Devil's Soul

Chapter 31 (don't run errands for the Devil)

Have you ever studied so much that you would have welcomed any (and I mean any) excuse to stop? I mean everyone's thought at some point, "I'd rather run errands for the Devil than study any longer," right? It can't just be me.

Okay, before you judge me, let me first give you an idea of how desperate I was. I'd skipped the last few days of classes, opting to lock myself in my room to study. Of course, I had found myself absolutely unable to focus amid the chaos of a few articles of clothing carelessly strewn over my chair and bedposts. Unfortunately, cleaning the mess was only a short lived distraction. When I was through, I didn't even have an iota of dust to fixate on.

Naturally, instead of finally finding peace in my studies, I became acutely aware of my mom's depressive silence. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it was actually the lack of noise that distracted me from studying. My mom had an almost ghostly presence, and had I not known any better, I would have thought she was never home. Though she'd been like this more often than not since the Incident, I found myself with the sudden urgency to comfort her. I think she must have caught on to my ulterior motive because she quickly began to walk around with the air of a miraculous recovery, denying the persistent signs of her absentmindedness with a strained smile. The woman hardly had enough motivation to eat when she was hungry, but she'd be damned if she would let herself be the reason her daughter couldn't study for her exams. Honestly, I had been relieved to see she'd retained at least that small fact about herself.

Even my most reliable excuse to not study as of late had been strangely absent. After removing the splinters from my hand, Desmond had disappeared. At first, I had been relieved to not wake up with him in my face, but now I longed for him to march into my apartment uninvited, demanding we go make trouble somewhere.

Remy also seemed to have dropped off the face of the Earth. I hadn't heard from her since Halloween. When I had finally given in to the urge to text her, she had responded that she would be busy with a big project for one of her clients until Friday night, which was conveniently when I would be done with all of my midterms. Yes, it was true that Remy was a freelance graphic artist, but this "big project" seemed pretty suspicious.

Everyone was trying to give me space to study, and I respected that, but I was going crazy. The only break I'd had from studying all week was my Wednesday morning midterm, which hadn't exactly been refreshing.

My point is that by the time I was entertaining fantasies of running errands for the Devil, my reserve of sane excuses had long run dry. I think I was briefly pleasantly surprised when the Devil walked into my room, immediately after the thought had entered my mind. Then the pleasantness filtered out of the surprise, and I was left feeling mainly horrified. "I'm trying to study here!" I blurted, as if he were some hooligan making noise in a library.

He let out a hearty laugh and pat my shoulder. "No you're not," he said.

I frowned, resigned to the fact. "What do you want?" I muttered, looking down at my notes that were fated to never be studied.

"Milk," he answered.

I twisted around in my chair to face him. He looked completely serious. He patiently waited for me to scrutinize him, before I finally decided to answer. "We have some in the fridge. Help yourself."

"Oh come on, Mavis. I didn't come here to deplete your measly supply of groceries. That would just be cruel. I want you to run to the store."  He smiled pleasantly, like a father requesting a simple favor (not that I have ever personally encountered such an occurrence).

"Is the grocery store really that much further of a walk from Hell than my house is? Why didn't you just go get it yourself, instead of coming to me?"