Drake could remember the exact day when he realised he’d left the real world for good. He never found out how, or by whose hand; the number of those who wanted him gone had grown exponentially in the recent years. Then again, maybe it had just been a robber and nothing more. It mattered not at this point; he felt relieved. He no longer had to deal with that world, with that life that had brought him nothing but pain and misery. But here he had a chance to do things differently, even start anew if he wanted to. He was king after all, he had riches and everything he could ever wish for. Of course, he had made plenty of enemies in the small island, but he could deal with them easily. There were so many different ways to deal with someone who doesn’t like you, and he was always great at inventing more of them.
But no matter how hard he tried to convince himself that he could have a new life here, find happiness and peace, something just did not feel right. He felt incomplete, as if he was cut in half or something, and the missing half - that most important part of him - kept calling to him, yearning and longing to be reunited with him. He was constantly drawn to something he had no idea what or even where it was. He just felt this invisible hole inside his chest, this great chasm that refused to be filled with anything. Moreover, he had the strange feeling that his missing half was in terrible pain, though he could not tell from what. He could just feel a small part of that pain himself and it was something half-bearable that he just could not get rid of. He tried laughter, crying, eating and drinking himself to stupor; he bedded countless women and killed even more men, but nothing helped.
And then it happened. Rumours began to spread in the kingdom of a monster that only came out at night. People were being found dead every morning, animals were going into hiding, entire woods were dying and no one could explain it, or seem to escape it. It started out in the far reaches of the kingdom, but every day it kept getting closer and closer to his palace. People grew terrified and desperate, in their panic begging from their ruler to protect them. But Drake cared nothing for them. His life would never again smile upon him and he’d grown tired of trying.
In a matter of weeks from the first occurrences, his kingdom turned from a dreamland into the place of nightmares. The population had already been halved and numerous accounts now shed more light on the dark monster, as it was being called. Not many who’d seen it had lived to tell the tale, but some claimed it was a night dragon, with fire spewing out of its eyes. Some claimed it was not one of them but two, some claimed more. Panic spread in the entire kingdom as people realised that there was no escaping this beast and that it would not stop. They prayed to Zeus and all of the other gods; sacrificed day and night and consulted every oracle in the kingdom, but the gods were silent, worse, absent. No help came from god or man, and every night more people died.
Many fled to the mountains, hid in caves and underground, but the monster - or monsters - always found them. Life in Draeland died a little bit each night, until the number of the souls left alive could be counted with fingers, the king and a small number of soldiers still loyal to him.
It was on one of these nights that Drake finally saw the monsters for himself. What he saw should have scared him, terrified him to the bone, but it didn’t. Something was so broken inside him that by now he’d stopped feeling anything at all. There were three of the creatures, and as soon as he saw them, he knew exactly what they were, The Erinyes of the old Greek mythology; the monsters that used to petrify him as a child. What did startle him, however, were their faces; they belonged to the only three women he had ever loved.
Bessie, Marge and Lily flew towards him black as the night, wings of bats on their back. They had fire in their eyes and hideous snakes where their hair should have been. In their gaze hatred and vengeance burned like lit coal. It came as no surprise for him to see Lily among them; news of her untimely death had reached him soon after he’d left.
Drake watched from the balcony as they did away with the very last of his men, right in front of him. They had saved him for last. When they were finally done, they flew towards him, hovering in the air above him.
‘I’m sure you know who we are, Drake.’ The words came from the creature wearing Marge’s face. Even uglier than she’d been in the real life, she had an air of authority over the other two, which Drake thought befitting of the real Mrs. Bagley’s memory.
‘I know who you’re not,’ Drake replied, seemingly unfazed by their ghastly presence, or the carnage they’d just committed in front of him. Harpies. ‘You’re not the women whose faces you wear.’
‘We wear their face to remind you of your crimes,’ Marge continued, her voice coarse, yet echoic, as if it came from The Void itself. ‘You have been found guilty of murdering the ones who raised you, cared for you, fed and clothed you, the ones who loved you…’
‘Loved me? Loved me?’ Drake screamed at her, now really pissed. ‘None of them ever loved me; they all just wanted to use me to get what they wanted. But I gave them all what they deserved.’
‘No mother, sister or lover deserves to die at the hands of the one they love,’ Marge continued as if announcing, untroubled by his explosion. ‘It is our sacred duty to avenge those who do, and today it is your turn to pay, Drake.’
‘What about them?’ Drake asked, pointing at the dead soldiers below the balcony. ‘Who did they murder that you had to slay them all. What about all the people in Draeland? Did they deserve this too?’
‘This world is a product of your mind, and everyone in here is a part of you. Judging them is part of the judgement handed down to you. We take no pleasure in taking lives, guilty or innocent, but we exist to uphold a balance and serve justice. And today justice has called upon you, Drake.’
Drake had heard enough; he couldn’t care less about the rest of the people anyway. All he wanted was for it all to end, and for him to finally find peace. He raised his arms open wide, inviting them to have at it.
‘Then, do what you came here to do.’
The Erinyes had nothing else to say. The three of them fell on him like vultures, cutting him open with claws and teeth. The snakes on their heads feasted on his flesh, giving him bite after bite and polluting his blood with their deadly poison. The pain he felt was excruciating, the agony indescribable, but Drake refused to scream. His lips finally arched into a smile as he waited for the arms of darkness to embrace him and eternal sleep to take him.
Unfortunately for Drake, sleep would never find him again. As he drifted out of the world of the living and his soul flew towards the place where all souls go when they die, he heard the familiar calling of his missing half and felt its pull. Somewhere far in the back of his consciousness, he again sensed the unimaginable pain his other half of the soul was in, and he knew he should not go to it. But the yearning was so great, the call so sweet, and he could not resist. So he made the fateful decision that would affect not only the rest of his existence, but that of countless other souls. He changed direction and followed the call to its source, without realising where he was going.
It was the shortest trip; at the speed of thought he found the missing half of his soul, embraced it and became whole again. Only, that’s when he realised what he’d done and wished he hadn’t. Somehow, when he’d left the real world for good, only half of his already broken soul had made it back to his dreamworld, the other part had ended up lost in The Void, in the place between worlds. And now that he’d put his soul back together again, he was stuck there, forever. Only, it was no place you’d want to be stuck in. There was nothing surrounding him, nothing but darkness penetrating him, a darkness that was alive, cold and malevolent. It joined the pain in his soul and gave it power, amplified it a thousand times upon thousand, making it excruciating and unbearable.
But it wasn’t just the pain that was amplified, anything and everything that was evil in Drake’s soul got a supernatural boost. Whatever good had managed to survive inside him was now well and truly gone, killed by the darkness and its insatiable power. Drake cursed his luck for goi
ng from bad to worse, and kept cursing through eternity. He’d thought life on earth or Draeland was bad, but he’d had no idea; he’d give anything to be back there again. Only, he couldn’t; there’d be no way out of this for him, at least not for a very long time. And even if he ever did, he would never be himself again. As far as both worlds were concerned, Drake was dead and what he had become was no longer human.
And so it was that Drakeon was born.
Chapter 9
Blood and Fall