October 31, 1943

She’d been honest with Timothy about the significance of his death. (On second thought, maybe it was “Thomas” rather than “Timothy?” Thea was a bit better with faces than names, but she was far better with horrible murders than either of those.) His ignominious demise, and the discoveries she made while enacting it, had forever changed her thinking; more accurately, it had vastly accelerated the changes her thinking was already experiencing. Her place in the world was clear to her now, as was her Destiny. All it took was the will to embrace it.

However, her execution of the Allied spy had created other problems for Special Project Hexen: having failed to extract any information, the facility had consequently failed to prove its value to its National Socialist superiors. Service Leader Schmidt, chastised as he was by the failure, only saw a fraction of his commanders’ disapproval; Thea used her knowledge of the mails within SPH to prevent some of the more urgent messages from reaching their destination. After several weeks of this campaign, the desired result was achieved: the Nazis were formally closing SPH, planning to use its people and resources in more productive areas of the war effort.

Naturally, Thea ensured that no one else at the facility knew of this announcement. She replied on Schmidt’s behalf, providing a timetable by which the base would be dismantled and its staff returned to Berlin. This courtesy wasn’t done out of any remnants of respect for the command structure; it was done solely to ensure that no one would come investigating their silence for some time.

Granted, she didn’t need too much time. A morning would suffice.

She stood, now, completely dressed, with her raven hair flowing past her shoulders. She’d stopped dying it shortly after tiny Tim’s murder, seeing no reason to conform to any standards of perfection save her own. Fortunately, she was already her own benchmark, particularly in her current garb: a black miniskirt, matching black suit jacket, white blouse, and obscenely tall black boots. She smiled coyly to herself, eyes glittering with excitement. Today was a wonderful day. Today, Thea Reinhelde would cease to exist.

She walked calmly down the hall, enjoying the way those few people she passed on the way moved quickly to the side. They were eager to avoid any contact with the woman, whose ill repute had only grown in the past two months. Thea hadn’t done herself any favors in this regard, no longer feeling the need to treat the others in the facility with anything less that the total contempt she felt for them. Those feelings had only intensified, but acting upon them would come later. For now, it was almost dawn, and she had somewhere to be.

She left the confines of the main building and entered the work yard, where the prisoners were housed. The first rays of dawn were just passing over the horizon, welcoming what was certain to be a beautiful crisp autumn day. The reds, browns, and oranges of the forest surrounding SPH were beautiful despite the unspeakable evils they hid, but Thea had no mind for them at the moment. She waiting in the shadows of the yard until she saw a warden approach the prison barracks, opening the door with a shout.

“On your feet, pigs!” the large man shouted at the assembled prisoners, waking them in the loudest and most unpleasant manner he could manage. “You’ve got a long day ahead of you, oh yes. First-“

He never got to finish whatever vague threat he had in mind. So engrossed in the petty joy of his bullying, the man didn’t hear Thea approach stealthily behind him. In fact, he didn’t register anyone behind him right up to the point where she grabbed the back of his head, and effortlessly twisted it around one hundred and eighty degrees.

The noise his body made as it died, as well as the shocked look of pain and terror on his face, would have been much more horrifying to the astonished prisoners if it hadn’t been happening to one of the worst human beings they’d ever had the displeasure to know. As his body fell like a sack of meat, they started at Thea with a combination of equal parts fear, gratitude, and confusion.

Thea smiled innocently, relishing the irony of the situation. She’d slaughtered more of their fellow insects than the fat warden would ever dream, yet no one present had any idea. She decided it was time to sharpen the knife before it came down on their necks.

“Congratulations,” she said with as much sincerity as she could manage. “You’re all free.”

She scanned the group, looking for that one sign of success. Truth be told, these people were far too abused and wronged to take her at her word; they were obviously very suspicious of these circumstances, and perfectly right to be. Thea noticed that this lot was a bit healthier-looking than the original group they’d begun with; the high turnover she’d created had necessitated bringing in fresher, less worn prisoners. In their own way, this entire assembly was a testament to Thea’s own metamorphosis.

