Arthur heaved his body off the ground, utilizing every ounce of demonic power he had. Every muscle in his body hurt and ached, and he felt so, so sore. This was no thing a demon like him could do. Not alone.
Stumbling, Arthur made his way through the shimmering city without really caring too much about the humans looking at him funny. He looked human enough, he thought. The city was filled with glorious, shining lights, all telling him to go here, no, here, no, there, all at once. A strange smell wafted through the air. It smellt like charred human flesh, but Arthur could tell it wasn’t quite human, and neither was it charred. It reminded him of that time he dropped his ration in the fire but fished it out before it was all coal. It hadn’t tasted too good, but it had been edible.
A myriad of other smells came to Arthur as he nostalgically lifted his nose into the air, none giving Arthur the least bit of pleasure. Arthur couldn’t taste sweet, not in our sense, at least. He could taste it, but if he did, it was almost always poisonous. Arthur was suddenly hit by a nausea-inducing scent, causing him to almost immediately start gagging. The world became a flurry of bright colours and smells he had never and wished to never again smell.
When he came to, all the lights and smells were gone, all except one. It smelled of salt, like the skin of a panicking human, and some other strange material he couldn’t quite place. He opened his eyes, and what met him was what looked to be an enormous, endless puddle of… something. Arthur had seen many liquids in his life. Blood, piss, tears… but this was something else. The sky was black and dark and filled to the brim with tiny little shining lights, all blinking and twinkling and reflected in the mysterious eternal dark-blue liquid.
Arthur couldn’t stop looking.
But, suddenly, he was brought out of his ethereal state by the screams of some nearby creature. He couldn’t understand if it was demon, human or angelic, but… “HELP ME OH PLEASE GOD SOMEONE” someone shouted at the top of their lungs. Spinning around, Arthur finally noticed where he was. He was standing on some sort of concrete block right outside the city. A bunch of strange vehicles that floated on the liquid were parked by the concrete block. He was right by the pier.
“PLEASE OH MY GOD HELP” the voice shouted again. Arthur stared in the direction of the screams, noticing a strange, concrete outgrowth coming out of the ground. It seemed to be extremely thick and well made, with a single opening on the top. With heavy steps, Arthur made his way over to what we can understand to be a bunker.
Arthur immediately got up on top by pressing the Voider once and using his tiny little wings to flap about a meter or so into the air. Not too impressive, but to Arthur, this was a step in the right direction for his flight capabilities. Trying the opening to the bunker, Arthur quickly noticed it was either locked or too heavy to open. Hmmm, he thought. Hmmmm…? He looked down at the little star-shaped pin on his lapel. Oh, right!
This would be his first time being entirely voided. Fred had said it would send his body to Limbo or something, which is pretty spooky, but he also said he didn’t really know how it worked, so…
Beep beep.
Hm. Arthur felt extremely confused. Not nauseous or non-existant or anything, just very, very confused. Looking down at his hands, he couldn’t notice anything different. He looked just as visible as always. Well, let’s just try the handle again to see-,
Arthur’s hand went right through it. For a second, he was too baffled to react. But, after that second had passed… “!!!” he retracted his hand as fast as he possibly could. Holding his hand, he noticed he could hold it just like normal. But, wait. He was currently standing on the bunker. So, why wasn’t he sinking in?...
The second he realized this, his whole body sunk into the bunker like a hot knife through butter. He eventually hit the floor, deciding immediately not to think about the ground and why he wouldn’t sink through it any more. It would be bad for his hearts. Standing up on wobbly legs, he dusted himself off and took a look around. He seemed to be standing in a hall. To the right was an opening to some room or another, and otherwise, the corridor just seemed to continue two both sides. The floor was lined with luminescent tape/paint that seemed to point the way, well, somewhere.
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Arthur could hear whimpers and pleas for help and mercy coming from wherever the luminescent trail was heading. Welp. Nothing better to do, Arthur concluded as he started heading down into the heart of the bunker with a leisurely gait. Along with the screams, he could clearly hear the metallic whine and surring of, well, something. Lord knows what, Arthur concluded in silence.
The corridor eventually opened up into a large chamber that would probably have been the mess hall. In the very middle of this chamber, two humans were in the middle of a strange activity Arthur couldn’t quite understand. The larger human, wearing a strange yellow rubber suit, covering his entire body, and a strange mask on his face, was on top of the one that was pleading for help. Hm. Arthur wondered for a second whether he should help, but then again, he had seen a lot of humans back home shouting for help and mercy in the middle of a hunt before turning right around to bite your head off, and this was a human affair, so… let’s just let them do their thing.
