Penumbrae

White-hot ash showered onto Jared's beaten body as he stumbled out of the charred bones of his house. The ash and smoke wrapped their fingers around his throat, squeezing as tightly as they could. He couldn't help but to cough violently, falling to his knees as his lungs searched for oxygen.

Standing before him was something draped in nothing but pure darkness. He glided over the brittle, scorched remains of the house, a pair of crimson-red eyes bursting from his jet-black face.

"You are a lucky man," the demonic entity said gleefully. "I honestly didn't expect you to live through that."

Narrowing his eyes, Jared staggered to his feet. Ribbons of scarlet trickled down from his burnt skin, dripping onto the singed grass. With all of his strength, he raised his head to face the monster that had set his house aflame - the Devil.

Like an anesthetic, the demon's mere presence paralyzed him to the very marrow of his bones. He felt wholly contaminated by standing a few feet away from him. This overwhelming emotion took him over and Jared could do nothing but utter a single word.

"Maria..." he whispered over the crackling of nearby flames.

"You are quite calm for just seeing your wife burn to death," The Devil floated closer. "Aren't you enraged? Distraught?"

Jared didn't hear his words. He was lost in his thoughts that swirled inside of his mind like a surging sea of raw emotion. Rage, anguish, despair. All of these uncontrollable emotions ran through him, but his face remained blank as he stared mindlessly at the skeleton of his home.

It was an ideal spot for newlyweds, a house in the silent confines of a forest, but now flames devoured the once pleasant haven. Not one thing was left unburned, even Jared, although he escaped the raging fire, had sizzling burns scattered across his body. The pain didn't matter to him now.

"Why?" he croaked.

The Devil, who was drifting around the debris, spun around to gaze at the man. The inferno illuminated Jared's sky-blue eyes, as if the flames were blazing inside of them. Not only that, but his sun-kissed hair looked like rows of yellow fire sprouting from his head.

It was as if he was part of the fire.

"Why what?" The Devil asked, inching closer.

"Why did you burn our house down?," Jared hollered, releasing all of his wild emotions. "My wife and I aren't sinners!"

A small giggle bubbled in the demon's throat."Don't you mean your wife wasn't a sinner?"

The faint red lights of police cars and ambulances gleamed above the tree line as they rushed to try to rescue the couple. The Devil peered towards the growing light, but Jared didn't notice it.

Maria was dead.

The Devil had murdered her.

With this realization, Jared's once buzzing mind went eerily silent. He was shockingly numb, not able to feel the heat of the flames licking the carcass of his house nor the Devil's toxic presence. He was, simply, hollow.

All he managed to sputter was, "She's dead?"

The Devil's giggle bursted into delirious laughter.

"She burned like the scum she was," the Devil shouted, eyes flaring. "All humans are sinners as soon as they are born! Your mere existence is a sin, so I'm trying to cleanse this plagued world," he explained, a small grin cracking across his shadow-cloaked face. "Besides," he went on, "I got bored of my usual duties."

"So...you killed an innocent woman just for... being alive?" Jared uttered, the words dropping from his tongue like bombs.

"Innocent?" The Devil hissed. "Didn't you just hear me? None of you are innocent! Humans are abnormal abominations that do nothing but sin. You start pointless wars. You betray your loved ones. You steal, rape, murder! All of you are far from innocent!"