Complete lack of empathy

"Albu?"

"You have a new shape Albu, have you been fooling around with women again?"

Alexander stared at the red demon perplexed. Who was Albu? Even though the demon was staring at Alexander whilst asking the question, it felt like he was looking at something other than Alexander. Which Alexander didn't mind since he had no response. He remained silent as he looked at the red demon in front of him, perplexed.

There was something in his throat, he felt like he was about to throw up. He started choking and changed his position, something wide and large crawled out of his throat. It got into his mouth and stretched his jaw to its furthest extent, Alexander kept choking trying to get it out.

Something crawled out of his mouth, something large. It felt discomforting to have your jaw open up so wide but strangely, it didn't hurt. Alexander's pupils peered down, he tried looking towards the mouth. He saw a blur consisting of yellow and black.

Once the creature was out of his mouth, he realized that it was the salamander. It was only that the salamander was a lot smaller than the first time Alexander had seen it. The first time Alexander saw the salamander, it had been slightly bigger than the size of a car. Now it was similar to the size of a toy car. Alexander felt the urge to say a lizard joke but full-heartedly held it down.

The demon stood still with his eyes glued to the little liza… salamander. The demon turned his head sidelong and looked to be in deep thought. He once again muttered out,

"Albu?"

"Yes it's me, Jahakar"

The demons jaw opened up and was left in a hanging position, he felt like his brain had stopped. He stood in that position for at least 3 minutes before he started laughing the loudest laugh Alexander had ever heard. His laughter reverberated throughout the entire cave, even Alexander felt the laughter tingle on his skin.

After he had no air to continue laughing, he breathed in. It was a long breath.

" The great Alburazath Kanako Zelado the third of the second force is smaller than a lizard and he got caught by a little boy it seems"

"I woke up just in time for the perfect joke" the demon continued with a large emphasis on the ending.

"So funny, hahaha", the salamander intoned depressed.

The laughing and mocking kept continued for a while. Alexanders mind which was connected to the lizard felt the rage boil up at some remarks like it did at the lizard insult. Alexander started shaking, he tried to make himself stop but was unable to. He remembered that slightly before he had been tortured by salamanders fire, he had felt this sensation, a sensation of hate.

Once the demon had gotten bored with insults that got no response, he started asking the salamander more about how he got into this situation. Every word the demon spoke, came with an insulting undertone. It almost made Alexander feel bad, this was THE salamander he was talking to after all.

Seeing the salamander being treated so mockingly without a threat or even a response back made Alexander reevaluate his opinion of the demon. How strong was the demon?

He also didn't understand why the demon had so many negative remarks towards the salamander, then he remembered. The demon was exactly that, a demon! You can't describe the nature of a demon as kind, the way he was acting was totally expected.

"Well, What do you suggest we do now? Should I kill the boy"

"I would love to get rid of this pest. But killing him would lead to my death which I can't have"

"Wait, wait wait, wait. hahahahaha. You are planning to live your life inside of him"

"It's not funny, I've thought about this a lot. There are two ways for me to escape this. The first way is with his consent if he consented to me leaving I would be able to. The only issue with that, why would humans, who are so greedy, ever willingly give up a treasure."

"I've got an idea, we torture him until he gets his "consent". Back in hell, we got some pretty advanced torturing techniques. We could hang him over a burning campfire until he agrees. We'll put him through hell until he relents."

"Imbecile, any pain he goes through I do as well, and I do not want to go through hell. Furthermore, trying to circumvent the god's laws never end well. "

"Albu, you can't seriously be saying that you want to live like a pesky… the human spirit."

"What choice do I have" The salamander's voice was trembling.

The red demon looked back at Alexander, where he found Alexander with wide eyes. Hearing people talk about sending you to hell took him a bit to process. The only reason he had not gone there yet, was because the salamander didn't want to go through the pain. Alexander felt shocked at the total lack of empathy for himself.

"Little boy, what about you do me a favour and let my friend go"

The demon had a sly smile plastered on his face as he uttered those words, it showed his yellow teeth. Alexander didn't have anything to say, he wasn't going to lose his magic and most likely his life after that. He simply stared at the demon. The demon dropped the smile after a while and returned to talking with the salamander.

"Not only have you been caught by a boy, a smooth brained boy at that"

Alexander felt the salamanders agreeance in his mind, it disturbed him a bit.

"What do you want boy? Gold, women, slaves, empires, You can have anything as long as you relinquish my friend here."

The entire scene still felt unreal and Alexander didn't know what he was supposed to say, it was all too much to process. Trusting a demon for his word sounded delusional. He remained silent.

When the demon realized that he had not tricked the child he got angry. When he got angry a blue fire would form on his head and his eyes would start burning. Alexander got frightened at the sight of a demon with a practically burning head staring at him.

"Albu, do you have any issues with going through, slight, pain. I really want to tear these humans limbs apart."

"No"

"..."

"The second thought I have had is if I see pop, until I saw you that seemed impossible. But if you could take us there, maybe he knows a way to solve this.