man mused aloud to his companion.

Neil felt the fiery energy course through him, his heart pounding harder now. He clenched both of his fists, his fingernails digging deep into the flesh of his palms, drops of his blood renewing the faded crimson of the planks below him. He blinked hard several times, trying to maintain what little vision he still had, and he staggered a step as his left leg lost strength for a moment.

“It’s time we end it,” the thinner man with the tenor voice sighed, drawing his sword and lifting the point to Neil’s neck- and Neil lunged. He twisted his small body to the right almost inhumanly quickly, darting forward and slamming his feet into the ground. He leaped up and sunk his fingernails into the man’s face, clawing ribbons of skin free from his skull. The man reared back, howling in pain as Neil was thrown back to the ground with the wind knocked out of him.

“Joshua! Are you okay?” The baritone man, freed from the shock he’d just experienced, thundered the rest of the way across the room to his companion’s side as his voice echoed through the lifeless building. He stepped between the kid and Neil, drawing his sword and swinging at the kid. Neil force himself to roll to the side, narrowly dodging the large blade and somersaulting back onto his feet. He lowered himself into a crouch, his body screaming at him to stop, before lunging again. He popped up into the man’s face, sinking his fingers hard into the man’s eye sockets, plunging them deeper until he felt a faint pop as he breached the thin barrier between eye socket and brain.

“Lark!” Joshua screamed through his destroyed mouth, watching his partner’s lifeless body drop to the floor like a stone. The kid, seeming more like a demon than a kid, fell on top of Lark’s body, covered in the spray of blood that burst from his skull. And this kid, this demon, rose once more, his head lolling backward as he centered himself and darted forward toward Joshua. Joshua raised his arms in self defense, covering his tattered face as the kid raked his fingernails against the leather of his armor. They fell backward to the floor in a tangle of limbs, and Joshua shouldered the kid away from him before falling askew. As he lay there, the sunlight trickling through the holes in the roof, he realized his arm was gone, not torn, but sliced cleanly just above the elbow.

Did the kid get a knife? He wondered, glancing toward the monster as Neil rose once more to his feet. The light glinted coldly off the kid’s fingers; his hands were empty. It wasn’t a knife… then what…?

Neil took several staggering steps forward, his eyes fixed on Joshua with a desperation that made the man feel like he would be engulfed by the dark abyss held within those gray eyes. Blood droplets were pooling together at the corner of Neil’s lips, slowly spilling down his chin, and he took several more steps. Joshua could instinctively feel that this kid would kill him. There was no room for doubt, no room for even a chance at his survival. Now the child was within striking range of the man, and he lashed out, slicing the man’s neck so deeply that his spine was exposed as his head fell back like a puppet with its strings cut.

Ah… Joshua thought as he drifted into purgatory. It was his fingernails.

Neil breathed hard in the aftermath, his lungs on fire and the metallic taste of his own blood lingering in his mouth. He looked to the sky, absently watching the clouds drifting above him through the rafters and the shingles. Rain was still falling, beginning the process of gently drawing the bloodstains from his skin, soaking his shirt and staining the tan a far deeper rust color. He lifted his hands, trembling from the strain of the battle he had just fought, and he slowly looked back down. He felt like a passenger in his own body with some other entity piloting his shell. His hands were covered in bright red, raindrops caressing his skin and pulling the crimson away, down his arms and into his sleeves. Eight crescent-shaped cuts were embedded in his palm from where he had clenched his fists, the fingernail impressions punched deeply into the flesh. He moved slowly, stumbling over the bodies of his friends and teachers before collapsing among them in a relatively dry spot. The sticky liquid coated his body and began to coagulate, encrusting him in a dark brown shell. His limbs had stopped responding to him, his vision had gone completely dark now, and the world spun around in his head as he allowed dark oblivion to consume him.

