by Con Template
“Why?”
“Because I do not see the worth in humans,” he shared without filter. There was not a trace of bluff in his cruel voice. He plowed on, explaining ever so clearly his disgust for my race. “There is nothing about any of you that appeals to me. There is nothing about your race that shows me that you’re worth anything. The fact that I’m now at risk of becoming one of you isn’t necessarily helping me develop any extra love for your race.”
My blood boiled at how easily he was insulting me with his abrasive words. How could a perfectly nice day culminate to such a hostile conversation?
“Oh the horror of being human, huh?” I snidely commented.
Eclipse glowered at me. He didn’t miss the biting sarcasm in my voice. “There’s nothing your kind could offer me that could convince me to give up being a Demon to become human.”
“I’m human,” I reminded him with fury. “You do realize you’re insulting me as well?”
He scoffed unapologetically. “That’s why we’re trying to get you to convert.”
I regarded him with astonishment. After all was said and done, I finally saw the light. No matter how charming he was, no matter how kind he appeared, and no matter how smitten he looked, Eclipse was not just Eclipse—he was also the Demon of Lust, the very spawn of Satan. He was the very thing that all the fibers that made me human feared. His charms may have obscured this reality for a transitory moment, but now I saw things clearly. The Demon’s true colors were on display, and I was disgusted.
“This . . . this is what you are, and you still think I’d want to become a Demon? You still think I’d want to become a soul-less Demon like you and not feel the simplest human emotions?”
The words came out faster than I could’ve stopped them.
In return, Eclipse’s reaction was raw and unfiltered as well.
“As opposed to being a bottom-feeder who gets joy from the miseries of kids and their mothers?” Eclipse snapped cruelly, stunning me with the bluntness of his words. His anger mated with mine as we finally arrived at the quiet bus stop. He glared down at me, his once doting eyes blazing with the fires of Hell. “Don’t proceed to judge me and my motives because there’s not an inch of your house that isn’t made of glass. You act so self-righteous and pious, yet both of us know about the sadistic tendencies that flow within you. The only difference between us is that I don’t judge you.”
I stood my ground, unafraid of the power radiating from his authoritative and wrathful demeanor. “The difference between us is that however sadistic I am, I’m still human! I still have human emotions where I can empathize with others!”
“You killed your own family and you couldn’t care less about their deaths!”
“I was six!” I snapped before losing it. I glared at him, the fires of Hell raging in my own eyes as soon as he reminded me about my fucked up past. “Don’t stand there and act like you give a fuck about me or know a fucking thing about me!” I continued, punctuating each word with hatred and disgust. “We both know that you’re only here because you want to fuck me, you want to have me as your trophy, and you want to become a full Demon again.” I shook my head in revulsion. “I’ve told you once and I’ll tell you this again: I’m not giving you my soul, you disgusting monster.”
The muscles in Eclipse’s jaw hardened while his face morphed into a cold, emotionless marble. My calling him a monster was the breaking point.
“What’s so wonderful about being a fucking human that you want to hang onto your soul this much?!” he shouted at me, scaring OinkOink so much that the puppy cowered away in my bag. Unaffected by the puppy’s whimpers of sadness, he plowed on scornfully. “I am offering you salvation—to become something better than what you are. And this is the fate you moronically choose every time? You choose to keep that already fucked up soul of yours and continue to be the pathetic human that you are?”
“I’m not going to let you destroy my life!”
“What life?!” he roared, his irate voice thundering along the desolate dirt road. “What life do you have right now? You have no family, you have no real friends, and you have no one who cares about you enough to die for you in this world. You are completely void of human emotions, only showing some semblance of sympathy every now and then because you feel you should so you don’t feel entirely like a freak. You care about absolutely nothing but yourself. The few things you care about—the few things you obsess over—are your appearance and your future. You pathetically try to make up for your sadistic tendencies by giving your victims money, whether it be the homeless man or the shelter or whoever is unlucky enough to be the victim of your sadism. You are running low on your inheritance now, barely scraping by because of your constant indulgence in your sadistic tendencies. And to add to all of that, all you care about is your future—how you want it to be and how great you’re going to make it because your life sucks right now. But you know the funny thing about that? It’s all a waste of time because you have nothing to look forward to. You don’t even have a future!”
A paralyzing terror unlike any other overcame me at his last words.
At the same instant, Eclipse stopped talking. His eyes were wide when he realized that he had inadvertently disclosed something in his moment of rage that he wasn’t supposed to reveal. Within a split second, the ambiance around us evolved from wrathful to ominous.
“D-don’t have a future?” I finally managed to ask, my words coming out in stutters. Terror ricocheted off my quivering body while I stood there in shock. “What are you talking about?”
Eclipsed inhaled sharply and closed his mouth. The wrathful Demon that was berating me was gone, and in his place was Eclipse, who was now staring at me in stunned silence. It was palpable that he did not want to answer my question.
“What are you talking about, Eclipse?” I repeated, staring up at him with fear in my eyes. When his silence remained, I upped the ante and enunciated my next words with unforgiving severity. My expression said it all: I was going to rip his face off if he didn’t answer me soon. “What are you talking about?”
