How I Became the Most Wanted Villain

The trees had changed.

When Vaun opened his eyes, the light was too bright. Gold bled through the branches, burning his skin even though it was dawn-cool. His fingers twitched against the dirt, nails dragging lines through the damp soil.

He sat up slowly. His shoulder ached where the armor pressed against it. The cloth around his arm had unraveled during the night. The wound was gone.

Not just clotted, not scabbed. Gone. The skin had darkened in a thin ring, almost like a brand. His veins were thicker there, pulsing with heat.

The sounds hit him all at once.

Bird calls like screams. Wind like a shriek. Every rustle in the underbrush scraped against his nerves like claws on bone.

He pushed himself to his feet and stumbled forward.

Each step was wrong. The ground pulsed beneath him. The forest breathed.

His thoughts unraveled like frayed twine.

The blood did this.

You let it in.

He didn't know if the thoughts were his.

Twice, he leaned against trees to catch his breath. Bark pressed against his face like warm flesh. The leaves above moved without wind.

Then he saw it.

A figure between the trees.

Small. Cloaked in red. No taller than a child.

He froze.

"Who-?"

But when he blinked, it was gone. Only moss and root and fog.

He turned his head quickly. Movement again. Shapes in the trees. Nothing solid. Only flashes, like a flame darting through the mist.

Vaun gritted his teeth.

This isn't real.

But the puddle at his feet reflected something different.

His face.

Smiling.

He wasn't.

He stared at it, unmoving. The reflection grinned wider, teeth sharpening into points.

He crushed the image with his boot and moved on.

Something was wrong in his blood. It didn't just whisper anymore. It wanted.

It wanted more.

Time didn't pass. It bled.

He walked with no direction. The trees shifted behind him, as if they didn't want to be remembered. His stomach growled, but he didn't feel hunger. His throat was dry, but it wasn't water he craved.

Then he saw the blood trail.

Thin splashes on the grass. Drops, then smears. Leading deeper into the forest's belly.

He followed.

Maybe it's a wounded animal, he thought, though even he didn't believe it.

The trail ended at a corpse.

A deer. No wounds. No flesh missing. Just hollow. As if every ounce of blood had been pulled out from the inside.

The eyes were still open. Mouth too. Frozen in the moment of death.

Vaun crouched.

Smelled nothing.

Even the flies stayed away.

But he felt it. The blood. Not in the body, but on the air.

The forest tingled.

His fingers brushed the earth near the carcass, and his arm pulsed with warmth.

Something inside him reached out.

Drink.

He pulled away quickly. Shook his head.

"No."

He stood and backed away.

But already, his heart was beating stronger. His limbs steadier. His breathing deeper.

It hadn't needed permission.

The power had soaked into him anyway.

Night found him in a shallow basin where trees leaned like drunks against one another. He was cold again, but only on the surface.

In the center of the basin stood a stone.

Black. Carved.

A spiral.

Not drawn, but etched deep into the rock's surface. It glowed faintly. No light source. Just there.

Vaun stepped forward.

His blood rushed faster with every pace. By the time he reached it, his ears were ringing and his teeth clenched.

He touched it.

Pain exploded through his body. His spine locked. His legs collapsed beneath him.

He screamed without sound.

And then came the visions.

A field of writhing bodies, all connected by veins. Rivers of blood carving paths through floating cities. A man on a throne of flesh, bound by chains of teeth, his mouth stitched shut by nails.

And above it all, a tower that stretched into a bleeding sky.

A tower made of pulsing veins.

He fell backward, gasping. The sky spun overhead.

He didn't remember falling asleep.

But the last thing he saw was the spiral glowing brighter, as if it had recognized him.

And welcomed him home.

He awoke to nothing.

No birds. No wind. The forest had folded in on itself. The spiral stone sat dim beside him, no longer glowing, just a cracked slab of old black rock.

Vaun sat up slowly, feeling dried blood stuck to his skin like glue. His arm was marked now—no longer just bruised or veined, but carved. Faint lines had surfaced overnight, barely visible, but they hummed when he touched them.

He staggered to his feet and looked at the tree line. The sun had barely risen.

It should've been dawn.

But the air was thick, like a storm pressing its weight on the earth.

He moved without thinking. His feet found the path, not by sight, but instinct. Something pulled him, like a thread winding around his spine and tugging with each breath.

He passed through a narrow glade, trees clawing overhead like ribs of a carcass. At its center stood a long, thin slab of stone covered in moss. A grave.

His name was not written there, but when he touched the surface, the moss peeled back, revealing a symbol.

A new spiral.

This one with a crack down the center.

Vaun touched it.

He did not collapse this time. His knees buckled, but he remained standing.

And then he heard the voice.

Not outside him. Inside.

It takes from you when you bleed. And you... you bled first.

His heart raced.

He pulled back and looked at his hand.

His fingertips had turned black.

Only for a moment. Then the color faded.

He stumbled away, chest rising and falling.

Whatever this place was, it wasn't just triggering his blood. It was reading it. Rewriting him from the inside.

Later, as the forest thinned, he reached a clearing where ash covered the ground like snow. Burned stumps jutted out of the earth like bones. A village had once stood here.

He could smell the soot and char. The scent of old, cooked meat. No bodies, only memories.

Vaun walked the remains of a path, finding scorched fences and broken tools. Half a cart. Shattered glass. Nothing alive.

And then he heard it.

Scraping. Not metal. Bone.

He turned slowly.

A creature was crouched beside one of the blackened beams. Its skin was translucent, pale, thin enough to see the bones inside. Its eyes were nothing but pits.

It did not breathe.

It only stared.

Then it crawled forward.

Vaun backed away and grabbed a rusted piece of wood with a bent nail. It was barely a weapon.

The thing stopped.

It sniffed.

And then, slowly, it began to copy his movements. When Vaun stepped left, so did it. When he tilted his head, it mirrored him.

He realized it wasn't hunting him.

It was studying.

He ran.

The thing did not follow.

But Vaun didn't stop running until he reached a river. Thin, fast, and full of rock. He dropped beside it and drank with shaking hands.

I need control, he thought, gasping.

I need to learn how to control this.

Because something in this forest wanted him to be more than just changed.

It wanted him to be claimed.

He built a fire with shaking hands.

It took him longer than he liked. He'd stolen flint from one of the scavengers back in the house. His fingers still didn't work right, too stiff, too hot, but he got the sparks going.

Flames cracked and spat, and he watched them dance.

He didn't feel warmth.

He felt memory.

The fire reminded him of the vision. Of cities torn by rivers of blood, of that tower made of veins pulsing skyward. Was that real? Was it the past, or a prophecy? Or had he finally cracked and lost the last tether to his own mind?

Vaun didn't know.

He only knew this: he wasn't the same man that sat in the dirt back at the prison.

He wasn't just a victim anymore.

He'd spilled blood, and it had answered.

He didn't believe in gods. But something was watching him. Guiding him. Maybe even feeding off of him.

And worse, he didn't know if he cared.

At some point during the night, he carved a spiral into the earth with the edge of a broken knife.

Not to summon anything. Not to test the visions.

He just needed to see it again. To see that it was real.

When he stared into it, he saw not just the pattern, but movement. The spiral wasn't a symbol. It was a door.

One he hadn't opened yet.

Before dawn, he stood at the edge of the river, staring across. The map he'd taken still sat in his belt, the northeast corner marked with that strange black cross.

He didn't know what was there. He didn't know what he would become by the time he reached it.

But the blood pulled him still.

And this time, he didn't fight it.

He followed.