Tales From Babalangion

The Bad Child

Desire...the craving...the hunger for something...something more then what you have. The age old saying of 'be careful what you wish for' may be cliche, but it is so for a reason. A blind greed may feel euphoric to fulfill, but such gluttony is often punished.

The Bad Child:

I was sitting in Math class looking at the clock as it slowly ticked away, each noise a second off the time between now and March Break. Mr. Whosit was lecturing us on the proper way to apply factoring to a word problem when he saw me and then snapped me out of my staring match with the clock.

"Drew, I suggest you pay attention to the lesson if you want to pass the class. We all know your marks are bad enough." He chided me, and everyone snickered at me. I used to be a smart kid, but now I was the academic laughing stock of the whole grade 11 class.

"Yes, sorry Mr. Whosit." I apologized and turned to the board. I tried to be good at something, I really did, but no matter how hard I tried I was never good enough. My teachers, my sisters, my parents, even Paul, the one person I thought I could call a friend, thought I was useless and good at nothing. That will change tonight if all goes to plan.

"Mom, I'm home!" I call as I go to my room to put stuff away. My mom walks up from her computer in the basement.

"How was school?" she asked.

"Fine, the same as usual." I respond.

"So, I take it you didn't learn anything new?"

"No" She really hated me. Before my dad left, they had gotten me a tutor to get me ahead. It didn't last long. After her usual why can't you be like your sisters or your cousin B.S., I walked into my room and got things set up.

Supper was a never-ending nightmare. Almost half an hour hearing about how my sisters had such good days or aced a test or was on the honor roll. What a drag. I finished my plate and went to the sink to rinse it off when my mom got my attention.

"You're on your own tonight. I'm taking Jane and Mary out for a bit. Maybe you could do some studying to catch up." she said. Of course, it's my birthday and my sisters get to go out.

"With his grades he's probably illiterate." Jane said, scoring laughs from the other two. Shortly after they left, I went to my room and my plan was under way. I first heard of this from Paul when he asked if I had heard the rumors about the four demons. I said I hadn't and told me if you make a blood sacrifice of your most dear one on a blood moon on their birthday the demons will grant you one wish. That got me interested, so I investigated it more and more. Paul said I was insane for thinking it could work and stopped hanging out with me. For annoyance or fear, as he knew he was my only friend, I cannot say. For the following months leading up to this, crows, rats, cats, and homeless men would appear all around our house. I felt it; I was on to something. The only thing left to do was to sacrifice the one most dear to me. I picked up the knife my father gave to me, closed my eyes, and thrust it into my chest.

I open my eyes to darkness, the knife turning into grey smoke. In front of me are four demons, THE four demons. One was large and lanky with blood and maggots falling out of cavernous eye sockets, teeth more resembling jagged rocks poking from his gums. Next was one that looked like a 90's gentleman, but his features were just a bit off. His eyes a bit too wide, his smile a bit too excited, as if he was a boy watching his dad buy him a new toy, pupils too big for his eyes. Then there was a short and squat red entity with sharp teeth holding the corpse of a cat in one of his taloned hands, it wasn't eating it, it more looked like he was studying it. Finally, there was a wiry black horror. The only parts that didn't look like black, fleshy ropes were his head, torso, feet, and hands, and even those were horrifying. His hands were gloved with sharp points on each finger with red splatters on each one. His shoes were smoking and were made of fire red coals, his head was grey with hair only slightly bluer and styled to look like spikes, and he had teeth that were dripping with clear purple ooze. His most identifying feature was his torso: bare, beaten, and scarred it had two long slashes made to form an X. It had clearly not healed yet as they had scabbed, and a viscous black pus dribbled down his chest.