Bereft: Demise

25 | Of Wayward Children

The streets seethed with corruption. 

Sethan had ventured to a thousand different cities before he'd been trapped in the implacable darkness of the Realm. He had walked the cobbled streets of London before the Great Fire, had watched the gladiators rip each other to pieces in Rome, had seen the sun set on the white bricks of the Tower of Babel.

In comparison to those ancient metropolises, Verweald was a gauche hell propped upon pillars of sand. Given time, it would erode and be naught but ruins brimming with decay. 

For now, the Sin of Wrath was forced to rove the hedonistic cesspool. He had done so in Envy's shadow for the first few weeks, cowering at every sound and every flash of light. The stimulation had been mind-shattering for Sethan and had reduced him to a drooling, insentient wreck. 

He had grown accustomed to the noise and the chaos and the ugly, ponderous smells. He could feign normality, if prevailed upon. His hands twitched with the urge to claw through his own flesh and bones in a desperate bid to rid himself of the noise inside his head—but Sethan could mirror those around him. He could be normal. 

The Sin was disappointed in how "normality" had progressed during his imprisonment. It was normal for the humans to subsist beneath clouds of their own acrid filth. It was normal for them to walk places with their heads hung above their little devices and never share a word to those around them. Twice Sethan snaked the wallets from passersby's pockets and twice they never noticed a thing.

Sethan walked with the others on the sidewalks, studying their mannerisms, their gaits, their voices and words. Occasionally he'd allow the sweet, sickly air to permeate his body with the disgusting essence of this place. The Sin of Wrath could taste the oil and sweat and blood that comprised the very asphalt of this concrete jungle. 

Unclean. All of it is unclean.

He followed the crowd at a sedate pace, resisting the urge to snap and snarl at those who brushed against his body. The Sin was dressed in black slacks and an overlarge blazer with leather patches on the elbows. The blazer hung loosely upon his starved, rounded shoulders, the cuffs falling nearly to his knuckles. The ensemble was cumbersome and overlarge, but it allowed the Sin to blend in with his new environment.

Exhaling, Sethan walked from the street and took the path paved across the campus lawn. The crowds thinned, then disappeared. 

The University of California, Verweald, was one of the state's smallest but no less prestigious universities. Situated in the city's southern borders, UCV was a cramped campus not far from the dark, churning waters of the Pacific. It attracted many people from various demographics and walks of life, including the typical collegiate men in their tweed and alternative punk rockers with piercings and strange hair colors. Sethan's sallow skin and blazing red eyes weren't quite so conspicuous here. 

The Sin of Wrath's current host was a student residing in the college's dorms. Sethan couldn't recall the boy's name, only that he was a blithering, overanxious sod desperate enough to sell his soul to a demon to pass his exams.

The humans sell their souls for so little, the creature thought as he walked. The evening air was crisp with the trappings of an autumn breeze rifling through the under-watered trees and grass. They believe in nothing. They once cowered when I appeared, now they laugh and scoff at the idea of demons haunting their world.

Unclean.

It mattered little. The contract was already complete. The boy wanted to pass his class, and so Sethan had eliminated the need for the exam by eliminating the class's instructor. The Sin found such a cheap method distasteful, but he was starving. He had already torn through several hosts since his return and the greedy boy wouldn't prove the exception.