Waiting.
It was a thing that the Demon had gotten extraordinarily used to in its long imprisonment. It was used to waiting. It had never had any option but to wait.
Waiting had become its entire existence, yet by the Demon's reckoning the three weeks it took its host to recover were agonizing beyond words. Compared to the eons the Demon had laid imprisoned if was nothing, not even a speck of dust and yet the Demon found itself wanting to tear its horns out with feverous anticipation. It had begun to regret its decision to allow its pawn to remain in control of its body, but it was already too late by the time the bored Demon considered changing its mind. The strange energy it's vessel had used to try and repel him had somehow spread throughout its body, the anomalous power had thoroughly soaked itself into every pore of the vessel's body. The Demon could tell even without trying that trying to forcefully seize control of the body again would be catastrophic. For the vessel not the Demon. The clash of the two energies, this strange power and the Demon's would rip the vessel apart from the inside out and whilst the Demon would still win, there was no point in winning a vessel that would promptly expire a few seconds later.
Sighing to itself the Demon sought ways to pass the time, it sifted bored fingers through the memories of its new pawn sifting through a lifetime's worth of information. The memories were damaged and incomplete likely as a result of the Demon's assault on the child's mind but they still provided the Demon with a modicum of information.
The limited information it acquired was, to say the least shocking. The Demon had considered itself well versed on the mortal plane, as much as a creature from beyond this limited layer of reality could understand such limited creatures. Yet the Demon found to its displeasure that the mortal world had shifted drastically since its imprisonment. Apparently, the Demon's pawn resided in a country called the Dynasty of Puweth, who this Puweth was a mystery to both the Demon and its vessel. From the limited scraps its pawn knew the country was a large one occupying most of the centre of the continent of Pulch, despite its central location it was a hub of trade due to several large rivers connecting it to the ocean as well as occupying the most viable routes through the mountains to the northern half of the continent. What concerned the Demon was that it was sure that no such rivers had existed the last time it had stepped forth onto the mortal plain and the series of mountain ranges that dotted the northern part of the continent definitely hadn't existed when the Demon graced the world with its presence last time. If the Demon was honest with itself it didn't even remember the continent being called Pulch but wasn't sure if that was due to memory loss or the touch of time.
As the Demon waited for its host to anything it idly tried to calculate how long it had been sealed. It murmured to itself as it passed the time in a mediative slumber, it lacked sufficient information to make anything but a supposition but guesstimated it had been sealed for somewhere between a thousand and a hundred thousand years. Worst case a million but it felt like that was unlikely. The Demon doubted it would still be sane after a million years of sensory depravation.
The Demon's meditative state was broken by the first natural light its cell had experienced since its creation. The colossal fracture in the wall that spanned roughly a third of the wall of the cell in front of the Demon began to shift, the multi-coloured prismatic hue it had been emitting began to shift to a blurry grey.
"Interesting" the Demon purrs to itself, as it watched more colours whose names it had to struggle to remember join the growing tapestry of light. Greens, blues, faint yellows and even faded red all swirling and shifting in the fracture, birthing new colours that intermingled and shimmered as gradually a single image began to coalesce. It took the swirling colours several minutes to solidify before the Demon could once again see the mortal world. Gradually a partially rotten wooden ceiling came into blurry focus. The sight of the mortal plane stole the Demon's breath for a moment and unconsciously it tried to reach a hand out to touch the fracture but a yanking chain stopped the motion short. "Phenomenal" the Demon whispered as it stared at the fracture. It was silent for several seconds its exuberance knocked out of it by the simple sight of colours. It was a strangely humbling experience for a creature that had watched stars been borne to be humbled by the sight of colours.
Clearing it throat forcefully the Demon made an excellent imitation of a cough and lent forward unable to contain its excitement, "It's like having an in-house theatre!", it exclaimed as it tried to rub its hands together in glee but as always was stopped short by the snapping of chains. The Demon long since used to such restrictions ignored the chains as it stared forward expectantly.
