CHAPTER 7: the chicken

Yerald stopped in front of me with the dead chicken in his hands.

"Can you see it?"

("What the hell does he mean? Wait what is that?")

There was a small light glowing in the centre of the chicken's chest. At first it had the same colors of the chicken, but those soon dissolved, leaving only a pure white light behind.

I reached to grab it. And to my surprise I could. It didn't have mass, but I could grab it.

As soon as I had it in my hand the eyes of Yerald widened.

"so that is wat a soul looks like."

It seemed that because I was holding it, it now became visible to humans. I stared at it as Yerald dropped the chicken and hurried to get his notebook. He moved his pen faster than I had anyone else seen doing before.

After he was done drawing a sketch of the soul, I had a sudden urge to devour it. So, I waited until I was certain that he was done writing and drawing and then quickly swallowed it.

It didn't have a taste that was easy to compare to anything I had eaten before, but non the less it was delicious. When I consumed the soul, I could feel my senses increasing and my strength growing. It was a weird yet addictive feeling. I saw Yerald taking notes from when I ate the soul, but I didn't care what he was doing. All that was on my mind was how I could get more of those souls.

Yerald had already returned to writing things down in his notebook. A cloud of words was surrounding the amazingly detailed drawing of the chicken soul. The drawing alone would have brought up a fast sum of money if he was to sell it. But I doubt he would do that.

"Admirable Rubedo, I'm done for today. Your room is the first one to the left. I'm sorry but I myself can't make it up the stairs. Feel free to do whatever you want in the house. If you need anything just ask me or the other people in the house."

Relieved that I finally could have some time alone I walked out the door without saying a word. I climbed the stair and entered the room. The door opened with a loud squeak, but I couldn't be bothered by it.

The room was lit by the few rays of golden sunlight that managed to enter through the small window. I inhaled the air of the room. It smelled like old books in here. There was a closet on the opposite side of the room along wit a table a chair and a bed. On the left side of the room stood indeed a bookshelf. Next to the bed hung a mirror, which was a luxury.

I walked over to the mirror and was immediately swung back to reality. I apparently was a demon now. I lost everything, I was summoned and even ate a soul a few moments ago.

I still had relatively had the same facial features, but my face was as red as the rest of my skin. My hair colour had chanced from brown to a light tint of grey that was almost white, my eyes had turned yellow with a slit like pupil. And my ears were now long and pointy, they would have resembled those of an elf if they were not pointing downwards. But the most noticeable were my horns. I had four of them. The first set was located just above my ears were around then centimetres long. The second set was located above the first one. These were roughly fifteen centimetres long. All four of my horns were a colour grey that was slightly darker than that of my hair. They stood diagonally upwards like a distorted grey crown.

I hesitantly opened my mouth to look at my teeth myself. I rapidly closed my mouth after seeing the row of sharp teeth.

After this I sat on the bed with the blanked over my head. I felt terrible. I didn't know what was happening to me and I really missed my family. But most of all, I couldn't get the taste of the soul out of my head and I hated myself for wanting more.

("Does the fact that I have to struggle against this desire make me a monster?")

I was worried about how I just ate the soul and how I growled at Yerald before I entered the house. I just did those things without knowing why. What else would I just do without a good reason. Now that I was thinking about it, I also excepted the deal as soon as souls were mentioned.

Those doubts and thoughts haunted my mind even when the sun was down for a few ours and I finally fell asleep.

My dreams were filled with the images of the monster, me and my sister encountered. Thinking back now, that thing must have also been a demon.

I twisted and turned in my terrible sleep. Seeing my sisters sad smile over and over again. Then there was the silvery creature who carved that symbol in my chest. Ant after that came the rocks falling down along with the feeling of very bone in my body breaking.

I woke up. But I just entered another nightmare. I sat on my bed staring out the small window. I looked at the stars.

'We couldn't see the stars that night."

I sighed. Tormented by sadness and confusion.

"Maybe if they would have been visible, it would just have been an insult to the otherwise beautiful night sky that isn't worthy of being tainted with blood."

I stretched out my hand to look at my scaled fingers and fiendish black claws. Then I leaned to the wall were the bed was placed against. I didn't want to fall asleep again, afraid that this time I would dream about what happened to the village.

I just sat there staring out the window until the sky slowly turned blue as the rays of sunlight reached the grass covered in morning dew and I could hear the birds that dint know about the situation or just didn't care sing their first songs.