If you’re new, start here.
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Lucifer glanced at me, his lips curved down into a frown.
Something began happening with Chris’s body. It morphed and changed repeatedly for over a dozen seconds. It was aging decades in the span of seconds, his appearance continued to grow more gruesome until he became unrecognizable, like a corpse that had been buried for decades. Lucifer finally lifted his hand.
“This is the real identity of this body.” He pointed to the now rotten corpse on the ground with his cane.
My eyes were darting between him and the body on the ground. It wasn’t Chris. Was he alive? What happened to him?
Lucifer walked over to me. “Your friend is alive.”
I still didn’t know who to trust, or what to trust. All that mattered right now was that Chris might be alive. “Where is he?” I looked up to meet his eyes. I was desperate and I’m sure he knew that.
“He’s been taken.”
“By who? Where?”
Lucifer broke the eye contact and looked into the forest behind me. “It’s getting dark, we need to leave.” I glanced up at the sky, the sun was beginning to set. I didn’t understand how that was possible, it was just morning.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me where Chris is.” I hissed at him. Nothing was going to change the fact that he’s my kidnapper from over 20 years ago, I couldn’t bring myself to trust him. But if I wanted to see Chris again, My only choice was to listen to him.
“You colapsed earlier, what did he show you?” Lucifer looked at me as he said that, as if he wanted to see how I would react.
“Show me? What are you talking about?” I relived a memory, nobody showed me anything.
“I know you’ve been having visions, what was the last one?” He narrowed his eyes.
“How did you-“ I began saying, but Lucifer cut me off. “Tell me.” He scorned at me, as if I was merely an annoying fly between his fingers, and that tone scared me. I was afraid of what he’d do to me, I didn’t want to relive what he had done to me all those years ago.
“I relived the torture that you put me through, ripping out my instetines, my tongue, all because I survived.” I responded carefully, but I didn’t hide my anger.
His lips curved up into an amused expression, as if I had just told him a funny joke. “Curious.” He said, then turned around and began walking off. I just sat there wide eyed. He glanced back at me. “What are you waiting for? We need to go.”
His authoratitive tone forced my body to move, it stood without my mind allowing it to, and started limping towards Lucifer. I had no control. “Chris..” I hesitated. “Where is he?”
Lucifer was a few feet in front of me. Something shuffled beside me and Lucifer’s head snapped in the direction the sound came from. “He won’t let us go this easy.” He whispered under his breath.
Another sound came from the tree’s and a branch fell onto the ground, startling me. I took a step back. I took a step back, my body was listening to me again.
Lucifer was on high alert, his eyes darted around us, as if he could see whoever was stalking us. Unlike the previous time, I felt no presence, I felt no eyes on me. But I knew it was there.
I felt a sudden stabbing pain at the side of my head and I collapsed to the ground. I gasped in pain and my vision blurred. I could see two silhouettes facing off a few yards away. It was Lucifer and some animalistic looking monster that stood on it’s two back legs, it wasn’t the same thing me and Chris encountered. Or maybe it was, maybe it had changed again.
“Get out of here.” Lucifer’s voice sounded in my head. How was he inside of my head?
“What are you waiting for?” He glanced at me, his voice still inside of my head.
I pulled myself up and began running. This was the perfect opportunity for me to get away from both whatever that creature was and Lucifer.
I ran and ran, no matter how exhausted I felt, no matter how much I wanted to stop. I didn’t stop even when I got out of the forest, I kept running.
“Marc?” I stopped dead in my tracks and looked towards the voice. It was my grandmother, she stood in her driveway.
I walked over to her, catching my breath. “Grandma..” I said.
“What are you doing here? Where are you running?” She had a perplexed expression on her wrinkle ridden face.
“I-“ I couldn’t think of an excuse. She laughed and shook her head. “Come inside, eat dinner.” She motioned with her hand to follow, and I did.
“I still cook for both of us, despite you living with your own family now.” My grandmother said.
She held the door for me, and I entered her house, it was just as cozy as I remembered it.
“So what were you doing at such late hour?” She called from the kitchen.
I needed to come up with a believable lie.. “I was out for a run in the neighborhood, just wanted to clear my head.”
The furniture was lined with familiar pictures of my parents, mostly of my mom, and then me. For some reason looking at these pictures made me feel nostalgic. I missed them.
My grandmother walked into the living room with two bowls of soup and placed them down on the table.
“This smells delicious.” I said. It really did. It was a red beet soup.
Just as I was putting the spoon to my lips, someone knocked on the door. “I’ll get it.” I stood up and walked over to the door, but didn’t open it yet. “Who is it?” I called out.
“Open it.” A voice rang inside my head; Lucifer’s voice. My body moved before I could protest, and the lock clicked open. Lucifer pushed the door open and walked in. At the same moment my grandmother came over.
“Who is it?” Her eyes widened when she saw Lucifer. She muttered something under her breath and turned around to walk back into the living room.
I looked at Lucifer, his eyes were following her. “Don’t hurt her please.” I pleaded, he probably came here to take me.
He ignored me and began walking towards the living room, seemingly going after my grandmother, his steps were slow and careful.
I followed after him. “Please-“ I began saying, he put a finger to his lips in order to silence me. I gulped my saliva.
My grandmother had sat back down to the table, still murmuring to herself, her hands looked shaky.
Lucifer looked at the soup that was served to me with disdain.
“Poison? Really?” He spoke to my grandmother in a disappointed tone and then sighed. “He got to you too, didn’t he?” My grandmother looked up at me with pleading eyes.
“What are you talking about?” I asked him.
