Note to anyone who read SoD and Survivor: I intend to post the remnants of the series, neither of which were ever finished because I lost the motivation to work on them, if anyone is still interested in reading them.
This isn't going to be a long series, but it's one of my last short stories, I might post the others up eventually, but most of my free time now is going to my webcomic and my book.
------------FEAR the REAPER----------------------------------------------------------
Born in a lab for the sole purpose of Persona research, this boy, Takaouji Souji, formerly MA013, never asked for anything in his life except that he be allowed some measure of freedom. How is it that this boy, who never asked for anything but a few kinds words, could be faced staring down the Avatar of Death?
“I am the End of All Things, NYX!” The monstrous creature said, it's voice had a natural reverb, there was no real inflection in the thing's tone, it was stating a fact, the end had come. Souji, pinned against a wall by invisible hands, could only stare up at the monster, it was his height multiplied by one hundred, draped in the black of nightmares, holding a cruel blade, but all of this, this horror body, this did not frighten Souji, no, it was the FACE. The face of this creature, if it could be called a “Face” was so horrendous, it seemed to, by the act of existing, defy, break, and destroy the laws of physics as Souji knew them. This 'creature' moved slowly in dimensions that the human brain was not BUILT to process. Souji stared into the eyes of the beast, empty abysses, for the first time, he realized, there was no sense of completion to the creature, he knew now, this monster, over one hundred times his height, was only the barest fraction of the thing's actual size.
“I don't want to die, I don't want to die!” Souji shrieked, realizing that he had no hope of salvation, this was the end for him, for the world. If he was going to die anyway, why not enjoy the moments he had left and reminisce.... Souji's mind drifted to the beginning, a time that seemed like Hell.
“AUGH! It's hurting me!,” a fourteen year old Souji snapped, a long needle sticking out of his arm. “Be quiet now, Thirteen!” an old man in white snapped back, slapping Souji/Thirteen across the face. “You old bastard! I'll kill you! KILL YOU ALL!,” the restrained boy howled, his eyes flashing an eerie black glow. “That's good,Thirteen, very good, it's only fitting that DEATH should be this way!” the older man rejoiced. The older man dropped his face to Souji/Thirteen's level, “But, why can't you be like Eleven, so calm and peaceful, isn't she?” the man pointed to a girl across the room, she wasn't restrained like Souji/Thirteen, she looked serene, but somehow...DEAD. “I don't WANT to be like Eleven! I want to be FREE! Like Twenty-One! I'm going to escape, you old bastard, I'll kill you and all of your blood relatives too!, just wait! JUST WAIT!” Souji/Thirteen roared, enraged.
The days flashed by, they seemed to blur, one into the next, a haze of abuse and torture by men and women who only considered the boy they toyed with to be nothing more than an experiment. However, if one thing is true of this boy, “Thirteen”, it is that he will never say something he doesn't intend to do.
Hands covered in blood, Souji/Thirteen turned his hate filled gaze on the old man cowering in the corner, the boy smiled wide, his eyes revealed a knowing far greater than was expected of mere fifteen year old. “I warned you, you were duly informed that this would happen, you have NO ONE to blame but YOURSELF!” he spat, his eyes glowing a horrible black color. “Please, please, THIRTEEN! Don't do this! I'm begging you!” the man shrieked, pleading for his life. “I BEGGED YOU AS WELL, DOCTOR! I BEGGED YOU NOT TO HURT ME! I TOLD YOU I WOULD PARTICIPATE! But YOU insisted on those treatments, HURTING ME MORE AND MORE! I TOLD YOU! I TOLD YOU IT HURT ME!” Souji/Thirteen cried, more enraged than before. Souji/Thirteen's lips parted slightly, he whispered a single word “Per-so-na.” Then the doctor was dead and Souji/Thirteen was free.
No one ever did find out what happened that night, only Souji had escaped, all but one of the researchers at the Gekkoukan lab were sliced cleanly in two, the one who remained, Aikawa Mikoto, relocated shortly after, never returning to Gekkoukan. The government never did catch escaped test subject MA013, the boy who was gifted with the Death Arcana Persona ability. Souji, the name the boy had taken, ran as far as he could from the lab, but he never actually left Gekkoukan, he wasn't through destroying. Takaouji Souji, a ruler of chaos, the bringer of Death, he was, to his very core, the Death Arcana.
