Next day.
As I blink awake, I feel like I should have gotten a 'never go to school or work in your life again' ring. I could definitely sell my soul for that.
I hear rummaging from below.
Groaning, I pick the ring up and throw it back in the envelope it came with, hiding it in one of my drawers.
There.
Now, stepping downstairs, I meet with my sister. She's still the same gorgeous (stop thinking about this!) girl as yesterday, but the sour expression is back on her face.
"What are you doing there, dumbstruck? Don't you want your breakfast?" She points at my toast and egg. She whipped it together in a couple minutes so part of it is a bit burned at the edges.
Just like every other morning, every normal morning, she is getting ready to leave for work.
"Yes… sorry."
I sit down and finish my breakfast as she finishes getting ready and leaves without even saying goodbye.
That's my life… that's just how my life goes.
But I still have my soul.
That has to be worth something, doesn't it?
I get ready and leave for school with a heavy heart.
I have managed to stave off temptation (mostly) and I have managed to laugh at the devil in her (gorgeous) face. I don't see the Morningstar anywhere between the crowd, so maybe the ring's power over me is broken for good.
I do spot Claire standing there with her clique.
As she turns and our gazes meet, I try for a smile.
She sneers, looking at me like she has seen a walking corpse.
Yes, no luck there.
But I still have my soul.
Entering my class, Tina is talking with the other girls on her track and field team. I glance at her and she rewards me with a glare, as if to say what did we talk about?
That I was to pretend I did not even know her. My childhood friend
Then Miss Jimenez enters, and she spends the rest of the day ranting about how we will never find a job if we don't put up some slack, and how girls don't go on dates with losers.
She then singles me out and calls me to the blackboard.
I spend the next hour following her instructions and trembling like a leaf as she makes me do the hardest exercises she can think of, in front of the entire class. Everyone laughs and she sneers at my pathetic attempts as I rack through my brain to find an answer.
When she sends me back to my desk I feel tears in my eyes again, prickling hard.
I have lost everything I was hoping for.
Once classes are over, I stumble out of the school to find a moment to catch myself. I look at my empty finger.
Was it really… the right choice? Do I really care so much about my soul to renounce to all this? I remember yesterday night with sis and what we shared together… how soft her tits felt in my hands, and how nice it was to grope her butt, with her panting voice inviting me to always go a little further.
And I lost that forever.
Which is… a good thing?
"I'm not going to let her win. I'm not going to take the ring again…"
Tina hates my guts. Claire is going to sic the entire sports team against me if I so much as dare look at her. Miss Jimenez threatens to fail me so that I will be forced to spend one more year of my life in this horrible, horrible place.
And my sister doesn't even recognize my own existence.
"I don't really care about winning or losing," I hear her voice whisper right to my hear. I turn to see Morningstar standing there, leaning against the wall. She has changed her grey suit for a white sundress and a wide straw hat. Not really the best look in this weather, but it does look good on her. I suppose the Devil would be able to make anything look good on her.
"You do care. You have my soul on the line!"
"That's just the rules of the game," she rolls her crimson eyes, as if I completely lost the meaning behind what's going on. "And that's what I trade in. So at least I have something to work with. But yours is just a soul in a sea of many, many others. You don't want to use the ring, fine. You don't want to feel loved? Fine." She waves her hand and turns to walk away. "I suppose we have nothing more to say to each other."
"I…" I stumble, but I don't really know what to say.
She turns and disappears and I know…
That she's right.