The Devil and its Pawn I

It had been a long day at work. I was feeling so tired, the night before as many others before that one I had woken up in the middle of the night. The number of the clock that´s on my nightstand glowed with the red numbers telling me it was three forty in the morning. I groaned and turned the other way trying to fall asleep.

It was a Wednesday, Wednesdays were always tiresome, filled with meetings with people that instead of business men felt like meetings with a bunch of fourth graders, asking over and over what it´s been already told.

A/N: Ok, so, I decided to put my thoughts to some use haha 

***

The sun was setting, it was six thirty in the evening, I had just left my office. I went to the parking lot walking to my assigned parking space. I got in my car, took off my jacket, my reading glasses and took out my wallet from my pants pocket, I fished in it to take out some amount of money then I put it in the glove´s compartment along with my glasses and a gold ring that my parents had gotten for me when I had graduated from college.

I checked my watch, it was six forty five. I got off the car leaving the keys in the pocket of the jacket that was carefully folder on the passenger´s seat. I walked away to the main entrance of the building where I worked. I had been careful to call a cab before coming out of the office; my cab was waiting for me.

My driver was a middle-aged man that tried to make conversation with me, after I gave him the unusual address. Two hours later we got to the place. It was deserted, dark and only lit by the moon. I paid the man that looked at me with an expression that let me know he thought I was crazy or I was dangerous. I think in a way I was both.

I had arrived at a National Park commonly known as The Devil´s Gate due to folk tales. The park consisted of a large number of smaller parks and four large rock mountains with no trees just the nude black or gray stone. Each rock mountain was bigger than the other. During my childhood I had climbed the highest one a single time, I had gotten to the top completely exhausted and without desire to come down and exert my legs even more. It had been years since that time. This place was known to be the tomb of many people killed during a civil war many years before I was even born.

Slowly, I started to climb the highest rock mountain; I went up through the stairs that had been carved to let visitors go up easier. I was going slow feeling the cool mist going in and out of my lungs as I got closer to the top. Once there I felt strangely excited. I drank half the bottle of water I had in one gulp.

On top of the mountain just like I remembered there were names carved together in the stone as some kind of promise to stay together forever or some other stupid thing like that, there were also a few bushes and the thick metal wires that were there to keep visitors to get too close to the edge. I walked to them and passed to the other side. I sat dangerously close to the edge. I stared at the sky but didn´t see much, the mist was becoming thicker. I listened to the silence for a moment.

From my pants pocket I took out two bottles of pills. My prescription of sleeping pills and my monthly prescription of strong pain killers mixed with other drugs that had been prescribed. I drank them all using the other half of the water I had saved to swallow them down. Immediately, I started to feel sleepy as I felt a slight stomachache. I got closer to the edge. My eyesight got blurry as my stomachache got worse, just barely; nothing that I hadn´t felt before. My eyelids felt heavy and my thoughts felt as if they were melting. I saw memories mixed with thoughts of plans I had have and what I thought tomorrow would be. I laughed like a mad man at the latter despite that I hadn´t found that particular thought amusing at all. It had been what had tormented me throughout the day. My mind wouldn´t let itself be put to sleep by narcotics. I felt when I slipped from the rocks, I felt like a feather or a leaf falling to what I assumed was blackness, my eyes were closer and I felt cold. I died.

I felt heavy rain hitting my face. Is this hell? I asked myself. My clothes clung to my skin and I was in a very uncomfortable position but I couldn´t move and my eyelids felt too heavy. The rain got stronger. I heard a thunder. I winced and my body registered pain. Every single one of my muscles and or bones hurt. It hurt in parts I didn’t even know existed in me. I heard myself groan and then I heard a chuckle. Due to the cold rain and drops that hit my skin I hadn´t registered the moist, soft something that was going up and down from my neck to my cheek. I opened my eyes to see a mane of black wet hair and then I knew what it was being passed on my skin, it as a tongue. I hadn´t died; there was some animal feeding on me. I panicked and tried to move but I couldn´t, all my body was sore and didn´t respond.

