Apparently this part was too long for one post, Sorry everybody, I'll have the second part up in two shakes.
Part 1: ABBY Part 2: FOOLED Part 3: JUDGEMENT Part 4: SLOB Part 5:PALACE
Part 6: FEAST
The next day started too early and with a plethora of self loathing that was all too understandable. This whole damn thing is stupid, I thought to myself. I should have never done anything about my attraction to Abby. I swung my legs out of bed and saw the time was a few minutes past nine. It seemed that recently I was being called away around six each night. That small bit of insight into my situation was welcome, but I’m sure not as appreciated as it should have been.
I walked to my kitchen to find it still a mess from the night before.
“I needed this.” I said out loud, rolling my eyes.
“Really, I needed this, this… this proof that this is real.”
I kicked a jar across the floor and it shattered against a table leg, spilling olives lazily across the floor. I had used all my clean towels the night before to sleep in.
“That was necessary right?” I asked myself, “Sleeping with all the towels in the apartment, I couldn’t have cleaned this mess up first?”
The small closet between the kitchen and bathroom door held a mop with a replaceable head. To keep in step with the rest of my morning the head was worn out and looked moldy. There was a small hardware store within walking distance, they’d most likely carry the mop head I needed but leaving the apartment was out of the question.
I stormed back to my bed and bundled the towels for transport back to the kitchen. I laid them out and pushed as much thick liquid together as I could and surrounded it with towels, leaving it all as a mound of wasted food in a nest of shitty linens.
“Perfect.” I aimed to convince myself knowing all too well I’d have to deal with it later.
I fell face forward onto my couch and turned on the television to break the silence. The Television flaunted its blue screen with the message “no input signal” plastered in the middle. I switched on the cable and found myself listening to some overly made up sixty something year old giving her advice on chopping green vegetables for the perfect salad. I rolled onto my back.
“Food!” I shouted as if the woman could hear me, “That’s exactly what I wanted to think about!”
To think if I had failed the night before I’d be cooking for some overweight demon and I wouldn’t be here to hear tips on making the perfect salad. Gosh the path not traveled was scary to think about. This thought actually caused me to chuckle.
I used this precious second of positivity to pull myself from the couch and go head into the bathroom to brush my teeth and take care of my other morning routines I now had no reason to rush through. As I watched the fluoridated foam build up around my gums I noticed my right eye sporting a nice black and purple bruise. It hurt to look at but I tried to remind myself it could have been worse. I touched my leg as a silent reminder.
In my bedroom I jostled my computer mouse and snapped the computer out of its sleep. I had almost completely forgotten about the demonology website I’d found the night before. With a new sense of hope I clicked on the link and after a few minute of browsing its contents decided I’d hit another dead end. The site was a bland list of hyperlinked demon names in alphabetical order. There was no listing for Acedia or Avaritia, and I wasn’t about to search through all these names in hope of finding the name of the demon from the night before. My stomach dropped even further when I noticed a barrage of seemingly far eastern names that, when clicked on, brought me to pages giving information on fictional demons from Japanese cartoon shows. I noticed the name “Lilith” and “legion” appearing multiple times and only one of each referring to any biblical text. I closed out of the window and sat staring blankly at the monitor until the screen saver flashed to life.
At this moment I leaned back in my chair, “Is it too late to pray?”
The question was met only with silence. I’d have gladly accepted a ray of light and a booming “fuck you” as an answer although I realized that wouldn’t be happening. I felt numb as the thought of being forsaken by a god who I had never really put much consideration into filled my mind. Wasn’t God all about forgiveness? I knew that was a stupid question and I was a fool to expect anything after flat out refusing or possibly underrating the strength I had been given the last day I’d seen Abby in person.
I remembered my mother’s words from the past whenever I would question the existence of some omnipotent being that watched over us all. She’d even put it in a way I’d find funny. “God helps you find a bathroom, he won’t clean you up because you chose to crap your pants.”
I ended up spending over an hour searching through message boards and forums on the internet that popped up when I did a web search for “beating demons”. Stupid idea, I know, but at the time it seemed worth a shot. The results were worse than the list of demons I’d found the day before.
