The only-child blew out the candles on the birthday cake.
"Hoorayy!"
The clapping of several adults filling the air of the apartment, an eight year old boy missing one of his front teeth clapped alongside them. Sitting next to a girl with short black hair, he saw the birthday cake being pulled away from him, a knife held over it.
"Alright, first slice goes to Riley, the birthday boy!" His mom declared, and the boy—Riley, looked at the girl.
"Nuh uh, you can have it first if you want, Nina," he said. "I don't like cake that much. I want a small slice."
Well, perhaps that was how Riley was, after all. Wanting a small slice of cake at his own birthday.
Though, to be fair, it was hardly determined by his character; he just didn't like cake that much.
His mom held the knife over the chocolate birthday cake. Then, pressing it down, she sliced—
…
Convulsing on the ground, drowning in a sea of blood, his spastic breaths and shaking body ran true. Covering up his head and body, Riley Woods curled into a ball, breathing and choking out tears.
"E-e-ghh, hhuh, ghhh, hhh, hhkk…"
He did not want to breathe.
Dying, dying.
Suicide is a habit. Suicide is the only answer. Habits, defense mechanisms—what was it all? Pointless, fruitless, worthless and absurd. Worthless, he wanted it all to be worthless.
Not wanting to move, unable to move, surrounded by fluids of human viscera, guts and his own vomit, the blood-stained soul would not be cleaned. Plunged, he had unmistakably been plunged into the depths of a deep, dark shadow.
He wanted to stop. He wanted to die. He wanted it all to end, to come to a halt, to no longer happen.
The future, the past, the present—unbearable. He had lived a life of idiocy and failure. So please, put an end to it.
"...Ohhh~~? My~my! This he~ro has a weak sto~mach! Shall I kill some more? Or would that just be meaningless?"
Awaiting Riley's reply, a bloodied man with long black hair, and a previously white hoodie—now stained with red—loomed over the boy, looking down.
He did not want to move. Action, inaction. Please, it would simply be easier if he was dead.
"If you want to heal up that jaw of y'ers, you oughta get to drinking… how about I help?"
Grabbing the heart from the woman whose chest he'd buried his arm through, he popped it over Riley's mouth, forcing it down his gullet. And, though the pain in his stomach, jaw, and hands slowly dissipated, replaced by the comfort of a healthy body,
Stop… please, just make it stop.
The human body had been violated before his very eyes. Ripped apart like it was a piece of paper, he was forced to bear witness to the depths of human mortality.
Death, humans lived their lives running away, afraid of death.
But, why? Why do people have to be afraid of death? If there's nothing beyond the chasm but black and sleep, why, what was there to be afraid of?
In this world, wasn't it much, much easier to die than to live? Death is frightening for a few minutes, and afterwards, it's peaceful. So, then. Because it's easier to die, because it's easier, shouldn't it be——?
"Ah~ah~! I'm getting word… a young lady with tied back, black hair… find her in the school? Got it, mas~ter!"
His heart sank.
"I'll…"
Inhaling, Riley climbed to his feet, his vision distorted by unceasing tears.
"I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!!"
Instantly climbing to his feet, [Bleeding] held in his hands, Riley kicked off the ground, sprinting at Ted with frenzied wrath.
"Kyak! Kyaghaahaha~!"
Wielding a knife of his own, Ted obliged his intent to fight, standing his ground. Riley swung wildly, consumed by his fury. Aiming to behead him, aiming to dissect his stomach open, aiming to split him in two just how he'd done to others, Riley unleashed slash after slash outwards.
Yet, the sound of colliding metal filled his ears.
"Woah, you're nasty…"
Having tried to parry, Ted found his knife cut through by [Bleeding]. In the matter of strength between blades, [Bleeding] had shown overwhelming superiority.
It was a shameful loss, as it should be to any good knife collector. Yet, regardless,
"—But that's not everything."
Summoning another knife into the world, this time a kukri blade, he was able to easily evade Riley's slashes.
In his fury, Riley became predictable, always swinging closely to an X pattern, as was natural for anyone trying to gather momentum to deliver impactful slashes. Still, even in spite of their super speed, Ted was able to evade. Leaping backwards, landing on tables and kicking off of them, the pursuing Riley was led on a wild goose chase, trying to land even a single hit.
"DIE! JUST DIE, DIE YOU INSIGNIFICANT FUCKER!!"
Spewing obscenities, Riley's anger brimmed—or rather, leaked out from his heart. Boiling, the sensation of his rage burned both flesh and heart, engulfed in the heat of battle and wrath.
Wrath, it had to be wrath. Connected with fear, fear and wrath were unmistakably siblings.
Afraid of losing Nina, afraid of other people dying, he was flown into a wrath by his emotions, compelled to do everything he could to kill his opponent.
