Marx awoke with a throbbing in his head and upper back. He was lying facedown on his bed in his nice clothes. He slowly raised himself up into a sitting position and went to rub his aching skull, but froze when he felt two identical lumps on the sides of his head. Marx's breath caught in his throat and he turned to look at his mirror, dreading what he would see.

Two tiny, ebony horns with miniscule rings of glowing purple were growing just behind and above his temples. They were angled back and slightly downwards, no more than an inch in length each but still very noticeable. Marx felt them with his hands, feeling panic starting to overwhelm him.

He closed his eyes, swallowing his horror, and leaned back on the wall. He let his mind catch up to reality and tried to calm himself down, but the whole time his hands were feeling the horns and shuddering at the foreignness of them.

Marx felt a sudden presence enter the room and looked up. The Creature towered before him, its eyes like multicolored fire. Marx slowly lowered his hands away from his head and stood up, shaking with horror and rage, and glared at it straight in the eyes. It snickered at him and shrunk down to his size.

"Enjoying the new look, boy?" Its voice echoed throughout the room and into Marx's skull. He winced and pushed its voice out of his thoughts.

"Get out of my head-" He growled, clenching his fists. Tiny crackles of purple lightning flickered around his hands and up his wrists. "-and get out of my room." His head tingled where the horns were growing and Marx saw the rings of pinkish-purple light on them glowing more brightly in the mirror behind the Creature.

"Such hate... Don't you love your daddy?" It laughed into his face, sending waves of pain racing through Marx's skull. Marx grimaced and backed away from it, falling backwards onto his bed.

"I hate you," He spat, the lightning gone from his palms. The Creature grew again and inclined its head, staring down at Marx, who was clutching his head and grimacing, with an unreadable expression.

"Then you're doing exactly what you were destined to, Marx. Your hate will grow, and you will turn it to the surface. You will hate them all for what they've made you become."

Marx ground his teeth. "What they've made me become?! I don't even remember what my life was like up there, and they haven't made me become anything. All of this is your fault!" He yelled. The Creature opened its mouth to say something but Marx cut it off before it even got a single syllable out.

"LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO ME!" He screamed, three years of pent up anger and frustration bursting out of him all at once. Dark lightning flashed and crackled, and Marx felt a bubbling, roiling sensation in his stomach. He grabbed his head in pain as eye after eye began opening up on his forehead-red, green, blue, purple, yellow, pink. They were all bright, glowing, solid colors and were smaller than his actual eyes, but let him see terrible, terrible things. He staggered back and collapsed onto the bed, screaming.

The Creature laughed. "Look what you've done to yourself,"  It crooned.

Marx held his knees to his chest and tried to shut it out, cursing himself. He scrunched all thirteen of his eyes closed, but eleven of them could see straight through his eyelids and it was no use.

"The family curse has been passed on," It growled, fading away at last. "Enjoy,"

Marx just laid there and shivered. What have I become? He wondered, but he had no answer. What will I be, come my twentieth birthday?  He slowly opened all his eyes, horrified at the nightmares around him. He shakily put his hand in front of his face but saw only swirling darkness in its place.

Marx was overwhelmed by panic and horror as he curled up into a ball once more and tried to shut it out again. He drifted on the edge of horrified consciousness for what felt like hours, until a tiny pink nose touched his cheek and he finally fell asleep.

Hazelmere sat on Marx's shoulder, squeaking anxiously, and sniffed his face and horns. When her nose touched a glowing ring, her fur puffed up and she flinched back, but only for a moment. She leaned closer again and began licking his hair with her tiny, green tongue until he stopped shaking in his sleep, then simply watched over him.

Hazelmere cared about the boy more than she liked to admit when talking to other bats. They scorned her for sticking by him, but she could see something in him that the others couldn't. Hazelmere nuzzled Marx and decided she would never let anything hurt him again.