Knowledge at a price
When the Devil reappeared, he called himself Mephistopheles and had a human shape… "Why do you summon me, Faust? What do you want?"
"Knowledge," said Faust. "Knowledge and power."
Dr. Faust, a German legend
Wilson
I knew I shouldn't have listened to the man through the radio. I never should've accepted his knowledge. All he wanted, he said, has for one little machine to be built, then I could share my smarts with the world. The man through the radio told me each step, and if I had paid closer attention and not been distracted by my newfound intelligence, I would've seen that this was a contraption of a demon.
As it was, I gratefully helped the entity that made brilliant blueprints swirl around in my head, getting the cogs and metal that where needed for the contraption he needed built. When it was finished, I was beginning to get my doubts. After all, I didn't know what this machine did. I was thinking of disassembling the thing when the radio told me to flip the switch. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and pulled.
I opened my eyes after a few seconds and saw the machine cough, sputter, then roar to life. It made a face with a long chin and devilish eyes and was displaying an evil smile. The shadows of everything around me turned into long arms, their hands gripping me tight around the ankles and dragging me down, down, down…
The last thing I saw was the face that I built cackling at my defeat.