Cheating the Game

X stood by his window and looked out to the horizon. The sky was the color of gray steel and the clouds were gathering again for another bout of rain. It always rained here. Sometimes less, often more. He was cold and all he sensed from the island was disturbance. A mixing of forces and powers that were not meant to be. Odds were not in his favor, the darkness was rising. He needed to balance the odds, even if it meant cheating. 

So, X cheated, and created a monster.

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On the shore of sea where X was imprisoned in the black tower, the Hazers were celebrating the ceremony of choosing their new queen. A woman, with magic mirrors on her eyes and a stone in her hand. A woman who went by the name of Cin. A woman who was scared and sacred. And slowly getting high on the smoke of all the herbs that the natives were burning. They were also going to burn the big and scary thing they'd caught. They were going to burn it to honor their new queen. The thing was grinning though, for some strange reason. 

Cin walked up the thing, also known as the butcher in some other world. 

"I'm going to beat you," she said, "I will find the boy and take him back to the land of living."

"Haze is a strange place, m'dear," the butcher growled at her. 

"So far it is in my favor. You're going to burn and I will let these people do it, because I know you'll wake up from your sleep wherever you are."

"I might wake up brain damaged or deranged."

"That, is totally your problem. M'dear."

She walked away and left the hazers to take care of the butcher. They threw him careless on a pile of dry wood and sat around gathering kindling for the fire. The butcher worked the bonds on his arms. They felt loose earlier but suddenly he felt like his wrists had grown bigger. The hazers set fire to the kindling and stuffed it into the makeshift pyre they had created for the butcher. Dark smoke erupted from the kindling and small fires started to inside the pile of wood. Butcher's clothes started to smoke and his hair caught fire. The Hazers watched him with bored, spaced out looks on their faces. Only Cin laughed at him because she had beaten him at last. 

Inside the fire, the butcher found the cold little core of his soul, where he had put the pillow on his wife's face and burned the whole lot of people in a nightclub. He remembered that fire was his friend, his favorite and these people had given him something that made him feel alive once again in this godless land. The flames licked his skin like hungry lovers and burned through his bonds. His clothes were on fire, so was his hair, so was his skin, but in his mind, he was cool. He got up from his make shift pyre, grabbed the nearest spaced out hazer and ripped him into two chunks. He carnaged through the island like a force of nature, killing the natives with his bare hands till the blood of their bodies soaked through his hair and skin and doused the fire, leaving him a stinging, burnt scar of a man. He was still looking for the girl, Cin, wherever the fuck she was hiding. 

He found her deep inside one of the huts with the other women, who had formed a protective ring around her. They were willing to die for her. So he killed them all. 

Finally, the butcher faced Cin. He was going to take his time on her. His hands itched to tear her throat out as she cowered back into the corner of the hut. He grabbed her arm and started to drag her out. 

Outside, a loud noise fell upon the village like a hammer of an angry god. The ground under the butcher's feet shook with the vibrations. It felt like an earthquake. Then the sound blasted the air again, like machine parts grinding against each other and iron demons getting crucified in an industrial hell. 

Silence stretched on like a dying relationship.

And then, the bass dropped. 

This was X cheating the system by taking part in the game where he was the prize. 

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Chapter 15. The pawn becomes the player. 

Next, Bass Monster VS The Butcher