✵BIOGRAPHY
William James Bradford. It was a name well known in the province. It was a name that commanded respect, a name filled with prestige, and a name that equaled power. The Bradford estate controlled the region and William was its heir and executor. His parents, upon their unfortunate death, left the entire estate to their only son. William was left alone, at an early age, with only his servants to help raise him. His servants, in their attempt to raise William properly and even perhaps overcompensating for the loss of his actual parents, created a sense of entitlement in William that altered who he was when he became a man.
He had everything his heart could ever desire. He had money, power, celebrity and his choice of any woman. But William's entitlement bred arrogance and eventually cruelty. He looked down on others that didn't carry his level of wealth and power. He mistreated his servants, even though they had raised him, and anyone he deemed lesser than him. He cared for no one but himself. His interests took precedence over everything and he didn't care who he had to step on to get what he wanted. He increased his estate to the point where the Bradford name owned almost everything within a twenty mile radius of his lavish mansion.
William was an excellent business man but he achieved his excellence through deception and greed. He made underhanded deals that only benefited him and left the other party scrambling and unable to recover their losses. One day, however, William attempted to take advantage of the wrong man.
In another attempt to make a deal that only benefited him, William angered a wealthy benefactor by the name of Robert Mullings. William was set to take over Robert's properties and land but unbeknownst to William, Robert 's properties housed a large coven of witches and Robert was the head warlock. Robert did not take well to William's schemes, nor the loss of his home and those of his coven members. He vowed to make William regret the day he ever crossed him.
One night, just before the deal was about to close, Robert Mullings arrived at the Bradford mansion. He and William had an extensive argument that would have gotten to blows had Robert not pulled out his wand. At the sight of it William buckled over in laughter. Robert admitting he was a warlock made William laugh even harder. He would soon regret laughing at Robert Mullings. The warlock began to chant and all the lights in William's mansion went out. "If you wish to act like the devil then that is what you shall become!" Robert shouted as a bright light escaped from his wand and hit William straight in the middle of his chest.
Pain. It was instant. William's body began to contort wildly, his skin falling in clumps and replaced with leathery red flesh. Giant horns protruded from his skull painfully, William yelling at the top of his lungs during the entire transformation. His servants came immediately and attempted to stop whatever was happening but Robert cast his spell on them as well. "For enabling him and creating the monster... you, too, shall suffer." Every servant in the house lost their corporeal forms, being forced to remain in the mansion as ghosts, destined to serve their master until he broke the curse.
Robert's curse transformed William into a hideous red demon, a reflection of who he was truly on the inside. Like his servants, he was trapped within his mansion unable to leave until he found a way to break the curse.
Robert gave William two conditions. First he had to learn to treat others how he would want to be treated himself and secondly he had to find someone to love him in his current form. He would not age nor would he die until the spell was broken. Robert disappeared after that, leaving William alone to deal with his consequences. William destroyed his entire mansion. He destroyed every photo, everything that showed who he once was. Every day for years on end he attempted a new way to end his life but nothing worked. He was trapped. He became crueler than he ever was, giving himself completely to the demon form and foregoing what once made him human.
Twenty years passed. Twenty years. The Bradford name became nothing more than a memory, an unsolved mystery that no one cared to solve anymore.The curse kept his mansion hidden and any semblance of love he might have once had disappeared into the nothing. He truly became the demon he had turned into and there would never be a way to turn him from it...or so he thought.