Damian's Resolve

Damian sat in a carriage beside a sleeping Sarah. Tapping his finger on his knee as he thought about their current circumstances.

He was starting to get a headache from constantly thinking during this trip to Alron.

He had multiple people to work with and take care of, while at the same time travelling unknown lands alongside an increasingly stronger feeling of danger that was soon building into pressure on his two aching shoulders.

He felt like he was carrying this entire caravan on his back.

But, Damian still had responsibilities to uphold, alongside a reputation to build.

He had to manage these people constantly. Giving them the optimal motivation for work, and at the same time building their own respect for him as they worked alongside him.

Why would he go so far though?

It was all for his and Sarah's safety.

Just like his sister, Damian had a certain fetish for control.

He wanted to have control over the first men and women he saw outside of Morrowl.

He wanted to have connections starting with the lowest rung of society until the world's highest kings.

He wanted absolute obedience from others for him.

He wanted absolute power.

But he wasn't doing this all for himself.

Well, not entirely true, but still. He was doing this for his one and only sister whom he loved so much.

He was doing this for his only remaining family left.

So one day, he wouldn't lose them again.

He didn't want to be helpless again when he lost everything.

He didn't want to be powerless like that horrible time in his life.

He was helpless when his mother was raped. Then him being raped shortly after her death. While Sarah was outside playing gardener got some grass for them to eat with their stew.

He was constantly imagining what it would've been like if it was Sarah instead of him they grabbed and used as a cumrag.

Maybe she deserved it.

He hated how he was feeling back then. But more than anything he hated how she was so ignorant while all of this was happening to them.

She was just like his father in his mind back then.

They had the same smiling face as they walked away from the house. Leaving them behind with those disgusting cockroaches who infested his and his mother's insides like parasites.

Damian had unimaginable hatred for his father. And unfortunately, Sarah seemed to resemble their father during his moment of suffering.

Sarah was just like his dog of a father!

He hated her!

But, that unfounded hatred didn't last long.

Because Sarah had given her everything to him.

___________________________________

A young woman walked around a destroyed house where scrubbed-off bloodstains were seen in the corners of the decrepit house.

And in the middle of the house, there was a table, where a young, emaciated teenage boy sat and stared into the distance with dim eyes filled with apathy and cold hatred.

The woman was older than the boy by at least a few years. She was around 19 at this time, and the boy was 15.

The young woman looked over at the boy as she hid behind a door to take a peek at him.

She held her hand over her mouth as she watched the boy's eyes dim with immense sorrow and grief as she tried to hide her pathetic presence from the boy as much as she could.

The young woman remembered what happened when she first came to the house after the tragedy.

The tragedy that happened while she was gone.

She remembered the state of the house when she saw a boy laid down on the floor naked with blood flowing from his nose and underneath his bottom as it leaked to the rotting wood beneath his feet.

She remembered how, just before then, she left the house with a skip in her step as she left to go and find the specific grass for the stew that her mother always made, and the stew that they all used to love.

But now, Sarah had immense regrets at the sight of this brutal scene.

She saw Damian's lifeless eyes showing the destitute soul from within him. The one that had seen something cruel that nobody should've seen.

He was still breathing, but what she saw couldn't be counted as alive.

Her tears welled at the sight of everything.

Her life was destroyed!

And her only family still alive hated her for it!

She saw the coldness in his eyes whenever she gave him food on the table.

She saw the immense hatred in Damian's eyes.

Damian hated her, but he never sent her out of the house.

He didn't want to be alone.

He wanted to at least see someone else share his pain.

So he didn't outright tell Sarah to leave whenever he saw her.

He just kept her there. Making her constantly witness the state of the last family she had left. The family that she had abandoned in his mind.

Whenever she saw Damian her eyes would become cloudy from tears as her pain increased with each day under that same roof.

She tried sometimes to give him a smile or chuckle, but every single time those lifeless eyes would crush all the fragile hope she had managed to build in her heart.

