Monster

Aether stood in the middle of the ground, breathing heavily as blood dripped from his arms and chest. He was severely wounded, and deep gashes covered almost his entire body. He hadn’t been so worn out in quite a while.

He clutched at his shoulder, willing himself to keep standing. It would be over soon anyway. He was about to win. Not to mention, this one victory would be a sucker punch in his damn father’s face. Today, he was going to conquer the Iron Fields, and that was a loss bound to madden his father – the Devil.

Ah.

Just thinking about it was absolute bliss.

Smiling, he mustered all his remaining strength and struck the barren land with full force once again. Flames erupted from his hand as his fist connected with the ground, causing the entire area around him to explode. He repeated the act until acres of the desolate land that spread around him burnt black.

He smiled satisfactorily again. Nothing he had ever seen had looked so beautiful.

The Iron Fields were his.

The thought raced through his mind, and he gazed proudly at the sky as he flipped his father off, finally falling to the ground.

***

It was over.

She sat against the cold wall, all strength leaving her body as she sniffled. She didn’t want to die. If anything, she had tremendous respect for life. She had never thought that a day would come when she would even think of taking it.

And yet here she was, ending it for herself.

It wasn’t as if she didn’t want to live. God knew she did... how much she wanted to survive.

But after what had happened, there was no point. Everything that she held dearer than life itself had gone now. So why should she still wander around? It was better this way.

Thoughts went around endlessly in her mind, and she flinched in pain. She had slit her wrists, and as blood covered the entire floor, she finally felt drowsy enough to close her eyes.

It was finally the end. She was going away. Far, far away.

And she was sorry.

“Sorry.”

She whispered the word to herself, and embraced her knees as tightly as she could. The effort hurt, her arms hurt, but it was the last time she would be doing it anyway.
And she needed to say sorry. Even though no force in this world would pardon her for what she had done, she still needed to apologize. Maybe because somewhere, something still made her hope for forgiveness.

Tears spilled from her eyes and she coughed. Her body felt weaker and she burnt in pain. This was finally goodbye.

Only, it wasn’t.

Time suddenly stopped for her, and she felt a cold, cutting air surround her as a dim white light spread before her eyes. The room dissolved from her vision, and all she could see was the murky white. Her breath wedged in her throat, and her body felt as if it was being pierced by a thousand needles. She gasped. And she heard a voice.

“Ah, another one. You want to die. Why again?”

She turned around, shocked to hear the squeaky sound. And before she could catch up with what was going on, a very small, black thing thrust its face into her nose.

She screamed.

It was a black thing – a very small, black thing that looked like a squirrel... or a mouse. Only, it wore a suit and a pair of thick round glasses. And it was flying.

Flying!

She must have already died.

Shaking her head in disbelief, she looked at the creature queerly, who eyed her as if she was the stupidest person in the world. She suddenly got conscious and began to sit up straight. It was then that she realized that she couldn’t move.

“I –“ she began, but was cut short by the thing.

“I don’t have all day, woman,” it said, adjusting its glasses, “so to clear up the facts. You aren’t dead yet. This is just formal procedure when you’re about to die and the Devil has taken an interest.”

Ella looked at it nonsensically, as if the squirrel was out of its mind. And then the squirrel huffed, somehow communicating to her again that it thought she was an idiot.

“I don’t –“ she began again, and was cut short, yet again.

“Yes, yes. I can see that you’re not very smart. No wonder you want to kill yourself. But that aside, I just want to know if you’re interested in living. Forming a contract with the Devil, maybe?”

Ella almost choked on the cold air, and her body hurt further. She shivered, and before could say anything, the squirrel rolled its eyes.

“You’re really stupid, aren’t you?” it haughtily remarked.

And then all went black.