Cole Rankin didn’t believe himself to be evil, but the townspeople in Kirillov would denounce this assumption, including several profanities for good measure. When Cole migrated to the small, Russian town from Venice, Italy, his reputation was disregarded enough, but after the summer of 2020 he became something of a legend—and a terrible one, at that. Of course, he couldn’t be blamed entirely for everything that went on; his father had been absentee since he turned 3, and Cole’s mother wasn’t a pleasant ray of sunshine either. In fact, during one of the last Christmases Cole shared with his mother, she cursed him for taking the last piece of pineapple on their ham, then proceeded to threaten kicking him out permanently. Cole, having heard all of these warnings hundreds of times, finally threw up his hands in disgust and informed his mother that she wouldn’t have to put up with him “non piu!” (“no more!”), and shortly thereafter found himself outside, in the snow, with nary a coat nor goodbye kiss to his name. Fortunately, he only had a few more months before turning 18, and thus Cole found his way through the thickets and brambles of adult life before deciding to leave his home country to itself and go to Russia.
So, two years later, when Cole’s past and present were weighed evenly, the locals of Kirillov conceded that perhaps the poor Italian boy was not quite as wicked as they believed him to be. But while getting the Kirillovians to admit a percentage of wrongness was difficult, getting their forgiveness was near insurmountable. It was, in fact, so insurmountable that Cole, after deducing nothing could be done, went ahead and made all of the rumors about himself true.
And this is how the tiny province on the banks of the Ozero Siverskoye lake created themselves an evil overlord.
The Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, once a source of charming cultural heritage, stood looming over the hodge-podge of houses in its shadow. A tall, spiked fence separated it from the otherwise beautiful countryside, except for the side which the lake protected. The lake itself rarely sported the colorful canvas of sailboats; the only boats to glide along the surface were trawlers whose owners worked tirelessly to keep the one main export afloat—but even these brave vessels dared not get too close to the banks of the monastery, as submarines would pick off any craft which came within several hundred yards. Various sentries patrolled the grounds of the structure, garbed in a silver and light blue uniform—their master preferred the world to see his forces as visionaries, not henchmen—and any trespasser were both quickly and forcefully hurried off the property after a stern reprimand. The most blatant and foul of trespassers, or the victims who were too valuable to send away, were kept in holding cells for an interminable amount of time until either the families came begging, or some royal guard petitioned for a meeting in which to discuss the freedom of their rebellious princess.
Even at the ripe old age of 20, Cole found such processes to be exhausting, and thus cut meetings short, or didn’t set dates for them at all. This, more often than not, resulted in a meaningless declaration of war, which just led to more meetings and more exhaustion. After the third wayward princess was captured, subsequently tried to break out, was captured again after almost freeing herself—Cole always let them get to the outer yards before sending guards to apprehend them, it was much funnier this way—and then another war threat was levied, Cole broadcasted that the next women—be they princesses or just some random rebel who wanted a shot at knocking over the overlord in Kirillov—upon being caught would immediately and forcibly be bound in matrimony to Cole himself. The break-ins ceased soon after.
Naturally, a little while after his rise to power Cole’s family came calling. His mother, pretentious and critical as usual, wore a most magnificent dress to the reunion Cole grudgingly set up, while her disowned son projected an atmosphere of meekness and humility in his all-black—no, this color did not help his reputation in the slightest—ensemble. Upon stepping into the inner courtyard of the monastery which had been transformed into a lavish garden, she wrinkled her nose and declared an Italian oath before saying, “I have always hated the color green” which was a ridiculous thing to say with so many vibrant hues of red, blue, purples and yellows speckling the magnificent display. Her latest husband—she had had several since Cole’s father left her—nodded appreciatively at his wife’s comments, then glowered at Cole as if he had done something wrong. The entire day that Cole’s mother and step-father spent at their son’s fortress, all manner of degrading and flat-out rude comments were handed out vigorously. Cole, however, expected this as much as he expected the plea for money at the end of the day, and ignored both, resulting in a one-sided screaming match between his mother and him—his mother did the screaming—in which she reinforced the idea of his wickedness and left in a flurry of profanity and door slamming. The new step-father was the last to exit, and he gave Cole one last glower when the Italian boy said, “have a safe trip home.”
“Wicked antichrist.” the man said, then turned and left.
Cole wondered constantly what it could be about his personality that suggested he was evil—in his own mind, he certainly wasn’t. Maybe a tad different from the rest of the world, but hardly so terrible that mothers should use him as a scary bedtime story for their little ones. All he really wanted was enough power to keep everyone away from him—especially those people who he deemed a bad influence, such as his mother—what was so bad about that? He hadn’t killed anyone yet, though people muttered in hushed tones about the myriad of victims he supposedly ended. There was even a book about how he was really a psychopath and would randomly haul off and murder any person who looked at him weirdly. Although the message this idea preached didn’t help Cole’s mindset in the slightest—in fact, it made him rather disgruntled—he couldn’t help but enjoy the fame. He could have everything he ever wanted, except, of course, friends or family.
Based off his experiences with the latter, Cole felt those two casualties wouldn’t hinder him at all.
End Part One
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