The animal kept licking me. I couldn´t see it well, I knew it was a matter of time before it tore apart my flesh. My heart started to beat faster and the animal seemed to like that because it licked even more. I couldn´t exactly feel, maybe it had already torn apart my skin and muscles but since I had taken the whole bottle of pain killers… I couldn´t survive to that, I couldn´t have survived to the fall I said to myself. Maybe I´m dead and this is hell I thought, unable to move, to feel, too dark to see and some animal eating me. It´s just like living I thought as I compared myself to a modern Prometheus.

“You broke your spine and you fractured your head” the animal said after a while

“You talk” I heard myself say with a raspy voice

“Of course I talk!” said the animal, except that it was no animal but a woman of pale face, gray eyes and long black hair that clung to her face. A lightning allowed me to see her.

“Who are you?” my voice stranded. I felt pain that I ignored. I felt pain but nothing else.

“The devil” she said licking the side of my face, close to my hair line

“Am I in hell?” my chest felt tight

“We prefer to call this one Earth” she went back to licking my neck

“I didn´t die” I whispered, the rain drowned my voice

“You did”

“I don´t understand” I wanted to push her away but my body wouldn´t obey

“There´s nothing to understand” her lips brushed against my skin as she spoke. I felt myself falling from the cliff all over again. I closed my eyes, maybe I was hallucinating, maybe I was still falling I thought.

Bird singing made me come out of my slumber. I opened my eyes slowly and blinked a couple of times. It was all dark. I heard and felt water somewhere close, I heard drops and the air smelled like moist but it was all dark. I thought it was morning because of the birds that kept chirping happily, yet the place was dark. I groaned as I felt my legs move. I felt an unexpected pleasure on that then I chuckled to myself thinking on the irony of my life or death, I wasn´t sure if I was dead or alive. I found amusing my joy for being happy about my legs moving when I had committed suicide.

“What is so funny?” I heard a voice close to me. I turned my head to a side and saw a small fire. “Clink” a metallic sound and the tiny light was gone. “Clink” and the fire was on again. This happened several times. a lighter I concluded not being able to make up the person that had talked.

“She war right” I heard the voice closer to me

“About?” I asked. Clink. The lighter show a small fire and I noticed a young man squatted next to me

“You are fearless. A man in your place would be scared by now”

“Death shouldn´t scare death people” I said realizing I was too calm but then that had been what made me think I was dead

“Who says you´re dead?”

“Am I alive?” I asked trying to sit and the pain made me realize I was in fact alive. I groaned.

“Ah, no” the squatted young man laughed darkly putting out the small fire “I didn´t say you were alive” he had left his lighter with that tiny flame. His face looked sallow and his eyes were very dark and he had dark rings under his eyes. His hair was messy. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. His chest was toned as someone that exercises regularly. My mind was still slow, my thoughts felt like thick honey scurrying from my brain. The woman, I thought.

“Who are you?”

“It´s unimportant” he said and I felt him leave my side. I laughed and every vibration of my laughter sent darts through my body, the inside of my veins and organs.

“What’s so funny?” Clink. His lighter produced a flame again

“I must be dead and this must be hell”

“And you came to that conclusion because…?” every time one of us talked he turned on and off the lighter. Every time he did so I caught a glimpse of my surroundings. I was on the ground of a tall cave.

“Because it doesn´t matter who you are…”

“Maybe I kidnapped you” he said I heard humor in his voice as if I was entertaining

“Why would you kidnap a suicidal person?” now my voice was heavy with humor I thought he was stupid for suggesting so

“Someone like me can take more than just your money from you” once again he was squatted next to me. He licked his finger and passed it over my forehead where the animal or woman had licked me. When he did so it felt cold but at the same time warm, he licked his finger again.

“What are you doing, Jaune?” a female voice said. The young man backed up. “Well, what are you waiting?” she said and the young man who she called Jaune walked very fast or very slow, I wasn´t sure, one time as he did so he turned on his lighter and I saw her, she was completely naked, she was very beautiful, her hair was dripping water. I stared at her as she extended her arms and Jaune helped her to some kind of black robe that he tired with a long piece of silk. She looked down to where I was staring at her and smirked then she knelt down next to me revealing on of her nude legs. She pressed her lips to mine, they were cold as if she had just eaten ice, she bit my lip hard and blood started to come out of it, she licked it one time and then she smirked against my lip, her breath was cool. My own blood was drifting into my mouth. I dreaded the taste as my stomach twisted as if acid was being poured in it. I twisted my mouth and she chuckled.

