Chapter Eight - Murder and Madness

CHAPTER EIGHT

Murder and Madness

EVERY GOD NEEDS a moment where the lightning flickers.
This was his.

By now, Alexander had been marching for years.

Thousands of miles. Dozens of battles. Countless bodies.
And with every step, the weight of legend grew heavier.
He was no longer just “Alexander.”

He was The Conqueror.
The Pharaoh.
The Son of Zeus.
The One Who Burned the World.

And behind him, the murmurs were getting louder.

It started with the men.

His Macedonian soldiers, the same ones who’d followed him across deserts, through blood and chaos, started noticing… he wasn’t their Alexander anymore.

He surrounded himself with Persian advisors.
He took foreign wives.
He started demanding things like worship.

He wasn’t eating with them in the dirt.
He was feasting in palaces.

He had become, in their eyes… a stranger.

And then he killed his best friend.

Cleitus the Black.

Veteran general. Loyal companion. The man who once saved Alexander’s life in battle.

He was older. Rough. Straight-talking. The kind of guy who could mock you at dinner and still have your back in a sword fight.

And one night, at a drunken banquet, he said the thing everyone else was afraid to say.

“Your victories came from us. Your father would be ashamed of what you’ve become.”

Silence.

In a flash of rage, Alexander grabbed a spear.

And drove it through Cleitus’s chest.

The room froze.
Time paused.
Alexander stood over the body and the mask cracked.

He didn’t just lose a friend.
He lost his anchor.
The one man who could call him out and live to tell the tale.

Alexander collapsed. Refused to eat. Tried to take his own life.

He was haunted. Broken.
A god with blood on his hands and no one left to tell him “no.”

But he didn’t stop.

He couldn’t stop.

Because once you’ve sacrificed everything for the myth, you have to become it.