Sirin blinked a few times before he properly woke up.
Tough he had tried to stay awake to learn more words from the human. He inevitably fell asleep.
Annoyed by his own carelessness he stood up and tapped the lady on what would have been her arm before she got imprisoned in this way.
"Finally awake sleepy head?" she said with a cheerful voice. "Don't worry no other demons passed by while you slept. You see there is not much food for them here. So, they have no reason to come by."
"No pass by?" Sirin asked, just to make sure.
If there would really be no other demons here, then that would be extremely useful. Tough the matter of food was a little problematic. How was he supposed to find any if he could not leave the forest?
"Indeed. It is extremely rare for anything to come by, other than harpies. And even with the other people locked up here it gets really lonely and quiet. All of them are just murmuring to themselves about the things that should have done better in the living worlds. And even my child would not be able to keep me company. Since we are both stuck here like this, he will never grow up. He will be a sleeping infant for all of eternity. Only the fact that he is alive could give me enough hope to not lose my mind like everyone else. So, I guess having you around is not so bad after all."
She closed her eyes and sighed. "Anyway, I think that it is better if you at least go out for a little bit. Even the full-grown demon that passed by before you came had to seek for food eventually. So, I guess you should as well."
Sirin nodded and ran past her into the woods. He had hoped that despite the claims of the human he would be able to find something to eat in the forest. But she was indeed right. There was nothing in the forest. Just people trapped in the form of trees with merely fragments of their souls left.
At one point he thought about killing one of these trees to collect the soul scraps. But he figured that his effort would outweigh the benefits.
At one point he exited the forest. And quietly entered some ruins that stood not that far from it.
He curiously walked over a broken-down wall using his tail for balance.
After nearly slipping he gave up and walked through the destroyed streets. Somehow this place seemed even more lonely than the dead forest.
Not that that mattered to him. He was just happily exploring the place.
Eventually Sirin found an entrance to one of the buildings. He stepped inside and was immediately greeted with many wondrous things. Glass cylinders filled with shiny liquid, plants he had never seen before hanging from the ceiling, skulls of animals that he didn't recognise.
Exited as he could be he looked trough the room to try and figure out what everything was. But much to his disappointment, he had no clue.
Suddenly he saw a bundle of feathers laying on top of the old wooden furniture. He climbed on top of it and inspected the colourful feathers.
They were so different from the harpy ones that he had seen in the dead forest. These weren't broken and grey, but shiny and vibrant.
He figured that one of these feathers would be a great gift for the human. After all she seemed verry nice.
He picked the blue one up. This one was the largest and so it was the best!
But the feather suddenly evaporated and formed a blue box in the sky.
Scared, he nearly fell of the table, but still managed to maintain his balance.
Strange scribbles started to appear on the blue box. At first, he couldn't make sense of it. But then he slowly started to understand the meaning of these scribbles.
< The red god acknowledges your existence and wants to aid you in your journeys to come. You have herby received the system: ( Creator's gift ). May the chains of fate be in your favour.>
Sirin didn't really care about the system. He was just disappointed that the feather was gone. Now he could only give a smaller one. It was still something, just not what he had hoped.
He also found some cloth that would fit on his body. One piece was for his chest and had holes for his arms and head. And the other piece had holes for his legs, tough it didn't seem like it was made for a creature with a tail, like him. He just wrapped his tail around his waist and chest so that he wouldn't have to deal with that. He would modify the cloth later for his tail. And the last one looked more like a blanket, but it had a few buttons to hold it in place and thus conceal his appearance even more.
All in all, this brownish grey cloth would be extremely useful to hide his pale skin. Like this he wouldn't be spotted from the other side of the wasteland.
He hopped of the table with some of the colourful feathers in his hands. He had been fooling around long enough now. It was time that he would actually start to look for some food.
Sirin was quite sure that he wouldn't find anything eatable in this building. So, he made his way to the streets again. Tough sadly enough there was nothing here as well.
Eventually he left the ruins and entered the wasteland again.
Now that he didn't have to worry that much about being attacked out of nowhere, he dared to move around a little more.
Soon he saw a few more humans. Only these ones, could move freely. However, they were thin and frail, to be honest, they looked more dead than alive. Their faces were sunken in, and they were just mindlessly wandering through the wasteland.
Sirin stared at them with great interest. He hadn't seen a moving human before.
He had also trouble seeing their souls. Which meant that they were indeed completely alive.
He wondered if he could take the souls of these humans by killing them like with his sibling.
He came closer to the human, and it didn't even flinch.
Now that Sirin was this close, he could tell that this human had been claimed by another demon. It was something like a vibe that surrounded the human.
But Sirin was sure that the other demon wouldn't mind. There were plenty of humans in the dead forest anyways.
With one smooth movement he jumped on the humans back and bit out its neck.
To his surprise he found that he could eat the human as well. Now that he had eaten both the flesh and the soul he was completely satisfied and went back to the dead forest.
The human woman would be pretty worried by now after all.