Demon

Mom's Pov:

"Ok everyone, time for bed, I better see everyone asleep when I get back," I say with authority to all of the children, they were easy to control. "Wait" the voice of Gregory came out of the crowd as he rushed up to Drake and hugged him. I do nothing to stop him. 

After they finish their hugging, I take a lamp next to me and turn it on, it was too dark to see without it. "Alright come on Drake," I say after I see all of the children leave my sight. We leave through the front door to feel the cold air. "Mom, do you know who my new parents are going to be?" Drake asked from beside me, he was oblivious to what was happening, wasn't he? I put on a kind smile and say "I don't know, but I'm sure they are nice people".

We went silent for a while as we just steadily walked through the night. I noticed on Drake's wrist was a bracelet. "Who gave you that bracelet?" Curious, I asked him. "Oh this, Greg gave it to me" when he said, I could tell he was a little dejected at having to leave, but there was a bit of excitement too. That will change quickly.

'Speaking of Gregory, I noticed that his test scores have gone up, I was planning on sending him out after Drake, but if he keeps this up he could stay longer.' I thought as I started humming a little tune as we walked, the silence of the night was only occupied by the humming.

"We're here," I say as I see the closed gate in front of me. Standing in front of the gate I waited, suddenly the gate started opening, with no input of my own. The gate was only lit by two lamps hanging on the side of the walls, there was a cart, looking deeper into the gate it was shrouded by darkness. I was familiar with this.

When the gate opened we both walked inside, Drake looked a little shaken up, I don't blame him. We walked right next to the cart and I stopped. "We'll wait here for so-" *Shuck* Before I could finish my sentence a claw sprung out of the darkness, looking at Drake I saw a claw going straight through his heart. In the darkness, the arm of some demon protruded, and the wicked grin of the demon was visible.

"Grandma wants to see you" the scraggly voice of the demon frightened me, I would rather stay away from them. "Ok, where is she?" My face was calm despite all of what was going on, I was used to this, I've done this dozens of times. I watched as the demon put a flower into the heart of Drake, when it stuck it bloomed bright red.

"Follow me," the demon said as he threw Drake into the cart.

Drake wasn't a high-quality stock, he was lucky to survive even this long, there always seemed to be someone with a lower score than him, so he barely scooted by. I've been getting bad stock, all of them below average, but recently the new children have been good, getting high scores. My star product was Clowey, they'll be much more careful when they get her.

I followed the demon into the darkness, my lamp turned off by itself, I think it's broken. As I got deeper into the gate I saw ahead of me to my left a door lit by some light. "She's in there" the demon pointed with his claw at the door. I just nodded and entered the room, inside I saw Grandma, a very old woman with white curly hair, wrinkles on every part of her body, and back hunched over.

----------5 Minutes Later----------

I walked out of the room, I talked with Grandma, I have to tell Erica about this. The demon was standing guard outside the door. I walked back through the gate hallway, darkness all around me, my lamp is broken, and I'll have to walk back to the orphanage in the dark. 

Passing the cart, on a whim I took out my tracking device, which was disguised as a compass. The circular screen had a lot of dots on it, the dots being the tracing device on the kids, I couldn't differentiate between dots, and I only knew the direction of dots, not the location. On the tracking device, I saw southwest was a clump of dots and the direction of the orphanage. But something was strange, I saw a dot directly south of me, away from the clump. My eyes widened as I realized that someone was outside the orphanage.

I sprinted in the direction of the dot, in complete darkness, hoping to catch who that was. *Crack* a twig snapped under my boots as I ran. I eventually could see someone running in front of me, I couldn't see who exactly it was because it was too dark. The figure opened the door to the orphanage and closed it behind before I could see who it was. 

*BAM* I slammed into the door with my shoulder, but was stopped. 'Piece of shit locked the door' I thought as I fumbled through my pockets for the keys to the door. *Click* I turned the key, opened the door, and saw nothing. 'Let's see who is missing from the bedrooms' I think, whoever wasn't in bed was probably the person I'm looking for.

*Creek* The door creaked as I opened it, inside I saw rows of beds. *Click-Tap* *Click-Tap* *Click-Tap*. The sound of my boots hitting the wooden floor was only accompanied by snoring. Looking around I checked each bed if someone was missing. '38, and 39… all of them are here.' While I was counting I noticed that some of the children have yet to go asleep, but were pretending to be asleep.

*Sigh* "Who was it…" I muttered. 'I will deal with this later' I thought as I made my way out of the room. *Shut* The door closed behind me. 'Let's go talk to Erica' I thought as I made my way to Erica's room. Erica's room was right next to my room and was on the top floor right next to the children's room.

When I entered I saw Aunt Erica staring blankly at the mirror, she looked depressed. "Pull yourself together Erica, I could send you out ya know" I was disappointed. "He was my son, Trisha!" Erica Yelled back, she was talking about Drake. "Don't call me by my name! Also, I talked to grandma." That got her attention. "What did she say?" She got excited. "A new position as a Mom is available, the current one is too old and might be promoted as grandma, they are looking for new moms." Her mood got immediately boosted as if she forgot that her son had just died.

"Really? Did you recommend me?" A grin was plastered on her face, she wanted to become a Mom badly. "Yes, I did, but for you to get the position, you'll have to do something for me". I'm lying, I said to grandma that Erica has been terrible, getting way too emotional when a child leaves. 

"Really? What do you need me to do" I just grinned at that? "Well one of the children was at the gate, I don't know what they saw, but I want you to find out who it was, if you do that, you got the job…"

----------After Mom Leaves----------

 Pov Gregory:

*Pah-ahhh* *Pah-ahhh*. I was gasping for air, without knowing it I was holding my breath as Mom walked past me, I only let go after I heard she left. 'Ok now I know that this is a death game!' closing my eyes, and the red neon letters under my eyelids were still there.

[Side Quest - Save Drake (Extreme) ~Failed~]

In the top right of my eyelid was an "X". Staring at it the words disappeared, and a new set of words popped up.

[Side Quest - Save all the kids (Nightmare) ~Failed~]

I was slightly less surprised when I saw those words, I guessed that the word in brackets was the difficulty, and I wondered why saving Drake was "Extreme". I got rid of the words and started thinking to myself.

'I was being delusional before, I was grasping onto anything I could to make myself believe this wasn't a Death Game, Cloweys words weren't that convincing, but I just wanted to believe that my entire life wasn't a lie. Look where that got me, Drake is dead and I just let it happen, I know it wasn't my fault, but I did nothing to stop it even though very deep down I knew that this was a death game.'

'My entire life has been a lie, at least Gregorys has been, Mom and Aunt Erica are now my enemies and now I have to escape this death game. For Drake, I'll do anything to escape this prison of an orphanage.' For the rest of the night, I tried to get some sleep, but untimely couldn't until really late, I was still shaken up by what just happened.

(If you don't give me power stones and review, then I will inflict horny onto you, endless unrelenting horny and then I'll send some dog with a stick to beat the crap out of you)