Her introspection was concluded immediately upon finding what she sought: a single prisoner whose eyes lit up with hope at Thea’s worthless declaration. The hope poured from the visage of a young woman about Thea’s own age, which made the discovery all the more delicious.

This girl would be the last to die, Thea decided. She chuckled slightly, her innocent demeanor immediately abandoned. She’d enjoy draining every last bit of hope from the girl’s eyes, before ending her. Without any further proclamations, she lifted her hands.

There was a blinding flash.

Ever since executing the Briton, Thea had obsessed over the odd circumstances of the event. A gemstone had been knocked out of place, which theoretically should have meant that the shrinking process would fail. Yet, it hadn’t. It had worked exactly as expected, and further, been the most enjoyable event of Thea’s life. Although she had absolutely no quantitative data to back her theory, the woman had instantly understood the truth, intuitively understanding these dark powers and her relationship to them far more than the supposed experts who poured over their machines and notes and books.

The power wasn’t in their process. The power was in her. It had always been in her. Adapting to their procedures didn’t aid her; it restricted her, kept her in check, kept her limited to a single target at any given time. By this point, Thea felt she’d grown far beyond such meager concerns. She wanted to tackle larger challenges.

Like the entire barrack of prisoners that she’d just shrunken, all at once.

Thea’s eyes briefly rolled back in her head as she savored the invigorating feedback she received from draining and shrinking almost two dozen ants at the same time. She could feel her powers and vitality increase from the process, and was almost disappointed when the sensation passed. That moment passed once she looked down, however.

The prisoners were in an obvious panic. Some stood dumbfounded, unable to process what was happening, but most had enough self-preservation to try and put as much distance between themselves and the towering madwoman as quickly as possible. Thea noted, with some satisfaction, that the hopeful girl was among those who couldn’t grasp the phenomenon; she’d collapsed to her knees in astonishment and terror. Excellent. It would make saving her for last all the easier.

In the past, Thea had learned to pace herself when killing ants, enjoying the process because of her limited access to these toys. Now, however, she could finally unleash herself with complete and total abandon.

If you were one of the shrunken people on the ground, it was bedlam. Those who made the foolish decision to stay put were mangled in a terrifying fashion, as the giantess slid her right boot across the floor in an arc, smearing any caught under it into a thin streak of red. Those who ran in a straight line were thrown off their feet as the titanic Thea dropped to her knees, giggling cruelly as she crushed the fallen insects under her fingers. Once she got all those stationary targets, she took a moment to suck their remains from her fingertips, moaning slightly as she did so.

Back on her feet, Thea focused on those who thought themselves so clever, hiding under the Spartan cots that lined the walls. With a single hand, Thea tossed cot after cot aside, laughing as she uncovered more and more cowering bugs before her boots. They were immediately destroyed, nothing recognizable as human left in their pulverized remains.

The whole process took about three minutes, during which time Thea’s mania and arousal had continued to rise. This had been an excellent start, and left her hungering for more. She fully intended to have her fill, but she first had one last prisoner to deal with.

The hopeful little girl was left among the gory remains of her friends, family, and fellow prisoners, shaking uncontrollably. She barely reacted as Thea thundered back to her location, ignoring the woman’s sultry sneer.

The girl looked up, and Thea could see the deep emptiness within her eyes, where light and warmth had once resided. The thought that she had completely destroyed this child’s spirit made the wicked woman purr slightly, an almost electric thrill running up her legs as she examined her handiwork.

The girl didn’t try to flee; she’d seen how hopeless that was. She said a single word, instead.

“Why?”

“Because someone had to be first,” Thea replied coolly, even as she slammed her foot into the inquisitive speck. With nothing else alive in the barracks, Thea calmly exited, heading into the main facility.

There was another blinding flash, and Thea’s games began anew.

The slaughter of the prisoners had been a manic, almost animalistic indulgence. However, the prisoners were nothing to her. In the base, though, were people Thea Reinhelde had known and lived and worked with. That she was destroying her former peers and superiors made the woman quiver with lust, even before she began to play.