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Neil wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep, but waking up was a surprise. He was certain he was going to die when he had slipped into darkness. His physical pain had subsided, and he pushed himself to a sitting position. It was dark now, comforting silver moonlight filtering through the battered building where cold sunlight had been before he had fallen. Fog filled his mind, an unpleasant fuzzy feeling of hopelessness that coiled around his heart in a painful vice grip. Neil looked around now, seeing the bodies and the blood without understanding what he was looking at. Thinking on it later, he would identify his state as one of psychological shock, but for now, the ten year old boy could only do the best he could to come to terms with the loss he was experiencing. Tears welled up in his eyes, spilling over one by one and taking him by surprise when he felt them begin landing on his hands as he knelt on the floor. He lifted his hands to his face to wipe the tears away, hissing in pain as his fingernails grazed the skin under his eyes. He had two new small cuts there, and he pulled his hand away, his tears abruptly stopping with his confusion.

Do you want power?

He suddenly recalled the voice that he’d thought he had only dreamed about, and a weight settled in the pit of his stomach. He gingerly touched one of his fingernails to the skin on the back of his other hand, and a small bead of blood bubbled up immediately. He recoiled violently, fear gripping him as the fight from the previous night flashed through his mind. Why were his fingernails so sharp? What was going on? The fog in his brain was lifting just enough for him to be able to worry about and question his situation. He looked closer at his fingernails: they didn’t look any different than normal, but he was certain that something was different. However, now was not the time to think about this; he needed to leave as soon as possible. He had killed two people- knights, from the looks of them- and if he were caught, he wouldn’t be able to escape a second time.

Neil pulled himself to his feet, picking his way among the bodies toward the dorm area, avoiding the rubble scattered across the floor as well. The corridor to his room felt longer than usual, and his legs still felt like they were going to give out at any second.

In his shared room lay four beds, four small nightstands for personal belongings, and a small mirror that the kids used to get ready. A handful of toys were still strewn across the room: stuffed animals, toy swords, and even a couple of books. He trod toward his small nightstand, pulling a change of clothes from the drawer and the small, smooth stone that one of the other kids had given him before they were adopted several months ago. He was grateful that she had been adopted before the situation happened, and hoped that she was happy. He placed the stone in his pocket and made his way to the administrators’ office. If he was going to survive, he would need some money and food.

The office was a dark room, the window covered by heavy curtains that Neil pulled to the side so he could see. One of the desks was larger and more ornate than the other three, facing the door leading into the office with its back to the window, and Neil knew that the head administrator would keep spare change in the drawers there. He fished around for a moment, pulling out a couple of silvers and a couple handfuls of coppers, stuffing all but two coppers into a bag laying near the desk. With the money issue taken care of for now, he staggered his way back to the main area and into a side door toward the kitchen. Not much would be found, he knew, but it would let him survive until he healed.

Neil pushed his way through the door, leaning against the counters as he trekked toward the root cellar attached to the kitchen. One step at a time, he descended the stairs into the darkness and felt around until he got his hands on a small collection of potatoes. Those would be perfect. He tucked them into his bag as well, ascending the stairs with painstaking effort. Back in the kitchen, he set his sights on the heel of a loaf of bread sitting within reach: right next to a decently sized kitchen knife. He took both, carefully tucking the knife into his bag after wrapping it in his spare shirt. He was acclimating to the pain his small body was enduring, each step a little easier than the last, and he passed through the main room toward the door. He hesitated at the threshold, turning a little to look back at the people he’d lived with for the past two years.

“I’m sorry…” he whispered into the night air. He took in a deep lungful of night air, washing the acrid stench of blood out of his nose with the earthy scent that always came after the rain. He stared at the clouds above, watching as they covered the moon for a moment before drifting on their course. The rain still fell, gently now, as though caressing the boy’s wounds. The moonlight hitting the rain made them look as though each drop were made of liquid light, silvery and gentle, coating him in imaginary protection before he walked down the path toward the nearby forest.

Do you want power?

Neil was unsure whether his decision was the right one now, but there was no going back, and the forest he walked toward swallowed his small figure whole.