Eyes of the Devil

The rain continued to drip onto the ground with the soft sounds usually accompanying such weather. The shock of learning Bob’s story had not faded from Gerard’s mind, but his raging emotions were quelled slightly by the slow misting of the rain. He reached out a hand to catch a few of the drops in his frigid palm, but was surprised to see another hand clasp his own.

“Welcome back, Gerard.”

A slight tug on his wrist led him to start walking, but rather than stare listlessly at the ground as he normally would have, he brought his gaze to the man pacing just ahead of him.

“Where are we going?” he asked. The man did not turn back to face him, but he already knew who it was. The black hair gave it away.

“You are trapped in his memories, and I am leading you out,” the man responded. Gerard noted the difference in their tones; his own voice had grown considerably darker, while his other self seemed to be neutral when he spoke. Gerard roughly tore his hand away from the man’s grasp.

“What makes you think I can’t get out on my own?” he snapped. His other self simply laughed and took his hand once again.

“Don’t be so self-reliant. Whether or not you realize it, you need me.”

The world began to melt away around him. Gray expanses of mist and rain slowly morphed into a white sky with a field of black around his feet. His footsteps on the soft dirt changed into the sounds of sharp clicks on a hard surface. All the water drained off of his body in a few moments, and after a long silence, the man stopped walking.

“So, where are we?” Gerard asked shortly, giving a dark glare. The man clasped his hands behind his back and smiled.

“We are in between the Two. Your universe is there,” he stated, motioning to the ground, “and mine is up there.” He pointed at the perfect white field making up the sky. Gerard looked back and forth between the opposite colors in slight confusion, but quickly made sense of what he was hearing.

“What do I do now?” Gerard questioned.

“In essence,” his other self said slowly, “we switch places.” He noticed the frown on Gerard’s face. “Oh, don’t look so negative, Gerard. I mean, it’s supposed to be in your nature and everything, but you could change that every once in a while if you wanted.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, scowling even deeper. “That’s not my nature.”

“Actually, it is, considering you’re no longer human,” the man corrected. “You’ve taken my place, and now I can return to where I belong.”

Gerard couldn’t help but hear the peaceful note in the man’s tone and realize he was right. He sighed heavily and stared down at the ground, looking for any sort of pattern in the floor, but it was completely smooth and opaque. He noticed that while a perfect image of himself showed in the mirrored surface beneath his feet, no reflection came from the other man standing just a few feet away from him. He took a guess and glanced upward at the ceiling hovering above their heads. This time, he could clearly see a picture of his other self standing there, but his own reflection was absent.

“So, assuming my ‘nature’ is supposed to be evil now,” Gerard wondered aloud, “then doesn’t that make me still human?”

“Oh, please tell me you’re not still living under that delusion,” the other man said, rolling his eyes. “Human nature is not inherently evil.”

“What is it, then?”

The man was silent for a moment before answering, as if thinking of how to word his answer. “Human nature is to survive by any means necessary.”

“…That makes sense as far as their actions are concerned…but I was asking more about their souls.”

“Same thing,” his other self answered. “Most of the time, their souls know where they will fare the best, whether in Heaven or Hell. Lyn and I only helped change their choices when they were wrong.”

Gerard frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It’s kind of like when a person has a disease where their immune system attacks their body. Something gets screwed up and their body makes a wrong decision. Souls are like that too; once in a while we’ll come across one that thinks it’s too horrible for Heaven or too perfect for Hell, so we have to straighten it out.”

“And now I’ll have to start doing that,” Gerard added flatly, making no effort to hide his distaste for the idea.

His other self stared at him for several moments. “You’re scared, aren’t you?”

“Not…scared, exactly,” Gerard admitted. “I feel like I’ve lost. I thought I had control of everything going on around me, but I never did. I was just thrown around and expected to follow along. Everything I thought I could control…everything I even used to believe…was just a lie.”

The man gave a fleeting smile. “I know what you mean,” he said, “but I don’t belong here anymore. I can’t go back or I’ll be on the wrong side. You have to take my place, or nothing will work out.”

Gerard let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “How am I going to be able to face myself?” he asked in a tone that sounded drained of life. “I never wanted to be evil, and I still don’t want to be. I’ll be so ashamed of myself…”

“You may think that now, Gerard, but it will not last. And fighting it is only going to make it worse.”

“…Maybe I am a little afraid,” Gerard said softly, glancing down at his reflection again. He sighed as he realized he still had short, white hair. It made him look different…terrifying, even.

“At least you have something to be afraid of,” the man murmured almost inaudibly. Gerard raised an eyebrow. “I’m just worried if Lyn will even let me see her again after what happened.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” Gerard pointed out. “You couldn’t have stopped it. And you tried to keep anything from happening to her.”

“No,” the other man said shortly. “I could have tried to fight back. I could have resisted it more…”

Gerard stared at him for a long time. The man standing before him wasn’t the same one he had first met in Hell, the one who seemed all too eager to inflict pain on him. All he saw now was a lonely man who missed the one he loved.

He placed a hand on the man’s shoulder, noting how dark his hair looked in comparison to the floor beneath his own feet.

“I’m sure she misses you just as much as you miss her,” Gerard said with a small smile. The man returned it and suddenly pulled him into a much-needed hug.

“Don’t worry too much, alright?” he said quietly. “I’m not leaving you completely on your own. Ever since we first met, I’ve slowly been giving you all my power. Once you go back to Hell, everything should fall into place.”

Gerard pulled away and gave one last smile before stepping away from his other self. A black fog began emanating from his fingertips and quickly encased him in smoke. Just before his vision was blocked completely by the dark miasma, he saw a brilliant white light begin to glow around the black-haired man and draw him up through the ceiling. Gerard felt a powerful force pulling against his own figure. Rather than struggle against it, he decided to take the man’s advice simply let it take him over completely.

He opened his eyes to see a room of blood-colored stone before him. A huge crowd of people stood all around him, clothed in a strange array of white masks and military uniforms, and he recognized each one. Blinking a few times, he let his eyes adjust to the hazy light and realized an ornate chair rested beside him. The frame seemed to be constructed of various bones, mostly skulls stacked on top of each other in perfect order. He hesitantly sat in it and stared out at the room to get a better idea of what it looked like.

“He is here, Master,” a long unfamiliar voice suddenly said. “Shall I go retrieve him?”

Gerard pondered a moment before answering. In a flash of understanding, he knew.

“Yes, Reislei,” he answered in a tone of commanding power. “Bring him to me.”

And Gerard Way listened as the centaur’s footsteps echoed on the stone, his crimson coat passing through the single blade of white light that sliced the room in half.