STILL

Chapter sixteen

"You know, visitors usually." Markus knocked on the wooden table next to him, "knock before they come in," Markus said.

"Yeah, sorry I wasn't raised that well," the demon said sarcastically. "So, where were we? Oh yeah, how would you like to die?" The demon lifted an old hard cover book. "A smack on the head? Breaking your teeth? Oh, or breaking your bones! That'd be ironic." The demon chuckled, "you know, sticks and stones." He shrugged. The demon walked into the ray of light breaking through the window behind Markus.

Aquilla possessed someone who Markus has never seen before. A man who seemed to be in his fifties, grey curly hair taking over whatever is left of what seemed to be brown hair.

"Demons are supposed to be scary, not utterly annoying." Markus pulled a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket and put one in his mouth. "So, I did some research." Markus lit the cigarette and took in one puff, shut his eyes closed to feel the smoke take over his chest. Markus looked at the demon only to see the demon was ignoring him completely. "Come on, last words of a dead man." Markus rolled his eyes and took another puff.

"UGH," his voice echoed around the room. "Fine!" He yelled in agony.

"My dad," Markus paused to look at the demon, he certainly has his attention now.
"How did he get stuck in your game?" Markus couldn't help but chuckle. It was only then that he realized that he was literally following his father's footsteps.

"Years ago, Connor invited him and his friends to play the game. being the reckless guy that he is-," The demon paused, "was," he chuckled. "He agreed Immediately," the demon paused, "he ran away when it got too dangerous. he was dumb enough to not take this seriously and choose rubber as an element!" The demon raised his voice.

"I mean, rubber?!" The demon smirked, "was he going to stand on a tire every time I showed up? No!" He said.
"He did end up lasting long though, a rubber layer in his socks and a good pair of rubber slippers? He was smart. too bad he lost." The demon looked at Markus. He was enjoying every bit of mental torture her could endure on Markus or any other player.

"You are the reason he's dead..." Markus paused inhaling much more smoke burning out the cigarette.
"Y-you... you," He stuttered. "Used his own, controlled, illness against him." Markus looked at his cigarette with uncontrollable anger. "I still don't get how that works," He wondered aloud. "Like was your weapon a cell? Or a spell you held onto? Or was it one of those weird chemicals you make?" He asked in a tone filled with curiosity.

"Yeah, I am a genius!" He let out a sarcastic laugh, "you know, I almost feel bad for needing to kill you, but I have other things to attend to. What can I say? I am a busy demon." He held on to the book in his hand.

"You know what?" Markus looked at what was left of his cigarette, he could see the flame dancing almost burning out. He pulled out his lighter and turned the cigarette on, he watched the flames roar brighter. He couldn't explain it but for some reason the flames looked... angry, almost as angry as he was. The demon looked at Markus with a puzzled face, he looked at the ground only to notice the rug he was standing on was wet "I don't even like cigarettes," Markus said. He threw his cigarette and the lighter at the edge of the rug before him.
The damp parts burned in a bright blue color, leaving behind a triangular pattern burned onto the rug. The demon took a look at the rug with a puzzled look on his face. He realized the pattern burned beneath his feet and couldn't help but admire the process.
"Smart," the demon said looking at Markus. "A devil's trap," Markus said with a grin on his face as if he just accomplished the impossible. "Honestly you have no clue how good this feels," Markus laughed out loud, "I just trapped you!" He clapped and pulled out a bottle of high quality vodka. "What's wrong? I don't see your overly sarcastic comments flying by," he said.
"Hate to kick you off your high horse, but this trap never worked on me." The demon started walking towards the edge of the rug.

"Oh, I know," Markus paused as he saw the demon get closer and closer.

"This one is for show, your actual trap is right here." Markus pointed at the roof of the room, only for the demon to notice multiple traps set on the roof together. This time they formed a star that covered the roof edge to edge. The demon froze between steps. He grunted at the sight of these traps, he couldn't hide it anymore, he was furious. He couldn't move anything but his head.
"Nobody ever looks up, it’s annoying, isn’t it?" He chuckled. He looked at the demon with a massive grin on his face. Not everybody can trick a demon twice in a row. "See I figured you out, I knew you have a pattern." He nudged the demon's shoulder. "Now this is what you always do! you wait for the person to be alone and then you hunt them down when they're at their weakest state." Markus said.

He couldn't help but smile at the demon's face. He could see how furious the demon was and he enjoyed every second of it. "At first, you gave us a warning with what you did to Andrew. That! Is why you didn't inject him completely. You had more than enough time to push the whole needle in." He chuckled, "but you wanted to give us a warning, you wanted to show us how serious this whole thing was." Markus looked deep into the demon's eyes. "Or you just enjoyed torturing us," He added, "Then you killed him... that was all just level one?" Markus said with a confused look on his face. "Then you started showing us things to freak us out. Mental torture to keep us up at night, always wondering always too afraid to take a single step without making sure we have our element around us." Markus said in a striking brave tone. "I mean, you didn't expect me to walk around with a sand castle, did you?" He said sarcastically.

"Markus, you're a smart kid." Aquilla couldn't help but admire the process Markus went through.

"I am twenty," Markus said. "And I was born five hundred years Before Christ," Markus's eyes widened.

"When you set a trap for a mouse and it falls for it. It ends up dead because of the trap that you set. Is its death your fault or the rodent's fault?"

"Mine," Markus answered without hesitation.
"No, it's the mouse's fault," he paused, "you set the trap yes! But it had a choice to either fall for that trap and take the risk or not. The mouse gave into the temptation, thus faced the consequences. See it's just like humans. You blame the devil for your sins, your constant stupidity while all it did was simply present temptation." Aquilla paused, "I did nothing, nothing but give you the choice. Even when I should kill you, I still give you a choice, a chance to run, but you don't. You panic and freeze and then you face the consequences of your action. In the game's case, it's me." Markus looked at the demon and couldn't help but agree with his logic, he turned his back on the demon and grabbed his phone. Unwilling to admit how much sense the demon was making, he opened one of the many chats that he sent the audio to. He considered his philosophy... Admirable? For a second he felt bad for the demon, then again, why did he start spreading such a temptation to begin with? Why should he be the judge of anyone's actions.

"Go to hell." He pressed play. And just like that, the mouse broke free

Nipforum nomine, with every word that came out of the speaker the demon flinched. Eyes twitching, body shaking frozen in place, completely still.
Lucis ex qua iubeo t e redire praecipio tibi inferni, the flinches turned to moans. The moans slowly turned to screams that echoed through the room knocking books off their shelves. The demon fell on his knees as the pain grew more and more... by the end of the audio the screams were so loud Markus couldn't hear his own voice inside his head. Aquilla's 'meat suit' cracked and bled, it started burning from the inside before it burned out. The screams were so loud it physically hurt Markus's ears, but he couldn't help but enjoy hearing his father's killer scream in pain.

at the end of it all Aquilla was nothing but a pile of ash laying on the carpet.

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WELL- WHAT DO YOU THINK???
I enjoyed writing this chapter so much! Even editing it now was exciting!

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