The pawn groaned staring at the ceiling through blurry eyes, someone passed into its vision but aggravatingly his eyes refuse to focus. The Demon marvelled at the sight of the mortal world, even this blurry façade provided an impossible stimulus overload after eternities of sensory deprivation. The Demon snorts as for the first time it is grateful for the chain that binds its eye, whilst it could still sense the world with his more esoteric senses, he was more than a little afraid that it's mortal eye would have been hopelessly overloaded by the stimulus. It takes an aggravatingly long time for the pawn's eyes to focus, so long in fact that the Demon began seriously considering going up there and forcing the pawn to move its ass along.
"appears to be conscious but non-responsive". An inferior paramecium touches my hallowed face briefly and waves its hand in front of primary ocular units before having the audacity to inspect said ocular units. It appears we are not alone in .. wherever we are, "I'll go get some broth, I'll be back shortly okay Arba?". The human dressed in faded stained dark robes pushes aside a curtain and exits the small room my pawn is in. Sifting back through the boy's memories she appears to be some kind of guardian figure, though it seems more complicated than that for some reason. "Mortals", the Demon groaned as it tried to conceptualise emotions and not for the first time failed miserably. "Perhaps she is some kind of healer?", the Demon wondered aloud and cursed itself for its clumsiness in damaging its host's memories.
"Well from supposition I can guess that person, what does the brat call it, the Sister? Is that a name or a title? That whoever, fills some kind of matriarchal architype in adolescent development, assuming that those enlarged mammalian glands dictate a female subtype". My host lets out a groan in unison with the Demon, "Honestly what were those children thinking when they designed such idiotic creatures, how are you meant to tell them apart if the only difference is in their chest size you half-pint creator gods!". The Demon feeling another rant about the stupidity of so-called gods made a conscious decision to try and calm itself as it waited for his pawn's consciousness to return. After approximately thirty seconds it patience expired, and it sent a mental smack into the meat of its pawn soul.
Arba's consciousness snaps back into his body in a heartbeat and he bolts upright in a heartbeat. He took in great mouthfuls of air using his shaking hands to steady himself. Sweat coated his body and it took him a minute to just catch his breath. He looked around the small room trying to figure out where he is and just what by the dead gods is going on.
I stare at my shaking hands unable to catch my breath, my chest heaves up and down as my mind races desperately trying to understand what is happening. For some reason it feels like I'm forgetting something vital, I ransack my head trying to remember what the hell happened to me. "Okay go through it slowly", talking to myself always helped calm me down, "So I remember … ugh, someone was chasing me, … I was umm running with someone, Hanna? No, Leo and err, who was chasing me?". I clutch my head as needle-sharp pain lances through my brain. My skull is killing me, and my head feels all messed up like someone moved a bunch of stuff around and didn't put them back in the right place. "Darius", I say the word slowly testing how it sounds on my lips, it feels right but I'm not sure. It's almost like the word means something to someone else.
Suddenly the recollection hits me.
The alley, Darius and his cronies, the beating. The beating! My body goes cold as my hands race over myself, I collapse backwards onto the blanket, tears in my eyes as I realise, I can still feel everything. Once they start the tears don't stop as the shock of what happened finally catches up to me. The terrible all-consuming pain, the sensation of bones breaking and the horrific silence that followed my final heartbeat. The thought causes me to freeze and my hands lance towards my rapidly beating heart. I feel the reverberating rhythm of my heartbeat as it thrashes in my panicking chest.
"Was it all a dream?", the words slip from my trembling lips as more memories of agony seep into my panicked mind. I dismiss the thought as soon as it appears, that pain was far too real to be a mere dream. This leaves me in an awkward situation as my mind tries to assimilate the knowledge that I died with the contrasting knowledge that I am currently still alive. Unless this was heaven, or hell. Probably hell.
