382 Red's past
The stars were not the tiny jewels set in a giant velvet dome, as they were in the night sky he'd gazed upon every night. Here, there was no sky above, no surrounding sphere. Each star was a point of perfect light against perfect blackness, an infinite and empty void with countless tiny holes through which shone the brilliance from a realm beyond.
Lucien looked around him and marvelled. His feet stood over nothing and he could see below what he saw above him.
He was dead. That much he knew because Traxdart had demanded his life as a sacrifice to revive Syryn. He was an equal exchange measured by the weight of his soul.
"Demon, I have been waiting for you."
Lucien turned around and stared at the red sun that had spoken to him. He was a speck of dust in the face of such awe encompassing celestial body. For a moment, the redhead wondered if the sun was to be his pit of burning torment for all the pain and suffering he'd caused when he had been alive.
"I have a name," he told the sun. "Lucien Rivenspire." As a condemned man already bound for torment, Lucien saw nothing to gain by being respectful to the sun. "Is this the afterlife? Hell?"
"For the countless sins you've committed against my children, I should have your soul tortured till the end of time."
The red sun burned brighter and hotter in its anger against the demon. Its surface undulated like red magma being boiled into a violent storm of heat and fury. Lucien felt himself heat up from the core of his soul and it sobered him into the cruel realisation that he was utterly helpless against the thing. He attempted to reach for magic but he felt emptiness echo back at him.
"Your puny magic, even if you still had it, is nothing to me." Its declaration was underlined by a chuckle of amusement. "Do you wish to have it back? So you can pit yourself against me? Foolish demon. A single flick of my finger has enough power in it to destroy your world. Understand this, you are in my realm, under the whims of my ever-burning anger, and trapped here to relive your death a thousand times over."
"Then make me suffer."
The insolence in his words, the lack of any fear or respect for its power intrigued the sun. Only a pitiful handful of mortals had ever been allowed to come before its presence. The demon spawn's indifferent attitude was the first it had ever encountered.
"Your suffering is long overdue, but we must postpone it even longer. Count yourself lucky that you have been chosen as an instrument of fate."
"Fate is real then," Lucien said with a cruel twist of his mouth. It meant that he and countless others born in misery never even had a chance for redemption, not that he wanted one. Every cell in his body rebelled against any act of good if it meant his actions would end up pleasing the sun.
"Fate has nothing to do with the cruelty you chose to inflict upon innocent humans. Your sins cannot be blamed on your birth, demon. Do not even think to place the blame on the circumstances you were born under. Thousands are born in suffering but they do not choose to murder and torture for sport. Your sins are on you and you alone."
"You're right," Lucien admitted. "I made every decision to kill. It was all me."
"It is good you understand this."
"But the gods have the power to perform miracles, don't they? So why was I not strangled in my cradle before I had the chance to become what I did? Why do you allow your worshippers to suffer so when you can end it by removing every last demon in the world?"
The sun glowed, effervescent with power.
"It is not your place to ask these questions. For now, all you must know is that you will be given a second chance to live your miserable life. You, a demon, are corrupt by nature, and we will prove to you that your nature will not change no matter the circumstance."
"And how will you prove that?"
Lucien could practically feel the self-satisfaction ooze off the sun's surface.
"By giving you a loving family."
"Then I'm guessing that you'll have me forget everything and reset my birth." Lucien felt the stirrings of expectation in his cold chest. Punishment waited for him irrespective of how he would live his second life. But to have a chance at normalcy and a loving family... he believed it would be worth whatever end the sun had planned for him.
"Very good, Lucien."
The sun laughed at the demon's deepest hidden desire. It laughed at how much the evil thing craved for love though it deserved none of it. A wretched demon who had killed and maimed anything that it saw as having partaken of what it could never ever receive: affection and love untainted by ambitions for his power and beauty.
Lucien hung his head and suffered the indignity of having himself exposed so thoroughly. He cursed the day that his mother had decided to give birth. He cursed the day that Traxdart had found him.
"Where will you find a human family who will dare to adopt a vicious demon child?"
The sun indulgently answered. "No human family deserves to be yoked with a demon in their midst. That would be a cruel and unnecessary burden to my children."
Its words were poisoned blades that cut him deep. Even after having left his flesh, the insidious poison would remain behind and remind him that he was hated and shunned by everything in the universe. There was no happily ever after for a demon. There was no escape and sweet release of death, because death would only be the beginning of true torment.
The redhead began to laugh as if he was driven insane. Why should he ever change? Only hell waited for him so he might as well kill more humans, tear them from limb to limb, and crush their spirits like his had been crushed. If he was given a chance to remember the sun's words, he vowed that he would spill more blood and suffering.
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