As I reveled in the delicious spectacle of my mother's despair, I finally revealed myself. Not with a dramatic flourish, but simply by stepping into her line of sight, meeting her tear-streaked gaze. Before she could fully register my presence, my hand clamped over her mouth, silencing her nascent scream and rendering her unconscious with practiced ease.
I dragged her into the familiar depths of the woods, my personal sanctuary for ritual sacrifice. Her lifeless daughter, my little half-sister, already lay waiting, a stark, chilling tableau. When my mother awoke, her eyes, at first blazing with anger, quickly dilated with abject terror as they fell upon the still form of her child.
"What did you do!" she shrieked, her voice tearing through the silent woods. But there was no one to hear, no one to heed her cries.
"What did I do?" I echoed, a genuine smile gracing my lips. "Why, I killed her. And so, too, will I kill you."
Her shudder intensified, her mouth opening to speak, to beg, perhaps, but I didn't grant her the courtesy of finishing. My blade slashed across her throat, a swift, brutal stroke. The look in her eyes as life ebbed away gave me goosebumps, a thrill far beyond any I had known. Beyond despair, I found an even greater despair, and that, too, was a feast for my senses.
With both sacrifices offered—one newly dead, the other a chillingly still corpse—the darkness erupted. It pulsed outwards, consuming the entire forest, a sentient void that felt less like an invasion and more like a homecoming. It was heaven, a boundless expanse of power swelling within and around me.
And so, step by chilling step, I began to usurp their wealth. Her newly acquired husband, the father of my half-sister and, I now knew, my own biological father, met the same gruesome end. Five years passed, and with the immense resources garnered from these grim acts, the darkness I commanded grew. It swelled, a palpable, malevolent force, large enough to swallow an entire country. I was delighted, intoxicated by the sheer magnitude of my power, until something entirely unexpected occurred.