The Death Element: by Nick Venom (books to read in a lifetime txt) 📕

“His element is a spawn of Satan! We should end him now!” A woman shouted

“We’ll become criminals!” A man retorted.

“Let’s leave him in the slums! Nobody will look for him, and if they do trace him back to us then we’ll deny it!” The woman shouted. 

 The man and woman were the parents of Zake, their only child with a rare and terrifying element known as the death element. Zake, unlike the others, held an element that many saw as an unholy element. 

The holy elements are fire, water, light, earth, and space while the death element is considered Satan’s element. The Holy Church would track down the death element holders and execute them along with the parents. To condition people in revealing the identities of death element holders, the Holy Church would release books that painted them as future demons lords or other fowl beats. 

This destroyed Zake’s childhood as his parents decided to throw him to an orphanage where he was bullied for his weird behavior that was created because of Zeke concealing his element from others. This led to bullies, Mike and Arnold, who lived normal lives with their common elements of fire and wind, bullying the loner Zake for his weird behavior without knowing about their element. Zake couldn’t fight back as the bullies were physically stronger than him and he couldn’t use his element to fight back. He was tormented with physical and emotional abuse for over half a year before he snapped and killed both of them by snapping their necks with his bare hands. 

His death element activated as he went into a fury, crushing their necks. Afraid for his life, he fled from the orphanage and the police, who were suspicious of him after learning of his element, and ventured to the Forest of Death, leaving Greyhill, his hometown, behind. The police tracked the evidence, eventually, realizing that he escaped Greyhill and traveled to the Forest of Death. They now begin their pursuit.

TBC... 

Zake managed to cross into the Death Forest, venturing into the sea of darkwood. He walked aimlessly through the forest, eventually, entering an empty clearing. The trees surrounding the perimeter of the clearing had blue flames emitting from the tops of them. However, Zake ignored the trees, instead, noticing zombies standing idly in the clearing with the sun shining overhead. 

He understood that zombies were monsters created to serve demon lords and Death Element users. While demon lords used necromancers or waited for zombies to appear, Death element users created zombies from the corpses of humans or changed the living into the unliving to do menial tasks for them. In addition, the books, provided by the royals, ambushed readers with the Death element and its side-effects as well as painting them as servants of Satan, comparing them with demon lords. Zake found the books biased, ignoring their unintelligent spew of words. Unfortunately, the books were correct in society’s view, painting Zake as a criminal who murdered two boys out of anger and not of self-defense.  

Ignoring society’s values, Zake walked towards a zombie and rested his hand on its shoulder. The zombie reacted, turning around and staring at Zake. A switch went off in its brain that forced it to kneel and lower its head in front of Zake. He raised his eyebrows as he took his hand off the zombie and scanned his surroundings. Every zombie in the clearing kneeled and lowered their heads. The zombie in front of him opened its mouth, but no intelligible words found their way outside. “What is happening?” He remarked while looking around.

“A Death user?” A meek voice asked from behind him. Zake spun around and noticed a long gray-haired girl---who looked to be around ten-years-old---standing behind him while holding onto a teddy bear. She wore a pair of pink pajamas with green dinosaurs on them. Zake looked down at the bottom part of her face and noticed that she didn’t have legs. Her hair waved like it was moved by the wind, except there wasn’t any wind or logistical explanation for it. 

“Who are you? Are you a spirit?”

“I’m… I’m… I’m… I’m… “ The spirit girl stuttered. “I’m… I’m… I’m… I don’t remember my name.” 

“You don’t remember your name?” Zake asked, tilting his head.

“I-I-I-I don’t.” The spirit girl responded, tears forming in the corner of her eyes. Zake hesitated to get closer to the spirit girl. 

“Well, what are you doing here?” He asked.

“I-I don’t know. I woke up a few minutes ago, so I don’t know anything.” The girl said.  “The only thing I know is that you have the Death element.” Zake nodded, keeping his distance from her.

“What are you going to do now?” Zake asked.

“I don’t know… I have no purpose.”

Zake nodded his head. “I want to live a peaceful life and that can only happen if I establish a kingdom, of sorts. I don’t want to worry about being captured and killed by society. They treated me like an outcast and painted me as a criminal. Even my parents cast me out. I will make all of them regret it. Will you help me? ” He asked.

“You will accept me?” She asked with widened eyes. Zake nodded his head. “Of course!” She shouted while forgetting about his deadly element. 

