I went to the Rain Chasers meeting. I had to. After what happened in the power station, I had to face the aftermath.
(if you’re new, start here, and if you’re totally lost, this might help)
Half the Rain Chasers were gone.
I sat in the back row. I was the only person sitting near the back. Patricia and her cronies were conspicuously absent, along with a good chunk of the rest of the club. I didn’t have a good sense of just how bad it was, not until everyone had settled down and I saw all the empty chairs in front of me. It struck Maria as well, when she shuffled up to the front to start the meeting. She stood there facing all us who were left, frozen like a deer in headlights, so small and pathetic and frightened that I thought she’d shatter into a million pieces if anything touched her.
“Hey,” Katana Boy said gently. “Maria, are you okay?”
(his name is Daniel and I will use that from here out, it’s the right thing to do I feel)
“No,” she croaked. “I’m not.”
And she burst into tears in front of everyone.
It took a while to get the whole story out. I helped where I could. At one point, one of the regular club members had an outburst where they declared we were all lying and this was just some sick joke and they stormed out and haven’t come back since. They’ve also left the discord channel. I guess it’s better they’re gone, right? I kind of wish they’d all leave and then the Rain Chasers would fall apart and we could just slink off to our respective individual lives and try to move on as best as we’re allowed.
But not everyone felt that way.
“We need to do something!” Daniel declared when the whole story was out in the open. “We have to find this thing and - and unsummon it or kill it or whatever!”
That set off a loud argument. Everyone was shouting over each other, trying to make themselves heard. Someone wanted to go to the administration for help - terrible idea right there, but no one was listening to each other, so it wasn’t getting any traction. Daniel was all about killing it. Maria, surprisingly, was the only one calling for reason because we’d already had so many of us die that we couldn’t just rush in stupidly and get everyone that’s left killed too.
I didn’t say anything. I was sitting there, listening to all of this and feeling like I wanted to crawl inside of myself and vanish. It felt like there was a tumult inside me, that my thoughts were being tossed about on a stormy ocean. I felt guilt for getting everyone into this situation, anger that I’d tried to stop them but they hadn’t listened, helplessness because what could we do about this? They were gone. Their heads had popped like grapes. There was no getting them back. What was the point in pursuing this further, aside from perhaps getting more people killed?
I felt like a balloon filled with too much air. Then I just… couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“It won’t work!” I shouted.
I was on my feet. I don’t actually recall getting up. One moment I was sitting down, lost in my own thoughts, and the next I was standing with everyone staring at me.
“We can’t do anything about it!” I continued desperately, because there was no stopping now that I’d begun. “We can’t kill it. We can’t get rid of it. We sure as hell can’t go to the administration because they’re the ones covering it up. Anyone who attempts it is going to die the same as everyone else did.”
A half-dozen blank faces turned to stare at me. Maria looked like she was on the verge of tears again, but she’d been like that before I said anything. That, at least, wasn’t my doing.
“But we’re the only ones that are willing to do something,” Daniel said in bewilderment.
“That’s not how it works!”
I was still shouting. Everyone was staring at me wide-eyed and this time, I just didn’t care.
“Those things out there - they’re designed to kill us,” I continued. “All we can do is run and hide and pray we make it out of here alive. Don’t you get it? We’re their food. We’re helpless. There’s nothing we can do. And the people that do try to fight back? It destroys them in the end.”
I had single-handedly ripped the energy from the conversation. A pall settled over the room. It was like I’d taken their hope, balled it up, and smashed it against the wall. Daniel tried to rally and say something, but by then Maria was crying silently, and he faltered and subsided with a last, guilty look at her tears.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and I fled the room.
I didn’t want to go back to my dorm. Not to Cassie, who would ask questions, and who had her own grief and confusion to deal with. I walked instead. Just… walked. There’s plenty of footpaths around campus and I followed them aimlessly. I walked past the cemetary, which now feels ominous, a dark presence in the corner of my vision whenever I walk past it. This campus swallows us up and the bones interred in its grounds seem like they’re mocking us. They get headstones. They get remembered. The students? We just vanish like we never were.
I wound up walking past the chapel. In my defense, the chapel is hard to avoid. There’s a loop around the green in front of the administration building and it’s a lovely place to walk, but it also takes you right by the chapel. I’ve passed it dozens of times since my encounter with the devil and not thought anything of it.
Of course this time he was there waiting for me.
He was easy to recognize even in the dim light of the distant streetlights. It’s the suspenders. Suspenders and a smug, gloating smile that implies that he knows so much more than I do and isn’t about to share it. Not without a price.
“I’m leaving,” I said as soon as our eyes met, and I turned around and started walking in the opposite direction.
“Oh, you’re no fun,” he said, his voice growing closer as he jogged to catch up.
