The boy watched the town he grew up in from a new lens and angle, his own teary eyes and from soldiers' shoulders. He found that the blood-soaked clothes did little to change the glares he got from the townsfolk. He supposed that they had always seen him with blood on his hands know they just knew who. The guard walked unhindered atop bridges and stairs the added weight of the imp on the boy's shoulder unnoticed. More oxen than man.

Piter caught his breath, the labor of screaming no longer his. He noticed the man walking fast. Perhaps worried that the slums would provide him a bigger burden one he could not carry on his back.

The slums ran along the river's edge and were thus better suited for its mutated residents. The rich found that even a god's wrath was not incurable and had no need for the comforts it provided. There was something wrong with the river. No better way to put it. The mist created by its currents did not find itself in the air for long. It would drive itself like termites into wood rotting it in moments. Fish could only be found in the daylight they were said to get lost in its murky waters. Stone was used to fabricate the houses and often not from one quarry. It was common for houses to be splotched with one color or another. Gray walls and tan shingles, save where it chipped, black would be used then. The houses were sedimentary all too willing to fall apart a little more to add another color.

A notable change occurred when we wandered too far from the bridges that carried us across the river. I willed my eyes to rid myself of their tears and felt guilty for it. The ride became much more comfortable sitting upon the soldier's plate when the cobblestones did not leave the man with an uneven gate.

Piter knew immediately that this was a place he should not be. Even the air seemed lighter, a little more noble. He felt panic and knew not why. He closed his eyes tight.

Before he knew it Piter found himself being interrogated by a short man with a crooked eyebrow, he would have been intimidated had it not made it seem like he was astounded by everything in his vision. First, it was the chair, then the table, and finally, the blood-spattered teen sitting on the other side. It was clear blood had been wiped off his face by the residue around his jaw and forehead. The interrogator would have felt empathy for the child had it not looked to him like he was wearing another person's face.

When he first spoke up Piter recognized empathy in his voice that did not show in his face petrified in a state of awe. "Was the boy your friend?"

Pitter did not ignore the use of past tense breaking the dam that left him in silence," George was the son of the sexton. He was the nicest person I knew..."

"But not your friend" The interrogator interrupted thinking he finished the child’s thoughts for him.

Pitter was in a manic state but now more confused than ever, he almost yearned for the imp to say something to at least earn him a breath. "I didn't kill him," Piter said thinking that’s what the man wanted him to say. It wasn't, the interrogator was just as biased and knowable as the rest of the town knew he was looking at a monster. The proof was almost starring at him peeking over the boy’s shirt the mark of sin.

People didn't like those washed by Ugin not just because of the unnaturalness of their birth but because of the origin of the souls. One must walk upon his alter and wish to be washed from sin. Ugin accepts those bound for the devil’s maw, those who can not bear to live or die with the gilt of their life. Ugin accepts only those who have done something you can not forgive yourself for. Those men are marked with sin not because they walked to Ugin but because they did not take it upon themselves to drown in the ladle.

Before the interrogator was an innocent boy but the soul of a monster. Peter could not look more innocent, the tears and the genuine place of a child, the wails that had been heard for blocks, but the guard knew those of the devil and a siren.

The guard pulled out his sword from its scabbard first pointing it at the child than his heart. Pulling down his shirt revealing the mark. Pitter whimpered at this there where the sword was dragged blood fell, a wound no wider than a hair appeared.

"It was Lennie he killed him, he wasn't even breathing when I got there." The truth was said but lies spoke volumes. The imp would have laughed at the desperation before he had the innocence he witnessed not sung to even him. He knew nothing about the mark of sin, so he decided that one of the men in the room was a monster.

The astonished man looked happy with himself as he closed his blade upon its scabbard; a wide grin marked his face. He asked no more questions about the closed case and wobbled out the room. His sword almost touched the ground with each stride.

Pitter wept. Not for himself but for the dead boy, why had he not called him his friend? He was the only one in town that treated him with any amount of kinship, the looks Piter received were given to the boy too, he could not hide his mutations like most and was ostracized for it. They had shared everything including the bullying from the much bigger boy, it could be Piter on the ground just as easily as George. Just as delusion overcame Piter feeling the pulse of his thumb, his own pulse, and thought it was George's he wished to forfeit his life for the boys. It was his joy that Piter could not live without that had saved him so many times he felt the need to repay.

The imp interrupted his train of thought before it could reach himself strapped to the rails. He might be on his way to being executed but the currents of his mind had not settled enough for him to find peace with his position.

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The imp wanted to ask about the mark but quite his inner turmoil and asked the boy for his allegiance. "If I get you out of here will you help me kill that guard?"

