Lilly watched, the light flickering on with a ding. Rusty old doors slowly opening, a deep inhale and a breath held. She closed one eye in fear, only squinting open the other. John just behind her and Zayden, watching the doors open with her in anticipation. Zayden’s face had a large grin stretching as they opened, though that smile dropped, dropped once he saw who was behind those opened doors.

A dark skinned man adjusting the collar of his uniform sleeve. A burnt off name tag against his chest, he pulled a purple one out from his pocket and put it overtop of the burnt one. The name “Zack” carved into the purple tag. He looked to the room, a room of dropped jaws and confused looks. Though he looked unfazed and the disguised demon put his hands on his hips.

“Why the long faces?” He asked with an eerie smile across his face.

No response, the room was silent. Lilly opened both her eyes and looked the man up and down. Her eyes resting on his purple hair, she tilted her head to the side slightly. She liked the color. For some reason she was unable to focus on nothing else but that color of purple.

John reached for her arm while she was in her trance, and pulled her out of Zayden’s grasp and to his side instead. Zayden breaking from his own jaw-dropped trance and into the present.

“Who the fuck are you?!” He suddenly announced.

Zachary laughed, “Oh you are right! My fault…. Introductions… I’m Zachary Heart. The General wanted to be here personally, he really did. But there are some issues on the front lines.. The Demons have taken out another town in the state of Ohio. Since it was near the river border of West Virginia, where we are, he was able to go and deal with the situation. So he sent me in his stead, wanting this lovely lady as soon as possible by humanity’s side.”

Zayden was suspicious, extremely so. But the demon’s claims were believable. The lies were carefully thought out, and he had the key, the only other key to this lab was owned by the General of the US army. So how else could he have gotten in than without his permission? So he nodded and looked back to Lilly who was by John’s side again.

“I see, well I guess you should get to evaluating the project immediately.”

The Demon took a moment, that smile across his face twitching.. He didn’t think this far if he was honest.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Ah, yes. Well, what is the content of this evaluation again.”

Zayden looked at him shocked.

“Wow, the General must have REALLY been in a rush.” He cleared his throat. “You are to see if our research shows that the project is viable to the human race in battle. If her magical ability is without use to us she is to be terminated. Unfortunately due to humanity’s technological fall when the gates opened we have limited intensive research. Though you can read through these documents then go to the training room we built for her to get to your evaluation of her magic.”

Zayden snapped his fingers and pointed to Zack as a woman walked over with a very very large stack of papers in her hands. The Demon held his hands up and laughed awkwardly.

“How about we skip the reading and go to the training room instead.”

Zayden didn’t know what to say, clearly this man was beyond underqualified for this. But without phones, and without contact he just nodded along.

“Fine, go on then.”

Zack nodded, and the demon moved past Zayden and toward Lilly. Bending down slightly and looking to her blue eyes.

“Hello, I’m Zachary Heart, nice to meet you.” He said with a wink.

Lilly stared at him, she was at a loss for words. She didn’t know what the wink was for, but it was like he was trying to communicate something. And when she gave a look without understanding his smile seemed to drop for a brief moment, and his eyes changed. Returning to the smile again he cleared his throat.

“And your name?”

Lilly shrugged.

“Lilly… Lilly Star.”

Zack smiled though before he could respond Zayden cut in.

“She doesn’t have a name, she’s a project. Don’t give the enemy humanity Mr. Heart.”

John, who was still beside Lilly looked infuriated by Zayden’s comment, and Zachary took note. He looked to him next.

“Would you accompany us to the training room please?”

John looked to Zack, smiling at him since he’d ignored Zayden’s disgusting comment. A ray of hope going through him, as he had a feeling that just maybe this man was going to be different than himself and Lilly had thought.

“I will gladly do so.”

John began leading the way down the hall, Lilly following after, and after that was Zack…. He walked down the hall with a spear in his hand, one everyone in the room would assume wasn’t there moments ago. It was purple, purple and glowing from within.

Zayden looked to one of the doctors in the room and pulled one man aside.

“Follow them, listen from the door. I believe this man may not be what he says. Key or not, something’s not right.”

The man he’d pulled aside gave a sharp nod, and walked off down the hall after them quietly.