Seven Devils

Paranoia is what I have been labeled with, and how ironic it is that paranoia is what led me to my final hour. One might think that the outcome of their life is directly affected by what they believe in, and I have to question myself, did I bring this terror to my own mind? Could it have been avoidable if I had never thought about it in the first place? Perhaps the world we wish to believe is the one we travel to and are confronted with at the end of our lives. I suppose I won't ever know, nor will you my dear reader, whoever you are.

Who you are, however, is unimportant to my tale. You could have known me and my feats, hated me, found this letter decades after I wrote it when my name has turned to dust, but you will remember me after you read this. All I want is for just one person to understand the horrors that lurk within and outside of this realm. The horrors that haunt me and that will slaughter me before this day is done.

See, I was dead when I woke up this morning. Breathing, of course because I'm writing this now, but dead, really. People are wrong about when death occurs. It is not when we are torn from this fabric of reality, but when we understand that we can no longer live. That we cannot change, we cannot evolve further, we cannot advance. Death is when we realize nothing we have made in our lifetime will matter to anyone but ourselves and that it is gone when our soul is thrashed apart and thrown into oblivion. Death is when one realizes that the past they have created is nothing and that their future is inescapable, that we really have no control at all.

My first death was this morning when I woke up and they were standing there, all seven of them. It was when I realized that there was nothing I could do to stop it, that the gods- or lack thereof- had my fate. They always had my fate.

My breathing was ragged as I looked around my crowded room, my heart smashing against my ribs so thunderously that I thought one of them might reach into my chest just to yank out the noise. Instead, all of them simply smirked at me with their gnarled lips and twisted sets of teeth in the same instant. The dark room was silent as they stared at me, some with blank bulging eyes, others with their pupil less ebony pools, and one that stood in the back who had no eyes at all but gouged out bloody holes that seemed to stretch into the black pits of oblivion themselves.

Five years ago there had been a prophet standing outside of the cathedral as I walked by, ranting on about the church and evil, but when he had saw me, he stopped in his tracks and barreled after me, howling a prediction at me I have not since forgotten. It was a warning the old man yelled at me, waving one of his frail fists in the air, one that haunted me in my sleep but I had never taken action to prevent. I had never been a religious man, it was all hubbub to me, besides, I was busy. I am King Saden of the realm, I never had time for religion, though now I see I should have made time. Now I see that the prophet had been more than correct and that I was a fool to walk by. I can still hear his words echoing in my head:

Repent, oh wicked one. Pray to your gods and head their warning, for there is evil in the world, and evil in the hearts. The rulers of the realm are suspicious and weary, for what is done cannot be undone. With power comes punishment, punishment that no mortal can induce. Repent, oh wicked one!, for if you do not the gods of death will see to it that all unbalance in the realm is restored. Seven devils, seven devils they say. They will visit you on your final day. You will reap what you sow and be turned into dust, for the innocence lost will be returned in gold. Seven devils all around you, there will be. Seven Devils you can prevent if you head my warning. Repent, oh wicked one and learn from your ways! Or you shall die a death of the thousands you killed, torment and blood. For it is the job of devils you wish to complete, and it is the death by devils you shall receive!

The words throbbed in my head as I stared into the faces of my fate, each one pale and ugly as it stared back. Terror and panic, they come in waves but what stays is the desperation. I sucked in a breath, still frozen in place as I gripped the sheets on my bed. 

"Wh-hat do you want?" I blubbered out. What a fool. The one standing closest to me, one so tall and thin that it's shoulders hunched forward to the point where it's chest was in the same place as it's belly, stepped forward. It's grin widened at me with the question, it's cracked and discolored lips splitting open up to it's ears as its sanguine colored eyes seemed to rip into my very soul.

"We've come to burn your kingdom down."

I couldn't stop the words that poured out of my mouth before they did, garbling as the terrified moron I was. "W-why? What have I done to deserve this?" I already knew what I had done, now with a clear mind and accustomed to the situation- yes they are still here- I know exactly what I had done with an abnormal clarity.

The devil in front of me grinned wider, leaning in closer to me with a creak of its old bones as its foul breath fanned across my face. It smelled of rotting meat and must, like someone had forgotten a skinned pig in the bottom of their cellar for weeks. "It is the job of devils you have completed, and therefore it is the death of devils that you shall receive." It's voice was hardly audible, seeming to come from the creature's chest instead of it's throat, jumbled and distorted as if it hadn't spoken for a thousand years. Maybe it hadn't.

Fear pricked my nerves once again, sending my heart into another frenzy of thrumming and I wondered how much longer I had. I wondered what the death of a devil meant, and how it was carried out. I wondered if they meant what they said about burning my kingdom down, but most of all I wondered who would get the gold the innocent souls I had taken were meant to be repaid in. 

