Little Demon

And then I came to my senses again.

"What would your father think of you, Aya?" I asked myself. "What if he saw you throwing aside all the ethics which he would sacrifice everything for? Could you live with that shame, Aya?"

The rat was still struggling in my hand.

"These people may be wrongdoers, but one day, they may also come to realise the height of their folly. And besides that, I am not the sort of demon they think I am!"

I let the poor rat escape my hand, and it quickly did so. I tidied up my clothes as well as I could in the dark.

After that, I heard the house's door opening.

"Is the doctor back?" I thought, but I remianed silent to get a better idea. I ran to my room's door to listen closely.

"Welcome, welcome! It is an honor!" Mr. Ulvi was talking.

"Is this..." a voice came. It was The Old Man! "Is this the house where you keep her?"

"Yes, master." Mr. Ulvi said.

"Cut it off with the 'master'." said The Old Man angrily. "I am not anyone's master, nor I intend to be. We are equals in the presence of the spirit."

"I am so sorry." Mr. Ulvi said. The Old Man grumbled.

"Let's not keep the little demon waiting." he said.

"WHAT!?" I almost shouted out loudly. "I will show you what a demon looks like!"

"This way, our dear guide." Mr. Ulvi was approaching the room I was kept in.

"Dear guide?" I said. "How many more adjectives can you add to this senile impostor?"

The door was being unlocked. I got back from the door in order not to get caught listening to the conversations outside the room.

The door slowly turned with a loud squeak.

"On your feet." Mr. Ulvi said to me. "The Old Man will see you."

The Old Man appeared in front of the door, walking slowly to Mr. Ulvi's side. He looked at me for some time, with his head tilted to one side. He then breathed in to speak, and paused for a few seconds before continuing.

"What do you think, little miss?" he asked me. "I've told you and your father countless times, that if you don't follow the temple's guide, a curse will land upon you. Yet, you rejected to be with us during the gatherings and prayers, and unlike everyone else, you didn't look after the temple when it was your turn for duty. So, this end was inevitable as you brought it upon yourself."

"If there is something I have to say, it is that my father is a holier man than you are." I replied. "That is what I think."

"Bold, but foolish." Mr. Ulvi said. The Old Man signaled him to keep silent.

"A man who burns himself to death along with those he murdered... I'm sorry I fail to see the holy part in this." The Old Man said. "But surely you must already be acquainted with these kind of rituals. Maybe you know better, care to tell me about it?"

This time, there was no mistake. I had chosen to not believe in it earlier, but my father... He was gone forever. But still... a part of me was rejecting the reality.

"Maybe I know better, huh? This is what I know..." I said. "Liar! You are a cold-blooded liar!"

"Truly the daughter of his father." Mr. Ulvi commented.

"Well, indeed a little demon she is, raised by the so-called doctor." The Old Man agreed with Mr. Ulvi, then turned to me. "These words don't get along well with your cute appearance."

"But your ugly words get along very well with your ugly face." I replied.

"You have no remorse, do you?" he said. "Well, you will have. Soon enough, you will have."

The Old Man made a sign to Mr. Ulvi. They closed and locked the door. I quickly ran to the door to listen to them, but they were whispering to each other. I couldn't understand anything.

Soon afterwards, the door got unlocked again. I ran back to the middle of the room as usual.

Mr. Ulvi had a long set of thick wooden sticks in his hand, arranged in a weird shape. He started coming towards me.

I was scared. I ran to a corner, but couldn't do much else. Mr. Ulvi trapped me with those sticks from afar, and The Old Man came into the room. He was approaching slowly.

I tried to escape from the trap using brute force, but it didn't work. I, as a young girl, was powerless against the adult man.

Suddenly, my vision went dark. I had my head covered with an empty sack. Before I could get it off, it was tied around my neck tightly.

"I can't breathe!" I shouted. I was pulled to some other place, and with a knife, Mr. Ulvi ripped the sack to make a small opening for me to breathe.

"My neck!" I said after that, but nothing was done about it.

I was being pulled by my arm. I could understand that I was out of the house now, but I had no idea where we were going. I mostly knew my way around the village, but I couldn't judge the place by the feeling or the sounds. The only thing I knew was that it was still a bit snowy, and I was getting cold.

On the way, I stumbled, but I was held and lifted back up before I fell.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

There was no answer to me.

"I said, where are we going?" I repeated.

"To meet your fate." The Old Man said from my right side.

Just then, I had a great idea.

"DOCTOR! DOCTOR! HELP!" I shouted as loudly as possible. My voice echoed from the nearby mountain. At that point, at least I knew that we were going mountain-wards.

"It won't help you." said Mr. Ulvi. "Don't hurt your beautiful voice."

After a while, we started climbing a steep hill.