Zake turned around to face the zombies. “And you all will become my soldiers!” He declared. He then turned around to face the girl. “You will become my assistant and I’ll name you… Jessica.”

TBC…

“Okay, you three will serve as my first squad,” Zake remarked towards a collection of zombies. The zombies carried no weapons and only had their rotting skin to their unknown names. 

“Now, how do I train you?” He thought out loud. 

“I could help,” Jessica whispered. 

Zake shook his head, turning to face her. He patted her head. “You don’t know how to fight. I’ll deal with their training.”

“I want to help,” she said, “I don’t want to be a burden.”

“You’re not.” He told her. “Without you, I would’ve gone insane here by myself.” He patted her head again, smiling at her.

She looked up and smiled at him. 

“One… two… three…” His voice trailed off as he counted the zombies, totaling seven of them. “I need five of you to gather materials like wood, one of you to stick with Jessica, and the other to follow me.” He ordered, using his element to move the zombies around. The zombies went off to complete their tasks.

The zombie that Zake asked to follow him was led to an even deeper part of the forest to help with collecting more zombies. For some reason, Zake wasn’t able to gather more zombies by himself. Only the ones that were in the clearing when he arrived were loyal to him. Any random zombies wandering around avoided Zake and the clearing altogether. Almost as if they feared Zake’s powers. 

However, this fear dissipated if Zake was assisted by a zombie brethren to act as the mediator. 

“Okay, I need you to round up more zombies. Do whatever you have to, to get them on our side.” Zake told the zombie, which was the first one he had encountered. “Everything except begging on your knees. When I build a kingdom, I don’t want to be reminded that I begged for help.” He glanced over his shoulder, noticing Jessica behind him. She quickly ducked behind a tree, but the zombie that acted as her bodyguard remained in the open. 

“Okay,” He remarked before focusing on the zombie in front of him. “Now, go! Bring me reinforcements.” The zombie nodded, clearly understanding what he was saying. It turned around and stumbled away to locate more zombies.

With a zombie to collect more zombies, Zake worked on his next plan. He wanted to summon a monster using his Death Element. “How do I summon a monster?” He thought aloud. “Do I?” He pointed his palms at the floor, chanting the name of his element. However, this proved to be fruitless as it did nothing other than making him look awkward. 

“Do I do a specific chant? Like-” He glanced around his surroundings. “Blue fire trees. Blue fire trees, give me a monster.” 

His chant did nothing but exponentially multiply his awkwardness. “What do I do?” He shouted, frightening Jessica---who was still watching from behind a tree. “Oh, I’m sorry.” He said, rushing to her side. He consoled her, trying to calm her down before she burst into tears. 

“I wasn’t yelling at you. I was yelling at himself for my stupidity.”

“You weren’t?” She asked, looking up at him with her wide eyes.

“No, I wasn’t. I’m just-” He glanced at the spot he was standing at a few seconds ago. “-confused about summoning.” 

“Summoning? I know how?” Jessica said.

Zake grabbed her shoulders, leaning in. “You do! Can you teach me?”

Jessica nodded her head. “You say ‘birth a-” Her tone changed suddenly. Her usual demeanor of a quiet and timid girl changed into fierceness and anger. “-monster from Hell and bring it to me!”

“Jessica?” Zake muttered, speechless. 

Jessica looked at Zake and panicked. “Oh... I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to see that side.”

“That’s… okay.” He turned away from her and went back to his spot, ignoring her sudden attitude change. He started chanting, “birth me a monster from Hell and bring it to me.”

The ground in front of him birthed a magic circle full of unintelligible words. The words were from the demon’s tongue, unknown to any other race. 

The magic circle granted Zake’s wish, bringing him a monster in an elder lich. The black-cloaked lich with white paper surrounding him raised his head to meet Zake’s stare. He lowered his head. “My name is Derrick, an elder lich. I am at your service, my liege.”

“You are an elder lich? Aren’t you a high-tier monster?”

“Indeed, I am. I’m also one of the strongest of my kind, at your disposal, my liege.”

“Then I’ll be your master, Zake. Behind me is Jessica, my assistant.”

“Master and Elder Sister, I understand,” Derrick said, classifying the younger-looking Jessica as his Elder Sister. She was by Zake’s side longer than Derrick, earning her that title. 

“Good, I guess. Welcome to the Death Forest, Derrick. This will become our home.”

“Thank you, my liege. I am proud to be serving under such a fearsome Death Element user.” He remarked.

“Raise your head, Derrick. We have much work to