After about a minute of them being on top of eachother, the larger one grabbed the thing that was making the strange metallic sounds and held it above his head proudly. The thing was extremely strange. It was mostly composed of a red handle, which the man held, but the other half was a metallic blade that seemed to be whirring about at incredible speeds, making a srrrr sound. This strange weapon was quickly brought down on the screaming female(a pretty little thing with blonde hair and pink cheeks), making Arthur almost squeal, turning around in fear and embarrassment. He could never handle blood, so he had always let everybody else handle the killing and butchering part.
His tail shivered as he turned around, carefully peeking between his fingers covering his face. On the table, he could a baffling amount of blood, two arms and two legs, a whole, unblemished head, and a thousand or so tiny, square chunks of flesh, just the right size for a midnight snack. Arthur could feel his hunger and horror fighting for dominance inside of him, but eventually, admiration won out, despite not having been in the battle. Arthur really, really wanted to turn off the voider to go ask if he could have just one piece while it was still fresh, but he couldn’t bring himself to, since he feared that the man might get startled and accidentally kill him or something, which really wasn’t that rare in Hell.
So, instead, Arthur secretly spied on the man as he silently cleaned up the blood and everything, carefully putting the head in a black woolen sack and the rest in a large black bag made of some sort of thin, wrinkly material(plastic). I sure hope that’s for saving, Arthur thought hopefully. Wait… do humans eat humans?... they do, right? I mean, what other creatures are the apart from humans, demons and angels? Arthur pondered and he followed the man out of the bunker and into the night. It-, it can’t be… he finally thought. Do humans eat… demons?! It can’t be, it can’t be, Arthur said, trying to comfort himself.
The man went up close to a large, black, shiny something, that reminded Arthur of a big rock he had once seen. But what surprised Arthur was that the man took out a little tiny dim rock from his pocket, pointed it at the bigger rock, and the bigger rock lit up with lights and sound and things. Humans. Does everything have to shine bright?...
The man stuffed both bags he had been holding into the back of the rock, which had opened like a great big mouth. He then removed another black wrinkly bag from the mouth, removed both gloves he had been wearing and stuffed them into the bag. He then quickly and easily removed everything else he had been wearing, revealing a nice, firm suit underneath. It was coal black, with a shimmering black tie and a white shirt, and stuffed it all into the bag, putting it into the mouth as well. When he now turned around to face Arthur, he could finally see what kind of man he was dealing with.
He looked extremely tired. This was the first thing Arthur noticed. His eyes were sloped and baggy, only a dim light indicating life shining from them lazily, their blue-grayish colour making him look almost inhuman. The rest of his face was entirely square, with a firm jaw and a short, militaristic sort of chestnut-brown hair, only slightly disheveled from his recent hunt. His body was tall and well-built, obviously extremely used to hunting. His every step was extremely deliberate, knowing just where to step and why. Had he not been a human, Arthur would definitely have revered him as a high-level hunter himself.
But he was a human. And he was just the kind of human Arthur was looking for. The man opened up the side of the rock and stepped inside. Arthur moved quickly, and before the man could close the door, Arthur had already done an acrobatic maneuver to corkscrew through the man and into the rock as well. He was extremely disoriented, but once he sat up, he noticed there was a seat of sorts inside the rock, and if he looked straight ahead, he could see out of it. Extremely curious.
What made it all the more terrifying was when the man touched a few strange blinking things in the rock, grabbed a wheel-like object and got the rock to start moving. I-, incredible…
Arthur sat transfixed, staring out of the window as the man drove the two of them somewhere. Eventually, they came to a stop at a strange-looking house. The man went inside, and Arthur followed nervously. The man was met with a happy woman, meaning that he must be a very successful hunter. He ate some strange, alien looking food along with around four other humans which really frightened Arthur, who was suddenly the only demon. He also learnt that the man was named Steve, which was an unfitting name for a hunter such as him, but Arthur didn’t exactly have a frightening name either, so...
Steve, the man, quickly excused himself and went somewhere secluded. Nobody followed him but Arthur. Currently, Arthur was contemplating whether to introduce himself now or some other time. But before he could come to a decision…
“Speak,” Steve said calmly, staring straight at Arthur. Arthur was spooked, and reacted the only way he could. You already know what happened during this conversation, so we’ll skip it.
After Arthur told Steve he would always hear him, he voided himself and slid soundlessly under the bed. Arthur was used to sleeping in strange places, and he was a rather light sleeper, so any unnatural occurrences would easily wake him up.
And so, both he and Steve went to sleep, Steve with a heavy heart, filled with doubts and confusion, Arthurs hearts lightened by hope and reassurance.