It’s Halloween! One last look into the madman’s end; reader discretion is advised! Looks like my link to the ‘Halloween Special’ thread had been broken for a while now. If you have not read the previous two posts, you may want to start at the beginning. ( some of the tidbits within this one will make more sense)  ty, DD

 

As Demons Do.
By
David C. Daoust

 

 

The curses had cut his lips, left him with rot, thoughts given to all manner of foulness.

It was an addictive thing, to throw a curse, to see the wickedness of the demons he commanded to befoul those he’d found with fault. Those he believed had crossed him.

He never had to do anything, but will it. The demons did the rest.

It started with a nightmare; A horrible, incursion upon his soul. He just lay there, as a boy, trying to sleep. The creature came, and he felt its claw as he was ripped asunder. He felt its scaly skin pressed within his very being, as he lost… he never knew what. The loss was unbearable and what replaced it was foul.

As a child he’d speak of that night… and of the demons, just outside his vision.

No one listened.

As he grew older, they took greater form, and multiplied. They were there for him to command, he knew. They were eager to please him.

As he forced his will upon them, he could feel their will grip his own.

The further the corruption spread throughout, the louder the voice became; high pitched, feminine.

As his soul blackened he started to lose time, blackouts. He would awake with dead things.

He did what he could to hide them.

It was not hard.

He was alone. Always, he was alone.

Those that earned his ire would fall to the very worst machinations. Deep down he knew it was his own doing. Even when he panicked, convinced himself it was all delusion, that voice would feed into it. Convince him that it was exactly that and in those times he thought to seek help, convince him, they would lock him up in a mental institution, throw away the key.

Truth was, nothing could lead anything back to him. No one knew his will, but those around…

Those around were demons.

Things changed. Blackouts grew longer and longer. Until finally he awoke, trapped within himself, locked behind the creature within. The axe within his grip, the warm red blood that flowed around his actions; He could feel it all, witness it, yet had no chance to stop it.

Still he fought.

He did not know where the strength came from. A steady flow empowered him. He knew the demon witch tired of his resistance, though it never once slowed its hand– Even when it bore down on those most dear to him, acts that shattered him.

Finally though, upon a rooftop… He felt the maelstrom of darkness, change.

The demons around, seemed to laugh at what was to come. The demon witch within was too far gone to hear them; she was in control, fully. The whims of the lesser demons, that surrounded them, went unnoticed.

Their will fell away. He knew they would no longer answer to him, even if he was able to try.

They seemed to delight in his coming end.

Then the beast was upon him, a wild wolf-man in a fury.

The demon witch finally fled, he felt it rip itself free. He almost tried to cling to it. As if the foul creature would pull him from this horrendous end.

His body ripped and shorn, He felt his soul leave his body.

With this end he regained what he had lost, finally, for the first time he felt whole. He witnessed the flurry of wisps that surrounded him, and finally fled- All but one.

For just a moment, he felt hope. Yet with the encroaching darkness, that wisp too, fell away.

The darkness seemed to grasp him, the dread that entered his very being, terrorizing. The fear came, and the thought, the memory of the time before. The truth of his origins.

Once, he was a being of pure light.

An Angel on High, he had come across a new soul.

A pure perfect soul, just formed in the womb, he had never witnessed one so pure, so strong.

He cast his vision to the life that would follow, and cried. The crushing loneliness this being would experience throughout, filled him such worry and fear.

Here it was he made a choice.

He made a choice for this pure perfect soul. He pulled it free, sent it straight to the heavens, where he decided it belonged. He just could not help himself. He could not allow this being to suffer such pain.

Instead he would live through this life. Take the burden for this being. All the ills that would befall- would be his own to bare. He believed he would fare far stronger, than this new soul. And so he took its place.

Through this act, he gave up all truth; all previous knowledge. He would live the life of this mortal man, buried in darkness and mystery, with all its defects, and all its shortsightedness– As all mortals do. He told himself he could keep his faith, not fall to neither fear nor will.

And with this act, this pure being would remain unscathed.

But now he found, when he finally met this end, how far he had truly descended.

Now he knew why all those demons were so eager to please. With every act, with every curse, the corruption spread, and by the end, he had no right to reclaim his place On High.

The darkness pulled him low. Lower and lower the descent brought more pain, in hellfire he was unmade. As though the skin was flayed, the muscle shorn, the bone ground to dust, he sank into the blazing depths.

It was here and here alone that he found that light at his center; that thing he clutched for himself and himself alone. He was all but a wisp, but he remembered that perfect soul.

And the hope sprang anew, and the hope grew stronger. He felt himself ascend. That single act of preservation, for something so perfect and so pure, made his bones reform solid, brought his muscle back, and just as the skin seemed ready to envelop him– he knew it was a trick.

He knew, now, more than he ever did On High.

For that soul was made for that life, his intervention was unwarranted and unnecessary. It was a selfish, godless act, and the corruption that he had experienced throughout his stolen mortal life- had truly begun, far earlier than he could have ever known.

He descended, again, the fire returned, scorched his very being. To be unmade. Just to find that wisp of hope within, to be remade, shown his error, and burned again to nothing.

A dreadful cycle, which would repeat, again and again, dipped in hellfire for all eternity.

 

***

A warning to all the Would-be Angels that walk among us-

😀 Happy Halloween!