“You have some serious issues” she said getting to her feet

“Where am I?” I asked. I was starting to get tired of their mysteries.

“Does it matter?” she asked

“It does” I said firmly. I noticed the pills were finally losing effect. I didn´t find a tinge of amusement anymore. I wondered how I hadn´t have an overdose.

“And why is that?” she said sitting in an invisible chair. Jaune kept turning on and off his lighter

“I want to know”

“And how would that make any difference?” she crossed her leg

“I never asked to be here!” I said angrily still unable to move

“Oh, yes, you did, else you wouldn´t have jumped”

“You said I was still on Earth. I am supposed to be dead after what I did”

“You are dead”

“Then how come I’m on Earth and not in hell or heaven?”

“What makes you think you could go to heaven?” she raised an eyebrow

“Whatever, this hell is too cold” I said and she and Jaune laughed “Would you stop that!” I shouted to Jaune, his game with the lighter was annoying me by now

“Make me” he smirked. She observed me; the place grew quiet except for the sound of water somewhere close and the clink of Jaune´s lighter

So this is afterlife I thought to myself, feel a lot like life. I stared at some point above my head, it was dark so I didn´t really see much. It was all quiet, the scene stood like that for a very long time.

The sound of thunders awoke me. I hadn´t really slept but my mind had been on a similar state. The lightings allowed me to see glimpses of the cave with more detail. I felt acute pain on my side. I forced my eyes to see. I saw a brown mane of curls and then felt something very cold mixed with something very warm and sticky. My mind remembered and I connected the information. Jaune was licking my side. I noticed for the first time that I was naked. I felt another acute pain below my ear. I tried to look to a side but my head was being held by delicate strong hands. If felt my skin was being licked again. I remember my thought of being some kind of modern Prometheus and those too strange beings were the crows that were going to feed on me forever. I shivered and felt them both smile against my skin. They kept on that for a very long time, they caused me pain and then they licked me making me shiver with their cold tongues and that seemed to cause them amusement. I sighed feeling my eyes heavy as if they were being sucked from the inside.

Jaune moved to my arm and then to my shoulder. I heard the woman growl, now I was amused and colder too, she put her hand over my chest. I felt Jaune slowly moving to my neck, their forehead were almost touching, his curls brushed against my face. I felt his tongue on my neck and then heard an animal growl as he was being thrown away by the woman´s hand; she pushed him with her palm open. Jaune landed on the farthest rock wall, his skull cracked open. She ran to him and grabbed him by his neck.

“Don´t…” her voice sounded like a threat, he lowered his eyes, and she let him go. He stared at me and then looked at her and back at me

“Go on” she said. He walked to me slowly and then he knelt down. There was a lightning; his face was stained with blood. He put his hand on my chest; his hand was soft as hers but bigger. He leaned down as if he was about to kiss me, I moved my face to a side and wrinkled my nose. The woman laughed. He glared at me and grabbed my face and pushed his mouth against mine. He bit my lip as she had done, he bit my tongue and my mouth was filled with blood, it was disgusting. I felt I was about to choke with my own blood. I gasped for air as I did so I swallowed my own blood. Another way to die I thought as I felt myself drifting to death again.

“Are you sure about him?” a male voice that I recognized as Jaune´s asked

“Do I ever doubt?” the woman said proudly

“I don´t like it here, Omega”

“I like it a lot, that water is so crystal clear and there´s barely light during the day, we are never disturbed…”

“We have nothing to feed on” he whined and she laughed

“Before me you never knew a full meal or a meal everyday… You´ve gotten picky Jaune LaSalle”

“Don´t call me that –he huffed- I was called the bastard but he was the one that deserved to be called that”

“Let it go, Jaune, it´s been a long time” she sounded bored

“I´m bored and hungry” he complained

“You can go eat” she said. They sounded like a mother and her child

“Will we go home soon?”

“Once our new-comer is better, perhaps” she informed him, I heard footsteps going away.