“Beating Demons” brought me all the information I could ever want had I been talking about a video game, or if I’d been struggling with my own personal demons. However drug addiction and depression were only demons in a metaphorical sense. The monsters I had faced already and the ones I had yet to face weren’t psychological imbalances in my brain, they were ethereal beings.
Staring at the screen had dried out my eyes. I brought my hands up only to be hit with a horrific pain the moment I rubbed my bruised right socket. A thought occurred to me then. The black eye had occurred before I was in Hell so it would remain with me. However in Hell I’d had my leg bitten off and it was regenerated when I returned to this mortal realm. When I returned that night would I have both the black eye and end up without a leg once more?
I hadn’t sustained any other injury in Hell yet that would have any lasting effect so there was no evidence yet into what state I’d be in once I returned. I knew that demons regenerated, but does that mean I would too? I wasn’t a demon after all.
To clear my mind of this conundrum I ended up going back to the kitchen and cleaning up the mess of food on the floor. Who knows? I could die that night and nobody would want to clean up this mess. It was a selfless act, it’s not like I was worried about getting my safety deposit back.
After that deed was done I bundled up all the sticky linens and even stripped my bed of its sheets to be washed the next day. There were only two other residents in the building, and we’d found it easier to designate the coin operated machines to each family depending on the day. Wednesdays and Saturdays were mine. Those machines are the only thing I absolutely hate about the building I live in. It’s great that the landlord splits the cable and internet between us all, but supplying us with machines we have to pay to use I still find unacceptable.
With the dirty laundry ready for wash day I microwaved myself a frozen dinner and attempted to relax in front of the television which was now playing a disembodied voice narrating a procedure in home maintenance. After a few minutes of channel surfing I settled on a nature documentary which ended up putting me to sleep. It was in this state that I had the first dream I’d had in quite some time.
There was nothing phenomenal about it. My mind was simply giving my current predicament an even more surreal twist and making a nonsequitorial story about it. I don’t remember much of this dream, just bits and pieces like anybody would remember any dream they might have. I had a machine gun and was mowing down demons, then suddenly I was in a barn with Abby who was refusing to speak to me, then suddenly I was in my own bathroom with my good friend Uncle Fatso who I ended up punching in the face because he offered me a slice of bread. The only meaningful aspect of this dream was when Abby refused to speak to me while I tried my hardest to tell her I was sorry and that I would fix everything. The dream ended abruptly with me on a double decker bus by myself. It was speeding dangerously through city streets, and a large spider was attempting to grab me off the top of it.
“Spider veins.” A voice said softly.
To this the spider screamed, “Like your eighty fucking years old go kill yourself!”
My eyes shot opened and I was facing the back of my couch. Of all the things that had happened I found it strange that a talking spider had jarred me enough to awaken me. It was then I realized the voice could still be heard.
“Like your acne, it makes other people want to murder you.”
No, this wasn’t right. I had woken up, I was in my apartment on my couch.
“You can also try brushing your teeth between a meal and a nap so your teeth don’t turn any more yellow than they already are.”
I pushed myself against the arm rest and turned until I was in a lounging position on the couch.
“Humans may be disgusting by nature, but that gives you no excuse.”
The voice was coming off the television. The voice I heard was dubbed over a montage of random imagery. My first glimpse was caught by the screen panning over an illustration that looked like the evolutionary chart had been drawn by a serial killer with despicably organic art supplies.
Even being freshly roused from my sleep I knew what was happening. I knew that the fourth demon was beckoning me in its own way, the fourth trial was about to begin. It was becoming more apparent now that before each trial I was unnerved in some way. Acedia’s henchman beat the living shit out of me, Avaritia and the third demon had shocked me with some grotesque display before dragging me to their respective realms. The imagery on the television screen was now on par with the heap of corpses that had occupied my refrigerator the night before.
A time-lapse of a decaying human body showed on the screen, looping the footage faster and faster.
“For centuries science has failed to fix your face, your body, your skin, in a feeble attempt to keep better looking humans from hating you at the sight of your appearance. Needless to say it hasn’t worked.”
A “point of view” shot showed a crowd of people sporting the most pure form of malice on their faces as they looked into the camera.
“You’re a joke, nobody wants to accept the fact that It’s possible to be as hideous as you.”