The laboratory staff were first, if only because Thea was dying to explain how flawed and foolish their theories were. She casually lectured them, as if speaking to a stunted child, about their misconceptions regarding her and their work. As she spoke, she would occasionally grab one of their numbers from the crowd, ripping apart his limbs or torso with casual detachment, allowing his remains to rain upon the others. Once her lesson was complete, she obliterated the rest beneath her fist.

Each new group of guards she encountered would meet a different fate, depending on her mood. Some were simply crushed beneath her boots, or, if she had the mind to, beneath her stocking-clad foot. Some were thrown against the opposite walls, exploding into viscera upon impact. A few were simply enjoyed as mid-morning snacks. And one industrious soldier, who had climbed into a chair on his way to scale a desk, was smothered beneath her remarkable rear, as she simply sat upon him.

His dying motions left Thea squirming in her seat, adding to an already considerable furnace between her legs. She deemed it appropriate, as her next port of call was the clerical pool where she’d spent most of her time prior to the shrinking project. The small-minded women she had to endure working with had thought she didn’t hear what they said about her behind her back. What’s worse, some of them had the blasphemous gall to try to upstage her, dressing in a manner to divert attention from Thea’s own, more authentic, beauty. They were all worthless whores, and not only did Thea very much enjoy explaining this to them, she also enjoyed using them as such, killing them in the process.

By noon, the entire faculty of Special Project Hexen was dead, murdered horribly by their most promising success. The only survivor at this time, aside from Thea herself, was the project’s head, Service Leader Schmidt. His continued existence was not an accident; Thea was saving him for last.

She opened the door to his office carefully, not wanting to crush him accidentally. (Purposefully was another matter.) As it turns out, she needn’t have worried; the Nazi officer had succeeded where his subordinate had failed, reaching the top of his desk and patiently awaiting rescue.

He actually looked relieved as Thea entered the room, blissfully unaware of the carnage that had been wrought upon the rest of the facility. “Little flower!” he cried. “Thank God you’re here! Something’s gone wrong with the shrinking experiments! What has happened?”

Thea almost felt something like pity for the small, worthless little thing in front of her. It wasn’t due to any emotional attachment to the man; she’d shed whatever withered feelings she might have had for him some time ago. No, she simply felt a general pity for what was clearly a stupid, useless man who was not only far over his head, but too dull to even realize it.

As soon as she felt it, Thea realized she couldn’t afford any such emotion. Pity was a very human response, and she wasn’t human, any longer. She was so much more than that.

“I want you to know,” she said coldly, enjoying the obvious terror on his face as her tone set in. “That Thea Reinhelde feels pity on you. But she doesn’t exist anymore.”

“You…you’re talking crazy,” he managed. “You can’t betray me like this. You can’t betray the Reich!”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Idiot. I’ve no loyalty to them, or you. You still don’t see it, but your doctors got exactly what the Reich wanted here. They created the Master Race. How sad for you, that I’m its only member. Both the Axis and the Allies will be ground beneath my boot before too long. You’ll be long dead, of course, but not for nothing. Your death also ends Thea Reinhelde. Her life means nothing to me, anymore.”

“You ARE Thea!” he screamed, frustrated and terrified by her nonsense words. “I brought you here! I made you!”

“Hexen made me. I am the fruits of its labor. And to honor its work, I’ve decided to adopt its title. You, and everyone else, shall address me as ‘Hexen’. For as long as you remain alive, anyway, which should be about four seconds.”

With a deliberate motion, she plucked him from the desk, bringing him up to her face. Holding him between her index finger and thumb, she allowed Schmidt’s last sight to be the look of sheer, euphoric joy as she crushed him into pulp.

An hour later, having used the ammunition and gasoline reserves to start a powerful fire throughout the facility, she drove down the winding road through the Black Forest, positive that any evidence of her creation or her deeds would be destroyed by the flames.

Hexen was coming to civilization.