A sound like a ripping sheet of silk sounded in my chambers and it took me a moment to realize the devil in front of me was.. chuckling? I felt my face go pale, the idiot muscle in my chest pounding even more furiously. Could they hear my thoughts?

At the thought the devil grinned so wide that it's face split into two, the grin stretching up to it's twisted set of ears and exposing the full length of it's needle like teeth. It's giant head dipped down once, confirming my thoughts. I swallowed, the sheets constrained around my body suddenly feeling very tight.

The boy of only 12 looked from the torn letter to the devil in front of him, the same one described in the very paper he held. He blinked once, shifting his feet. "How long does this go on for? And do I have to read it all?" The devil grinned back at him and shook his head slowly. 

"If you do not wish. It is simply my duty to give the dying story of the last fate holder to the new one. All you humans want to talk about your horrible death in one last stance, even when you're already dead." Another harsh chuckle and the boy looked down to the letter with a sour expression. He was dirty, covered in soot from head to toe. He wore beggar's clothes and had no shoes but bandages bound around his feet to keep away the frostbite delivered by the howling winds. He was not afraid of this messenger, or devil as the King had called him. He wasn't afraid of much anymore, the harsh winter and soldiers had taken his fear. He had lived through the worst of the King's reign and survived. What was there left to be afraid of?

The boys eyes scanned further down the letter, for another two pages it described the ruler's first encounter with the devils, describing each one in awful detail and the boy shifted his weight again. He didn't have the patience for the man he despised most's dying cowardice. He looked up from the paper to the burning castle only a few miles away. It lit up the sky with it's scorching inferno, melting the snow in the kingdom and warming the clouds themselves with the plumes of black smoke.

"You will be the summer to the King's foul winter, young one." The devil said with it's twisted smirk and the boy looked back at him with an emotionless face.

"Is he burning in there?" He asked in his rather flat tone. The devil shook it's head once again. 

"No, he did not deserve a death as serene as that one." The boy simply nodded, content with that fact but otherwise uninterested in the details.

"What am I supposed to do now?" The boy asked, staring at the sky as it dropped ashes like snow to the ground. The devil leaned in close to the boy's face then, practically doubled over because of it's height.

"Everything." He whispered, and the boy's skin rose with goosebumps though he would deny it if anyone were to ask. "Avenge your family, make your own way, little one. The kingdom is yours now, do with it what you will. But-" the devil used one of it's twisted fingers to point at the letter the boy clutched. "take note of that. It has been your warning. The gods, the devils, we control your fate. Whether you succeed or fail."

The boy nodded, his fingers tearing the letter swiftly, letting the wind pick up the pieces and scatter them with the ashes in the burning kingdom that had belonged to Saden. The devil stretched back up, watching the boy with it's bulging blank eyes.

We have given you an advantage, young one. It is an advantage most people choose to forget or dismiss. Do you not see that you are already dead? You do not fear, and you have read the letter of the last. You know that no matter what you do, you are not immortal. You understand that even all the feats you accomplish now will be erased sometime in the future. Everyone dies, little one, but we are giving you the chance to live." The devil crossed it's lanky arms with a snap, looking almost content with it's pale and twisted features. The boy looked up to the thing with his still expressionless face.

"I understand." He agreed, looking almost sad as he stared in the distance. "I will remember you always. You have been a true friend of mine." The devil let out a throaty cackle of laughter. 

"Do not worry, young one, I will appear in many people in your lifetime. I will be their lust, and anger. I will appear as their greed and their sorrow. You will be tested as the last ruler of the mortals was tested, see to it that you succeed, young one, humanity depends on it. The gods and devils alike are rather un-amused with the mortal's sense of arrogance. They will start over with a new set of mortals if it is what they see is fit." The boy sucked in a breath hearing these words, and he shifted his weight once again.

"I will act as I see fit." The boy said with a nod and the devil let out another splintering cackle. A rune the color of blood burned into the floor of pine needles and dirt then, opening a fiery portal that whipped the boy's dark hair around as the devil stepped toward it.

“Something to remember me by, boy.” The devil growled with a laugh, slashing the boy's cheek open with one of it's sharp claws. The wound opened and immediately festered, then burned and healed all within the same instant leaving him with a raised scar that went from his eyes to the corner of his mouth. The boy flinched, and before he could call out in pain, the agony had already subsided.

“Oh I almost forgot..” The devil brought out a small sack attached to it's belt and threw it at the boy. “The King's debts repaid in full to you, fate holder.” Another long cackle and the devil dissappeared with the portal, sucked back into oblivion as the boy was doused in darkness.

The boy leaned down and picked up the sack, opening it's chord to reveal a small bottle with a shimerring golden liquid and two handfuls of coins he had never seen before. He closed the bad and sucked in another breath, turning away from the burning kingdom's streets he once called home and starting forward into the darkness of the unknown.