On the Job

I can feel the power surging through my veins. I feel displaced, like I’m on the outside looking in. But I’m here, in this dingy hallway that smells like sweat, metal, and the chemicals of spray paint. There’s graffiti all over the walls, splashes of grotesque color plastered between the dinged, hollow brown doors with chipped numbers nailed haphazardly, marking the addresses and lives of these forgotten people.

Being forgotten by my master would be a mercy. No such luck, for here I am.

I can smell the moment of death from six doors down. It lingers in anticipation, waiting for me to catch up. Excitement and dread fill me, a confusing combination that has the potential to throw me from reality. I don’t want to be here, I repeat, over and over in hopes of holding on to myself. But it’s no use against the bubbling adrenaline.

I succumb to my forced intentions and the sweet, deadly emotions that have begun to haunt me during these soul requisitions and move a few long paces down the hall, taking my time, taunting the fate that waits behind door number 112.

I don’t bother knocking. No one would answer.

I follow the scent, it’s potency filling my nostrils, leading me to where I’ve been cursed to be. I can see the body, motionless, lying in the bed. That’s not a bad way to go. In your sleep, quiet and peaceful. Hopefully dreaming of some other place. I feel both relief and disappointment, another mix of contradictory emotions. He’s already gone.

That’s the thing. Sometimes they’re crawling on their bellies, like the snakes that they are and other times they aren’t conscious enough to know what’s happening. I’m beginning to wonder which I prefer. This particular… job, for I can’t possibly think of him as once being human… makes me sick to my stomach. He’s waiting for me, the devil’s reaper, because he took advantage of a little girl. Several little girls. Now he’s old and gray and can barely get it up. He’s pathetic, and at one point in my life, I would have felt pity looking at his limp, wrinkled body, But knowing what's hidden beneath the skin, I want to rip him to shreds from the inside out.

I see the shadow of death loitering in the corner, and I whisper to it, calling it to me. I breathe in its essence, reveling in the coursing energy it provides.

I say the words that I’ve repeated countless times, intended to pull this man’s soul into an eternal cage. He’s enacted horrors, deserving this fate, and I’ve learned through the painful truth not to question my purpose.

My sight is sharpened and I loom over this man, whoever he is, seeing through the core of his soul, which quivers at the pressure of my presence. They never come willingly - souls - and they are impossible to coax. When they are blinded by humanity, souls are gullible, stupid things. They fall into the trap that is the world, not really believing in the devil or the shadows that lurk around every corner. Some claim to believe in God, but I’ve never seen Him here to save them from their fate. Maybe He’s given up on them. I can’t say I would blame Him. Now, stripped of it’s body, this man’s ugly soul see’s exactly who I am, and recognition becomes evident as it clings to its familiar host.

Guess we’ll have to do this the hard way. I step closer to the bed, repeating the words of finality over and over, reaching my hands out to hover over the cooling body. I close my eyes and every cell that I possess begins to tingle in anticipation. It’s almost like sex right before the climax, but better, because instead of feeling empty afterward, I know I’ll be fulfilled.

With the first cosmic tear, the soul is pulled closer to me, and a sigh of relief washes over me, releasing some of the tension that’s formed between the soul and my insistence.

Inch by painful, blissful inch, I rip it slowly towards me, not bothering with mercy, relishing the beauty of having complete control.

It’s over all too quickly and I take a deep breath as the soul finally relents in its resistance and settles within me, a temporary home until I can bring it to where it belongs. Hell.