Then came the clip that shocked me the most. Three children were standing on a porch holding bags, when they all abruptly faced my television screen I noticed they had my face. They were trick-or-treaters, dressed as me and wearing a mask of my face. One eye was removed, though no child’s eye could be seen beyond the hole in the cheap latex skin. The black eye I currently sported was exaggerated dramatically into a swollen decayed mass through which the other eye couldn’t possibly be seen anyway. They all screamed as if they could see me through the screen and fled from the porch.
I instinctively put my fingers up to my eye, more pain, but there’s no way the swelling was that bad.
My face appeared on the screen again, a static image this time. Small arrows pointed to different features and equally small text appeared next to them. The voice on the television talked quickly and intangibly as it listed off all the flaws. Suddenly the voice was drowned out by triumphant music.
“But now there’s a cure! Blow your god damn brains out!” The voice shouted cheerfully.
The screen now showed me putting a gun into my mouth and pulling the trigger. After my body lurched backwards I looked back into the camera and smiled with what was left of my mouth.
“What’s the point of this?” I demanded.
“What’s the point of life? A question that statistics indicate you’ve asked yourself more than point zero one percent more often than the average subject in our studies.
“Well it turns out your life has no meaning due to your lack of any saving graces in your overall appearance. Twenty three percent of people in your salary range and plagued with faulty features such as yours have been known to spend their entire lives alone, and dying alone too.”
“What kind of trial is this?” I asked rhetorically, surely there could not be an answer.
“We’re offering you a free trial, and if you’re not satisfied with the results of death at your own hands, well who are we kidding, you will be, and so will everybody around you, including Abby.”
“Oh fuck you!” I shouted, the negativity and attacks towards me coming off as relatively pathetic.
“Ugh, you wish.” The voice said haughtily, taking my uproar as an offering.
I rolled my eyes. This voice had caught me off guard, understandably of course, though I may be biased in proclaiming such. Three demons I had slain so far. The slob, the king, and the monster respectively, and now number four was occupying my television and coming off as nothing more than a rudely sarcastic voice with the attitude and self proclaimed wit of a teenager. I folded my arms and leaned back on my couch.
“Can we get to the point?”
As if my inquiry were the magic words my television shut off, along with all the lights in my apartment. The darkness escalated as what little illumination was present due to the open windows slowly disappeared. After several seconds in the dark the lights came back on. As I had suspected would be the case, I was no longer on my couch.
I felt carpet on the soles of my feet, short and vibrant white though the light of the room caused it to reflect a soft pink. The furnishing I was sitting on was admittedly more comfortable than my couch, though it was shorter and covered in white suede. The room was smaller than Acedia’s living room, yet larger than the cellar from the night before. To my right was a wall of mirrors, partially blocked by other furnishings. To the left was a flat crystal sculpture which gave off soft flashing light. The creature I assumed to be my fourth adversary was on a leather bench staring into the crystal which I quickly realized was a television of sorts. As soon as I realized I wasn’t alone the creature who appeared to be female turned to lock eyes with me.
Her eyes were large and round, relatively human in appearance though different enough to make me feel uneasy. The nose that began between them flowed down and outward enough to avoid seeming hooked or piggish. Her lips were wide and full, yet not prominent.
When she stood to face me her body was noticeably slender, almost emaciated looking. She was dressed in a long shimmering gown that ended just above her ankles. From the hips flowed multicolored fabrics that fanned outwards. She smiled.
“You’re speechless, how common.”
“Maybe I have nothing to say to you.” I responded, not completely untrue.
She cackled and fell back onto her bench, draping her arm above her forehead. I was beginning to think it was a law in Hell that every demon had to have an insufferable laugh. Her arm dropped as she draped the other over the back of the bench. Another smile broke out on her face.
“Don’t fib to me, you’ve had plenty to say in the past.”
She waved her arm to the crystal and caused it to display multiple instances of me fighting the demons of previous nights. An image of my face straining unbecomingly as I shredded the flesh around acedia’s neck with the jack ass boy’s teeth. Her hand gently covered her mouth at this.
“So barbaric.” Her voice held tones of shock and scolding.
Now the screen showed me climbing on to Avaritia in a time seeming like centuries ago. “Closhish shime indeed,” I said mockingly.
