Neutralize
Legacy Name: Neutralize

 I wake up a split second before I hit the water but there's no time for me to figure out what's going on. There's just a brief moment of the cold night air rushing past, my groggy mind struggling to understand what is happening, before I'm plunged under and shocked fully awake. Not reacting fast enough, I immediately take in a breath of water. My chest erupts into searing pain as it enters my lungs. I attempt to swim upwards, and it's then that I realize my hands and feet are bound. There is no space left in my mind to consider how or why this has happened – there is only the overwhelming need to take a breath of air.

 With every last ounce of my strength, I struggle against my restraints. They do not loosen. I try to propel myself forward with my whole body. I sink deeper. My chest still burns. I need to breathe, but I can't coordinate. Can’t think. I don't know which way is up anymore. I'm fading, tired, slowly sinking.

 As my body drifts down into the darkness, so does my mind. I see home – the sun-faded gray planks, the red brick chimney puffing out smoke, the lush green grasses lazily waving in the wind. The cottonwood tree towers over the house, its silvered leaves flashing in the light breeze and casting a shifting, dappled shadow over the whole scene. Mom is out front; she's bent over, feeding the chickens. I can see Dad through the kitchen window, stirring something on the stove, the smell of a meaty stew drifting to me. They both turn to me, smiling. Dad comes to the window and leans out, waving to me. Mom stands up, her curled black horns glinting in the sun. Her skin is a red as bright as the wattles of the hens pecking the ground beside her. I don't remember that she's dead. I don't remember that I last saw my dad ready to follow her, weak and bed ridden. I take a step forward.

 “Are you in need of my assistance?”

 Neither of my parents said that.

 I remember that I am drowning. There is no way anyone could have just spoken to me, but that fact feels irrelevant. There's no air left for me to speak with, so I simply think: “Yes!”

 The ropes tied around my wrist and ankles suddenly loosen, and I easily shake them off. I kick down into the muddy bottom of the pond and send myself surging upwards, breaking the surface of the water with a desperate gasp. Clumsily swimming to the bank, I drag myself fully out of the water. I alternate between coughing and desperately sucking in air until my body starts to convulse and I throw up: first water, then dinner, then every last thing in my stomach until I'm left dry heaving. There's still a sharp, piercing pain in my chest, and my muscles all ache to the point that I can feel the cold of my skin separately from the warmth of my insides. I want to simply collapse, all the energy gone from me. But I stand up.

 Except I didn't try to stand up.

 I take a step forward.

 Except I didn't try to take a step.

 I'm walking into the woods, but it's not me telling my body to walk. My lungs are on fire now as I begin to breathe normally despite the pain. The ache in my legs, the heaviness in my head, the chill of the night air against my wet flesh – I feel it all, but my body seems unbothered as I steadily walk on. I am ready to explain this strange disconnect as shock until I reach the campsite.

 Argus and Isi, the two human healers I had hired to come to my village, are in the middle of packing up. My eyes take an appraising sweep of the scene – Argus, the younger but burlier of the two, is rolling up the canvas of their tent, the rest of their things already packed away; Isi, a tall and slender woman, is sitting at the entrance to my tent, picking over the contents of my knapsack.

 My stride never breaks. I walk straight forward towards Argus and he doesn't notice me until I'm almost right next to him. He only has time to half straighten up, a look of horror still forming on his face as I grab his neck and lift him off the ground with an inhuman strength I don't think I actually possess. I can feel the ribbed muscles of his neck compressing against my hand. He desperately grabs at my wrist, but he can't break my grip. I say nothing, my face expressionless. I want to scream, but instead it is Isi who screams.

 I turn to see her momentarily frozen by my tent, dark face ashen, before she turns and sprints into the woods. Taking no time, I toss Argus aside as easily as if he were a piece of clothing. I hear him hit the ground with a powerful thud, a wheezing grunt forced out of him. But my focus is on Isi as I step forward and effortlessly yank a tent stake from the dirt. In the same motion, I bring the stake up and hurl it at Isi like a javelin. It flies true and hits her in the back, embedding itself deep into her muscle. She screams again, this time a more primal sound that chills me to the bone. Yet still I walk forward, unbothered.

