Freedom Is Less Than

A ring echoed throughout the musty cell, as chain links snapped and fell to the floor.

I brought my hands in front of me, stretching my arms, and fingers out, still stiff from my restraints. I took a deep breath in, and out, nudging at the chain piles with my toes.

The dark being spoke again, while I tried to reintroduce my body to moving around.

"Do you understand what I've shown you, Azazel?" He asked. "Your responsibility? Your duty?"

"The consequences if you do not perform as you are asked?"

I turned to face him, twisting the knot out of my neck. "Yes, yes, I understand." I groaned. "Your not speaking in tongues, yet..."

If Death could scowl, I'm sure I'd be getting the dirtiest divine look. "This is no joke, fool. A single sip up could mean the worst for our known existence." He growled, our eyes meeting, a chill, a pressure crashing through my vertebrae.

"O-ok, yeah." I looked up at him, wide eyed and paralyzed from the neck down. "I get it, I-I'm set." I assured him, accompanied by the furious nodding of my head. Based on hs moment of silence, he seemed hesitant.

Sighing, he shook his head. "This better be the truth." He grumbled.

"Now- I will now begin the process." He said, extending his arms to his sides, and beginning to float into the air.

I glanced around unsuredly. "The process? What process."

"The transference of power. My abilities become yours, my body and soul. Our beings will become one- do you understand?"

"Uh, fuck no, I DON'T understand!" I felt the strange tingle of pins and needles prick my skin, a numbness cutting off the flow of my legs, my arms, every appendages' feeling starting to dull. The darkness around us swirled, shifting and crawling like rats. He reached for me, clasping the ivory carpals of one hand around my neck. "W-what are you- let go of me!" I ordered, struggling, or trying to, but my body refused to move.

Almost ignoring me, he pulled his remaining hand back, fingers pressed tightly together, his hand rigid at his side. "Our bodies will come together, and you will begin the transition into your destiny!"

I stared at his boned fingers in horror, my body trembling against paralysis, trying to regain movement. "The hell does that me- PLAUGH."

His arm jerked forward, the squelching and tearing of flesh ringing in my ears, a crimson splattering out on his blackened cloak. His hand dug through my stomach, protruding from my back, and narrowly missing my spine n the middle. I shuddered, hanging from his arm, staring down at the grungy floor, vision blurring, fading to black, sounds becoming a garbled mess, than deafened silence. My body, in the face of anguish, opted to pass out in seconds.

"So it has begun."

As my vision reduced to a tiny dot of remaining light, something heavy flowed into me, sucked in from the hole Death had pierced me with. My tunnel-vision opened up, the cell coming back into view. A new sound replace the previous drip and drop of my must old prison. The sound of rushing water, or liquid of some kind, and the crackle of lightning. When my vision returned sufficiently, I saw the cause of that sound, along with that feeling in my stomach.

A black substance unraveled from Death, surging into the hole in my torso. The substance flickered out zigs and zags of black, like tears in the very air itself. The red in Death's eyes faded, a lighter pink with every second hit took for his mass to thread into me, until only his skull remained. It dropped, yellowing at a rate faster than it fell, as if in it's plummeting its halted aging had finally caught up.

It hit the ground, bouncing unharmed, no noticeable damage taking root in it's topaz surface. I kneeled down, reaching for it, and took it in my hands. The surface was rough, corroded, thousands of little divetts blemishing the once-ivory bone. With a grunt, I loosened my grip, ready to have t drop from my hand and walk away.

But the weathered skull clung to my skin. I frowned, turning it upside down, and letting go again. Still, they stayed attached. "Ok, THIS is annoying..." I muttered, a twitch in eye, and tightness in my throat. I shook my hand to get it off, and it stayed. Gradually, I began to shake it more and more violently, hoping that at some point the barbaric flailing would swing this thing off of me. Nothing.

A growl itched at my throat, and I huffed, stiffening and scowling in defeat. "Fine...I guess my dominant hand is devoted to SKULL now..." Grumbling, I finally moved to exit, stomping over to my cell door, and pushing it open with surprising ease. "Huh..."

"Out we go then..." I breathed, taking my very first steps of freedom.

It felt...no different. The air was the same, the floors, the walls, everything was the same. It was a tad darker, though. It wasn't like there was less torchlight, no, there were no torches ANYWHERE, but it was just...less light out here.

I ignored the fact, and continued to walk, making my way down the hall, and towards the stairs leading up.

Every step I made towards the staircase, my eyes adjusted to the dark. Out f the corner of my eye, it even looked like the darkness was brightening. Wait...no...

It WAS brightening. The darkness faded as I moved away fro my cell, and by the time I touched the first step, the light looked the same in the hall as I remembered it in my cell. I even turned around to confirm, but froze when I looked back.

The darkness hadn't left the hell, but instead it crawled to one center point, piling onto itself in a glob, until it's form started to resemble a creature esque shape.

A small rumbling crawled from my throat, a chuckle at the sight of the forming creature. My lips cracked ear to ear in a dipping arc. "Oh, how fun..." I grinned.

"Someone wants to die already."