When the screen froze she turned towards me again, “Do you even know what he was saying? Why would you mock him?”
“Do you know what he was saying?” I countered.
The lady demon turned away from me silently and showed a scene from the night before. The servants helping me exit the room after the battle, my leg missing and nothing behind me but a crater of viscera and jagged bone fragment caused by the demon’s combustion. It wasn’t until now I realized that my leg hadn’t remained amiss. It bears repeating, miracles happen even in Hell.
“Gluttire defeated you, almost, without even leaving his stool, it’s so pathetic.”
“That demon, his name was Gluttire?” I inquired, knowledge not worth much but still worthy of knowing.
The lady demon smirked, “You didn’t know that?”
“I was too busy trying to kill him for a proper introduction.”
She cackled again and caused me to cringe. At least when she laughed the room didn’t shake.
“Is that what you’re going to do to me? Kill me?”
“That’s the reoccurring theme here.”
“Why is it that ‘Kill’ is so prominent in your mind? You and all humans alike. Your liaison must have told you in order to be free you must ‘defeat’ each of us. Did he say ‘kill’ at any point?”
I had no answer, although I knew that getting existential wasn’t the reason I was brought here.
“I’ve watched you perform every night. You ‘killed’ Acedia, you ‘killed’ Avaritia, you ‘killed’ Gluttire, and now you think ‘killing’ me will solve your problems.” She put an emphasis on every instance of the word
.
“I know I haven’t truly killed them, but whatever happened in each case, it was a victory.” I stated proudly, as if the statement I had made could be the only true one.
“So you don’t know how you defeated each one, you just know you did.”
I felt as if she was getting at something, and judging by the tone she took it was something condescending.
“Look, what I’m saying is that you can’t defeat me, this little game that the master has set up with you, you won’t be going home after tonight. You don’t understand what’s happening and because of who you are the world will be better for it.”
I rolled my eyes, “So we’re going back to this again?”
“I’m telling you that the last three nights you’ve been lucky, but luck won’t help you here. You can’t defeat me because I’ve already won.”
For a moment I felt lost, as if what she was saying meant something more than simply taunting me.
“Every demon I fought has said the same thing, Satan himself is probably going to say the same thing once I meet him again!”
“But you won’t!” She screamed at me, pounding her fist on the bench.
“You won’t meet my lord unless he’s personally slicing you open out there, unless he’s personally dissolving your skin or filling your mouth with coals. You won’t have the chance to combat him, how do you not understand this?”
“Are you trying to help me?” I asked.
She was hinting at something and the more she said, the less she revealed, her words sounded more like clues than threats.
“I can’t help you, your own God couldn’t help you. I’m beginning to wonder if you even know why you’re here!” She was getting visibly agitated.
I took a deep breath, I knew what to say and I was ashamed to state it out loud.
“I’m here, because I made a deal with the devil.”
“Why?” She demanded harshly.
“Because I had strong feelings for a girl, ok?”
“So why did you need our master’s help for that?”
I opted out of answering her question. Instead I put on a defensive front.
“He’s not ‘our’ master, keep that in mind.”
She sunk her long smooth nails into the bench’s back, causing long fractures from the pressure.
“As long as you keep coming here, as long as he keeps calling the shots and pitting you against us, he is your master too.”
I could understand what she meant, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. Honestly, I found no reason to believe it. Her words were not fact in my eyes.
“I feel like you’re struggling.” I stated matter-of-factly.
She rose to her feet fluidly, she must have been at least eight feet tall. Her eyes seemed to burn as she glared at me.
“There is no struggle, I am immortal, I am beautiful, I am Superbia and you have no right to judge.”
“Superbia, that’s your name?”
“It’s my title, and the time for your questions is over!”
Clearly my words had struck a proverbial nerve. Beside her bench was a small end table which was topped by a silver platter. Upon the platter was a bell. My heart began racing as she reached for it with her claw like hands. After my experience with Gluttire the night before I couldn’t help but assume that bells rung by demons were nothing but bad news.
Unlike the massive fist that had rung the bell the night before, Superbia held hers by the handle with her index finger and thumb. The instrument jingled daintily as she flicked her wrist. From the tinted carpet below me rose the smallest demon creatures I’d seen yet. They seemed to be of the same family as the enforcing demons from the palace of Avaritia and the hall of Gluttire, however this type had the same four limbs any human would have.
