Oh the things we do that are ultimately, the result of "love".

The vibe:https://youtu.be/QGt3CxxxDBg

The blacktop underneath crunched as I walked past the mouth of the neighborhood. I didn't care as I walked down the middle of the road. Rage sat in my stomach like a lead weight as if I had picked up and swallowed a scolding hot stone and ate it out of spite. I was so angry that the gas that formed my cloud must've been roiling like a storm driven sea.

I could almost feel reality twisting in that strange way only one's 6th sense could sense, that something was very, deeply, wrong. That something hungry with sharp teeth had its eyes on you. That you needed to run. Now.

I puppeted the gun out of my pocket and half pulled on the slide, checking the chamber. Satisfied that it wasn't ready, I pulled fully on the slide and released, racking a round in.

I put the gun back in my hoodie's pocket and thumbed the safety, but did not turn off it quite yet.

I cut across a sidewalk, rounding a corner to more quickly get to my goal, and then stepping back into the street. I felt like the decorative bushes to the right should've burst into flame from my sheer proximity. I let my gases escape and flow behind me, spooling out tendrils like vapor from the smoke stack of a war machine.

Ahead, a particularly familiar house loomed, the center of a bustle of activity, all rushing much too fast to be hidden, but not quite abandoning with the pretense. All of its indoor lights were on, shadows loomed in almost every window.

I marched forward, stopping just outside what weak glow of the house reached the street, just slightly too far to be seen clearly. And I stood there, standing there like a ghost in B roll shots in a horror documentary.

I didn't want to just kill them. I wanted them to suffer in any small way I could. Not to sadistically torture, but just because the toxic fire inside would allow nothing less.

To hell with my own uselessness, I finally had the full rage and will to do something useful for the first time in forever. Who cared really when the voices of thugs, murderers, kidnappers and drug dealers finally went silent? All voices in a chorus must take at least a few bars of rest in a piece, who says their song shouldn't finally fall silent? Those who live by the sword, die by the sword. And eventually, all things must end! From even the filthiest peasant to the highest lord, from God to Me. So who says their song shouldn't finally end?!

Get out of the choir and let the voices of the innocent through!

So great was my rage I felt like I could let some unknown primordial language of hate seep from my mouth if I merely opened my jaw. A tongue so ancient and cursed that even demons of rage would think twice about using it.

Finally, the wretched wastes of life noticed my presence as a flurry occurred inside as one of the shadows tapped its friend on a shoulder and pointed. The unmistakable, "Hey, you see that?" written on his lips.

I stood there more, pretending to be just a trick of the light for just a little longer. Shadows could be seen, traveling window to window, occasionally colliding and sliding through other shadows. I could hear a few particularly loud shouts from inside.

Finally a portion of the shadows emerged onto an elevated patio, a horde of men in purple street clothes swarmed over one particular man, like ants over their Queen.

His gaze cast out into the darkness, locking eyes with what he perceived as my head.

I kept my head up as if to keep staring as I made a show of showing my phone, a contact already visible. It never held any history with the number, yet its notifications were urgent, loud, and attention catching. I kept my positioning as I typed "without looking at the phone", in reality I was also watching out of the end of a tentacle that stuck to the hands shadow.

I pressed message contact.

Typed a message.

And pressed the send button.

Knock knock

Almost instantly, the man in the center of the swarm, dressed in only in pajamas and barefeet, pulled out a phone and read the message.

He looked up, eyes alight in intuitive understanding.

I dropped the phone, crushing it beneath my foot as I charged my clothing puppet forward. It smashed through the front window, acting perfectly as if a human body was still inside.

It was a calculated diversion of course, they thought they could still win, and their realization that their defeat was inevitable would maybe help soothe the putrid flame inside. The waste of society's efforts raised their rifles to begin firing.

To them, it must've felt that I was moving too fast for them to hit. And while yes, I was pushing the clothing puppet just beyond what a human should've been capable of, the reality was several shot bullets pierced uselessly through the garments.

I reached for the nearest man's head with only a single hand as I rushed forward through a window, nitrile gloves already splitting as the shadowy gas started to malform beyond human shape, forming wickedly sharp claws.

In the bright house, it was clear to everybody that my hand was more than just a trick of the light as claws pierced deeply into the man's face like an apple slicer.

I felt like the shadow that should've been my lips stretch into what even I could tell was unnaturally wide.

The other hand brought up the pistol, safety off and finger on the trigger.

The gun barked once. Twice. Thrice.

The friends of the still alive man in my claw began to flinch, as they suddenly found themselves under fire after expecting their target to die.

I pulled the man's ragdoll body around as if I was using him as cover.

Already a few more were entering the room, already opening fire themselves.

I felt myself snarl as I pushed my now entering tendrils of spare shadow forward towards their faces, spreading out from behind me like demented wings in the bright light. I threw the now dead body up towards a few men that weren't being targeted by my darting tendrils, shocking them as I threw the body up a full floor with inhuman strength.

Several holes tore up the clothing, more than enough to be instantly noticeable. I felt sharp teeth form were my mouth should've been, to both terrorize and use if an opportunity arose.

