Path Of The Broken

3. The Broken One-2

As suddenly as he had laughed, he stopped. Alex glanced around, taking a slow step in one direction before stopping and turning full circle, his head twisting around to look in all directions. The hood fell back from his face, and his knife hand trembled as the flickering light illuminated the dark liquid on the blade. The blood. His eyes flicked over to the dark crumpled form of the dead man on the ground.

Despite the circumstances Alex smiled. At least this time coming back to himself he was wearing clothing. That wasn’t always the case. Although he had no idea where he’d obtained them from. The last thing he remembered was being naked in the middle of the forest after burning down a hunter’s hut, and a decent amount of the surrounding forest with it. Unbidden a series of memories flashed into his mind; taking a deep breath, Alex ruthlessly shut them down. He’d worked out that trying to tease the memories out of his head about what he’d been up to while not quite in his own mind always sent him spiralling back down to madness.

Alex didn’t know whether he preferred the moments when he was in his own head or the moments where he was absent—although he realised that even in those times, he was not really gone. There was a part of him that was there, just with no control or inhibitions. His emotions surged in ebbs and flows along with the flow of the surrounding veil. Alex shuddered. Cutting himself off from emotions hadn’t worked. Transition hadn’t turned him into one of the Sundered Ones, at least not all the time, but its effect had been worse. Unlike those he thought of as Sundered, he still had control over his actions. Cut off from emotion, he just didn’t care, and he killed as easily as he once used to laugh, with no care, cause or mercy.

Alex looked down and patted his cloak, reassuring himself once more that at least this time he was wearing clothes. He also seemed to have armed himself again in the intervening time between the alleyway and his last memory.

He didn’t even want to think about where he’d appropriated the clothing and weapons from, hoping their previous owners were still alive, although he had to admit it was unlikely. He’d just proved he killed readily and efficiently enough when out of his own mind. He looked down at the man he’d just killed, searching within himself for any sign of remorse, yet there was nothing there—not even pleasure or relief that his attacker was dead. Alex paused and smiled coldly.

His attacker. The man he’d killed had attacked him first, which had proved to be a foolish move for the would-be thief. It wasn’t a mistake he would ever make again, and the world was likely a better place without this man victimising everyone he encountered. Alex laughed, bitter. It was amazing how he could excuse his own behaviour and the death of a man. Not convinced by his own internal monologue, Alex continued to stare down at the man, trying to feel something, anything other than the emptiness inside that seemed to be his constant companion.