The question shocked the mourning child. Demons even lesser ones like imps were tasked with torturing those who committed sin. But would usually not step in to stop one from committing more. The thought of one making immense was not something they would consider

The boy ignored him trying to find himself again at the front of a freight train. The imp repeated the question louder this time. He did not feel the boy to be a good servant, nor the guard the greatest target, a monster but not one that wasn't commonplace among even hell's colder dungeons.

"I don’t want to hurt anyone," the boy mumbled. "I wanna be a good person."

"One step at a time, even I was once an angle." The demon with a single flap of his wings left the shoulder of the child and found himself among the door's bars. His fork leading the way makes the lunge look less frightening than it should have. The child laughed he had not yet felt hope for himself, but appreciated the kindness of the imp. Only once he disappeared behind the bars did his head find itself buried among his arms. But now he only smiled.

The Imp's childish enthusiasm granted Piter a small breath of relief from the anvil of reality on his chest. A breath where he was not thinking of Geoge's last dead boy he could not save. The warm room had always felt dark to him, the lights dim and now the silence too silent. Even while sitting in his seat he felt his body was contorted: his head in his knees and his eyes covered refusing to see the world just to rewatch his own failures.

How could one born from Ugin not learn again to give up the world? To become both an isolated spectator at the miss givings of the world and an unwilling participant. One had to see the worst in people, the constant glares, the harassment, and still look to those same people for compassion and love. He wanted to be better but he didn't think it was possible for the people there to remind him of that were dead, George's death was not the first he had witnessed, death had caught his mother not short before.

When Piter had descended to the town on his ivory crib she had been the first person to look at him with empathy. Where others had seen a monster she had seen a child and they hated her for it. Empathy was not something that could not be quantified but it could be envied. Her Husband, Piter's father, upon seeing the child could not find an ounce of Empathy. He loved his wife when he had been young the compassion that had now left them poor had been her most alluring feature now it made him spiteful.

His father had envied her compassion and attained it for himself, and only once bleeding him dry did he realize he did not want it. It was only the love they had shared that prevented him from leaving her, just as it prevented her from leaving him, even after she was forced to split her small serving of food in another half. The small portions had prevented her from giving birth before just as they prevented her from producing any breast milk. The commission ate away further at their measly wealth and Piter's mother’s health.

Piter's father had often contemplated killing his adopted son, to show his wife what compassion could be redeemed for, and he would have done it had not the threat of smite been a fog so thick that he was almost blinded by it.

His father killed him in other ways. Revealing the secret of Piter's sin, and beating his mother. It was at her funeral that he met George for the last time. They were wearing black and the smile that was always on George's lip had been replaced by a frown so genuine that Piter felt it more real than his own. Pitter cried as his mother was dropped to the ground. Around him were faces he had not seen before, his mother's compassion had left her poor and alone in life but in death surrounded by her beneficiary likely they had avoided her in order to keep whatever small bit of wealth she had given them. They wept for her but on her death bed, only Piter and his father were there. Piter came showing his sorrow, his love, and his thanks. While his father recoiled both from the death blow he delivered and disgust with himself. She died that way with no doctor or guards being brought because of the small amount of wealth Piter could not compel either.

His mother and George had been the string's tieing Piter's humble existence together. Piter felt responsible for the death of both of them. He felt like a spectator on the sideline of his own life unable to help those around him only allowing them to save him over and over where he could ignore them when they needed him most. The contorted mental image of himself found itself into a circle of self afflicting pain. Piter was torturing himself.

Crashing could be heard beyond the cell door what sounded like glass breaking, an avalanche, and an explosion all in one. From beyond the iron slits of the door, the imp emerged. He was covered head to toe in soot which turned his usually spicey sent into one that smelled more like firewood. In place of his pointy fork was a small silver key. It seemed too heavy for him as he was unable to fly it over to Piter in an attempt to wake him up from his own personal hell.

Panting now the imp managed to just sneak the key onto the table. The imp saw that even after his heroic intervention his damsel had yet to raise his head. He lifted the key up parrel to himself, extended his wings, puffed out his chest, and grunted. Still, sleeping beauty slept. The imp hoped things wouldn’t have to turn out as they did in the fairy tale. Grunted again louder this time. Still no response. The imp was happy this time the lack of response allowed him to readjust his stance. This time sticking the key into the air. Screaming this time he still did not get a response.

"Your hero is here human. Fret not for no castle is impenetrable, no battle too big and no dansyl too ugly for the Great devil is here to save you." There was still a concerning lack of response in the boy.

"Do you want to die in here?" The imp asked genuinely curious.

"It's my fault they're dead I belong in here," The weeping child answered.

"You could do nothing to save the boy, he was already a hunk by the time you arrived," The concerned imp answered.

"I felt his pulse, his heart was still beating, that means he was alive." The imp connected the dots realizing the boy blamed himself for not calling for help well enough.

"Not Lennie's fault?"