Death's Bitter Embrace (#Wattys2015)

Act II, Chapter VII: Dining With The Devil

"Dante you can't wear that it is...too much. It looks..." A short pause "bizarre." Alex says, trying to be tactful, being tactful was not her strong point—It wasn't working, I read her loud and clear—but, I always try and look the part.

Alex said this because I am wearing a crimson red suit jacket with a black shirt underneath and leather fingerless gloves, but my bottom half wasn't as formal as my top half; I wore jeans and black leather boots. Obviously 'the part' was a bizzare screamo concert.

Alex was going for a more impressive look-probably to impress one of the guards inside-she looked stunning in her black satin gown that went all the way down to her toes, she definitely impressed me.

As Alex and I walk to the door of his mansion we both start to shake and tremble, we had been snooping around and we shouldn't have. "What if he kills people who snoops around" I question as we draw closer to the door, to our fate.

As The Boss enters stage left in his white Gucci suit my trembling stops, making sure that my fear didn't show in front of him. He obviously made an effort to try and hide is age-he did well, his platinum hair reaching down to his shoulders-lush and bright. He takes a seat in his chair at the head of the table.

The master chair The Boss sat on was much like his throne-excessively tall and excessively... Excessive. The chair was made from fruit wood, it had been burnt to a crisp to give it an ash colour. It had tribal carvings, some large, others small, it had a carving on the front of the seat that was peculiar; it had a demons slender face with the letters M.O.T.D inside the mouth, two hands with claws for nails on either side of the face... "Could you even call it a face? It had all the features of a face, but something as savage as that could still be classed as a face?"

This reminded me of the marking on my arm, the branding. I look at it, I fixate on it, it had the same letters "M.O.T.D, I wonder what they mean? It must mean something to brand someone with it." I think, getting lost in my thought, almost ruining the night with my ignorance.

"Boss, why are we here?" I ask nicely with a neutral tone.

"Please, call me Lucifer, and you are here to have dinner of course. I told you that didn't I?" His last sentence mocking me as if I didn't listen, as if there wasn't anything more to the invite. "Lucifer, we finally know his name." Lucifer. His name matched his personality, and his hair as white as bleach.

"I called upon you tonight to give you a preference, to give you two choices; one, stay in the team and die with them...or two, use your potential to the full extent." His words spilling out easily, shocking both of us. The words 'die with them' hung in the air for a good minute or so until my mouth opened and started speaking, like it had a mind of its own.

"What do you mean 'die with them'? You say it like a predetermined thing. I say with no particular tone in my voice-well my mouth says, I was still in dismay.

"I mean what I said, they are going to die horrible deaths, and you can't stop them." His crooked smile fades, his eyes droop, was he sad?

The waiters and waitresses bring out the food, it was a feast-like a 20 course meal-there was chicken, beef, pork, turkey, lamb and probably a thousand other meats. We eat, it was almost silent except for the forks and knives clinking against the plates. Then Alex spoke.

"So...whaft...is...da...opp...ortunity? She says with a mouth full of chicken-or was that lamb? I couldn't tell.

Lucifer then gets up from his seat, the demon still staring back at us, he signals us to follow him into a room we hadn't seen before, it was labeled;

The Nightmare Room.