Devil to the Damned (Prequel #2 )

2|12 - Alpha and Omega

In all my life, I never truly appreciated the blessing of boredom. For the first time in over a year, no hooks were reeling my brain to admonish countless evicted faces. There were no wailing victims to remind me of the atrocities which painted my soul black. There was no limerick of regret to drown my festering heart in sorrow. A compendium of fleeting non-sequiturs all narrowed to a point of minor reconciliation. Enough of a weightless breath to juxtapose the raging war inside my brain every hour of every day.

Sitting here at the edge of a mossy boulder overlooking miles of dense forest, I awoke from my menial meditation. I ingested the clean breeze that lazily brushed over the treetops. Broken pine needles and dust from a bird's wingbeat redistribute among the wild; continuing the cycle of normalcy in a place untouched by the greed of man. The distant call of an owl triggered the skitter of fearful prey on the darkened forest floor; as the full moon in a clear sky blanketed the woodland with milky white and charcoal shadows.

I sat alone, knees pulled up to my chest, and my chin resting on the bend. My right eye was peeled all the way open, enthralled by the treetops and starry sky as they met on the horizon. The loving wind lifted strands of my hair and tickled my coarse skin. I raised my head slightly with a slow inhale and made the open sky my focus.

It looked the same as it did back then.

In a different life, this exact moment may have followed an introspective delve. I could have studied the heavens for minutes until I discerned the constellations and witnessed a shooting star. Then my eyes would lower, and the neighborhood would remind me of a life taken for granted. The roof beneath my feet would creak and dip with every retreating step, and the fear of descending the trellis to reenter my window, would fill my chest with a hollow space; until I was safely nestled under my sheets.

I looked down towards my bare feet, hunched and pondering the sheer drop below. The curved edge of the boulder that held me reflected the pale moonlight off its spackled quartz. My heel scraped as I slowly rose, fixated on the darkness below. I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if I jumped that night.

With my death or severe injury, no one would have been home the following evening. The mundane chaos of another tragic teen would have disrupted the city's habitual cycle and perhaps, Kevin Rucksbury would have been satisfied. His son, and my father's daughter; both dead.

If I had taken the plunge, maybe none of this would have happened.

The compulsion of a suicidal leap in my current state would prove pointless. Even if it somehow killed me, nothing would be solved. For days, I've taken every opportunity to look closer into Sin's eyes. That dirty yellow stare with an eon of knowledge and resentment harbors something greater than his corporeal self. Something shifting like an untrusting tide. Begrudged and loathing.

I've been stewing in the catacombs of my own inner chronology; the fractures of information stitched to his bestowed divinity. There, I found a secret so old and dark, that Sin himself may not even be fully aware of it. It's just as Mehron said. . .

The wind had stopped blowing. A stillness unlike that of my tired heart unsettled me to the degree of spiritual expansion. Skeptical and curious, I lurched my neck in all directions to determine the source. It reached me almost like a reflection of glass a mile away. A mere glint. When sensing Teufel, I can generally pick apart the frequency of their energy. Power level, host gender, exhaustion. But this was entirely nondescript and mosaic.

Then, I recognized what it was and my belly churned with worry. Surely not. . . I thought.

In a blink, I departed the serene landscape; a final snapshot in my memory. I appeared with a small ripple in the air; kicking up loose dust from the floor and shaking the wall-mounted analog clocks. He was in the corner across from the desk, duteously working at his alchemy table. A green and red fume spewed from whatever bowl he mixed, and ventilated through a tiny cut in reality above.