The most recent kill had not kept Cyrus's demons at bay for long. Within days, he was desperate to a point he'd never known; he knew nothing would take the edge off now, no animal or beast or anything in between.

Cyrus scratched the skin on his arms until it was raw and angry-red; it did nothing to drive the darkness out. He could never quite reach it, the feelings bubbling and threatening to boil over inside him. He was beginning to suspect the only way he would never hurt anyone again was if he were dead.

He should have died that first night. It would have saved the world, and Cyrus, plenty of suffering.

A part of him was ready to take the knife and slash his own throat--it would be damn poetic--the darkness residing in him never seemed to let him. It wanted Cyrus alive; it wanted Cyrus to wreak havoc. And if it weren't for the other thing that would eat him alive if he were to relent to his murderous tendencies--his somewhat intact conscience--Cyrus would have given up a long time ago. The old him wouldn't have cared who had gotten hurt.

This new him, this fragile and crumbling version of himself, did. Cyrus could think of only one thing that might numb his pain, if only temporarily, and he spent half of a night wandering the streets of New York seeking it out.

The old house he'd found and killed a junkie in was deserted. Maybe everyone else could sense the negativity surrounding the place, the darkness Cyrus had left there. New York was for the dreamers and Cyrus gathered there wasn't much of a line dividing himself from them: they all fell victim to their baser instincts eventually, and when you hit rock bottom you either drown...

Or you drug yourself up to ignore the fact you're still, in fact, drowning.

This considered, it wasn't hard to find another similar house in a seedy neighborhood. The foundation shook from the thunderous music coming from inside; lights flashed from the windows erratically; the surrounding area reeked heavily of weed. In his days on the street, Cyrus had become quite accustomed to its musky odor.

Crossing his fingers whoever was inside had something a bit stronger than marijuana, and not giving himself time to think it through or chicken out, Cyrus strode straight up to the door and knocked.

It took several minutes for someone to answer; then the door cracked just an inch, a wide, bloodshot eye staring back at Cyrus through the gap. It looked him over before narrowing and the other man said, "Get lost," in a gravelly voice.

Cyrus's hand shot up and stopped the door from shutting. The other man flung it open, revealing his taller--though just as slender--form. His face was pockmarked, his limbs twitchy. He couldn't even keep his eyes on Cyrus; they kept darting around in every direction. It wouldn't be hard, Cyrus mused, to scare him, but he was also worried what impact the drugs the man was on would have on his behavior. Producing a wad of cash from his wallet, painfully aware of how thin it was growing, Cyrus held it out in the space between them and waited.

The man regarded him with his twitchy gaze for several moments before grunting and swiping the cash out of Cyrus's hands. He shoved Cyrus inside and shut the door again.

The lights he'd seen from outside came from some kind of speaker; the lights seemed to flash in time with the beat it was projecting. Beyond that, there was no other source of light inside the house, but Cyrus could make out the forms of half a dozen people in the room with him. None of them looked up at his entrance.

The man who had opened the door reappeared, shoving a plastic bag about as long as Cyrus's pinkie finger into his hand. He stumbled away again without a word, crashing down on a couch full of holes beside a woman who was rolling a joint. Cyrus looked away as they fell on top of each other, the woman's handiwork momentarily forgotten, and back down to the bag in his hand.

What the hell was he doing?

Oh, right. The tremors started up again even more violently, almost making Cyrus drop the bag. Smoke was heavy on the air, but through it Cyrus could still feel each person's presence, as drugged up as they were. He sank to the floor as far from the others as possible, but was forced to watch them when he had no idea what to do with the white powder in his hands. He didn't debate whether this was a good idea, or if it made him a hypocrite for the times he'd thought poorly of the junkies he'd crossed paths with. Cyrus was truly one of the flock now.

After a few minutes of careful observation, Cyrus edged up near an ash-strewn coffee table, wiping off an area of it and dumping out a thin line of the baggie's contents. He mimicked the others' movements, pausing for only one brief moment before lowering himself to the table and using a rolled-up dollar bill to breathe in the powder. It burned going in, and the smell--it was like he'd just snorted acetone.

For several minutes, nothing happened beyond the sudden loss of feeling in Cyrus's throat. He was getting ready to call that experience a failure and get the hell out of there before something bad happened--and then something bad happened.

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

It started with a sudden burst of energy. All of his concerns melted into the background, giving way to acceptance. Cyrus couldn't remember what he had been so worried about, couldn't recall what his true purpose was in coming there. Then all conscious thought was scattered in the haze that came over him. Whatever came next, he only saw it in red-tinted, confusing flashes. He could have sworn he heard someone screaming, but the sound only kept going on and on and growing louder in intensity until seemingly Cyrus's eardrums shattered; abruptly, he heard nothing at all, and saw nothing at all. He drifted in that nothingness for what could have been eternity.

