The Demon

The world has gone crazy. The moon is red, and so is the blood that falls from the heavens. There is not a star in the sky, not because it is cloudy, but because all the stars decided not to shine tonight. Down on Earth, it is dry, as if the blood raining from the sky vanished as soon as it hit the ground, which is covered in orange grass. Strange, it may appear, but stranger still that the people crowding the deserted valley seem not to notice a thing. For them, hypnotized beings, the night is as normal as the most standard night. They are talking amongst each other. Did you hear the result of the football match? Oh yes, it was wonderful, I love that team. Did you see the show last night? Indeed, it is a pity she died. They don’t care, no one looks at the sky above. They are robots, or zombies, whichever you prefer.

Amongst the people, there is a man who stands out from the rest. He has sharp teeth, red eyes and his skin is grey; a Demon. No one seems to notice him. He is the only one who looks at the sky, he looks at it and laughs. Of course he laughs, he caused it all. Turn off the stars? a single blow; make the moon go red? a single though and its done; and what about the raining blood, and the orange grass? no more than a wish. And those are the hard tasks, others were by far easier, like hypnotizing the people around him. As a matter of fact, they did it by themselves, too focused on their shallow lives to notice him, he only had to suggest the idleness, and it spread like a disease.

The Demon decides the night is dull, so he opens his mouth and screams. Up in the sky, mouths appear out of nowhere and join in. The shrieking fills the night, it causes the people’s hairs to stand on end, and goose bumps to appear, but no one notices it. They are too absorbed in their nothingness. The Demon stops his shouting, and as one, all the mouths shut up and disappear, as does the moon, and the sky stops raining blood. But that’s not all, for the sky has now become a screen, and on it, every person in the valley sees a programme of his liking, because yes, they are now looking at the sky. The impressive thing is that none of them seems bewildered that the sky has turned into a television set, they just sit on the ground and watch, their gaze fixed into the sky. In the morning, their necks will be hurting from this awkward position, but none of that matters to anyone. Meanwhile, The Demon is enjoying himself, he is amused by how easily he has hypnotized the valley, and some of the greater minds in the world as well. And they have all been subdued by their own wishes and guilty pleasures reflected on the giant screen that is the sky.

What the people fail to realize is that their idleness is feeding The Demon, that each second he grows stronger, while one person at a time, the people begin to die. The older ones first, their vitality already weakened by the exhaustion of living in the mundane world day after day after day. The people’s lives are being drained away as they waste the precious time they have left in watching nonsense, and as The Demon grows stronger, he becomes able to hypnotize more people outside the valley.

The Demon laughs, his grey face is lighted up, his sharp teeth baring at the sky, with a snakelike tongue dancing between them. Soon the world will be his, and the strength given to him by the vitality of every single human being in it will make him able to shut off the light forever. And the people continue unaware of this problem, of The Demon taking away their lives and replacing them with idleness.

But suddenly, a light fills the sky that interferes with the transmition from the screen, a light that comes from the East. The Demon had seen the sun rising countless of times, but never so bright. As the golden light sweeps over the land, the orange grass becomes green, the moon reappears faintly near the horizon, preparing to leave the valley, and one by one the people wake up. The trance is over, the light coming from the sun is stronger than any strength The Demon can muster, and his hold on the people is shattered.

The Demon screams in rage, nobody can hear him, but still he screams as if they could. He thrashes and stomps and even kills those nearby with his claws, but none of that makes the sun go away. Then The Demon starts laughing. You have won this fight, but it is not over, he shouts at the beacon at the East. I’ll be watching, I’ll be waiting, and I promise I will rise again! All I need is a weak child, whose mind I can fill with idleness, and I will be back! The Demon’s voice is becoming weaker, and his outline is fainting. I will be back! His voice is now nothing more than a whisper, I will be back!

The sun has risen fully now, and its light showers the people in the valley. They don’t know what just happened, they don’t know that they have just been saved by the sun. They feel disoriented and lost, and some are sad when they realize people they knew are on the ground, dead. But one thing is for sure, they are making plans. Plans not of idleness but of action, on transcendence. Someday someone will fall again under the spell of laziness and boredom, someday someone will bring The Demon back, but for now, no one is prepared to give less than his best as they begin to live the first day of their new lives.

Posted in Very Short Stories