—Murder was the only choice.
Leaping at Ted, who was atop a lunch table, Riley swung [Bleeding], breathing heavily and slashing at the table, splitting it open. In his frenzied movements, the adrenaline coursing through him accelerated his respiration.
Adrenaline was, in fact, not a friend when it came to most fighters.
Exhaustedly panting, his movements slow and uncontrolled, he turned towards Ted, taking a few seconds to leap once more, aiming to catch his breath. His movements growing weary, he completely forgot about sacrificing his own blood to heal his weakened muscles and fix the lactic acid buildup within.
"A~re? Y~ou? Ti~red~?"
Grinning ear to ear with his bloodied face, Ted summoned four knives and held them all in one hand, swiping it. The four daggers flew through the air, and Riley was too exhausted to dodge, ending up with four knives embedded deep into his thigh.
"ARGHHH!!"
Kneeling, Riley looked down to see the volatile damage. His blood seeping through his clothes, even a slight movement told him that his femur had been stabbed into.
His vision boiling, over red with rage, Riley was pounced upon, and received a heartfelt kick to the side of the head. Being sent coursing through the air, his body, which acted as nothing more than a soccerball, crashed into the concrete masonry walls of the school.
Falling to the ground, he grit his teeth, eyes staring forward in helpless rage.
"I'll… fucking… kill you!"
"All lives matter." He had utterly forsaken that worldview.
The death of one person, he longed for it more than anything else in this world. Seeing the cruelty and senseless slaughter enacted before him, Riley was someone who cast aside his worldview, unable to stick with it in the face of evil.
"I'LL KILL YOU, I SWEAR IT! I'LL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES!! YOU DON'T DESERVE TO LIVE! FILTHY, ROTTEN, WORTHLESS PIECE OF TRASH! DIE!!"
Screaming so loudly that his weak throat scratched at the impact, Riley climbed to his feet, gritting his teeth unbearably hard.
"I HATE YOU! I'LL KILL YOU, I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU! RIP YOU LIMB FROM LIMB!!"
Wielding that titular kitchen knife in his hand, Riley lunged forward despite his wounds, trying to ignore the pain in his leg as he fought tooth and nail to kill that which he needed to kill.
"Is that…"
Pausing his words, Ted darted out of the cafeteria. Entering the hallway in which most of the students fled, trying to enter classrooms locked as a result of the lockdown.
"—So!?"
Finding a variety of students, he grabbed them. Staying true to his view that humans were incredibly weak, Ted launched their bodies like makeshift baseballs, treating their very flesh as nothing more than obstacles.
Riley dodged time and time again, not wishing to crash into them at his speed and strength. He leapt to close the gap, swinging at Ted before he grabbed a student, pulling them over to take the shield.
Splitting the student down the middle, Riley created a sea of blood, spurred on by the heightened effects of [Bleeding].
"FUCKER!!"
His vision obscured by the wave of pink and red mist he'd created, Riley still yet reached out his free hand. His hand pushing past the wave of blood which sprayed even the ceiling and walls, Riley grabbed Ted by the neck.
Paying little attention to the tragedy he himself created in his anger, Riley had finally reached that which he wanted to.
He had clasped Ted's neck. Immediately swinging [Bleeding] to behead the man, he found himself empty-handed.
Having reached through the blood, his grip had become slippery. Unable to keep a hold over Ted's throat in his weakened state, Riley received a gut-wrenching kick to the stomach, sending him flying down the hall.
Sliding along the heaps of blood spilled, the sounds of sloshing filled his ears just as the scent of guts filled his nostrils.
Slowly standing up, his breaths heavily, he had used his palm to support himself. Pulling it away, he felt the stickiness of blood on his bare skin.
Holding up his shaking hands, his body trembled. Crying from his sheer hatred, Riley stared down the hall, seeing Ted standing with a knife in his hand as he raised his boot.
Then, stepping on the human being's head, and promptly crushing it with the ease and visage of a tomato, he had continued to hurt Riley.
"Mm… isn't the new rule so lovely? With each human we kill, we get even stronger. Hey, hey… wasn't that rule created… because of you?"
"SHUT UP!!"
His body aching, weak and fatigued, exhausted, struggling to breathe—Riley lunged forward, slashing—,
"Enough playing. That woman's next."
Easily ducking under Riley's slash, Ted swiped his blade through Riley's stomach. The length of the kukri blade had struck, slicing him open so deeply, all the way to the back of his spine.
Just one inch away from being split in two, he collapsed to the ground, his organs spilling out and leaking from him almost as much as his blood.
"Egh…"
Making such a pitiful noise in comparison to his screams of vengeance, Riley was left on the floor. Ted slowly walked away, his footsteps leaving behind trails of blood as he moved through the valley of death, that which he had created.
