Another devil moved towards him, her arm lunging out with the speed of an arrow from a bow. But the figure didn’t flinch, catching her arm within both hands before he broke it, snapping it from the start of the elbow and pulling it down, like he was snapping a branch upon a tree. As blood spewed out and she screamed, the snapping point of the bone was revealed, looking like the tip of an ivory spear. He used such a tip to kill the next demon that came for him, piercing its face with the protrusion, causing both demons to scream and bleed in sync. Still holding the first by the broken arm, he spun her into the second, still using the protruded bone like a spear tip, cutting through its torso like a canvas. They both died screaming as their damaged forms descended out of his sight.
Their screams were replaced by snarls, two males moved together, their wings extended like the talons of eagles. The figure faced them driving his fists into their chins, shattering their jaws and sending the bone fragments into their faces like shrapnel. As blood flowed throughout their expressions the figure grabbed them by the wings, one wing per demon before clapping them together with such force that their bodies broke apart, blood and bone exploding into the air. They collided and melding together like horrible clay. As their dead bodies fell out of the air, it was impossible to tell where one corpse ended and the other began.
The next demon, another female, bellowed as she bared her teeth, her claws kept out, her hands reaching towards him as if to strangle his head right off his neck. But before her hands could reach him, his hand reached her, stabbing through her stomach like a sharp spear through mud. As blood and the outer layer of organs lined the wound, blood spewed out of her quivering mouth as her whole body twitched, like she was a worm cruelly and incorrectly placed on a hook. As her whole body gyrated with such ghastliness the figure slowly moved his arm, moving her out of his way so he could see the last of the flying demons. A male whose whole body was twitching as if terrified of suffering the same fate as the female.
The male moved its mouth, beginning to summon that green light. As it did so the figure brought his arm up through the female’s body, splitting her in half from her stomach to her scalp. She spilt open like some sort of brutish banana. Before what remained of her had even fallen from the sky the figure was upon the last demon, clasping his hand around the male’s mouth. The grip was so strong that the male remained almost completely still. The light of its attack overfilled its eyes before its head exploded like an overcooked cake.
The figure didn’t watch its body descend but every demon below did, some eyes trembled, while some eyes narrowed, but there wasn’t one that hadn’t witnessed the ankle annihilating the bear trap. The figure then moved quickly, falling towards the ground, a green light summoned and encircling it, like the flames of a meteorite. When the figure struck the ground it certainly seemed to have the impact of a comet. He hadn’t chosen a clear space, he had crashed right into their ranks, the impact like a boulder thrown into a lake, the sanguine fluid of their bodies booming through the air, looking like flames of blood. It was an explosion that eroded away those who were unfortunate enough to be anywhere near where the figure had fallen.
When the fusillade finished, so many bodies had been obliterated that only their blood was left behind and the figure looked like he was standing on a crimson lake. Hundreds had been killed by the collision but thousands still surrounded that lake, they summoned a symphony of snarls as they still stared at the lone figure.
Such snarls came to a sudden end when the figure moved two fingers towards what passed as his mouth, one finger from each hand. That is when the demons began to twitch as rage and fear battled within each body. The fingers probed the mouth the way a torturer’s tool probed a wound. When the fingertips emerged they brought two glowing green lines with them, as sickening as spit. The green lines really did look like some kind of salvia as one end stayed attached to his mouth the other upon his fingertips. He brought his hands out to either side, looking almost the way a man does when licking his fingers to find which way the wind was blowing. Then the streams of salvia suddenly straightened before bending around either side of him and forming a halo around the figure, yet there was nothing angelic about such action.
The circle expanded, mauling through many necks, sending their heads off of their spines. It was as swift as it was sadistic, the first several rows of demons around the blood lake were decapitated, their bodies falling faster to the ground, as their skulls were sent into the lake like hellish hail. The figure kept his hands raised as the living demons witnessed the severed heads swimming through the lake like piranhas pining for their next meal. The heads began to encircle the figure as for a moment it truly did seem like they were going to jump out and devour him.
They did jump out, but not to devour him, one by one they came together in the air spinning around him, ascending with each head that joined the line. Soon the spinning heads were so numerous that they formed a spinning sky-scraping pillar around him. One by one their eyes began to glow, not green in colour, but red as if the decapitated heads were still living bloodthirsty things. It seemed as such as the lake of blood began to whirl in rhythm with the spinning heads and like a whirlpool the lake rose up and descended into their mouths, like the pillar was determined to drink until the lake was dry. When that moment came and there was no more blood to consume the heads began gnashing their teeth together, creating a chorus of cruel chatter, demanding from the witnessing demons that they offer up their own blood.
