I spent the morning researching Osiris while the television played in the background. John did not appear in the news, there were no major bank robberies, and overall reality seemed to be as it always was. I was divided on whether to visit John again. He didn’t need my supervision, but I worried what might happen if I left him alone with Hapi for too long. I decided to visit him for a third time.
John was on the computer playing Diablo II. Behind him was the demon goddess Hapi leaning on the dog cage used to hide her body. She looked intrigued with what was happening on the screen until I entered. Her face turned completely blank. That is to say, her mouth and nose disappeared. Her voice rang deep within my eardrums, blocking out all other sound.
“Why haven’t you prepared yourself for our marriage? Do you think I’ll simply wait for you?” She twisted her body around multiple times and stretched well beyond human limitation. The skin burst and split as blood sprayed from her exposed veins. The blood dyed her body a deep red color while her face turned completely black. The lower body grew, encroaching along the ground and up the wall like a blood red moss. She bent down to avoid breaking the ceiling as her horns scratched the paint. Two white hot circles pierced the darkness that surrounded her entire head. She grabbed the dog cage with her gigantic scythe-like hand as she hunched over me.
“Will you not propose?” she said.
“Yeah, shouldn’t you be getting on with that by now?” My friend added.
Hapi must have considered my compliments were enough to warrant marriage. Or rather, she misconstrued my conversation as some kind of preparation for marriage. But why marriage and why me? At that very moment, I recalled something from my demon research cram session. Simply summoning a demon isn’t enough to obtain their labour. There was always an exchange or sacrifice in return. Gold, placentas, and whatnot. But I never saw marriage or a bachelor as the ‘sacrifice.’
Hapi’s stare penetrated through my body. It felt like she peered right into my soul. She started to tap her fingers on the dog cage, leaving little holes where her claws pressed. I was thinking to neither confirm nor deny it, until she spoke.
“I really dislike indecisive men.” I swallowed hard.
“Yes, I intend on proposing.”
“Excellent!” She returned to her relatively normal appearance. “I’ll make the preparations immediately.”
“W-what.”
“I’ll need to contact some of my old friends. Oh! And I need to prepare invitations for the wedding. Hathor can help with preparing the reception. We’ll have to decide on a location. I’ll have Rah give me some recommendations. Oh what am I saying, of course it should be at the border of Hell! I should let Nut know as soon as possible. Lucifer might show up as well. And I’ll need to…” She continued to spout of names and preparations, most of which were completely foreign to me.
“Of course, you’ll need to get confirmation from the current authority.” She said to me briefly, before continuing on. “And what will I wear? I should ask Naunet for advice. And what about the dowry!”
I stood there for a while, completely dumbfounded by the situation. I was so intently thinking of nothing that I hadn’t realized Hapi was talking to me.
“Dear?”
I looked up at her. Did she really just call me ‘dear?’
“I’ll be going now. I need to contact some friends. Be sure to get Oberon’s approval ok?” Despite saying that, she didn’t move at all. She froze, placed like a lifeless statue. Then, ever so slightly, did her head start to collapse in on itself. The top of her head began to disappear and her glass hair started to rise up. Soon there was no head and only a pillar of glass sprouting from her neck. That too began to sink into her torso. She lifter her arms straight up, piercing the ceiling with them.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Are you kidding me?” John said, hearing the noise of the ceiling break. “I told you to…” He paused after turning around.
Her shoulders rolled into her sunken body. For a brief moment, she looked like the most hideous palm tree I had ever seen. Her torso further collapsed into itself and her fleshy lower half flattened.
She had turned her body inside out, leaving only a red hole in the ground. John and I both walked over to the spot where Hapi once stood and peered into the hole. It was red, ribbed, and bottomless. It was big enough that one could essentially slide down if they stood perfectly straight over it. According to Hapi, this is a pathway straight to Hell. I imagined it must be the worst waterslide in existence.
Right before we left, the hole started to pulsate. It appeared to be closing. As the gap shrunk, the warped architecture of the room repaired itself. The carpet pulled over the floor as the space tightened back to its original size. Soon, all that was left was a small bump in the carpet where a tiny bit of skin folded into itself. John and I stared at it for a second until we both realized what we were really looking at.
It was Hapi’s backdoor.
After proposing to Hapi and watching her pull herself inside out like a glove, I had to lay down for a while.
That is to say, I blacked out.
---
Cold water splashed on my face. John stood over me with an empty water bottle in hand.
“Awake yet?”
I coughed in response, having inhaled some of the water.
“Did you know?” I asked between coughs.
“Know what?”
“After I left yesterday. Did you know she was thinking I was going to marry her?”
“She did talk about you after, saying you would make a wonderful ‘gift.’ At first, I was worried she wanted to eat you. But then she talked about the last time she was offered a bachelor as a gift. So I figured it was one or the other.”
I grabbed John by the collar. “One Or The Other!? I was going to be eaten or married to a devil and you didn’t bother to warn me!?”
“Well I knew if I warned you, you weren’t going show up!”
“Damn right I wouldn’t show up! Then I wouldn’t be in this mess!”
“If you didn’t show up, Hapi would have been pissed with me. I did it out of self-preservation. Plus, I was like 70 percent sure she wasn’t going to eat you.”
“70 percent” I wheezed.
“Look, just let go of me and I’ll explain.” I released my grip and rested my head against the nearest wall.
“What am I gonna doooo?” I moaned. “Why did you let her believe that I would marry her?”
“It seemed like the easiest and most harmless way to move on with the exchange.”
“And what exactly is it that I’m being exchanged for?”
“Uh, well. I haven’t thought about it yet.” There was a subtle thud as I hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. “I was thinking more of how to get rid of her since my parents come back tomorrow.”
“I have parents too.” I mumbled to the bottom of the wall.
“Hey cheer up! This is like the genie’s lamp I’ve stumbled upon! I can wish for anything!”
“Could you wish that we go to Heaven when we die. Cause we are most certainly going to Hell after this.”
“I don’t know about that one actually. That might be considered cheating you know? God’s kind of weird about that stuff. It’s like, a failure of faith or fake martyrdom or something.”
I pondered the various ways I could get out of this situation. I thought about getting on a plane and leaving John to fetch for himself. I also considered just killing John when he came up with a possibly better idea.
“We still might be able to get out of this.”
“Elaborate.”
“You don’t know if you have to marry her yet. Remember, you have to get permission first right?”
“…right?”
“So what if you fail to get permission?”
“…right.”
“If you’re not suitable for marriage, then it’s beyond our power.”
I pushed myself back up off the ground and turned to John. “That’s a good idea, but will she go away after?”
“That’s a problem we can deal with later. If she still demands a sacrifice, at least this will buy me some time to purchase a goat.”
“She seems kind of unstable. She might freak out.”
“But, she’d be freaking out against this Ovaltine guy right?”
“Oberon.”
“How do you remember all these things?”
“Persona games.” I thought to myself. Instead I said, “I just have a great memory. I then realized I needed to spend another night researching.
We chatted a bit longer, but all I could think about was this Oberon figure. How on earth was I even supposed to meet him? After we said our goodbyes I rushed home and started reading again. All this extra work made me feel better. I was still a leaf in a whirlwind, but at the very least we now had a plan.