She soon started to see a harrowing reality as she continued to live with the broken Damian.

She saw her future.

She saw herself inside of Damian's suffering.

Those dead eyes seemed to evoke an emotion in her heart of utter dread.

The ever-so-sweet voice of the void seemed to call for her whenever she stared into the eyes of her little brother.

The void that seemed just as sweet as her mother.

The void that reminded her of her now dead mother.

'Maybe I can join her...' Sarah thought on some days as she continued taking care of her broken brother.

She would always think that maybe death could truly be a better life than this.

Maybe death was as sweet as her mother when she told stories to them during frightening nights.

Maybe death could be a safe place where she could start over.

Maybe... she should die.

But Sarah always managed to beat that call for nonexistence back into its depths as she continued taking care of her little brother.

Even though she felt all of these feelings, the only reason she didn't take her life was that she still had hope.

A slight hope for happiness. Not for her, but for Damian.

She couldn't leave until she was able to fix her brother straight before she left.

She didn't want her only family left to die a miserable lonely death.

She didn't want him to suffer for the rest of his life just because she wasn't there for him when he needed her the most.

So Sarah tried her best to make Damian smile. She tried her best to be by his side for every single moment of the day as she worked during the night with men who only gave her a meagre amount of food and money that was just enough to feed one person in a household.

But even then, nothing seemed to work.

Those eyes never changed.

It seemed hopeless...

What could she possibly do!

One night she cried her tears out on her bed as she made the dirty sheets moist from tears.

She cried her heart out that night while Damian was sitting on the chair next to the dining table coldly as he stared into a corner. Acting as if he wasn't even conscious of the entire world as he continued sitting.

She couldn't do anything!

She remembered the happy times they had before. And then, she looked at herself now.

She saw the stark contrast between now, and before.

She soon started to realise her situation.

Her heart squeezed with each beat. Each thump finalising the reality of her situation.

That her life was truly never coming back.

She lost all hope. Her wails were audible to Damian while he gave no reaction.

Why would he care if someone cried in their room? He had already lost the ability to care for others. Just their presence alone disgusted him.

But even then, his eyes reflected some light as they started to become watery. Feeling the pain of that day all over again. The wails from Sarah sounding exactly like his mother's violence that day.

The trauma that was hard to overcome no matter how dead he felt inside.

Sarah's bed was stained with tears everywhere. Her sad moans echoing across the room.

She let her grief finally catch up with her circumstances when she started to realise what she had lost.

Her mother was dead. Her father sold them to the gangs. Her brother had lost the will to live.

And she wasn't even there when all of this pain happened!

'Maybe If I was there, my mother could've stayed alive. Maybe if they used me instead of Damian, he wouldn't have been so sad all the time,' Sarah thought as she gripped the sheets under her head while her tears overflowed.

'But it doesn't matter anymore...' Sarah thought as her eyes started to dim along with her sorrows.

She had given up.

What the fuck was the point in still being here?!

Nothing would ever change this tragedy!

HER LIFE WAS RUINED!!!

She screamed these thoughts in her mind as she still kept a faint hope that a god somewhere would listen to her pleas. That she would get an answer for her suffering.

But no matter how long she cried and wailed, no matter how long she watched her suffering brother, no matter how long she waited.

No one answered back...

That night... she lost something within her.

She lifted her head up with her eyes red from the tears.

She wanted hope.

She wanted to continue living.

She wanted to fix everything that had happened to her in her life.

She wanted her family back.

She wanted her brother back

She wanted to... ask for forgiveness.

How could she ever be able to live on if her only family member was still suffering?

The only loved one she still had left.

The one that was feeling even more pain than her.

In her moment of sorrow, she needed Damian to be beside her.

She wanted to be there for him. Pat his head telling him "it's all okay."

But his hatred for others had become too deep.

He had lost the ability to love his own sister.

But Sarah couldn't live with that. She wanted to show Damian that love still existed in this world.

