The Short Demon King

Chapter 2

I was freezing. A strange numbness flowed through my body and no matter how hard I tried, my eyes refused to open. The only thing I could feel was the warmth of my own blood trickling down the length of my back. Everything hurt, even though I felt nothing at all.

 I was all too familiar with this feeling—I was dying.

Unhurried footsteps thumped in the distance. A small group of demons paraded past me. They were chatting quite loudly, a bold thing to do in the Central Kingdom where one was constantly hunted. Despite their volume, I couldn't make sense of a word they said. I couldn't even recognize their voices.

One of the pairs of footsteps stopped abruptly. I wasn't sure why until I felt something touch my claws. It felt cold, like a sharp metal. This wasn't anything unusual since rocks and metals were the only things you could find in our realm. It was more so strange that this demon was placing it in the claws of a nearly lifeless kid. After a moment of pause, hurried footsteps rushed back to rejoin the group.

This was the last time someone ever showed me kindness without requiring some form of payment. But I never managed to uncover who that mystery demon was or why they would give me something so valuable.

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Crash!

The loud noise jolted me awake. 

I immediately reached up to inspect my ear, ensuring I still had my earring. When I stabbed myself on the tip of it, I felt relieved until I reached further up. Something was wrong with my ear. Not only did it feel softer than normal, it also wasn't pointed at the end. A drop of sweat rolled down the side of my cheek as I forced my eyes open. I struggled to adjust to the overly bright world around me, raising a hand to shield my eyes.

So what else was wrong? Aside from that endless, loud crashing, I looked down and noticed the rocky earth I usually woke up on had been replaced with some sort of deep brown... wood? I brushed my hand against the foreign material. There weren't even any trees in the Demonic Realm to begin with, so we had no access to any wooden materials like this one. Could that really be what this was?

I needed to find out what happened, and fast. I pushed up onto my feet, but immediately stumbled and fell right back down. I gazed downwards at the feet that failed me. They didn't look normal, being ridiculously small and no longer that familiar, deep shade of blue.

I frantically scanned my surroundings, searching for anything even remotely familiar. If my own body was wrong, then what else could I rely on? How could I ever hope to figure out where I was or what was going on?

I twisted my head around at lightning speeds. Everything appeared way too bright, a lot of it also strangely being very blue. The air above me and even the rippling surface beside me causing the crashes were all a vibrant shade of blue that would drown out the color of any demon. The only things around me that weren't a light blue were the wood I currently sat on and the tiny tan specks farther out in the distance.

"Hey! You okay over there little guy?" I heard someone call out to me, their voice combining with the shrieking of white birds.

At least these distorted ears didn't damage my hearing. I turned towards the one calling out to me, yearning for it to be someone familiar. Instead I spotted a group of souls, or at least what resembled descriptions of souls I'd heard. Souls were puny creatures that any demon could easily snap in half. This made it quite strange when the souls came right up to me. Shouldn't they be afraid?

I growled as they approached. "Get away from me, soul."

They all glanced at each other before one replied, "Soul? We're all still alive, dude. Are you sure you're okay? You look super out of it."