The demons offered up nothing, they moved in, like flesh eating ants upon an arm. Some stormed the ground with thick feet, while others who possessed wings took flight, it mattered not how they moved, only that they were all moving towards the pillar. The sound of flesh being torn from bone was far louder than any demonic scream, the teeth of the pillar bit into bone, blood and bodies alike, chewing up the attacking creatures like wood into a chipper. The pillar kept spinning and the demons kept dying, fingers, eyes, arms, legs, ears, chests and breasts the pillar was not picky in what it ate. It moved forward as it dined, moving deeper within the dark city. There were so many demons dying that the heads couldn’t swallow everything they ate and so they spat out bones, like bolts from crossbows, cutting through demonic flesh like it was as frail as flowers. They were so gluttonous that they simultaneously swallowed new flesh while vomiting out old meat. How many demons died couldn’t be deciphered, although there was so much blood that there was no space between the sky and the ground that wasn’t covered in crimson, save for slits of green as some demons tried to blast their way through the pillar. But the pillar devoured them all the same.
Then the pilaster suddenly stopped spinning, the sudden action so severe that all the blood that had been churning like butter was whipped into the heavens covering the clouds in crimson and making the night glow red. The pillar crumbled, the heads becoming like hail once more as they covered the ground in one continuous pile, revealing the figure to the outside world once again. The blood that had painted the sky now began to descend in a deluge, dropping like rain, making the world appear like one large ghastly wound.
The figure didn’t blink once, even as he began to be covered in blood, the ground becoming so wet it truly seemed he would drown if he stayed in one spot for too long. He was looking out at the city and the city was looking back at him. There were many more demons within, filling the inner walls like teeth within a shark’s mouth. The red rain was falling so heavily that the snarls and any other sound the demons made couldn’t be heard, but they could be seen all too clearly.
The aurora borealis colored light began to boom around him and soon a sphere of it incased him. As many monsters opened their mouths, green light growing within them, the figure left the ground, becoming like a comet and colliding through the closest wall. The figure didn’t just break through it, he obliterated it like a sword slicing through an infant’s stomach. If the city was like a body than the figure was like a parasite plunging and piercing through its flesh and organ
s. The fear in the demons’ faces barely could be conjured before they were caught up within the green, their bodies gored and gutted, painting the city walls with blood and bone fragments. The tail of the comet grew catching within it what remained of corpses until before long it looked like a hungry snake, made entirely out of entrails, was chasing after the comet and the figure concealed within it. The destruction didn’t stop there, the very few demons that managed to become air borne didn’t escape the extinction, pieces of the green flared up towards them like arms, eating through them like acid.
The destruction of the demonic city spread, the figure like a shark fin swimming through the ocean, turning the water into teeth and tearing through everything that called the water home. If any god had the guts to peer through the clouds and look down upon the city, even they would vomit viewing such destruction as the figure bounced around the city like a super ball slaughtering everything within its path. Even for an apocalypse this annihilation was an abomination.
The figure only stopped the slaughter when it struck a wall deep within the city, a wall that did not crumble upon collision. When the figure stopped the serpent of entrails spread all over the city, soaking everything in a slaughtered sickly stew. It made the parts of the city the comet had cut through truly look as if the gods had vomited so violently that their lungs and livers had left their bodies.
As the sea of vomit crashed down towards him the figure stayed in the air, his head still touching the contact point against the wall. His feet found the ground as his head remained in place, the snow globe of green vanishing like a ghost. He paid no attention to the last splash of vomit behind him as like pieces of undigested corn corpses caressed the ground just behind him. The city had crumbled against his might, but this wall stood firm, protecting whatever lay beyond it.
Finally, the figure moved its head away from the wall only to slam it hard into its surface. The blow was as strong as it was sickening, like a bear willing to bite off its own tongue, just to get to the honey within. As powerful as the blow was the wall stayed strong and so the figure kept banging his head into it, each blow more brutal than the last. The sounds of bones breaking billowed into the air, yet the wall remained intact. Even when the figure’s own blood began to ooze out of its skull it didn’t stop. Whacking the wall with all the strength it could muster.
Finally, it stopped, allowing its own blood a chance to slide down its cheeks instead of splattering against the wall. The sight of its own blood made the entire massacre even more monstrous, like the figure’s bloodlust was so gluttonous it had effortlessly shifted from sadomasochism to masochism like someone switching from butter to margarine. The figure didn’t snarl at the wall and that made it all the scarier as he stared in a suffocating silence.
A green sphere then glowed forming around his fist, as his muscles moved terrifyingly tight as if the figure was sending all of his strength into the sphere. Then the sphere-swallowed-fist struck the wall, causing it to groan like an old man getting strangled. The wall did break open, but didn’t collapse or crumble, summoning a scar like shape before him. His hand continued to glow even as he lowered it and peered in.
There was darkness there, but it was neither empty nor empathetic. Within the wall itself, he could see things that looked like teeth, like the wall was actually some sort of hellish head and was now baring its teeth at the one who had dared to strike it. The figure slowly leaned back, moving its head out of the wall, the scar, although it had gone right through the wall, was slim, not something a figure of his size could just walk through.
