Recommended song: Pacify her- Melanie Martinez

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Redness engulfed Ian's eyes. He tried to focus, keeping his eyes properly to make out the figure which was swallowed by the redness that spread like a living monster. The tongues of the flames danced, raising the crushing feeling he had in his heart. There Ian saw his mother tied on the stake, there was tears on her eyes as she looked at him.

Her lips moved and even though her voice was engulfed by the crackling sound of fire that sounded as if it was laughing at him, Ian was able to make out the two words his mother spoke by reading her lips. "Run, son."

All this time, Ian had felt it. He had felt there was a monster-like existence inside his heart that was chained by a rusted shackle. A single tug was all it need for the shackle to break, letting his monster to come out. The death of his mother which he had to witness in the most gruesome manner, was the tipping point for him to fall into the deep ocean of anger.

Ian was desperate to run into the fire. He didn't care about burning himself or having to suffer the injury of being stabbed by the people to save his mother. His face was pallid, tears on his eyes as he saw his mother's writhing cries inside the fire. But at the moment he was still a human, a human who couldn't do much. He struggled to get away from the rope that bite his skin and to kick the people around him so he could reach his finger to his mother.

Even a finger, a touch, Ian would do anything for the possibility to save his mother, no matter how small it was to him those were hope.

The people who had to hold him down had no choice but to break his leg in order for him to stand down. Some beat him to vent their anger and the people who had beat him wasn't only the guard hired by the snake bitch who had burned his mother on the stake, but just people whose head had been poisoned by the rumors that were spread, the rumors in which his mother was said to be a demon's worshipper.

Blood flowed from his nose and his face had been bruised by the amount of injuries he suffered. He could tell both of his legs had been broken, his ribs, and as well his finger that had been earlier stepped by the villagers but all the pain still didn't stop him from trying to save his mother.

The guards yanked him by his head and the stinging sound of laughter come from behind him. Lady Sarah walked beside Ian who had been forced to kneel in front of her. The woman worn a red dress as if it was a celebration where her entire attire enhance the bright happiness bouncing on her face.

"What have my mother done to you?" Ian questioned, his voice low in a growl. He knew that his mother had never done anything against the woman. It was the opposite. The woman had stolen his mother's position, locked her for years on the tower, drive her out of the house and yet as if it wasn't enough she had now put his mother to the fire.

"What have she done to me?" The woman repeated his words and hummed. "Nothing but to me she had always been the eyesore. Even though her husband had been mine, the position she has had also become mine. I cannot understand why on earth she would still smile. Why would she be so happy even though she had nothing? I hated her smile. Therefore, I just did what others would have done in my place, getting rid of the eyesore. 

Ian looked at the woman with speechless, lump grew in his throat and his jaw tightened, "All this only because your are obsessed with what she had?" Ian shut tight his eyes where the anger was livid in his mien. "My mother died in the hand of a miserable woman like you," he begin to laugh, the small chuckle leaving his lips wasn't because he was happy but rather due to the seething anger that he felt boiling in heart.

Lady Sarah didn't take it kindly of his words and snatched to hold his jaw. Her long fingernails dug deep to his skin, causing blood to ooze. Though the pain stung, his entire body had went through so much pain that the woman's claw felt lesser than a needle prick. 

"I have a proposition for you, Ian. A second chance. You are such a handsome child why don't you entertain a few of my friends? I am sure we could be a better friend on a softer surface compared to the ground," Lady Sarah's words disgusted him.

Ian who had nothing to lose, smiled before spitting at the woman's face, "Why, father cannot satisfy you? My mother might had been driven out of the house but she had never opened her legs as you did. Why don't you search for another work, Sarah? Because living in the street seem to be more perfect for a whore like you."

Lady Sarah raised her hand and swung it across his cheeks, giving Ian a harsh slap which draw blood. 

However, that wasn't enough to silenced Ian who then ruffle the woman's feather further with her words, "No matter how beautiful the gown dressed you adorn yourself with, no matter how much gold you have on your hands, you will never win over my mother. You will always be below her."

"Beat him!" Lady Sarah demanded to the villagers who looked at her with a baffled look.

One of them started to say, "Milady if we beat him further, we will kill him."

"That is my point!" Lady Sarah glared down at Ian, kicking him again and again until she felt satisfied. "I want to see him near dead but don't kill him. I want to see him suffer for more! Move!" She yelled at the villagers who stopped on their tracks. "Do you all not want the money?!" 

At the time, Ian was still a human. He wasn't a demon and hadn't lived the nine hundred more years of his life. He was still a boy who had just reached the age of eighteen, a boy who only had his mother who now had died in front of his eyes. The pain from the injuries he felt was incredibly painful. As humans' greed know no bound, the people who wanted the money didn't care what state he was in and use all sort of object to inflict more pain on him until Lady Sarah was satisfied. 

The seven hours he was beaten in until the morning arrives, by the time the fire that burnt his mother had been extinguished. The people left him all bloodied that one can hardly remember his face without caked by blood. Despite the pain he felt burning agonizingly on his body, Ian dragged himself, bringing his body to where his mother was on the stake. 

Despite the pain he felt around his body, his heart felt more painful. The way sadness crushed something intangible inside him, he could only let out a silent cry as he embraced the body of his mother that had charred black.

As tears fell from his eyes, a deep raw anger begin to burn. The once pained heart now was replaced with wrath. It was revenge that he wanted. He wanted to see the people responsible for his mother's death to face the same and even worse pain.

The monster inside his heart had been unleashed and it was his time to make the people reap what they had sowed.