Reversal of Fortune [malexmale]

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"You fucking idiot."

Startled, my eyes flipped open and I found myself standing under a familiar tree. Its long winding branches seemed endless, speckled with purple leaves and brilliant red flowers that hung down like thick tresses of hair. The grass beneath my bare feet was soft, and so incredibly bright. The sky overhead was clear and bluish-purple... just the way I had remembered it.

And standing across from me were my siblings; War, Famine, and Plague.

It took me a moment to recognize them, because they were older in this hallucination. Because it had to be a hallucination. They were dead, long dead, and the afterlife for primordials consisted of becoming stars in the night sky.

War was drop dead gorgeous, tall and thick with muscles. His curly black hair was cropped short, his sapphire blue eyes rimmed with black war paint. He was decked out in a warrior's battle garb from head to toe with thick leather and chainmail armor, a massive sword strapped onto his back. At his side was Plague, who was muscular and tall as well, with her dirty blonde hair cut in a sharp lob, just above her shoulders, her dark eyes ringed with red paint. And lastly, Famine stood with them, her dark skin marked with silver tribal tattoos, her dark eyes rimmed with the silver paint, her form thin and lithe for agile.

"What?" I murmured, confused. War narrowed his eyes, folding his arms over his chest.

"You heard me, asshole, you're a fucking idiot," he responded gruffly, his voice gravelly.

"For once, I agree with the meathead," Famine agreed, gesturing with a thumb at him before putting her hands on her hips, "Who the hell do you think you are? Do you have any idea how much you're scaring our father?"

"And not to mention your son," Plague threw in, her voice sharp and irritated, "And the beast carrier, Yiuwa." I swallowed at that.

"I had to, I had to protect them, you don't understand--"

"You're cursed," War deadpanned, making me blink and look at him in surprise. I had no idea how he could possibly have known that because I left before he died. He and the others all had died without knowing the curse that lurked in my soul.

"We get it," Plague murmured, making me look at her, "Believe us. Because you so readily abandoned us, you never found out about our own curses." I blinked in disbelief and hurt. Hurt because I hadn't meant for it to be abandonment. I just wanted to protect them. And cursed?

"You are the deity of misfortune," Famine said, "Despite what Xiphrus intended for you. But I am the deity of starvation and woe. Wherever I went, food spoiled. People starved. It was why I stuck so close to the enemy lines, to smoke them out by starving their people to death. I also made them hunger for other things, for love, for affection, for adventure. I was finally caught and had my skin stripped from my bones while I was still alive."

"I poisoned everything I touched," Plague said, making me look at her, "Water became undrinkable. Food became inedible. In the cold winters here, our people fell ill. Their immune systems became weak in my presence. I was forced to leave our base in attempt to use my curse to kill the enemy, but I was captured and tortured before Atlan slit my throat."

"And you think your curse is fun," War added angrily, "I pissed people off wherever I fucking went, which pisses me off because guess what? Fucking empath here, brother. Once everyone else was pissed, I got pissed. Once one of us was pissed, shit went to hell. The urge to kill grew. I can't count how many times I'd gotten in fist fights with our own side. I'd almost taken down Joxeia once. And I can't count how many times Satanika fucking whooped my ass. In the end, I went running headfirst into battle. And I was tortured for weeks before Atlan finally killed me. And I'm not even going to go into detail about how he did it." The pain in his eyes was tangible.