Noxmetus

For as long as his memory spanned, all he could remember was fear, and the thrill resulting in causing it. Ever since life took clear form and thought upon the mortal planes, the walls had thinned to his own ephemeral realm of shifting dark. Tormented sleepers own crippling guilt dragging their unconscious to his demonic fiefdom. The black within their own soul imposing a form anew upon him each time, to take the shape of that which fed their own darkest fears. Salving the deep-seated need for punishment that all but the blackest felt.

The wheel turned and that is who he became. Lost was any knowledge of his original identity, transformed again and again into the worst fear for each of his self imposed victims, christened only Noxmetus, the Night terror. For the longest time he was nothing but this, even lost any remembrance of what he was before, whatever his natural form had once been? Disappeared into the twists and shifts of an ever increasing twilight population of regrets and pained solace. No longer did he ever leave his own plane, his place feeling restricted and tied to complete the role that had formed around him, till all there was was repetition, the only variety in the flavour of fear imposed, which even then began to wear thin.

This status quo remained until her appearance. She arrived a paradox that broke the regularity of his existence. Reasons unknown, she found her way to his realm, a sense of guilt or wrong ingrained firmly within her. And yet her fear was solitude, a belief she deserved to be alone and would inevitably be left without anyone by her side. Her arrival to his realm was unremarkable, no real shift or twist, an absence of fanfare to herald her presence. No form was directed, for what form could be moulded from absence? And yet, she was at peace, a sense of contentment radiated from her, for even in only a shroud of shadows she could sense his presence. That maybe, even as dark a place as one fell to, there would always be someone.

Whether is was her thoughts leeching out into the entropy of his void, Noxmetus couldn't know, but the realisation formed that he himself had become trapped in limbo. Become a being not of his own making, unwittingly formed purely by the thoughts of others. And so, even as she faded from slumber, before any further shifts could be imposed, he became resolved. He would seek to travel to the mortal planes, he would try and find himself again, who and what he was or could be. Allow no other to dictate the entirety of his existence again.