He fell into stride next to me and I cursed my luck. His long legs had no trouble keeping pace.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” I said tersely. “Bad things happen when I do.”
“It’s not all bad. Besides, c’mon, I’m the perfect helper character for you!” he said glibly.
I froze. He knows about these posts. Of course he knows. He’s the devil. Why wouldn’t he know?
“I’m smart, I’m sexy,” he continued. “And best of all: I’m dangerous.”
“Please leave me alone.”
I stared straight ahead and began walking again. He kept pace, leaning over to peer intently at my face. I shoved my glasses further up on my nose, hoping that would hide my puffy eyes from his prying gaze. No such luck.
“Why are you the one crying?” he asked. “Not like you had a hand in it. You tried to stop them.”
“They never would have been there without me,” I hissed under my breath.
“College students,” he sighed happily. “You think the world revolves around you.”
I stopped and turned to stare at him face-to-face. He stared down at me with a smug smile on his narrow face.
“Are you saying… this wasn’t my fault?”
“Take it from someone that is everyone’s favorite scapegoat - it’s actually a matter of timing. This was bound to happen at some point. Unluckily for you, you happened to be present. But luckily for me, you are here, and you have a suitable background, and I don’t have to find someone else.”
I took a few steps back until I almost stumbled off the sidewalk. He was looking for me. He wanted something from me. He could be flippant and say it was only a matter of circumstance and perhaps it wasn’t that big of a deal on his end, but it meant quite a bit to me.
“Don’t be flattered,” he said, showing his white teeth. “You aren’t nearly as special as you think you are. Just convenient.”
“No thanks,” I managed to croak. “Whatever you want, I’m not interested. Deals with the devil never end well, as you’ve so aptly demonstrated already.”
“That creature,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “It’s a weapon.”
I took two steps away from him, but my resolve faltered. He wasn’t trying to follow me. He knew he’d captured my attention and that with a tiny tidbit of information, I couldn’t possibly walk away from him now. It was inevitable that I turned to face him once more and I hated the self-assured look on his face as I turned around once more.
“A weapon? For who?” I asked.
“Well, you see..” he began. Then he gasped dramatically and held his hands up in mock surprise. “Oh wait! Didn’t you say you wouldn’t make a deal with me?”
“You are… the fucking worst.”
“Of course I am. It’s in my job description.”
I squinted at him.
“Are you really the devil? There’s lots of tricksters out there.”
He heaved a long, dramatic sigh and pressed his fingertips together in front of him.
“Listen. I am the devil. I’m the devil that stole the sun, that brought fabulous wealth to a poor peasant farmer and ruined them in turn, and-”
He took a deep breath before continuing in a pained voice.
“-I’m even the devil that lost that golden fiddle.”
“A what?”
“A golden fiddle.”
He stared at me suspiciously.
“I… don’t know that story.”
“Your parents are monsters who failed to educate you properly,” he muttered.
I suppose he really is what he claims. He occupies that strange space where he’s the devil but also not really the devil. He takes on the trickster role in many stories, after all, or replaces the original trickster. Of course, deals with tricksters don’t turn out that well for the mortal party either.
“What do you want?” I sighed.
“Glad you asked!” he exclaimed in glee, clapping his hands primly together. “I’ll help you get rid of the giant eyeball. I’m rather happy with the current status quo and would like to preserve it.”
Inhuman power struggles. Great. At least his motives were easy to understand. I asked what the condition for me was. Even though getting rid of the eyeball apparently benefited him in some way, I knew better than to expect his help for free. In fact, I’d be even more suspicious if it was.
“I want you to stay at this school. No transferring. No dropping out. You leave with a degree in hand.”
I stared at him in dismay. Transferring was my way out. It was how I could escape, if this ever got to be too much, and it certainly was starting to feel like it was too much. I began to breathe faster. I felt trapped. He’d given me a glimmer of hope, that maybe I could right my wrongs and then leave with a clean conscience. Then he’d snatched it away, giving me a choice between being safe and living with guilt, or doing the right thing and maybe not making it out of here at all.
“What if I fail out?” I croaked.
“Oooo a loophole, good try.” Another smile that showed his teeth. “I’ll show up to tutor you myself if your grades start slipping. I’m a great study partner.”
There was an undercurrent of a threat there. I suspected that he’d make sure there was no way I failed my classes, even if it meant I didn’t sleep days on end, literally chained to my textbooks under his narrow-eyed gaze. There were layers to this bargain, it seemed, sharp as broken glass.
At least I was guaranteed a degree?
“Time is short,” he snapped. “I need a decision.”
There was a note of impatience in his voice. I scowled. I’d be damned if I let the devil himself rush me into a decision. He turned his back to me, staring off into the distance. His shoulders tensed.
