The butcher of hell, the twisted trader, an alien in human skin, devil lord of jungles, and so many more. Fifty seven, to be exact, with hundreds of vaguely humanoid forms lingering in the fog beyond them.

I recognize them all of course. How could I forget even one of the faces that'd filled me with such passion as I gazed upon them and dreamed of their futures? As I sunk into the miseries that drove them and hatreds that gave them strength. The bonds that held them back from the monsters they should've been, the love they held for those around them.

But that love is gone from their faces. There is none of their ambition, their drive, the deeper thoughts I tried and failed to realize on a page. They snarl, spit, and writhe in a single horrific abomination. Each demanding the lives I denied them in my constant weakness.

Talia weeps for the family I forgot to give her, and the precious friends who never spent a true moment at her side. Her precious spellbook tumbles from her backback, the unnamed highschool's logo indecipherable. She'll never have to face the horrors that lurked in her small town, but she'll never grow beyond a scared child.

Thuja's roar of fury would've inspired legions to fight and die at his side, had they ever come into being. His hellish comrades would've grounded the blind rage of a young man who never knew love of any fashion beyond his draconic steed. Amid the conquests carried out in the name of a distant monarch that claimed to be his father, he'd have found everything he ever wanted among the conquered peoples. But his war never was, and thus he remains a boy filled with aimless hate.

None of them speak, I gave them no voices, but the message is clear. I'd thought them safe in the confines of my mind, free from the pathetic thing's they'd surely become if taken out. But there is no safety here, only a prison. They don't tell me what must be done to make it right, because I already know.

So I open my eyes and leave the bed. Feed and water myself, make sure my schedule's open, and flip open my laptop to write the worst story I've ever written.