 I want to look away, but my eyes stay focused on her as I approach. Every step closer, it becomes more apparent that she's dying. Her body is strangely convulsing, muscles contracting independently as if she were possessed. She's oddly silent after that final scream; her eyes are wide, staring, but it's hard to tell if she's still aware. There's a concerning amount of blood quickly forming a puddle beneath her.

 When I reach her, I again waste no time, swiftly stepping one foot on her back as a brace. I easily pull the stake from her; I can feel resistance as the wood scrapes against the broken bones inside her, but it's no match for my new found strength. Isi is too far gone to even react. Keeping the stake in one hand, I grab Isi's shirt collar with the other and begin to walk back towards camp dragging both behind me. Somehow carrying her dead weight like a rag doll is almost worse than watching her die before my eyes; her head awkwardly lolling against me is disgustingly unnatural.

 But my eyes' attention has now gone back to Argus. It seems he injured his leg when I threw him, so he has no chance to run like Isi. Instead he has dragged himself to their belongings, and is tearing through them in a blind panic. I'm nearly on top of him again when he finally finds what he's looking for – a dagger, ornately decorated on both the hilt and the blade, probably intended for ritual use rather than self defense. Yet the blade still looks finely sharpened, and I stop just out of his reach. We stare each other down silently for a moment before he starts to beg.

 “It was Isi's idea,” he pleads, and suddenly I feel an annoyance that's not my own. It's a bizarre sensation; I can feel the emotion clearly in my mind, yet I somehow innately know it doesn't belong to me. And then I hear that same voice that spoke to me in the pond, a man with the prim and proper accent of a big city.

 “Lying will get you nothing,” I say simultaneously with the voice in my mind, my words still sounding completely like my own.

 “Okay, yes, of course,” he whimpers. I can see him struggling to find words in his fear until he finally comes up with a desperate: “We were just trying to protect ourselves.”

 From the lack of response from me, I take it that that is the truth – and I can only imagine the terrifyingly demonic sight I must be to him now: Wet and half covered in mud, my horns and furry legs on full display, holding the bloodied body of his mentor. But Isi and Argus had no way to imagine such a possibility when I first came to them in Ayerspan. It wasn’t my first time in a big city, and my father had taught me how to blend in: a big, full skirt to mask the extra bend of my legs, boots I didn’t truly need to cover the clop of my hooves, and a head covering to hide my small horns. With all those garments on, as far as Argus and Isi had been concerned, I was as human as them.

 Yet evidently I had slipped up at some point. When could it have been? I couldn’t pinpoint a moment, but it certainly had been exhausting keeping up the disguise at all times. It had been overwhelming enough trying to navigate through the hustle and bustle of the city alone, having to talk to more strangers than I ever had before, but at least then I had some moments to myself. It took several days of wandering Ayerspan before I came across Isi’s small shop tucked away in a seedier part of town. I had been so grateful to finally meet someone compassionate enough to travel back to my home town for what I had come to understand was a small amount of money. It seemed to be a bonus that they were both genuinely amicable people.

 We were now about halfway into our journey back to Cresthill and we had shared several meals and conversations between us in that time. I had been nothing but civil, thinking that we were all getting along quite well. Argus was quick to tell me all about his life, naturally a friendly and talkative person. He wasn’t much older than me, yet he seemed so worldly in comparison - he had grown up in a sky city, and had visited several different parts of the surface continent as his home city passed over. In comparison, Isi was very quiet, which seemed to be from a mix of shyness and a desire for professionalism. But she was also a natural teacher, and couldn’t help but tell Argus and I about the medicinal properties of all the various plants we saw along our route. Learning from her brought me back to childhood foraging trips with my grandmother, so I eagerly listened along with her apprentice.

