Devil's tale

Devil's tale chapter 14

Mormir stood in the middle of a narrow, colourless alleyway that stretched out ahead of him. Rain fell from the sky in a soggy, depressing downpour, muffling the sounds of the city outside the alley. At the end of the thin corridor of stone, there was a building with light in its windows. Mormir had no idea where he was supposed to be or what was going on. The last thing he remembered was Avarice casting some sort of spell on him and staring into his eyes. He walked forward cautiously, his hand on the hilt of his sickle. His eyes darted from left to right, making sure to check the shadows for enemies. He exited the alley to see a person in ragged cloak lay down a small bundle of blankets at the steps of the building facing the alley. The person stood up and turned their hooded head. Mormir caught a glimpse of their face. The person seemed to be a young woman with sandy hair and watery blue eyes. Her eyes had tears in them and her face was a nigh illegible grimace of fear, grief and confusion. She looked back to the bundle she'd left at the buildings doorstep, then hastily ran from the scene. Momir approached the bundle and looked to see what it was. Inside, he saw the sleeping face of a devil with pale, red skin, black horns which curved upwards and dark purple hair. A seething rage overtook the green devil and he ran away from the sleeping baby to try and find the woman who had abandoned it. He drew his sickle with a burning ire and felt his heart beat in his ears with rage. He burst out onto a crowded street only to see the woman was nowhere to be seen. He tried grabbing a nearby man by the shoulder to ask where the woman had gone but his hand passed straight through the man's form, as if Mormir was nothing more than a phantom. In anger, Mormir slashed at the man but his sickle went through the man without effect. Mormir scoffed and ran back towards the building the baby devil had been left at. Approaching it from a different angle, he saw on a nearby sign that the building was an orphanage. When he returned, the baby was still on the steps of the building. The rain had since woken the child up and it had started to cry. In the brief moments its eyes were open as it sobbed, Mormir recognised the windows to the child's soul. But it couldn't be, this couldn't be Avarice. He'd just seen Avarice as an adult, not five minutes ago. Then Mormir realised where he was. He was on the astral plane, and he was viewing the past. He hurried to the door of the orphanage and without thinking, tried to knock as hard as he could. When no sound came from his fists hitting the door, he tried breaking it down, only for his form to pass straight through the wood and for him to fall into the room on the other side. He heard a woman say.

"I hear a babe crying outside! Someone fetch me some warm blankets." A middle-aged woman in religious garb ran down a nearby staircase and opened the door hastily. Her face of urgency turned to shock as she saw the baby that had been left on the doorstep. Mormir saw the look in the woman's eyes and said out loud, despite knowing full well the woman could not hear him.

"No! Don't you dare!"

The woman looked from left to right hastily, picked Avarice up in her arms and ran outside into the rain. Mormir swore with the fiercest, hellish expletive he knew and ran after the woman, once again drawing his sickle, once again full of rage. The woman bluntly placed Avarice on a dirty bale of hay in an alleyway a few blocks away from the orphanage, then ran back hastily, catching rain with her hand and then rubbing them together as if she was trying to wash them, as she ran. Instead of trying to comfort the still crying Avarice, Mormir rushed after the woman, hoping against hope he could somehow change the past and cut her down. It had been a while since he'd seen this kind of depravity up close, since usually he'd kill humans like this before they had the chance to hurt anyone else like this. He ran into the orphanage and saw the woman retreating up a staircase. She entered a room with a singular, brown-haired baby in a crib, wrapped in white sheets. She rocked the human child gently and lovingly, as if nothing was wrong. She sang the baby a lullaby with a smile on her face. Mormir raised his blade to cut the woman down but, at the apex of his swing, stopped and lowered his sickle with a defeated expression on his face. There was nothing he could do to avenge this. The past was set in stone and could not be changed. He felt something strange in the corner of his eye. He annoyedly rubbed it away only to feel moisture on his hand. He looked down at the liquid, puzzled. It took him a while to remember what it was supposed to be. He felt more moisture gather in his eyes and continued to rub them. How long had it been since he had last cried? It must have been years. He then remembered Avarice, still alone in that alley and he sprinted back outside. When he found the child, he was still crying, alone in the rain. Mormir looked down at the child and time seemed to flash forward. Suddenly, it was a clear evening and the devil sitting in the alley was no longer a baby. Avarice seemed to be around five or six years old and looked completely emaciated. He was holding an apple with several bite-marks in it that were way too big to be his own and with a miserable expression, took a bite out of it. Mormir walked out of the alley to see there was a market just outside, where vendors were displaying their wares such as freshly baked breads and delicious, roasted meats. Mormir looked back at Avarice, who stood up and rooted through a nearby waste-bin, pulling out more half-eaten scraps.