I pulled the other arm around, now visibly lacking in a physical form in the sleeve.

The gun barked again, four, five, six.

Tendrils began to slice and bash through the exposed heads of the nearest thugs, terror now running rampant through the ranks as they realized their friends were dying much too quickly for comfort.

I pushed the puppet to the first doorway I saw, only barely keeping it animated as a target. The last of the first responders fell to the floor, his head crushed/sliced almost in half. I rushed forwards without preamble, preferring to commit to the assault than to hide again.

This room was too full of people to tell what it was. Across the crowded room, I looked eyes with the man I took to be "Diablo." His fat, pajama'd gut telling of a comfortable life built on the suffering of many, many others. At some point, he and his minders had reentered the home, escorting him away from the patio.

The gun in my now tendril barked again, more to use up the weapon than to keep up with the ruse of the puppet as it fell to the ground, now full of too many holes to act effectively now.

Seven. Eight. Nine.

I charged the suddenly firing line of gunmen with lashing tendrils. Keeping half to build up my central form, to appear as a large menacing shadow in the comfortable lighting.

Come one and all! Feel the pent up wrath of one thousand years worth of bullshit!

I cut through the active gunmen, plowing through half of them in less than a second, pushing my central mass forward, flowing across wooden flooring, making my way towards the pajama'd man, whom I could now see held a pistol.

Ten.

The final shot of my gun barked, finally allowing me to throw the gun away and let that tendril loose to join its fellows.

The shot impacted just above the pajama'd man's head, causing him to duck in surprise, glancing upwards and back towards me in only a second.

I felt the main mass of shadow well up in pride as he beheld the unholy living shade I had felt like for so long.

I didn't need the Nightmare's sight to know that the man was being challenged, perhaps for the first time, by the inevitability of death.

I took the delay in his actions to my advantage and charged forward, renewing my lashing attacks throw their ranks, utterly undeterred by the wall of gunfire that erupted from seemingly everywhere.

For those you have silenced!

I committed my whole mass to the charge, devoting all of my physical form and mental prowess to killing every voice in this room.

For those you would silence!

I roiled with rage as I begun to swarm the nearest men. The air seemed to boil as micro tendrils began to stab and slice at whatever flesh they could see.

The first man had been kneeling, his head happening to have been parallel with the line of tendrils that happened to be the lowest, the others not feeling it worthwhile to get any lower.

The top of his head evaporated in a storm of razor slices and shadow.

For every life you have ruined!

The entire first line of defenders began to boil in razor soup as they became assaulted by shadow.

Shrieks and cries began to rise, as the already delayed reaction finally began to climb into audible range with so much noise. Already the first line was over ran, I pushed myself forward, sweeping into the line behind with no sign of slowing momentum. The longest tendrils began to swoop around, flanking past their attention and charging into the farthest, "most safe" position in the room.

Die and know what you have done!

The final man of the first firing line fell, finally succumbing to his wounds. I pushed my central mass through and over the second line, letting whole swathes of my sides sloughing off to flank the second line from the middle.

Men started to die even in the third line.

The pajama'd man was fumbling with a phone and a seemingly locked door. 911? More men? Did it matter?

Already the second line broke and instantly dissolved, The mass of shadow from the first line began to catch up, joining in the assault on the fourth line.

I was already half way through the room.

I crashed into the fourth like a tsunami, followed soon after by the mass from the second line.

The third line broke much like the second, the tendrils closest to the walls of the room flowed along them, seeking to flank as the central mass of shadow dominated everyone's attention.

Suddenly, the very back line began to die as the plan for the long tendrils to finally pay off, pulling them down harshly in jerking, spasmatic motions.

Already the forth line broke as I concentrated on the attack on the back line, letting the boiling shadow do its selectively corrosive properties as it passively killed in the center of the room.

The Pajama'd man finally opened the door he had been struggling with, many of his guards standing in front of the door to cover their lord's escape.

If I had a throat, I would've screamed another war cry, instead I settled for rushing forwards with a giant, needle toothed shadow towards the maggot, redoubling my efforts in breaking the fifth and final sixth line of thugs.

The gun fire fell silent as my subterfuges continued to take them by surprise.

Finally, they were all dead. Judging by the presence of a now blood splattered TV, this had been a living room. But now it was a literal nightmare, it could've been possible that not an inch of the floor was not covered by some body part.

As I recollected the farthest tendrils in the room back into a main mass, I took what mass I had to grip the door along whatever cracks I could find.

Already I could see into the next, much less populated room.

The pajama'd man was hunched over the front edge of a desk, leaning across the the top in his effort to get to the drawers quicker.

I pushed my collected gas cloud forward towards the still closed door, smashing through the solid wooden door with disturbing ease.

Several small tendrils had kept their grip on portions of wood, keeping large splinters still in my grasp for use. I rolled into the room, rearing up behind the pajama'd man.

Then light of the nightmarish living room behind me fell over me, collecting on the floor as the shadow of a winged demon.