Misunderstood Hero: My Family Are All Villains

Malik blinked.

Then blinked again.

No. It was still there.

He blinked once more.

Still there.

Twice more.

Still.

Then he rubbed his eyes so hard they almost bled.

When he looked down again, he almost wished he hadn’t.

It was the same thing.

Nothing had changed.

Jasmine had...

’...Black eyes?’

Blink.

***

’Keep going.’

Malik burst out of the cave’s mouth, not daring to slow down.

’Don’t stop.’

He needed to be as far away from that cursed graveyard as possible.

’Don’t look back.’

Only when the Sun began to dim and his legs wobbled, threatening to buckle beneath him, did he finally skid to a halt.

Panting hard, he looked down at the weight in his arms.

"Jasmine..."

Carefully, he knelt and lowered her to the ground, his hands trembling so very hard.

"No, no, no, this isn’t happening."

He hovered over her, his eyes locked on the black cracks now snaking across her skin, spreading with each breath.

"You have got to fight this."

"..."

She showed no response...

Yet he didn’t stop.

"Whatever’s happening to you, push it back."

"..."

Nothing.

"Use your Aether."

"..."

"Focus on it."

"..."

"You can do this."

"..."

"Please."

"..."

Still nothing.

She was just lying there, her chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven breaths.

It killed him seeing her like that, but it would’ve been preferable to what he saw next.

Her other eye had started going black too.

"No, no, no, no, no!"

Desperate, Malik pressed his hand to her second heart and channeled his Aether into her.

The energy flowed into her body, but it was like throwing water onto a raging inferno.

It helped naught.

Rather, it only did the opposite, somehow fueling the chaos within.

Her body jerked violently like it was being wrung out by some invisible force.

The black veins that webbed across her skin bulged, crawling up her arms, her neck, and finally, her face.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGHHHHHHHHH!"

Jasmine couldn’t stop herself from screaming. A sound so cruelly agonizing it cut Malik to the bone.

"Jasmine, no—stay with me!"

Her back arched off the ground, bones popping in ways that should’ve been impossible.

Limbs stretched and contorted as black ichor seeped out of the cracks.

Then her body began to... shift.

Her figure melted into grotesque, misshapen bulges of flesh, riddled with black pulsing veins.

Her face morphed, making her features barely recognizable.

...she had become something else entirely.

An ugly glob of meat, skin, and black.

Once her transformation was complete...

"P-P-Ple... see ... eee ..."

Her mouth—if it could still be called that—struggled to form a single word.

"P-Please..."

It was a voice so very broken.

Malik froze once he registered it.

His heart couldn’t take it anymore.

He dreaded this to the core, and yet it still happened.

The fact that her mind still lived haunted him.

It was all so sudden.

Everything seemed fine, but then...

"Kill me."

Hell had arrived.

"I can’t... I can’t take it... anymore..."

She continued to beg, her words choking out between wrong-sounding sobs.

"M-Malik... please... "

The thing that had been Jasmine let out a shuddering gasp as black tears spilled from what was once her eyes.

"I..."

Malik’s hand reached for his dagger.

The blade hissed against its sheath as he unsheathed it. His hands shook so hard he nearly dropped it.

It felt unbearably heavy.

"I can’t..."

He stared down at her.

No.

This... thing wasn’t Jasmine anymore.

But her voice—her plea—it was still her.

Somewhere in there, she was still Jasmine.

"I can’t do this..."

His hands shook harder, his breath rough.

"I can’t..."

Blink.

***

No one could claim that it was his fault.

Malik had tried.

God, had he tried!

He hauled Jasmine as far away as possible.

It didn’t work.

He had burned through nearly every ounce of Aether he had, channeling it all into her.

Still, that didn’t work either.

His inhumane effort was for naught.

It had only sped up the process.

Her Corruption.

Malik tried fighting the blackness directly.

Tried slashing at the veins with his dagger.

Tried cutting away the parts of her body that had been infected.

It. Did. Not. Work.

Nothing ever did.

Blink.

***

"I’m sorry."

Jasmine’s body was limp in Malik’s arms.

"I’m sorry."

With utmost care, he laid her on the grass.

"Please..."

She couldn’t hear him, not anymore, but he continued to whisper.

"Forgive me."

Then, his dagger did its job, quick and clean.

"Because I sure won’t."

A trickle of black stained the earth.

"..."

Blink.

***

Malik stared at her for a while, unblinking.

Her body was no longer ruined by Corruption.

Black veins still lay across her skin, but, even then...

In his eyes, she looked so incredibly beautiful.

A dark flower, blooming defiantly in its final moments, fragile yet hauntingly radiant.

Her black hair was spread across the grass like a tree’s roots. It was a sight that would’ve brought many to tears.

Yet he was silent.

Gently, he closed her eyes, his fingers wavering as they lingered over her face.

His gaze fell to her lips, now curved into the faintest hint of a smile.

It was cruel.

That smile was cruel.

Because it felt like she was telling him it was okay.

That it was all okay.

It wasn’t.

She was gone.

And the world felt quieter than it ever had.

Blink.

***

Done digging her grave, Malik returned to Jasmine, about to lift her body.

Unfortunately, though, his arms wouldn’t cooperate.

He just couldn’t find the strength to do so.

She felt impossibly heavy as if the weight of her loss had manifested physically.

"Hahaha..."

Malik let out a bitter laugh, collapsing beside her.

"You’re pretty heavy, you know."

"You should think of losing weight sometime."

"Maybe add that to your little bucket list..."

"You know, the things you’d do after getting out of here."

"Besides being a ’housewife or something.’"

"Heh... Ahahahah! I still can’t believe you’ve said that after all this, ahahaha..."

The laughter quickly turned into something else.

"Ah... Jasmine..."

He turned towards her, his arms wrapping around her lifeless body, pulling her close.

"Jasmine... talk to me..."

His tears dripped onto her.

"I’m Malik, you know..."

It was a broken prayer.

"I’m Malik... I’m Malik..."

His voice grew quieter with each utterance until only the faintest whisper remained.

"I..."

Then, he looked up, his golden eyes empty.

"...why?"

Blink.

***

Malik sat before a questioning Safira.

"Will you visit your guardian after we’re out of here?"

"I won’t."

"Why not?"

"There’s nothing to visit."

That answer brought her to a halt.

But it was only momentary, as she quickly switched the subject:

"Then... what do you want to do when we get back up there?"

Malik showed a most cold face.

"I want to kill a man."

This was yet another reason.

Blink.

A reason for revenge.