Page 5

So, jury was out on that one, he guessed.

“Then kneel.”

Dave didn’t want to kneel—he never did, for anyone. At least, he didn’t think he wanted to, but after a second of his muscles clamping down, his body just… shifted to a very unstable, very shaky kneeling position.

He hadn’t moved, though.

Had he?

Dave gulped. Awareness of his own body was one of the things he clung to the hardest when he didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. If he’d lost that last thing… His chin wobbled, fighting tears he didn’t want to shed so soon.

Instead, Dave held his breath, forcing himself to look up again, to continue with the inspection of the demon commanding him against his will.

His torso and arms were covered in ink—or whatever the equivalent to ink was in Hell. He didn’t think one would walk out of these cells and just find tattoo parlors in the middle of a street. It looked like the designs of thorns, crowns, tears, and symbols he couldn’t quite depict. He thought they continued onto the demon’s back, but the darkness and the red hue enveloping them made it hard to tell for sure.

Dave was soon distracted by an unfairly striking face. Framed by all that ink, it almost looked angelic in its sharp features. It reminded him of a Greek sculpture, pure and solid. A scar traveled through half of his face, down one of his horns to his jawline in an almost perfectly straight line. Dave couldn’t tell the color of his eyes, but they seemed to be reading into his very soul.

He shivered at the idea.

He shivered again when he focused more than a passing glance on the horns. Protruding from the demon’s hairline, they were long, and thin, with ends that looked way too sharp.

Dave swallowed.

Sprouting around the horns and falling down to his waistline, luscious locks of white hair were styled in a thick braid. Despite the fear eating away at him, a part of him wanted—needed—to run a hand along that masterpiece.

It would be a good way to die, right?

“Who thought to offer you as a gift, human?”

“W-what?” Fruitlessly, Dave tried to lick his dry lips again while he attempted to figure out what that was supposed to mean. “No one offered me as anything.”

He didn’t think so.

He’d definitely not been made aware if anyone had.

Dave breathed in and out. Breathing exercises were important, right?

Right?

And this was all fabricated by his treacherous mind for… reasons. The main issue he was beginning to see, though, was that when he was having an episode, he wasn’t able to keep reminding himself it was one.

He didn’t think he’d suddenly gotten so much better at managing himself to do it.

“You wouldn’t be here if someone hadn’t invoked me to accept my gift.” The big demon with the perfect hair sounded almost bored as he looked him over, but a hint of a smirk betrayed that stance.

“I don’t even know who you are.”

“I’m Melchom,” he said.

Did his voice echo louder? Did he grow larger? No, no, he didn’t. But of course the hunk before him was Melchom.

“Oh.”

“I’m sure some of the minions around here have already told you about me.”

“Uh, I…”

Dave wriggled his hands together. No one had really prepared him for a conversation with a fucking demon who not only didn’t sound like a child but also looked like he could crush Dave with his bare hands.