Humanity’s Knight

There once was a knight who dedicated his life to protecting humanity from monsters. They were easily distinguishable from humans, with grotesque bodies covered in hair, and large claws and fangs that ripped apart the innocent. People, especially children, could not be outside at night. That was when the monsters hunted. But the knight beheaded enough beasts to send the rest running further into the shadows, far away from the communities that they had terrorized.

One monster had almost escaped the knight’s blade with an injured little boy. The knight ran after it through the woods and found it about to feed the boy to its starving young. Such bloodthirsty fiends were unworthy of life, the knight thought, and he leaped into battle and brought his sword down upon the entire family, saving the human child in the process.

As the years passed, the monsters grew more cunning and sophisticated. They shed their hair, filed down their claws and fangs, and wore clothes. They continued to hunt at night, but most attacked livestock instead of people. Still, they were a blight on farmers and the world at large by nature of being monsters, and the knight did not spare any he could catch.

One village had a monster that was rumored to heal the sick, but the window to the monster’s home beheld the truth to the knight. The monster tricked the village girl into allowing it to rip her unborn child from her, and it bottled the remains, presumably saving them for a wicked spell later. The knight waited until the village girl left to strike, and when she was gone, he broke down the door and hurried inside. The monster screamed and tried to flee, but the knight managed to corner it, and it cowered and cried, praying to its pagan deities in an evil language before the knight’s sword ended its sinful life.

Over the years, the monsters changed their bodies, blending in even more skillfully with a society that was growing in godlessness. Unnatural hormones, mechanical limbs, strange devices that modified the senses—it was all a sign of humanity’s disconnection from itself, the end of everything that was human, and it was the knight’s job to purge the world of such sin before it was too late.

Fortunately, there were those who still believed in the purity of flesh and blood and nature, and they helped the knight capture and slay the monsters. Some repented, but most were beyond salvation. Soon, humanity was thriving again, perfectly human men and women with perfectly human children. No longer was there any sin. No confusion. No crime or injustice. All the monsters were gone.

But in the darkness of one quiet evening, the knight realized that the monsters weren’t gone. They were hiding.

They were temptation, curiosity, questioning, experimenting. The things that plagued and distracted humanity from its true, unchanging, divine nature. The things that would never die unless the knight cleansed the world of them.

And so he did.

Everyone was gone except the knight.

For the rest of his days he locked himself in a white, windowless room, where the last monster could never reach him.