As alertness slowly came back to him, Cyrus first became aware of more memories courtesy of the twisted remains of souls inside him. They all blended together in a mottled haze, rushing into each other, vying for his attention. Screaming and bodies' worth of blood, darkness death ravaged corpses and more darkness, a thousand different horrific scenes warring for center stage in his mind.

Then Cyrus's main sense returned, and he became aware of how cold he was. His skin felt wet. He struggled to open his eyes, and when he did, streams of red dripped down off his lashes to splatter on the floor.

He was surrounded by bodies, their blood spattered everywhere around the room like a twisted Jackson Pollock painting. None of the people Cyrus had seen upon first entering the house had escaped with their lives, and still clutched in one of his own hands was his knife. The blade was still slick and dripping.

Cyrus flipped over, facing away from the carnage, struggling to purge his stomach but nothing came up. He wiped away what he thought was sweat from his forehead, and his hand came back painted bright red.

Though his head pounded, it was completely silent, devoid of company. His bloodlust had been sated sometime during his drug trip from hell, but this brought him no joy. As Cyrus struggled to his hands and knees, he noticed an unmoving figure standing by the door, and briefly thought maybe someone had survived his attack after all.

Then he saw the red eyes.

Still in a haze, this was all Cyrus took note of before scrambling back in a panicked frenzy, his clumsy movements only succeeding in making him crack his head upon the coffee table. He cowered there, his only conscious thought now revolving around Acheron. The demon had come back, he had come for Cyrus, he was going to drag him back to hell--

A stinging blow smacked Cyrus's face and he froze. A voice, cold but unmenacing, said, "Jesus, kid! Get a hold of yourself!"

Cyrus looked up through the blood to look at the demon again, finally realizing it was Raziel. His eyes were wide, and he was visibly shaking. Raziel muttered, "Well, here we go again. Just when you think you're out." Then he raised his voice and said in a flat monotone, "You're supposed to be dead."

It took a moment for Cyrus to find his own voice. "Kill me."

"You think I want your blood on my hands?" Raziel surveyed the room, setting his jaw. If it were even possible, he seemed to grow even paler. "You think I want this on my hands?" he repeated, nodding to the bodies.

Cyrus risked a glance at them again, forcing himself to acknowledge what he'd done. Each one's chest was sliced to ribbons, exposing shiny bits of bone and greyish-pink muscle. Each one still wore an open-mouthed look of agony on their blood-splattered faces.

"Please," Cyrus begged quietly, stomach churning, tremors starting up in his hands again--this time induced by his disgust. When Raziel did not react in any way, Cyrus gritted his teeth and lifted the knife. His wet hand slipped on the handle. He still couldn't do it himself, couldn't use that thing on himself, even now. In an idle attempt to spur the demon's anger, he said, "Do it before I kill you too."

Raziel laughed humorously.

"Maybe you're just what I need," Cyrus continued, though each word stung on its way out. "If you're Acheron's opposite..."

The demon's jaw set and he glared down at Cyrus with a loathing he hadn't known Raziel to even be capable of. "This is a dangerous game you're playing, friend," he whispered in response. "What's stopping me from simply throwing you to the wolves? You're on the run," Raziel observed. "Someone else must be after you already."

Maybe this would be a decent idea at this point, but Cyrus knew it was just as likely that anyone looking for him wanted to use him, not kill him.

Then help me, Cyrus thought.

"You think I wanna be seen running around with the world's scariest rugrat?"

Cyrus had a counter ready for this: if there were truly other demons in New York, it would only improve their image of Raziel if he could control the antichrist.

"Fine, yaknow what? Here's my first lesson: next time you want to get fucked up, don't go with the uppers," he spat. "You bloody idiot."

Glaring down at Cyrus, he continued, "My second lesson: I was over in Queens and I felt this massacre. That means anyone else in a couple-mile radius did too. Get the hell out of here, and fast. But I'm not going anywhere near you until you get sobered and cleaned up. I'm not your damn babysitter." Raziel gave the room one more glance-over, shaking his head and covering his mouth with one hand. He repeated bitterly, "You should be dead," before beginning to stalk out of the room.

"Wait," Cyrus said just above a whisper, but it was enough to make the demon stop. He didn't turn around, though. He didn't have a cell phone of his own, and he couldn't go strutting around the street in search of a payphone in his current state. He was sure, however, that basically everyone else in modern society would have one on them.

Raziel said quietly, "Do you really think that's a good idea?"

Cyrus knew it wasn't.

But he was fresh out of options.

Careful to step over the bodies, grimacing, Raziel returned to Cyrus's spot in the corner and handed him a cell phone. He'd never used one before, but it wasn't terribly difficult to figure out. As he dialed up the number he had memorized the night he'd last seen Tuesday, Raziel tapped his foot, each thud seeming to reverberate deep into Cyrus's core.

It rang once, twice, three times before the dial tone stopped short, replaced by silence. He could feel the presence on the other end of the line, though.

Tears rolling down his face with abandon, mixing with the blood and dripping into his mouth, Cyrus said, "I need you."