“ . . . You’re on a time limit on Earth,” Eclipse finally told me long moments later, effectively causing the color to drain from my face. As the cold wind grew chillier at his words, the foreboding fear stole all the warmth from my trembling body. “If I don’t successfully turn you into a Demon before time runs out, then you will die.”
I was beyond comprehension at this point. All I could do was stare and allow the silence to stretch over me and torture me with its overbearing presence. Then, after what felt like an eternity had passed, I asked, “W-when?”
“Some time after you turn twenty-one.”
It felt as though a semi-truck had just hit me. My chest was locking up in pain and I could scarcely breathe. I replayed what he said and still couldn’t believe his words.
After . . . after I turn twenty-one?
“My twenty-first birthday is on December 26th,” I said slowly, grasping the urgency of the expiration date he gave me.
Eclipse gave a grief-stricken nod of confirmation. “I know.”
“That’s about two months from now.”
He nodded again. “I know.”
My mind was running in circles.
How could this be happening to me? How was it possible that there was an expiration date on my life and how was it possible that the expiration date was coming so soon?
Oh God . . .
It felt like my whole world was crumbling around me. I raised my terrified eyes to Eclipse after a troubling thought assaulted my psyche.
“H-how? What am I going to die from?”
Eclipse let out a long breath and raked his fingers through his hair. Although it was clear that he didn’t want to answer me, he also knew that it was inevitable now. Pandora’s box had been opened, and he had to help me deal with the aftermath.
Taking a moment to curse at himself for his own rashness, he reluctantly enlightened me.
“Durin
g your twenty-first year, at some point, you’re going to contract a virus. It will be a bug that’s harmless to everyone else, but fatal to you. It will start off as a regular cold. You will get a high fever and it will progress exponentially from there. Modern medicine will not be able to save you. Before you know it, you will be bed-ridden. No one will be allowed near you in fear of contamination. You’ll be completely alone in that quarantined hospital ward dying a slow, painful, and certain death. And that’s how you’ll leave this world—too young to experience everything that life has to offer.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this in the beginning? Wouldn’t this help with your persuasion?” I asked quietly, shaking where I stood. I had no idea where my mind was at that moment. I was so paralyzed with fear that I couldn’t even begin to categorize my emotions.
From the distance, I could see the headlights of an approaching bus. While its appearance brightened the dark road, it offered me no solace. If anything, the lights only served to make me feel more depressed and miserable.
Eclipse’s sympathetic eyes took inventory of the petrified state I was in. “There’s a lot about me that you don’t know, but know that I wanted to spare you from this knowledge for as long as I could.” He sighed, swallowing tightly. “Telling a girl that I’ve taken a strong liking to that she’s going to die soon isn’t something that I want to do during my courtship.” He exhaled a pained breath, his gaze assessing the misery engulfing my now pale face. “And I didn’t want to see you like this.”
I didn’t say anything. I simply found empty solace in staring at the ground as the whirring of the bus came closer and closer.
“I want to save you, Gracie.” Eclipse stepped closer to me. His warm hands reached out to cup my cheeks in tenderness. He gently raised my eyes to meet his. “Let me give you the long, prosperous life you deserve. Let me save you from this fate. You don’t have to die like this, Gracie. You don’t have to die at all. I can save you. I can stop all of this, if only you’d let me.”
“I . . . I need to be alone.”
“Gracie,” he began softly.
“Please,” I said feebly, so traumatized that I couldn’t even gather the energy to argue with him. I didn’t want to talk to him anymore. I just wanted to be alone.
Noting the fear that had overridden me, Eclipse must’ve understood that I needed my space because instead of forging on as he usually would, he nodded in understanding. He freed my cheeks from his hands and took a step away from me.
Though I felt despondent when he withdrew his warm touch from my skin, I knew that it was better for me to be left alone as opposed to being around him. I needed to be by myself. I needed to think.
Eclipse moved out of the way, allowing me to sweep past him as I climbed onto the bus alone. I walked down the aisle of the empty bus and slid into the backseat.
I kept my eyes staring straight ahead.
I couldn’t see him, but I could feel Eclipse’s gaze on me—he was genuinely worried for me. I wanted to turn back and stare at him for comfort. Instead, I found comfort in OinkOink by pulling him out of my bag and setting him on my lap. As if understanding my pain, OinkOink nuzzled himself close to me. He quietly whimpered as I mindlessly petted him.
My heart twisted in agonized knots when the bus started moving me away from Eclipse and closer and closer to my own world of contemplation. There were a myriad of conflicting thoughts sparring for attention in my mind. However, the most prominent thought was the one that terrified all the nerves that made me human: I was going to die soon.
In two months, if I didn't give my soul to Eclipse, I was going to die.
"But that was before I met you . . . the one who ruined everything."
18: The End of Grace
The weight of the world suffocated me as I sat in my living room in silence.