And that she still loves him.

She was too harrowed from her melancholy.

She wanted to love.

So she gave her love. The only love she still believed to have left to give.

In the end, she gave herself over to Damian. To ease their sorrows and pains together in one bed.

Once they were done, the pain still lingered around the siblings like a miasma. But now, they shared it together. Sharing their feelings together as a family.

No, as something closer than family...

Sarah held Damian close to her chest as tears streamed down her cheek, her lips whimpering as they constantly apologised to a sleeping Damian.

His own tears had already dried up. He slept like a child in Sarah's chest as he embraced her closely.

His heart still felt the pain of losing his loved ones, that sorrow would never disappear.

But he had gained something else that night.

He gained a family that would never leave him.

His sister held him tightly in her bosom, showing him there was more to life than just pain and fear.

At present, Damian had a melancholic expression as he remembered those horrible, and sad times. He had learned how much he had lost, but at the same time how much he still had left.

He hadn't lost everything back then.

He still had his sister beside him.

He still had someone he could love.

He gave his heart over to his last remaining family. Even though it was his family that had betrayed him and broke his heart first.

But... he decided to put his trust in his family one last time.

And that's when he realised how precious Sarah was to him.

He realised she was all he had left.

And Damian didn't want to lose something so precious to him ever again.

He didn't want to get conquered by this world, so he decided to conquer it first before it enveloped him.

Damian became hungry for power after that sorrowful night.

He started his conquest that night...

He conquered the entirety of Morrowl's gangs. Lifted the men who destroyed his family on pikes and skinned them alive as he send his message to the entire world.

The message that he was here to conquer this fucked up place made by the gods!

Damian allowed Sarah's promiscuity in Morrowl ever since he became the absolute monarch of the town.

But here? They were alone.

They were in the bottom rung of society. In fact they weren't even cultivators!

So how could he relax when the most powerful people could literally just flick their fingers, and accidently turn the both of them to dust.

How could he relax when he was so weak that he couldn't even protect himself let alone his beloved sister.

His goal in life was for his sister to be happy. He knew how promiscious she was. She was going to be in danger if she continued with her constant sex-seeking rampage.

He needed to keep her safe. But he also wanted her to be free. She was responsible enough to keep herself happy and safe.

He knew how responsible his sister was. She always had this sense of duty when it came to things, especially when they pertained to things about him.

Sarah wouldn't leave him behind for anything in the world.

That, he truly believed.

His sister loved him.

She always took care of him. Even when he was the most powerful person on Morrowl, he was still supported by his sister in the shadows.

She made his life easy. Constantly supporting him even when he was at his lowest.

So, he had decided to pay her back for everything she had done for him. He would be her support for as long as she needed in this new outside world.

He would make her free to do as her heart desired in this world.

That was his wish.

But wishes would not make dreams come true.

Only actions would.

So he deliberated on how to keep Sarah safe while at the same time trying to find out how he could gain absolute power in this world.

They were in the outside world now. He needed to use everything his brains had to offer to bring his dreams into reality.

He pondered deeply upon this matter until the night had suddenly passed by him.

But he still continued thinking. He brought all of his knowledge and experiences towards one central meaning.

After this, he soon made his goals clear.

He wanted to make Sarah's life easier.

He wanted to make her happy!

And to do that he needed power.

Damian narrowed his eyes as he looked at Sarah's sleeping countenence. The moonlight reflecting off her fair skin, giving a sense of mystery and other-worldliness to her figure.

As his thoughts were bubbling forth, constantly moving and blowing about, he soon gave birth to a new central idea and meaning, he was starting to realise where his conclusions were leading to.

He started to know the answer to all his questions in life.

His mind started to awaken.

He could finally see through the fog until there was only one glaring answer stuck onto his mind!

He needed to become powerful in this world!

And there was only one way to earn true power in this world.

And that was through conquest.

Conquering this world and beyond!