Fortnite: Peace Out

Prologue

A week.
It had been a full week since Kondor had seen his friends be abducted by the people in the cars labelled with X's. There was a period where Kondor had walked the halls of the Butter Barn, torn and hopeless, unsure what to do next. He thought of his friends all the time, wondering what he could've done differently.
When Kondor looked into the mirror, he saw the shadowy body that had been forced on him by the demon hidden within his feeble and twisted mind. It was funny how it looked like a soul in a way, because Kondor was almost certain he didn't have one. Not any more.
How could he let this happen? He'd let the demon overcome him again. It made his choices for him, and whilst it couldn't read Kondor's mind, it had its way of entering his train of thought uninvited. It was like it knew, like it had a feeling that Kondor was thinking what he was thinking but it didn't actually know. Or did it? Was Kondor really that predictable?
Kondor would do anything to protect his friends; maybe that was why the demon had made it so that his death would lead to his friends' deaths too. Kondor would be willing to save any of his friends at his own expense... it was smart. A fact which Kondor hated to admit was true.
That morning, Kondor had woken up like normal, his back aching from the slight shifting his body did at night. He was still tired, like his eyelids were magnetised. The attraction between the two was hopeless. Maybe one day, Kondor would be able to sleep well. When that day came Kondor would appreciate it while he could. He'd be tired again before long.
The previous night, Kondor had just eaten dinner and then discarded his consciousness on the worn-out pillow on his bed. He had planned to cleanse himself. A simple shower would do. He was not willing to waste time waiting to fill a bath, especially not in Mancake's old tub.
The water felt cold despite how scalding Kondor made it. It was a possibility that Mancake's shower was just broken as it was sometimes, but Kondor felt as if he was cold blooded, a reptile in a once human form. He shivered.
It was at this moment that everything suddenly felt different.
Kondor took in Mancake's bathroom, the one he kept downstairs away from customers. It was so pristine, and the greedy eyes of the restaurant's patrons couldn't look upon it. Everything was shiny, and either an unstained white or a really pale blue. Kondor, with a similarly white towel wrapped around his waist and dropping to his knees, contrasted to his shadowy body.
It was pitch black. Not like an item of clothing that could be considered sleek or stylish. Not even like a shadow, as he often described it to himself. It was the same colour as a void. A black hole. Of nothing. It was like looking into a tunnel, except that there was no other side. The demon would not allow it.
Kondor realised that in truth, he was the one that had allowed this to happen. It he had just let the demon kill him so long ago, then he wouldn't be suffering. Then he wouldn't feel like such a burden, because there would be no burden and there would be no him.
But as Kondor thought about the words 'no burden' he realised that he'd had enough. It was time to do something about it.
The demon was very powerful. It had made that very clear from even before it had entered Kondor's mind, when it had twisted Kondor's frail mind into believing that safety waited beyond his village. This was not safety. It was merely an illusion of power.
If you're going to keep on staring at yourself in the mirror, then please at least talk to me.
"Um, yeah." Kondor stuttered.
So then, do you have plans, or are we just going to stand here while we remain forever... damp? Wet? Is there even a difference?
The demon was very powerful and could come up with schemes. The demon also apparently didn't know what the difference was between damp and wet was. It made Kondor feel even more stupid that it was.
"I might... I might do some reading." Kondor answered quickly.
Wake me up when you're done. I'm not in the mood for reading.
It was haunting how the demon portrayed itself as being Kondor's friend, the way it spoke so casually in its deep, vibrating voice. It also acted as if it was human. It needed basic human needs like sleeping, but the compassion that came with being human - even if just slight - was untraceable.
And it was finally time to do something about it.
When Kondor said that he was going to do reading, he hadn't been lying, but he hadn't been telling the whole truth. After all, Kondor reading books on exorcism was not the demon's ideal situation. Exorcism, being the upbeat and totally safe act of expelling demon's from the very fabrics of the universe, was exactly what Kondor needed. It was what he was missing. And while he couldn't fully exorcise the demon, he had a loophole spell he could try for particular demons like this one...
And he actually did have a book on exorcism, somewhere. He'd just have to find it behind all of the junk magazines which Menace read (Menace could try and tell them that he didn't like knitting, but it was more than clear that he was unhealthily obsessed) and also Mancake's many cook books.
When Kondor opened the closet, which held the squad's book storage, he saw the absolute atrocious conditions which the books had been abandoned in. Books were art. Kondor knew that the other three wouldn't leave paintings in dusty piles or hidden in a closet like this.
What are you even trying to do?
"Finding a book." Kondor muttered nonchalantly and unspecifically.
Which book?
"One on magic. I like magic, and thanks to you I can do magic." Kondor complimented emptily. It wasn't a lie; the demon allowed Kondor to enchant and summon, among other spells, which included exorcism.
And so you choose to look into old books? Why not get something new?
It remembered, then.
"What's the point in learning new things when I haven't even mastered the things I've done already?"
Kondor was aware that he was talking too much. The demon knew his mind inside out. Kondor didn't talk, not often. He only spoke in paragraphs like this when he was afraid. There were times where Kondor just didn't speak at all.
Alright then.
Silence. Perfect.
The book had to be somewhere around. Kondor looked among the many miscellaneous covers, searching for the book, as Kondor tried to form an image of what it looked like in his mind.
It was mainly coloured in a black as dark as the eyes of spirits. There were scarlet red eyes etched into every corner on the front, and whilst spells were being performed they glowed. Kondor did not want to know why. But for some reason, the thought of spectres being trapped within the ragged pages kept on creeping its way back into his mind.
Kondor could not remember what the back of the book looked like, not that it mattered. The black had imprinted itself into Kondor's frail mind, it would not be easy to forget. If only he could just forget it. If only.
And there it was. It looked more dangerous in person.
I don't like how your eyes are lingering in that book.
There was heavy emphasis on the word 'that'.
"It's not what you think." Kondor breathed. It was exactly what it thought.
I like it here. Your head is cozy.
"Oh." Kondor replied indifferently, clutching the book in his shadowed hand, his clutch so tight he was worried that the bones in his fingers were going to break.
Kondor remembered the spell for a time like this. The first time he had been caught reading it, he had been punished. This time, punishments would be the least of his worries as he was actually going to conduct the spell. Kondor knew that if it worked, the eyes would glow. But he had already had this thought. Thinking wouldn't do any good any more.
Kondor knelt down, and placed the book a distance away, as if it were a bag containing something particularly foul.
You know the spell you want to do already? Do you remember it, really?
"Light and shadow.
Selfish and kind.
This is a note
To the spirit in my mind."
The spell was a poem. Kondor was very good at remembering poems.
No. No! Wait, wait, stop. You can't do this! You know already what happens when I am booted from your mind... they all die. Could you live with that guilt?
Except the demon was not being booted from Kondor's mind. This was the loophole. It was merely being sent to a part of a part of the brain that was rarely used. The demon would still be able to talk, but its power would be null. The influence it had over him would become, well, nothing. Kondor would be basically almost free.
"This may be a poem,
Lines traced with rhymes,
But it is powerful enough
To remove you.
You are a crime.
Get out. Get out. GET OUT."
Whoever had written the poem obviously wasn't a master with words, but as it said, it was powerful. And the demon screamed in agony and anguish, realising that its plan had a flaw which it could not and may never work out.
It was... brilliant.
Kondor and the demon screamed as the room erupted in light.

To be continued...