 And yet somehow all of their kindness had easily transformed into hatred the moment they discovered I was a tiefling. I feel an anger flare up in my mind, and this time it is my own. They had tried to kill me. That was the reality I hadn’t had a moment to face since I woke up. And for no reason other than simple racism. They had wanted to protect themselves? From a poor farm girl whose village was dying? They had imagined me a monster based on a glimpse of fur or horn, and ignored the person they had spent days getting to know.

 “A self-fulfilling prophecy,” I say along with the voice in my head. Even though it’s spoken aloud, I’m not sure if it’s meant more for me or for Argus. In any case, Argus has no chance to respond.

 In the next moment, I both drop the tent stake and heft Isi forward, using both hands to shove her now lifeless body onto Argus. He is momentarily lost in a mixture of surprise and disgust, and I lunge in directly behind the body. Argus is no fighter; for a second time he is unable to react quickly enough as I use the distraction to swiftly grab his wrist and twist the dagger from his grasp. My movements feel practiced and natural as I take the dagger in my own hand and bring it to his neck.

 I pause just a moment and our eyes meet. His absolute terror is written on every inch of his face. He knows he is going to die. I know I am going to kill him. Neither of us can do anything to stop it, as I take the dagger and draw it across his throat.

 The blade is indeed sharp, and I am now inhumanly strong, so the dagger digs deep into his flesh. His blood spills warm and dark onto my hand. There’s some resistance as I reach his windpipe, but I still slice it open easily. His blood pours into the opening, an awful gurgling and bubbling emerging as air continues to pump out of his now useless lungs. As the dagger reaches the far side of his neck, I hit a smaller vein and send blood splattering out onto my face. I don't even flinch, still staring Argus down the entire time.

 As with Isi, his eyes are wide but, unlike her, he still seems completely aware. His mouth is moving slightly like he's trying to say something despite his inability to speak anymore. His hand finds mine, but slides off the film of blood coating me. He continues to try, bringing his hand up again and again, desperate to communicate something. I am practically in shock myself; I cannot begin to imagine the pain he must be in. I want to take his hand, to comfort him somehow, but whoever is controlling me has no such compassion. I remain silent, expressionless, simply watching as his life slips away from him. Whether from the blood loss or the lack of oxygen, eventually he becomes too weak to lift his hand anymore. His whole body slumps down, motionless, but his eyes remain open, staring blindly into the distance.

 I stand up and take a step back and suddenly my whole body begins trembling. Tears start to well up in my eyes. As my hand drops the dagger, I realize these are my own actions - I am in control of myself again. And yet I feel barely in control as the horror of the situation overwhelms me. There is a tightness in my chest that has nothing to do with my aching lungs; it is a feeling that radiates dread.

 I can’t stop staring at Argus and Isi, even though I know I have the power to look away now. Isi is turned towards him, her head laying on his lap, with Argus’ hand coming to its final resting place on her shoulder. From the right angle, they could probably be mistaken for a pair of lovers resting together. But from my view, there is no ignoring the blood staining them both, Argus almost half covered in it. Both of their wounds are clearly visible, gruesome evidence of the acts performed with my own hands.

 My own hands. Not me, no. But by my own hands nonetheless. I cannot reconcile what has happened as something apart from myself. I witnessed it, I lived it, I did it. The feeling in my chest becomes denser, something threatening to consume me.

 They tried to murder me.

 My breath is ragged and sharp, catching stinging in my throat and coming out in panicked bursts. Tears blur my vision slightly as they now stream uncontrollably down my face.

 And I slaughtered them instead.

 My chest feels heavy and empty all at once. My mind is racing in circles, winding itself tighter and tighter. Memories cycle: water filling up lungs; a stake piercing a back; a knife slicing a throat. Fear, pain, and blood. Round and round and round. Death replaying in my mind. Death laying right in front of me.

And one lucid thought: Now there is no one to save my home.

 I faint, just another body in the forest.