His head turned as his eyes lowered, looking upon the corpse of a female demon whose head was touching the back of his feet. She remained mostly intact, looking like a snake had swallowed her before spitting her out because she tasted terrible. The blood of others even soaked her the way stomach juices soaked something that wasn’t yet digested. Suddenly he slammed his hand between her breasts, summoning a small storm of blood into the air as he grasped her dead heart. It did not come easily, like a child desperately holding onto their seat so their ass couldn’t be smacked. But the heart soon became his and he held it over his head, before crushing it in his hand, sending its blood down upon his body.
The next heart he took was from a male, followed by a female and then two more males. He took the hearts and squeezed them over his head, like they were oranges and their blood was juice, fresh and tasty. He didn’t drink the blood, but he seemed to be trying to drown himself within it. A few more bodies and a few more hearts and seemingly he was not yet satisfied. That is when he took an entire male body above his head and ripped it in two, the blood thick and terrible, covering him like mud. Finally satisfied he entered the scar, slipping through it, using the blood to lubricate his body and block the wall’s teeth from tearing into him.
Beyond the wall even the moonlight was monstrous. It crawled like bugs scurrying to find somewhere safe, leaving the little light there was in lines, like the light had somehow been killed and all that was left were bodies. Shadows swallowed much of the place, but there was enough light for him to see female figures, lurking in leotard-like-garments watching him from each level of the room. They all possessed the same face, nose-less and nightmarish, a pair of black holes for eyes, a third hole for a mouth. They looked like someone had sawed off their heads and replaced them with coconuts, each wearing the same style of shorthaired curling wig. Like the demons outside they all stared at him, but unlike the demons they all remained silent and still.
His eyes didn’t wander across these weird women; his eyes were focused upon the figure that sat on a throne at the end of the room. It was a male, a male demon at that, with skin a shade of blue that was darker than black. The darkness draped across it, revealing only a sinister silhouette, save for its eyes, not even the darkness dared to get away near them. They were red and revolting, like they had eaten the demon’s original pair of eyes and now sat within stolen sockets. The figure on the throne stared back at the figure that had broken through the wall, its head resting on its hand, its fingers upon its temple. It didn’t appear devastated by what the first figure had done to the city; it looked more displeased. Like the first figure had done little more damage than accidentally stepping into a garden bed.
The silence that filled the room wasn’t just suffocating, it was sadistic as if it didn’t swallow so much as strangle all other sound. They continued to stare, the figure on the throne had eyes so still, a whole continent of children could be killed before them and it still wouldn’t blink.
“So,” the demon began. “You have finally come to my city.”
Its voice was dark, dangerous and deep, a voice more beastly than any beast, more monstrous than any monster and more demonic than any other demon. “You, who has the blood of my wife on yours hands.” The demon added, his malice mouth, not moving within the black while the darkness moved as if trembling in terror at his tone. But the purple faced fiend stayed still, unlike the darkness, he didn’t scare so easily.
“It seems fitting considering the blood of my wife is on yours,” the purple-faced figure spoke, his voice echoing inside of itself, like a creature crawling inside a corpse to wear it as a coat. The purple faced fiend kept his eyes upon the demon even as his face began to change, the white in his eyes widening as if being pulled away, the circular lines vanished as green pupils were revealed in a new white, but the green was neither glowing or ghastly. The purple then slid down his face, somewhat shrinking as it moved underneath his skin, but remained visible, like a blood clot that moved to the center of his chest. His hair remained the same colour but became flat as his arms remained a wicked white.
Still the demon did not blink or move, even as it saw the face underneath.
“So,” it began. “Shigife finally shows his real face.”
“Boy,” Shigife replied, his voice changing from an echo, it remained a hard voice, but undoubtedly was human. “You fucked with the wrong farmer.”
Shigife indeed
had a face that belonged to a tiller of the soil, a face that stood strong against the sunlight and smell of manure.
“Human,” the demon replied. “Look around you, I fuck with a lot of your kind.”
For the first time Shigife looked away from the demon, towards the walkways filled with coconut headed women, they remained still, they remained staring. But for the first time humanity could be seen in his gaze and considering what he had done to the city, that made his gaze all the more haunting as he looked back to the demon.
“How many?” Shigife asked.
“Feel free to count them if you like,” the demon replied.
Shigife’s gaze did wander over the women momentarily, but soon he stared back at the demon.
“The only thing I like about this city is it is your home, how does it feel?”
“How does what feel?” the demon asked, still showing no emotion, apart from annoyance.
“Having someone enter your lands, your home, desecrating and destroying everything you have built, killing every single person you loved?” Shigife spoke in anger and this time his voice made the darkness shake, but not as severely as the demon’s laugh did. Its chuckle cut through the air, each laugh like a groan as if each sound was actually a ghost and together they haunted the whole room.
“Human, do I look like one that needs love?” The demon asked, between his haunting laughter.
“You loved your wife,” Shigife stated, bringing an end to the demon’s laugh and leaving behind something far more sinister, silence.
Then the demon made a move, simply moving its head away from its hand and the hand lying upon an armrest and yet one would struggle to think of a sight more monstrous.
9 Tales Told in the Dark 18 Page 6
