War On Earth

Chapter 5: Turning a Wrong into a Right

"I can't fucking believe this! How did this happen?" Luke puts his head in his hands, pacing back and forth. "This cannot be a mistake; I cannot be wrong.". His face began to beam red from all the yelling and anger that was building up inside of him. Mark watched and wondered what he could do to help in this situation. He feared that if he continued to yell that some of the staff or teachers would discover them and ask them why is there a broken window and a dead body in the hallway. He also worried that Luke would release his anger violently onto him, and he was not in the mood to feel the demon's wrath again.

            "H-hey, Luke, it's alright. We can go looking for this 'Mark Red' right now." Mark shuttered in a gentle tone, trying his best to calm down the demon. He went in closer to Luke to pat his back, Luke reacted harshly and pushed Mark's hand away, "Don't touch me, weak mortal!". Mark yelped out in fear and back away from Luke. Luke shook his head and chuckled, "You really don't know how this screws everything up.". He crosses his arms, "There are 7 billion people on this Earth and if I go out and search for the right guy, Heaven will already have their warrior, defeat my army, and control Earth's mortals for eternity. Like it or not, Mark, you're still going to have to my warrior."

            Luke examined Mark's body closely, "And I'm gonna have to train you. A lot. I mean look at you-". Luke grabbed the other's arm and started to feel for any muscles in his forearm. "Is there any muscle in here? Any at all?".

            "Hey!" Mark tugged his arm away from his but Luke held on, "Seriously though, have you done any sports before?"

            "I did karate."

            "For how long?"

            "For one day."

            Luke grants, "What happened?".

            "I got kicked in the stomach during my first match and threw up in the bathroom afterwards."

            "Ok, well, listen kid,-"

            "Aren't we the same age?", The dirty blonde questioned to himself.

            "Even if you are the weakest person I've ever met. I still think we can make this happen." The demon smirked and put his arm around Mark's shoulder, "Can't you see it now? You, fighting angels and defending the great Satanic army and his devilish good looking teacher." Luke lavished deeply and enjoyed himself way too much in his own compliment. "In the end, we give you everything your little tiny human heart desires."

            "That sounds great and all, but what are we going to do with....that?" Mark pointed over to corpse, bleeding out on the concrete floor. "Him? That's easy." With a snap of Luke's fingers, the corpse and the puddle of blood vanished without a trace. The pieces of glass on the ground flew up into the air and organized themselves neatly back on the window. Mark watched in awe as the hallway turned from being a crime scene to picture perfect. "Is this another one of your demon powers?" He asked.

            "I guess you can say that." Luke smiled to himself. "Come on, let's get out of here." He began to walk down the hallway to the front entrance and waved Mark down to follow him.

            "Wait, aren't people going to question why isn't that guy and Deena coming to school anymore?" Mark caught up to him, finally realizing the consequences of their actions. "Don't worry, I got enough power to make everyone forget about that athlete, your little 'girlfriend', and the whole crime that happened in your town." Luke emphasized on the word, 'girlfriend', just to get a rise out of Mark.

            "First off, she's not my girlfriend. Just my friend, who happens to be a girl. Also, there's no possible way, you can do that! You can't just erase people's existences like that, it's not right. They had lives, friends, hopes, and dreams! They mattered in this world, they all had a purpose." He argued with demon, trying to reason with him. Mark believed in his words passionately. There was no way, he was going to let anyone, even the son of Satan, do this to these people especially his friend, Deena Shodi.

Though, Mark does not want to admit it, Deena was special to him. Deena was the star thespian of the school's theatre troupe, whenever there was a show production, she was either the director or lead actress. Deena could have been controlling or irritable during major rehearsals and the last few days before the performance, but Mark looked past that and saw a strong, independent woman who wasn't afraid to speak her mind; or talk back to lazy backstage members with a rash comeback. She was the only girl that gave Mark attention and supported him through thick and thin. He tried his best to impress her and even got her a ruby pendant necklace for her birthday. The members of the theatre troupe would all joke around saying that Mark and Deena would be a couple for prom and would get voted as Prom King and Queen. In Mark's mind, he wouldn't mind that at all. In fact, he would have love to do that.

            All of that was gone now but Mark was not giving up anytime soon. "Everyone has a purpose to fulfill and we can't stop that from happening, Luke."

            Luke looked at Mark dead in the eyes, ready to strike back to the mortal's nonsense, "Then answer this, Einstein, if those people have such a 'high and mighty' purpose to fulfill, why are they all dead? It's because they're nobodies. They did nothing during their lifetime to change anything about Earth. They were low life humans that took everything and never gave anything. Even if I wanted to bring back to life, I can't. I'm not an angel, Mark, I'm a demon. They would come back brain dead and dependent on others to take care of their needs. Sometimes, a person's true purpose in life is to die. Dying is better than living and causing trouble to others."

            As he finished, Luke made his way to the front of the main building and exiting out to the parking lot. Mark stood there and thought back to last thing he said,

"Dying is better than living and causing trouble to others."

            He clasped his fist, everything in his body disagreed with that statement. "Nobody deserves to die, everyone deserves to live...right?", his mind countered that thought. It was like a war was going on in his brain. He couldn't make up which was better, life or death. "Jesus, get a grip, Mark." He decided it was too much for him and gave up. Mark followed Luke and opened the front entrance door.

            The sun beamed strong rays of sunlight down on Mark's eyes, causing him to squint. The sunset raising down to the horizon, causing the sky to turn from light blue to bright orange. The wind blew the trees to sway gently right to left. The leaves flew off the trees into the wind, dancing in the breeze before hitting the ground.

            "They don't call it the 'Sunshine State' for nothing, huh?" Mark looked to his left to see Luke admiring the sunset, sitting on a shiny red motorcycle that said, "Bad Boy" on the license plate. The demon stuffed his hand into his pockets to pull out a pair of sunglasses and put them on, "Hop on, loser". He grinned over to Mark, putting the key into the ignition and starting the bike up. "Do you even have a license?" Mark wondered as he sat down behind Luke.

            "In Hell, you don't need a license to ride." Luke stomped down on the gas, speeding out of the school's parking lot and into the streets of Florida. The two teenagers screamed out as they rode. Luke screamed out of excitement, while Mark screamed out of terror.