Devil's Soul

Chapter 3 (let's just all agree that this is really Chapter 3)

So that’s how I sold my soul to the Devil.

In my defense, I didn’t realize he was the Devil at the time. Sure, there were a number of clues, but I was under duress! That’s how the Devil works, though. He swoops in when people are at their weakest moment and makes them an offer they can’t refuse. So that’s why this is all Dave’s fault. He is responsible for my weakest moment. If it weren’t for him, I never would have had one. (I lied about not mentioning Dave’s name again, by the way. I hate him too much to just forget about him.)

I think I had a short moment of clarity after I signed the contract, where I considered the possibility that I may have made a mistake. This is because I was immediately overcome with an episode of intense vertigo. It was painful, but not in the normal meaning of the word. It wasn’t quite a physical pain, but more of a sense of utter wrongness.

I cried out and collapsed to the ground, panting and scraping at the concrete with my fingernails. The man crouched beside me and stroked my arm soothingly. His touch made me feel unclean. I shuttered involuntarily and broke into a cold sweat.

“What…” I gasped and collected myself enough to finish the question. “What are you doing to me?” I asked. Somehow I knew that he was the cause of my condition.

He caressed my face, and I wanted to molt to cleanse myself of his touch. “I’m removing your soul. It’s mine, now. That was the deal, remember?”

I trembled, but didn’t respond. Yes, I remembered. I had been in a haze when I made the agreement, but now I remembered it perfectly.

That was the moment I realized that I may have made a terrible mistake.

“Mmmm, it’s been a long time since I have encountered such an untainted soul. Absolutely beautiful,” he hummed, coaxing my soul out as he stroked me.

It was almost gone, and I knew that I would die as soon as it left me.

A grin pulled the man’s face into a devious expression. He suddenly scooped me toward him by the back of my neck. He looked into my eyes, like he could see straight into me, and I found that I could see straight into him. Swirling around in the black depths of his eyes, I could see pure evil. They began to glow red, and the heat from his eyes ran down his arm, through his hand, and into the back of my neck. The searing pain on the back of my neck overcame me, and I screamed.

“Hush, child. You will not die, for I have marked you,” he said.

My scream withered into an anticlimactic whimper as all my energy left me in a final whoosh. I blinked up at the man holding me, seeing him with a vision that I did not have a moment ago. His body was encased in a brilliant light. It was beautiful.

He gently set me down and stood, holding his hand out before him. The breathtaking light trickled into a blinding mass that seemed to pulse with a light of its own, hovering above his palm. This left the man encased in a writhing darkness.

“It’s quite magnificent, isn’t it?” the man asked me, gazing into the ball of light.

“What is it?” I asked, but I knew before he answered.

“Your soul,” he said, his eyes glittering red. “You can see it with the new demon vision that I have given you. And I must say, that tint of red looks lovely on your irises, my dear.”

My gaze flicked from my soul to the darkness enshrouding the man before me. Somehow, the darkness terrified me more than the fact that my soul was in his hand.

“Aw,” he said, following the direction of my attention, “Yes, you can also see the lack of a soul, the void where a soul should be. Take a look at yourself.”

I looked down and experienced a terror that matched no other. The moment was more horrible than finding my dead mother. The same writhing darkness that encased the man was cloaking me. I looked back up at my soul and suddenly leaped toward it, desperate to get it back.

With a flick of the man’s hand, it blipped out of existence.

“Where did it go?!” I demanded.

The man laughed at my panicked expression. “Don’t worry; I just put it in a more secure place for safe keeping.” He placed an arm around my shoulders and gave a friendly squeeze. “Now, I believe we have an errand to run, Mavis,” he said. He paused to give me a look. “Oh, forgive me, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m the Devil. You can call me Satan.” He gave me a deceptively friendly smile.

I wanted to tell him he was crazy and run away, but I knew he spoke the truth. I had watched him take my soul. This man was the Devil.

When I looked away from the Devil’s smiling face, we were no longer standing in an abandoned alley. We were riding in the ambulance with my mom’s body. The EMT’s didn’t seem to notice that they had acquired two additional passengers. They were sitting around solemnly, knowing that there was nothing left to be done for my mother.

The Devil slipped his arm off of my shoulders and stepped toward my mom, holding out a glowing orb in his hand. My mom’s soul was cloudier than mine. It didn’t seem to glow quite as brightly, but I still found myself gasping at its beauty. The Devil coaxed the soul back into my mom’s body, and it reluctantly enveloped her.

One of the EMT’s sat up straighter with a sudden alertness. He studied my mom intently.

“What’s wrong, Harold?” One of the female EMT’s asked, noticing his strange expression.

“I thought I saw…” his voice faded off into doubt. Then he leaped up. “She’s alive! I saw her move!”

The female EMT looked at Harold skeptically. “Maybe you should take a break from the late night shifts…” Then she stood, when she saw my mom gasp for air.

All at once, the EMT’s leaped into action, checking her vitals and attending to her medical needs. I squeezed through the commotion and knelt by my mom.

“Mom,” I croaked. I realized that I was crying. “Mom, you’re okay. You’re okay,” I murmured, petting the hair away from her face.

“Mavis?” she said weakly, extinguishing my suspicion that I was invisible. The EMT’s seemed to be aware of my presence, as well, but they didn’t question how I had come to be there.

I glanced around to ask the Devil what the hell was going on, but he was gone. In fact, I realized that I could no longer see souls or the lack of them, like I had been able to a moment ago. The nightmare was over.

Thus, concluded the moment where I thought I must have made a terrible mistake by selling my soul. My mom was alive, so it all had been worth it.

I know you’re probably thinking that I must have been an idiot, so this is a good time to tell you that I was a student at MIT, just to give you something else to think about.