I kneeled on the floor with a big piece of white butcher paper spread out in front of me, coloring the banner I was making for Sanctuary. I had been meaning to post this banner on campus to bring my school’s attention to the existence of Sanctuary. I wanted to help raise funds and recruit new volunteers for the shelter. Since I had just found out that I was going to die soon, there was no more reason for procrastination. I had to finish this soon and post it while I had time.
I bit my quivering lip and capped off the purple marker. While I colored inside the outlined black letters, I couldn’t help but allow tears to form in my eyes. My eyes blurred as the tears dripped onto the butcher paper, staining it completely. I sniffled to myself and made a mental note to put some glitter on the tearstained area to hide the remnants of my pain. I drew in a deep breath to regulate my tears before lightly pushing OinkOink, who was pawing at my knees to comfort me, away to grab the pink marker that was underneath him.
The saddest part of accepting my fate was knowing that I would die alone. I killed my entire family, had no one I could really call a friend, had no significant other who actually cared about me, and I had not accomplished the one thing I had always wanted for myself: to overcome my sadistic tendencies and become completely human.
With all this somber contemplation, it was only natural for my traffic of thoughts to segue into Eclipse’s proposition. In the midst of the darkness overshadowing my once bright future, I saw the light in what Eclipse was offering me: eternity.
Now that I had discovered that I only had a few months to live, it was tempting to accept his offer. It would be sensible to agree to give him my soul because who wouldn’t want to live forever? As enticing as it sounded, I just couldn’t settle on this rationale. How could I give up my soul if it was the only thing I possessed that made me human—if only minutely? I already felt like a freak. Although I was a freak with a disturbed soul, at least I had a soul. If I parted ways with it, then I would have truly lost the battle with my sadism. There would be no hope for me to become a good person after that.
I was so conflicted with my choices.
Die in a few months or live forever as a Demon? Did I want to die like that? Did I want to live like that? I honestly didn’t know what to do.
My sadism wanted eternity; my humanity wanted the end of forever.
I went to bed with the hope that some shut-eye would help me make the decision about what I should do with my life—or my possible death. A myriad of thoughts swarmed my mind and all I wanted to do was sleep and hope that my subconscious would make the life-or-death decision for me.
However, as I attempted to sleep with OinkOink slumbering at the foot of my bed, I realized all too quickly that even though I was tempted with the prospect of living forever, I could never fathom the idea of becoming a Demon.
At least with death, I would be liberated. As a Demon, I would be chained for all of the unending eternities. And I couldn’t have that. I just couldn’t have that. I couldn’t give up my soul. I couldn’t give up what was left of my humanity. I’d rather die with my soul than live for all eternity without it.
●●●
I woke up the next morning determined to tell Eclipse that I chose death. To my frustration, Eclipse didn’t appear at all in the morning. I thought it was strange that he had yet to make an appearance, but I figured he must have been giving me some time to deliberate. With that thought in mind, I continued to wait for him into the early afternoon. By the time night descended over the world, I found myself disappointed that he had yet to make an appearance.
Honestly, where the hell was he?
It was only when I was in the elevator of my apartment building, staring mindlessly at random floating dust particles, that I felt someone else's presence. The aroma I had come to adore invaded my senses. At the same time, the cloud of smoke that I had become all too familiar with billowed around me, indicating that the one I had been waiting for had finally arrived for my verdict.
“Please tell me you’re going to accept my offer.”
Eclipse was standing beside me, dressed in one of his impeccable black suits. The elevator had come to a stop mid-flight, and
I knew this was Eclipse’s doing. He was giving us the privacy we needed for this important conversation.
“You have been avoiding me all day,” I stated instead, assessing his face.
He looked exhausted, like he hadn’t had a good night’s rest. I had a rough night, and I was positive that Eclipse had experienced the same anxiety, if not worse. My decision not only affected my own existence, but his as well. It was understandable why he would be so fatigued with concern.
“I gave you time to truly think things over,” Eclipse amended, taking a lethargic moment to look at my yellow empire waist dress before retuning his focus to me. Desperation cloaked his gaze. “Please tell me that you’ve made the right decision. Tell me the answer is ‘yes.’”
I shook my head. One would think that fear would hound me after I officially accepted my decision and ultimately chose death. On the contrary, I felt nothing. Sleep did me a world of good. The fact that I was the one who made the decision to keep my soul, despite the inevitable mortality awaiting me, made me feel empowered. I liked that I was doing the right thing, no matter how difficult it was for the sadistic part of me to accept.
“Fuck,” Eclipse muttered, face-palming himself in misery. Unlike me, his reaction to the prospect of death was not as serene or diplomatic. “Fuck my life. Shit like this only happens to me.”
I swallowed tightly at his acidic words. I had already anticipated this negative reaction, and for the most part, I understood his frustration. It wouldn’t be pleasant news for anyone to hear that his existence was now in jeopardy because of someone else’s decision.
“I’m sorry that your fate is tied to mine, but it’s not my fault you made a premature deal without consulting me first.”
I was considerate, but I was also rational. He should know that this wasn’t entirely my fault. I was about to die soon. I didn’t need the accountability hanging over me that I had killed someone else along with myself. If someone was foolish enough to make such a moronic deal, then they should accept the consequences of their choices in life as well.