I look around the familiar room, a single cracked window set high on the wall, a rotten leaking wooden ceiling, a dividing curtain separating a space barely long enough for an adult to lie down. I glanced at the familiar cushions, little more than old hay stuffed into stolen rags. It sure didn't look how I thought hell would like, then again, my life had been close enough to hell that maybe the gods didn't see a difference. Staring at the rotten ceiling one bad day away from collapse as I ponder what happens now. I definitely died, so shouldn't there be some kind of process that happens now? I try to remember what the haggard old priest tried to say in the slums, "Something about being judged for our sins? But he never said what sins were, since I didn't know what I wasn't supposed to do and since nobody is here does that mean I get a free pass or something?". Arba was hopeful but he doubted that it worked like that.
"I died", I mouth the words to myself as I stare at the ceiling. And yet I'm alive. Honestly, I'm not sure if I should be thankful or not, for some reason my gut tells me that this is some price I'll have to pay back someday. Though I'm not sure who I'd be paying back.
My nose wrinkles as the familiar smell of human waste tickles my nose. "Definitely alive then", I groan as the shaggy curtain parted revealing a tired looking cleric.
She wore faded black clerical robes with long dark braided hair running down the back of her neck. She entered carrying a battered wooden bowl filled with a delicious smelling broth and a dirty wooden mug in the other hand. As she enters, we lock eyes. Silence fills the room for several seconds. "Sup", I said simply.
Barely taking the time to drop the broth Sister Merlina tackled me in a fierce bear hug. "Hey! Don't waste food like tha-!", "Oh, you stupid boy!" she scalds me in a choking voice, "How dare you make us all worry like that!". Normally I would've complained about her being overly close not that being trapped in a woman's bosom in a bad thing beyond the inability to breath, but this time I return her hug full force. "Hanna! Your stupid brother's alive!!". "I resent that statement!", I manage to choak out from the hug that threatens to suffocate me. The sound of furniture toppling over and something breaking reaches us faintly from the other side of the curtain before a figure barrels straight through the curtain tearing it from its mount in the ceiling. The now trapped figure thrashes on the floor for several seconds before a girl with vibrant red hair and vivid blue eyes pokes out from the curtain like an overeager rabbit. Hanna takes a moment to right herself before barrelling into me and the Sister in a mess of limbs and curtain.
The Demon watches the exchange of tears and laughter between primates with mixed emotions. Primarily it feels disgust at the horrific fluid management of its host and revulsion at the disgusting intimacy displayed by these lesser creatures. The Demon releases an annoyed sigh before turning away from its entertainment revolted by the sappy words and laughter being exchanged by the trio.
"Truly lesser beings do band together" the Demon mutters as it contemplates murdering the individuals that had the audacity to touch his host. After a moment the Demon discards that idea as wasteful, it would be much better to take them hostage to provide a source of emotional manipulation later on. Unwilling to watch the disgusting display of emotions any longer the Demon turns it's mind back to it's host damaged memories. From its prior experience with mortals, it suspected that this "exchange" would take a long time, time that would be better spent understanding exactly who these individuals were and how it could use them.
The Demon nods to itself and bows its head re-entering its meditative state as it sifts through its host's collected experiences. Whilst the Demon is occupied lamenting his host's top ten most embarrassing moment another figure slips into its cell. It moves silently it's form invisible to every sense. It approaches the Demon slowly who distracted remains ignorant of its presence. It would have one shot at this. It would not fail.
Nigh silently the hidden figure begins to chant a stream of incantations. Slowly almost invisibly the demon's loose chains begin to tighten, the colossal fracture in the otherwise pristine prison begins to ever so subtly begin to shrink. As it works the intruders form is gradually revealed to be small orb of light a few metres wide. Compared to the colossal form of the Demon it is hardly a mote of dust. The intruder works quickly fluttering between the pillars and chains binding the Demon. Finally, it approaches the head of the colossal monster bound here, the fool to distracted by its own planning will never even realise why those plans were thwarted. The silent intruder celebrates silently, with its success drawing closer it grows confident in its ability to re-seal the Demon without it ever being aware of its presence.
How ironic.
It has failed to notice it is already inside the Demon's jaw.