“Guess I’ve attracted attention,” he murmured.
Water surged past my ankles. I stared in horror in the direction it was coming from. The traveling river. It coated the entire green, shimmering in the moonlight, white-caps glistening where it roiled around the tree trunks. And floating towards us, moving languidly despite the raging current, was a round white dome. An island, glistening like a pearl, slick and faintly veined with streaks of crimson.
A weapon. And it was being deployed against the devil.
“An answer,” he snapped, seizing my wrist, turning his back on the approaching monstrosity.
“I can’t!” I shrieked. “I need time to think!”
His grip tightened as I struggled in blind panic, casting frantic glances at the eyeball which was slowly emerging from the water. The river was to my knees. I could see the subtle curve of the creature’s iris above the waterline.
“No you don’t!” he snarled. “You already know your answer. I know your answer. I always do, long before I make the offer.”
The devil can see into people’s hearts and knows what they desire the most.
“I can’t do this,” I gasped, desperately searching for reasons to say no. “I’m weak. I’m scared. I’m selfish.”
“I don’t seek out people that are strong and pure of heart. I leave them for the saints.”
It felt like the bones of my wrist were grinding together. The eye was mere yards away. I could see faint scraps of color just under the water, the shoulders and backs of the dead Rain Chasers that now served as its legs. Its pupil was fixated on the devil and the poor, hapless student that was captured in his unyielding grip.
“I can make you a hero,” he said grimly. “You’ll suffer for it - they all do. But you’re already determined to martyr yourself for them in the hopes of being loved, so why not accept a helping hand?”
…I considered not telling you what he said to me. Or changing it to something else. Lying to you, basically. It’s not like I don’t take liberties elsewhere, because it’s hard to remember the exact phrasing, but I can still recall the gist and the important parts and that’s enough to improvise a little. But these words are seared into my brain. This is what he said to me.
I’m not sure why I’m telling you this.
But I said yes.
He let go of me. I stumbled backwards, just as the eyeball emerged from the river, scuttling like an insect on its stolen legs. One of the bodies supporting it slammed into me as it charged past. It was cold and the flesh felt spongy as I bounced off it. I fell backwards into the river and I was underwater, suspended in a bottomless void, and I saw beneath me massive dark shapes gliding past. I clawed for the surface, following the light of the moon, then my head broke through. One of my feet found purchase - found the ground - and I stood to find myself in water that only reached halfway up my calf.
The devil was gone. The eyeball was gone with him. And the river was receding.
I went back to the dorm, changed into pajamas, and threw my wet clothing into the dryer. The only upside to the laundry lady’s visit was that she confirmed she couldn’t hurt me, which meant I could use the dorm laundry room again.
When I returned to my room, I found the devil inside. I guess the appropriate reaction to finding a stranger (again) in my dorm room would be to scream, but I froze up instead. The devil reached out, grabbed my wrist, and hauled me inside. The door shut on its own behind me.
“Let’s make this quick,” he said tersely. “This is for you.”
He held out a pencil to me.
“A pencil? Seriously?” I asked flatly.
“It’s easy to hide.”
“It’s fragile!”
That smile again, the one that showed the teeth. I was growing sick of it.
“I never said this would be easy.”
I sighed and took it. There was a strange feeling when I touched it, like it was bigger than the space it occupied. Bigger than the room. Like it spanned the night sky, arcing to stars far beyond-
“Best if you don’t think about it too hard,” the devil interrupted.
With a gasp, I slapped the pencil down on the desk. It took a moment to ground myself again, because my mind kept drifting to that feel of something immense clutched in my shaking fingers, so I distracted myself by asking what I was supposed to do with it.
“That’s up to you,” the devil replied.
“Is that all the help you’ll give me?”
I couldn’t keep from sounding upset. It was like he didn’t actually want me to succeed.
“I can stand on the sidelines and cheer you on if you like. I’ll even wear a short skirt and bring pompoms.”
“No thanks, I’m good. Please leave, I want to have my anxious meltdown in private.”
He was at least polite enough to do as I requested. I emptied my pencil case and put it inside to keep it safe until I had to use it. It also kept it out of eyesight. Out of sight, out of mind hopefully.
I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with it yet. But I’m not going to make the same mistake Patricia did. This is on me. I’m the one with the devil’s help and I’m not going to drag anyone else into it.
I keep wondering how bad of a mistake this is going to turn out to be. If I can get rid of the eyeball monster, then maybe I’ll be okay living with the consequences. Not like I can turn back now. If I start to think about it too much, I begin to panic. My whole life I’ve been told that we’re nothing but fodder for the inhuman and any advantage they might grant us is only to further their own aims.
‘We don’t make bargains with evil things.’
The unofficial town motto. I really am far from home.[x]
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