They stood about a foot and a half tall. Their arms and legs where chubby and short. Each one had a rotund pot belly and four red slit-like eyes. Strangely the difference I found the most jarring between them and the two other strains of demons was their thin curly black hair that hung damply from their heads. They surrounded me quickly and glared in the same way Superbia had been before summoning them.
As I studied the crowd I noticed what they were. They were cherubs. Cherubs that could never depict any heavenly scene or appear in any religious artwork. They began to hiss from their chubby doll faces and swarmed at me before I could react.
Their stubby fingers dug into the skin through my pants and began to drag me forward. One scaled my body nimbly and straddled my neck as I bowed forward. When I reached up to remove it two more grabbed an arm and swung from them as I was pulled along. As soon as the initial overwhelming feeling faded I realized how frail each little monster truly was a singular basis. I planted my feet firmly after one step and rotated my torso, the force was enough to fling the dark cherub from my right arm. At the sign of resistance they all began to scream in panic and become more aggressive. I reached up with my free hand and grabbed the creature on my neck by a handful of its curly hair. It wailed as I flung it to the ground.
More were emerging from the carpet now. The new arrivals held coiled ropes in their tiny hands. I pitched my body to the right and landed on my hip. Leading with my elbow I was able to crush one of the demons quite efficiently. A length of rope was thrown over my right wrist, reflexively I grabbed the snare with both hands and pulled hard. The two cherubs pulling it were yanked forwards and I brought my fists down on their heads.
I pulled myself onto my hands and knees to find myself at an advantage. Now that I was on their level I could grab more quickly and react faster than if I’d been on my feet. However no matter how hard I lashed out against them their numbers grew faster than I could retaliate.
More ropes flung across my line of sight. I could feel them pulling down on me and wrapping around my arms and legs. After sending numerous little creatures sprawling backwards from heavy blows the entire crowd began to back away. I seemed to have won, however my relief was short lived.
I quickly found myself sprawled out on my stomach without any idea of how I’d ended up in such a position. When I attempted to push myself up or even withdraw my arms or legs I found such an action impossible. The throng of demonic cherubs were now divided into four groups, one for each of my limbs. They all held ropes in their grubby little paws. I was immobile, spread out as if to be drawn and quartered.
“Bring him here my little monsters!” Superbia instructed, I turned to see her gesture towards the bench she had recently been lounging on.
On the crystal screen opposite the bench a picture of some sort was forming.
“He doesn’t understand, he needs to see his flaws!”
I was dragged to the bench and hoisted upwards. The screen across from me was now showing random snippets of my life. I saw myself as a child among a group of other children, a toddler version of myself at the mall with a dirty face, an intimate view of me in my bathroom just a few weeks earlier as I scraped away the remnants of a pimple. What was the point of this?
Superbia stepped in front of the screen and bent down to my level, the neck of her gown dipped down to reveal surprisingly full, though abnormally pasty grey cleavage. She smiled when she noticed my eyes shifting back upwards to meet her face, but said nothing. She was clearly proud of herself.
“I need you to tell me why exactly you couldn’t talk to, ugh what’s her face, Maggie?”
“Abby, and we spoke on many occasions.” I argued.
It was true after all. Our limited conversations never progressed to anything substantial, but I wasn’t about to admit that and provide any footing for Superbia.
“Sure,” She said with a smirk and a subtle eye roll, “What conversation did you find most fascinating?”
That I couldn’t answer.
“Was it the time she said ‘Boston Cream I bet, that’s ninety four cents’?”
I felt my face flush red with a mixture of humiliation and anger.
“Or was it, ‘I like your jacket’ to which you had no response?”
So I’d been shy, that wasn’t uncommon by any means. What was Superbia trying to get at?
“I want to show you my personal favorite, proof that you needed the master’s help if you ever wanted to penetrate the lady you had ‘such feelings’ for.”
She stepped out of the way to allow my viewing of the crystal screen.
Continued in part 2.
Submitted August 03, 2016 at 03:49AM by Human_Fly13 http://ift.tt/2ay83OE nosleep
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