6 months. It had been 6 months since my demon butler abandoned me without a trace. We had been fighting since I became a demon, but I never could have imagined him someday leaving me. As had become our usual, the new manor Sebastian had provided me with as soon as we descended into hell was filled with the sounds of us shouting at one another. We were both angry, and, I like to believe, saying things we didn't mean. Words like 'I hate you' and 'I wish I had killed you long ago' were flying. I was furious beyond belief and a haze filled my vision. Every imaginable insult flew from my mouth, I could not contain them. My hands were clenched and my small frame shook. That was the day I learned a very valuable lesson, everyone has a braking point. My eternal butler left me that day. As I watched him spin on his heal and deliberately walk out the door, looking as immaculate as always even though he had been screaming just as much as I, I longed to go after him. It was my damn pride that kept me from running up and wrapping my arms around his middle so he couldn't leave. Since then the mansion had been eerily silent. Every sound echoed. Even the squeak of a mouse or the sound of my footsteps sound foreign and unsure. It's enough to make one miss the screaming. And so for 6 months I had remained in an empty house haunted by regret and memories, waiting for Sebastian to return. I was done waiting.

The sun had set on another bleak and uneventful day. The gnawing hunger in the pit of my stomach had become a constant and unrelenting ache that could not be cured by any human food, I had tried. It was time to form a contract, but some part of me was reluctant. Granted, I had no NEED to stay in the empty manor any longer, even if by chance Sebastian DID decide he wanted to return to my side the contract remained fully intact. He could locate me at any time, I need not stay in the place he had left me in order to be found. Still, leaving felt like giving up on that last frail, yet stubborn hope that my demon would return. But finally, I was left with little choice if I wanted to survive, which I was extremely keen on. And so, starving and broken, I left my haunted manor for the first time in 6 months. After spending so much time in doors, the swirling flames and empty soul sucking voids of hell had become almost intolerable. I would in no way miss the pit of despair I had learned to call home.

Once on earth, I knew to hunt for a soul desperate enough to bind themselves to me through a contract. My hand instinctually flew to my right eye, still covered by my typical black eyepatch. I could still feel the connection. Some days it became almost a burn in the back of my eye. On those days I wished fervently I had ordered Sebastian to destroy the contract before he left, but most days I was glad it was there. It served as the only reminder that our time together was real, and not just a fading dream.

That was when I heard the plea. Long and pain filled, full of despair, hate, and rage. The primitive howl tugged at my most basic demonic instinct, to feed. I knew instinctively, this was what I had been waiting for. I followed the cry to a large manor that much resembled the mansion of my childhood. I ran down the corridors, until arriving in a large, well furnished, bedroom. The howl had come from a man who knelt on the floor. Tears streamed down his face and despair seemed etched into his every feature, but his body trembled not with sobs, but with fury passionate enough to set the world alight. In his arms lay the cold, bleeding body of a dead woman, whom I could only assume was his wife. Her blue eyes stared listlessly up at the ceiling, and upon her face a look of horror was frozen. Her bodice was soaked in blood, and it smeared across the floor, and the suet of her grieving husband. Her sandy colored hair was matted with dried, sticky globs of the thick red substance, and it was slowly drying in streaks on her pale skin. her body, however, was not the most horrific sight in the room. Beside her lay the mangled body of a young boy. 4 or 5 years old at most. The child's sightless eyes were the same blue as hers, but his hair better reflected the amber color of his father's. his neck was twisted at an odd angle, and blood trailed down his cheek from his mouth. The boy's tiny limbs were bent unnaturally as well, as if someone had taken great joy in breaking each and every bone, and his torn suet was soaked with thick, dark, blood. It was truly a gruesome sight, even for someone as... Experienced in the area of death and murder as I. Allowing my eyes to reveal their true demonic hue, I approached the man.

"Would you seek revenge on the one who has done this?" I asked him, my voice cold and resounding. As expected the man startled, whipping his head around to face me

"And what would you know of revenge?" He asked, the malice and despair in his raspy, choked voice, displayed pure hostility. I chuckled; he was perfect.

"Oh I know more then you ever will, human, but the only thing that matters to you is that I can help you achieve yours. For a price, of corse." I had his attention now.

"Name your price, and I will pay it." The man demanded.

"Your soul."

After I explained the rules of our contract I gave the man one last chance to reconsider. Still, he did not waver. I placed the seal of the contact on his palm. As for myself, I chose the back of my hand, as Sebastian wore ours. After the process was complete, my new master began to question me.

"What is your name demon?" I hesitated. I considered allowing my new contractor to choose a name for me, but chose instead to retain my old name. The last thing that remained of my old life.

"Ciel Phantomhive." I answered sharply. "And yours... Master?"

"Richard Donavan." The rules of my contract with Richard were clear. I would help him in all things until he obtained revenge on whoever slaughtered his wife, Clarissa, and his son, Thomas.

"What would you have me do... Master?"

"Begin preparations for a funeral for my late wife and son, then clean this room and seal it off. After that begin dinner preparations." The man demanded. I bowed, my posture ridged. Already I was finding taking orders demeaning and distasteful.

I was almost compleat with dinner preparations when I heard an infants cry emitted from one of the bedrooms. At first I endeavored to ignore it, but as it went on the cries became more hoarse and pitiful, and harder to ignore. When I followed the cries to their source, I was surprised to find myself in a small room. The walls were a pastel pink, and large stuffed animals were resting up against almost every surface. A cream colored canopy hung over an ornate white cradle. I approached the cradle, from where the cries were coming. I peered down into the crib, and was not especially surprised to find a wailing infant, probably a year old at most. I lifted the little girl out from her cage-like bed.

"What to do with you..." I muttered under my breath. Her tiny face was turning a shade akin to that of a beat. I began gently bouncing the child, as I vaguely remembered seeing mothers do with their infants when I was still human. With the child's cries calmed to a pitiful wine, I balanced her in the crook of my arm, and set off to find her father.

I found my new contractor in the study, bowed over some assumedly important paperwork. The door was cracked open, but, like a good butler, I knocked before entering.

"Come in Ciel." He called, sounding both disinterested and faintly peeved. He seemed to have recovered a good deal from the tragic death of his wife and child, or perhaps he simply wore a mask over his pain. Either way, it mattered little to me.

"I... apologize for interrupting... master," I began through gritted teeth. This constant show of submission was a disgrace to my family name, and a wound to my pride that I almost couldn't bare. "But I have come across a child who I must assume belongs to you." The mans head snapped up, finally taking interest for the first time. When his eyes fell upon the child in my arms, he winced, as if someone had prodded a fresh wound. Richard quickly regained his composure however, and returned to his state of indifference.

"I care little for the child. Do with it what you will, just take it from my sight." I was shocked by his icy tone, but kept my face schooled into the blank expression of a dutiful butler.

"Yes my lord." I replied with a bow, extorting the room. As I turned to go the child began to sob again, as if she knew how coldly her father had spoken of her fate. On an act of impulse, I called over my shoulder, "what am I to call the child... Master?"

"Call it what you will, I care not." With that final dismissal, I headed to the kitchen to find a bottle for the little tyke. As I walked down the twisting hallways covered in grand portraits of displeased looking nobles, I talked to the child, trying to sooth her endless cries.

"So, you have been abandoned by this world as well it seems. Your mother and brother are dead, and your father seems to wish you would join them. That makes you and I the same I suppose. We have both lost the people who cared for us, and are hated by the ones we care for. The world is a cruel place little one, but don't worry, your not entirely alone. I will care for you, until the day I devour your fathers soul that is." Little did I know, but that day would not come for almost another 6 years.