His organs, the parts that make up the human body, had escaped him. No longer contained by layers of bone, muscle, skin and flesh—they had left him.
It hurt. It hurt, it hurt so badly, it hurt so overwhelmingly. All senses were null in comparison. He did not want to see, hear, taste, touch, or smell anything any longer.
Cut to black.
He wanted his life to cut to black. It was a mess, anyways. He was ruined since the start.
His incompetence needn't be explained, its events needn't be recited. That was the depth of his weakness.
He wanted to laugh. He had the desire to laugh. To look at the entirety of his seventeen years spent on this worthless planet and point his finger as if it was not himself.
Yet, the sensation of icy grip of death weighing over him, he physically could not laugh. Unable to muster up a physical reaction to the gallow's humor, he rather convulsed, the stand-in for chuckling.
He wished for a cut to black, an end to his—
"...A-ah."
The soft vocalization of a girl who had stumbled across a horrible situation, they had pierced his eardrums.
His eyes faintly opening, Riley glanced over from his collapsed position, looking and seeing a beautiful woman. She was so beautiful it caused his eyes to widen gently.
"Oh? There's the lady I was looking for!" Ted called out, placing his hands on his hips. "Though, I'd say that's meaningless—I did already kill him, after all."
"Hk," the woman—Nina, jerked back, her eyes widening with fear.
"W-wai…" Riley tried to force from his throat, yet it came out as nothing audible.
"You… him? Who was it, then?" Nina asked, sniffling with tears in her eyes. "Was it… Riley?"
"Bingo! Though… he's practically dead already."
She backed up, her hand at her waist as she abruptly stopped at the locker, unable to move back any more. "N-no… where is he!? WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM!?"
Nina was, after all, just a human. Having stumbled across a sea of blood, she was terrified. Human beings, when faced with death, tend to be horrified—that's the natural response.
It was in a human being's nature to fear. Though it differentiated from the other animals of the world, in that their fear wasn't just tied to immediate threats, they were undeniably afraid. That's nature.
"Well, it's not like it matters. I wanted to teach him how fragile human beings truly were anyways. But I suppose I wouldn't mind getting extra credit, after all."
Looking around at the school, Ted smugly grinned and nodded his head. "Yes, yes, this is a fine place to aim for extra credit."
Summoning the knife, he saw Nina frozen with fear. She didn't move from the lockers, even as he slowly approached, enjoying the look of terror carved into her face.
Nina did not trust herself. She didn't trust herself, so she wouldn't move.
Riley, looking at the scene, grit his teeth. He had wanted it all to end, and yet, he was pushed into action. Drinking the blood on the ground, licking it up as though he were a dog, Riley's wounds slowly began to heal.
Hurry, hurry, hurry! If she dies because of me… I'll never be able to forgive myself. So please… So, please…
His organs slowly returning to his open cavity, he plainly adjusted his position, watching Ted's slow movements, awaiting his health's revival.
Slowly, indeed. Ted, analyzing the look of terror plastered all over the girl's face, thoroughly enjoyed it. Of course, if he wanted to, he could have beheaded her in an instant.
But, of course, how pleasing would that be to Ghira? Having been a loyal follower, Ted knew that Ghira was most enjoyed by slow, painful deaths for the human beings. As horrible as his servants could make them, no doubt.
Finally entering within ten feet of her, his wide smile curved across his bloody cheeks, as he began to snicker.
The human beings were so fragile, so weak. It was in their nature to be pathetic and brittle.
"DON'T HURT HER!!"
Climbing to his feet, Riley held one hand over his stomach, his wounds still not yet fully closed up.
The two turned their heads. Ted, surprised that Riley was still alive, stopped moving. There was nothing a human being could do to hurt him, after all.
"My, my, how interes—"
—It was human nature to be fragile.
Easy to break, undeniably. Yet, that was when it came down to their bodies.
—Yet, human beings still always found a way to resist. Even when outmatched.
Reaching into her waistband, Nina rushed at Ted, using her forearm to collide with his neck. Unable to even jolt him, he turned towards her with annoyed disgust.
—Unmistakably, it was also human nature to struggle. Not with their bodies, but with their tools.
Drawing a gun, Nina forced the barrel into the servant's mouth, opening fire.
The bullets bore through his palate and directly into his brain. Nina's eyes, which undeniably brimmed with the fervor of a human being, revealed her human spirit.
Pressing until she heard click after click, she shoved away the corpse of the servant, allowing it to drop to the ground. Ted, sprawled out on the bloody floor, had his life executed by one of the human beings he looked down on so much.
Were words truly necessary? If anything, there was only one word which could encapsulate it all.
Humanity.