Elcarim stood at the base of a tall tree, staring up at the full moon which spilled it's silvery light on his black wings, making them look like dreamed appendeges. His face was tilted towards the heavens, a look of ecstatic longing etched on his handsome features. He took a deep breath, and as he exhaled he felt a sharp pain burn across his chest, causing him to cry out in pain and shock. The fabric of his t-shirt was smoking, and then caught flame, and he clawed at it until the t-shirt finally came off, torn into itty bitty pieces. He stared at his smooth chest in the moonlight, and at the smoking numbers branded across his skin.

666

How he hated that tattoo. Everything that it symbolized. Everything that it meant. Bust most of all, he hated the way it governed his life. That tattoo was like a scarlet letter, telling the whole world who he was and what he would one day become. Elcarim wanted none of it. As a child (he had ceased thinking of himself as thus, even though he was only twelve) he had seen others like him (His Father had many, many children) gentle spirits broken and built up again into hard, cruel creatures, bent on pain and destruction. It was in the genes, he knew. The Children of the Morning Star weren't supposed to be good and caring. The breakdown of the small amount of humanity they inherited from their mortal mothers was inevitable. And Elcarim had already begun to notice the changes beginning deep within him. It was a quiet rupturing of something, an ebbing of the spirit. Quiet and treacherous. He clenched his fist as the familiar wave of darkness threatened to take him.

It was happening more and more often, the darkness that came like a huge tidal wave from inside his own body. Bearing with it a surge of bleakness and rage and hate. Elcarim's fists clenched tighter, the nails digging into the soft flesh of his palm. He was biting his lip so hard that a small trickle of blood beaded along and fell quietly down his chin, droplets making black spots on the grass.

Fight it. Dont let it get you. Stay human a little longer...

Every muscle in his body was straining against an invisible force and a cold sweat broke out his forehead.

Fight damnit...if not for you, fight for Her.

That thought caught his attention. He had to resist. If he let it take him then, eventually, it would somehow take her. He didn't know how or why he knew this, he just did with this cold, dread certainty in the pit of his stomach.

Thats right. Think of Her.

The darkness began to ebb as images of the girl he loved flashed in brightening detail across his mind.

That's it. That's the ticket...

Slowly, the darkness returned to whence it came, once more dormant in that dark core of himself that he was fighting so valiantly to deny. Elcarim sank to his knees, pale and shaking. His head hung limply and he buried his face in his hands, tears coming now. Just as the evil was coming. You cant deny your own darkness. He knew this. You cant deny who you are. But you can fight it. You can keep it at bay just a little longer. But Elcarim had the sinking feeling that, before long, the darkness of his heritage would finally claim him. And then he would be lost.

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