Chapter 17

AFTER

2019

What number was she?

Three. Four.

Wait, six?

No, fifteen.

He left it at fifteen but he knew he had consumed a lot more.

There were bodies everywhere, most of them dead, dismembered arms and legs were scattered all over the white tiled flooring of the school hallway, somebody by the front door was breathing their last breath, the two who were left for him to eat had just died- two seconds ago.

Azban was crouched on the floor beside a bleeding four-year-old. Her blond hair was soaked in the blood that was oozing out of her neck, her blue eyes were wide open- in fear- and so was her tiny mouth. She had died that way.

Gina, the shadows whispered her name.

It was sweet, Azban thought, just like her blood.

And wow, was there blood.

Gallons and gallons of blood, his favorite flavor. He wanted to put it on the ice cream cones he had carried inside but they had melted- probably when he had started eating the woman who had let her in.

Gina was a cup full of sweet hemoglobin. She tasted like life and sugar and everything good in the world. He was going to eat her heart when he was done sipping her dry.

He wished he had those wiggly straw thingies people liked to use. He was bent in the most painful position, back arched and legs bent behind him, as he held the neck of the little girl up to his teeth. He couldn’t feel it, but he knew he had broken his hosts legs in the process of chasing his victims down.

No, not victims. Food.

He had chased his food down.

And they had ran. They had screamed. He had let them, only because he loved the taste of fear on their flesh, he loved the horror and terror in their blood, it fulfilled him in a way that no ice cream cone ever could.

After the first one, the fatty woman, he had grabbed the closest child he could find, and then after her (the memory of her blood made him smile) he had walked right into a classroom full of them.

They had tried- and obviously failed- to hide from him. But the shadows were on his side, those great shadows, and he had been told exactly under which desk and what closet to look in.

Now he had eaten three…fifteen…a lot.

And he wasn’t done yet.

Azban could barely breathe. He tossed the emptied-out Gina away from him and she rolled over twice and then onto her frozen face. Her skirt had ridden up, poor child, and he slowly pulled it over her white pamper. He patted her bloodied blond head and crawled to his next body.

The blood beneath his knees soaked his uniform as he dragged his broken leg over the ground, towards the little boy he knew he would enjoy.

It was that meaty brown kid, the one who he was truly there for. Azban had already slit the kids throat with a sharpened HB pencil and his blood was still gushing out of his throat like a water fountain- even after his 5 minutes with Gina- and he greedily licked his lips. He smiled when he tasted the blood.

It wasn’t metallic to him, it was sweet. It had many flavors. It tasted better than the pizza the kids were always eating and was even more beautiful than the ice cream.

Ice cream.

He had the time. Azban turned away from the boy and scanned the hallway with his eyes for the ice cream container.

Was that it? No, that was a lunch box.

What about that one over there? No, that was a pencil box.

What’s that thing th-

Azban stiffened.

He had the eye sight of a god yet he strained his eyes to see. Was that really what he thought it was? Was that who he had thought it was?

And just when he was about to move forwards to investigate the dark corner that seemed to be floating, The Mist stepped out of the dark.

AFTER

2019

“Azban,” The Mist’s cold, wicked voice said. “What are you doing?”

He had been caught. Caught! But how? He was a demon, he couldn’t be tracked, he couldn’t be followed. He wasn’t like these puny, ignorant humans- who would only imagine the worst in the darkness of the night and expect the light to take it all away.

He was smart.

Then the shadows began to laugh and it was an echo of mockery, trickery, that he knew all too well.

They had told on him, snitched on him, as the kids would have said.

The trickster demon had been tricked.

Azban tried to stand up but he had numbed the leg of his host. He got on all fours- threes- and began to crawl towards his master.

Master was standing with his hands behind his back but Azban couldn’t read his expression.

He was smirking but The Mist was always smirking. His black eyes revealed nothing, absolutely nothing, and he was calm. Too calm. His black mist moved over the walls, over the ground, over the floor and towards his crawling form. He wanted to run away but where would he go? The Mist would find him anywhere.

It was time to beg.

