This here piece was for a competition on a site. I had to do a piece in 1000 words or less.
The prompt was: "We all have regrets. Suppose you were given a chance to go back and change one thing about your life. Maybe it was something you did that you regret. Maybe it's something you didn't do that you regret. Would it change your life and /or the lives of others? If so, how?"
And here's my entry below:
“I’m not interested in what you have to say!” Loria paused, listening to the demon hidden behind her mind. “I’ve said it time and time again, Bealzelea, I act freely of you, and I want to act now.”
Loria was a Devil-Child, a person who had been infused with the power of a demon. It had its perks, and at the same time, its shortfalls. She had deathly pale skin, with hair to match. Her eyes were a blood red, only being made scarier by the perfectly black pupils. She wore a pair of dark green cargo pants and a tight-fitting black T-shirt. Both arms had been ripped off in an especially gruesome encounter, and had since been replaced with metallic counter-parts. Her left arm joined just after the elbow, her right just below her shoulder.
“Is he still bothering you?” a quiet voice said in front of her. Loria felt sorry for her; Hachi was a blind insomniac, having being robbed by someone of her magical potential during birth. Her blue eyes had long glazed over, her blond hair tied into a loose ponytail.
“No, he doesn’t bother me. I call the shots, remember?” Loria said, giving a bored sigh. She didn’t even know why she came anymore to Hachi’s house. She had long given up hope on trying to establish a connection with other people. The Demon Pages had long ago burned out that part of her identity. Almost sixty-eight years and she still hasn’t given a damn about other people. She has felt nothing. She cared more about animals than people.
It was her curse for wielding such power, the inability to care for others, while all the time demanding it.
Loria saw Hachi shift uneasily in her seat. “You don’t have to come here anymore, if you want. I won’t mind, I’ve been alone for so long I’m used to it,” Hachi said, picking up the teacups and taking them to the sink. She sat back down again.
“Hachi, please. I’ll stay,” she said, trying to sound sincere; it was a lie, and she knew it. She was here under sufferance.
The two sat in an awkward silence. Loria concentrated on the ticking of the clock to keep the voice of the demon from getting to her.
“I think I should leave. Bealzelea is getting agitated,” she said after a while. “I’ll come back next week. I really do enjoy your tea.”
“Thanks…” Hachi said, moving to the door and opening it. Loria walked out, taking a look at her wristwatch. It read 16:47. Plenty of time to get home. At least she didn’t have to worry about Hachi now that she was outside.
“I…” a dark whisper began. “…am tired of your consistent whining.”
Loria fell to her knees, giving violent wretches of pain as the demon ripped through her skin in trails of black smoke. Her shirt was torn to shreds. The black void of smoke looked at her with two empty white eyes.
“What are you doing?!” she yelled at the shadow demon
“Something I should have done a long time ago. You continue to whine and moan, and yet do nothing about it. Take action? Laughable. I will be taking the action from now on.”
“And what do you expect to do? You were kicked out by your own brethren because of your ‘actions’!”
The demon said nothing, and Loria felt her mind grow younger. Her body didn’t age; she was immortal because of Bealzelea. For a brief moment she blacked out from the world spinning by. When she awoke she was lying on a large bed of grass in a vast field.
“You say it first,” a boy said.
“No, you say it first,” she found herself replying playfully. She was sixteen once again, sixty-eight years in the past. She knew exactly what was going to happen.
“Ladies first,” the boy responded. Loria smiled at Joshua. He was her boyfriend, and while they were very much in love, neither had the guts to admit it.
“Let’s take a walk,” Loria said, jumping up and grabbing his hand. “I have a few things on my…mind.”
“’Kay, let it out,” he said playfully.
“I’m scared,” she began, “I’m scared of saying it. I might lose you…”
“And how would that happen?” he inquired, raising an eyebrow.
“I’m not normal…”
“Your choice of music established that a while ago. I don’t care.”
“It’s more than that…You know magic?” Joshua nodded. “It’s real; in more ways than one.”
“Stop joking.”
“I’m not. I have a demon inside of me… And…and there’s these people wanting to kill me. I’m scared of hurting you like that, when I die…”
“I’ll protect you. Let them come, I’ll kick their asses into fifty shades of blue,” he said confidently.
“That won’t happen, my boy,” a slick voice said. A man dressed in a grey trench-coat grabbed him and pointed a handgun at Loria. “Both are you are sentenced to death. You for working with the vile demon, and you for being one.”
“No!” Loria shouted, jumping out of the way as he fired. She scrambled around, looking for the Demon Pages; she could still remember from when it happened the last time: she had stumbled across the book. Inside was unimaginable power, at the cost of a portion of her identity. This scene had played out so clumsily before; this time she knew what to do.
She dug into the deep grass and pulled the faded hard-cover from the depths. She pulled open to the first page, before aiming her finger at the demon-hunter.
“Loria!” Josh yelled.
“Joshua, I’m sorry…I – I love you,” she said. It was the three words she had been wanting to, yet unable to, say for so many years.
She fell to her knees, back again in her own time. The demon seeped back into her bleeding wounds, the last strand of smoke licking by her ear.
“Good girl…” Bealzelea whispered.
“Fuck you, too,” she replied almost joyfully.