Lucifer glanced at me. “Your soup is poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” I walked over to the table and looked at the soup. “Why would my grandmother poison me?”
“The same reason on why she brought you to that cabin 20 years ago.” Lucifer responded without skipping a beat. My grandmother’s face dropped and her eyes fell to the ground.
He turned around to look at me. “What name did he give you?”
“Who?” I felt helpless against him, as if I had no choice but to cooperate.
“The boy you see in your visions.” He examined my face, awaiting my answer.
“Iris.” I responded after taking a deep breath.
Lucifer just laughed and then spoke. “He dare use my grandfather’s name..” He spat.
“Who is he?”
Lucifer walked over to my grandmothers side, I held my breath. He looked me in the eyes and then spoke. “My foolish son.”
Is he foolish because he helped me escape from you? Is what I wanted to say, but instead I just looked at Lucifer in shock with my mouth half open.
He picked up his cane and held it above my grandmother’s head. “No! Stop!” I screamed at him.
“Why do you wish to protect the woman that sold you out?” He sounded genuinely curious, as if it was something he couldn’t comprehend.
“Don’t listen to him Marc, he’s lying.”
“Silence woman.” Lucifer warned.
“How did she betray me? You’re the one that tortured me because I was different!” I was desperate.
“She brought you to that cabin in the forest, she brought you to my son.”
My grandmother opened her mouth to speak, but Lucifer silenced her before she muttered another word. Her mouth was hanging open, but no words were coming out.
“What are you saying? I don’t understand.”
Lucifer sighed. “It’ll be best if I show you.”
He began walking towards me, and I instinctively took a step back.
“Show me how?” My voice was wary, how could I trust him?
“A memory.” He stopped a few feet in front of me. “You can decide what you think after I make you remember.”
He walked the remaining few steps to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. My vision shifted like the previous times and my eyesight grew blurry. I felt myself falling, imagine jumping off a building into the endless abyss. That’s what it felt like, like I would never stop falling.
My eyesight slowly began returning to me. I found myself in my grandmother’s house, I was eight again.
I was playing outside, swinging on the swing, my grandmother waved to me from inside the house with a sad smile on her face.
She walked away from the window, and I saw the silhouette of a second person walking after her.
My curious eight-year-old self decided to snoop, so I walked over to the house and tried to listen in.
“They refused and they paid the price.” A male, childish voice said.
“Please, he’s just a child.” My grandmother sounded sad.
“He’s not an ordinary child.” After a pause the person added, “I will bring them back as soon as I’m done with the boy.”
“They will never forgive me.” My grandmother was crying.
“They won’t even remember.”
She sniffled. “Good. Bring him to the cabin in the woods, there’s a basement there, I’ll be waiting.”
I heard footsteps and ran back outside. “This is better for all of us, he’s not human like you.”
Then a familiar boy walked out into the backyard. Iris smiled at me, being the polite eight-year-old that I was, I waved and smiled back. He walked into the woods.
My grandmother came outside soon after. “Do you want to go to the forest?” She asked. I giggled in excitement. “Yes!”
She took my hand and we walked into the forest. She brought me to the cabin. She made me mushroom soup with something in it, which made me fall asleep. My eight-year-old self couldn’t understand what was happening. All I could think was why. Why did she do this? My vision blurred as my body fell asleep.
I woke back up in the present. I tried to blink the darkness away, and opened my eyes to Lucifer observing me curiously. I was down on the ground. “Do you trust me now?” His deep voice sounded unsettling.
I stood back up and walked over to my grandmother. “Why?” My voice was laced with hurt. “Why did you do it?”
She looked up to meet my gaze. “You were not supposed to be born.” She spat. “You were not supposed to come back alive.” She added.
“Why.. Why did you tell me that I was kidnapped when we spoke a couple days ago? You cried in my arms..” I was angry. I wanted to hurt her.
“She felt guilty.” Lucifer said from beside me.
“When you were taken, she reported your disappearance 24 hours later. She never once mentioned seeing you being taken, all she said was that you wandered off.” He began explaining.
“I thought it was strange how you told Laura about a skinwalker like creature that immitated your grandmother and took you into the forest.”
I looked at him in surprise, I didn’t know he was capable of speaking so much. He usually only spoke as much as necessary.
“I killed all the skinwalkers in this forest over a hundred years ago.” I nodded, pretending to understand.
“What am I?”
“I’m not sure, but you’re not human, and my son wants whatever you have.”
“What is it that I have?” I was confused.
“You should already know by now.”
The truth was that I didn’t. Things seemed off in my memories, sure, but what exactly did he want from me?
I shrugged in response. Lucifer sighed.
“What do you want to do with her?” Lucifer glanced at my grandmother.
“Leave her alone.”
“My son will use her against you.”
“Then I’ll keep her safe.”
“You can’t even keep yourself safe.” He was right about that. Chris got taken because of me.
“Why is he doing all of.. this? He had me 20 years ago, why didn’t he take what he wanted then?”
Lucifer scoffed. “He was a child, and I helped you escape before he figured out how to take it from you.”
“Why don’t I remember anything? Why are there no scars?”
“I wanted you to be able to live a normal life. I helped you forget and I transformed your body into what it was before all the scars were incurred, similar to how that corpse was transformed to look like your friend’s body.” I looked at him wide eyed. I had it all wrong. Iris never tried to help me, It was Lucifer.
“How do I know what’s real and what isn’t?”
“You can’t.”
I sat down at the table, my legs were starting to feel wobbly. This was so much to process, so much to understand. I had finally learned the truth that I so desperately wanted.
“We need to save Chris.” I sighed loudly and leaned back.
Lucifer smiled for the first time ever. “We will.”