“Master,” he choked on the bloody saliva that pooled in his mouth- the blood was not his- “forgive me, master.”

How could he have been so stupid? Trusting the dark was like trusting himself. He had never trusted himself so how had he been dumb enough to trust the shadows?

They worked for The Mist, searched for The Mist, spent two seconds roaming the earth for whatever it was he needed; they belonged to him.

“I know you sent me, my lord,” Azban stopped crawling but only because the black mist had reached him before he could escape. He was paralyzed. “I was so hungry, so-so-so hungry.”

The fog lifted him up effortlessly and he rose to his hosts full height.

He couldn’t move his arms or his leg- the one that wasn’t numb- he was going to have to jump into another body. He would only have an hour to find a body that wasn’t dead, one that was only dying, before mother nature sent him back to the Underworld.

“Please,” Azban begged, “I have not failed you. I have not-,”

He was chocked then muted. He opened his mouth to speak but found that he couldn’t. His human heart lurched in his chest and it wasn’t even beating.

The Mist smiled.

His black eyes were blank as always and his face was calm. He didn’t look angry at all.

Then why was Azban being moved?

The mist around him shifted him towards his master. He was close to those eyes, close to the fog, close to The Mist.

“Azban,” The Mist said, “you haven’t done anything wrong.”

Azban frowned.

What did he mean?

He had been sent to find bodies for them to devour. He had been told to take children, especially the little ones, so they could be mourned for and then Azban had eaten majority of them and had left none for his master. Had left nothing for him. He would now have to stay weak for another night because Azban had fail-

No.

The Mist’s eyes widened as he grinned.

“Yes.”

Azban had not failed. Azban had been tricked.

No.

“Yes,” The Mist could read his demon mind but he wasn’t surprised.

You tricked me.

“It’s not my fault you’re so strong, Azzy,” The Mist twisted his mouth mockingly and Azban’s eyes widened.

He understood now; The Mist had been with him the whole time.

The Mist stepped around him and began to circle the trickster demon.

“I’m so weak. I’m not strong like you,” The Mist’s voice deepened with every word uttered, and when he faced Azban again, his entire face had turned to man.

How was it possible?

The Mist hadn’t fed on anybody’s sorrow this year. It was July. There was no way he had taken enough power from consumed souls or human hearts for him to be able to contain his misty power.

Azban had left him a floating black fog in the well and now here he stood, on two legs and not one leg and one side fog, looking into his eyes.

How did you do it?

“I found a way,” The Mist said, proudly, “you’d have tried it, too, if you weren’t going to help me.”

Help you do what?

“My boy,” the mist around Azban pushed him closer to his master, until they were almost mouth to mouth, and The Mist continued to smile. “You’re going to give me your power.”

Azban gasped as the force in the fog forced his mouth open.

The Mist leaned in and his mouth made a sharp whistling sound as he sucked in a long, deep breath.

Azban could feel his power leaving him, could feel him sucking the life out of him, sucking all the energy he had just gotten from the people he had eaten. That had been the point. The Mist had wanted him to lose control and eat them all only so that he could take his soul.

Azban couldn’t believe it, he had devoted his life to this being. He had done everything for The Mist.

His mind screamed for mercy, he would rather be sent back to the Underworld- at least then he would still be alive- but The Mist couldn’t hear him anymore.

The Mist wasn’t interested.

The black of his soul began to rise out of his hosts body, and soon, it was in the breath of space between their mouths.

Azban was a spirit again, black and wavy- just like the mist- and he was being sucked right into his master’s body.

He was, ironically, being consumed.

And when it was over, when Azban had been swallowed by the darkness inside The Mist, his master smiled at the limp body his slave had just occupied.

The Mist rammed his fist into the chest of the ice cream boy and pulled out his heart.

The blood was black, it had stopped pumping a long time ago, yet he knew that it would still be delicious because of whatever emotion Azban had left behind.

The Mist took a hungry bite out of the left side of the organ and his black eyes widened slightly as his blood-soaked mouth tilted upwards into a wicked smile.

Even the lethal trickster demon, Azban, had died in fear.