Let the Games Begin

Out in the dark, a man walked.

He was a handsome devil. He had a thick mop of dark, curly, silky-looking hair that framed his softly-contoured face, deep-brown eyes, and full, pouting lips. He was tall, thin, and dressed stylishly, in a black leather jacket, scuffed-up jeans, and snakeskin boots. His voice, when he spoke, was warm and rich, and he liked to laugh, and his walk was a leisurely sort of shuffle.

But there was something about him that was sort of… off. Nobody could quite say what it was. Perhaps it was that, if one stared at him for just a split-second too long, he would change. His eyes would glimmer crimson; his beautiful smile would become far too wide, and contain far, far too many sharp and jagged teeth; his rich, warm laughter would become unnerving, cold, cruel; when he stepped on the grass in the city park, the grass would wither and die. Of course, that was silly, people would tell themselves.

That was what they would tell themselves, but they didn't believe it. They didn't believe it at all.

He shuffled to a stop, and he grinned, flashing too-sharp teeth. They shone in the moonlight, and nearby, a rat foraging for food squealed in fear; its little heart stopped, and it died, shuddering and shivering.

He was unutterably, unbearably bored.

Time for a game, then.

The grin on his handsome face grew wider and more terrible.

He closed his eyes and looked, searching through the darkness of the city up ahead. In the sleeping city, a million dreams suddenly turned to nightmares, and a blood-colored eye looked through their horrors, surveying coolly and carefully. He heard angry whispers and madness mantras and incoherent screams of horror and revulsion as he roamed through the darkness of dreams and visions, surveying it with a vicious curiosity sparkling in his eyes.

The pretty young nurse, home from a grueling, thankless day at work, dreamed of her patients, quiet and released from their pain at last. She had cured them, all right. Nurse Billings' medicine had made them all better, that wonderful mix of succinylcholine. A wonder drug, that. Nobody would ever find out. Nobody would ever know about her tender mercies. In her sleep, she smiled and rolled over onto her side, satisfied. She wished that she could have set her patients free.

No. The man shook his head. Keep moving on.

The old man whimpered in his sleep as he dreamed of the gentleman in the black shroud, cowering. He knew that soon, he would die. His ticker would just give in, call it a day, and finally, the gentleman in black would drag him, screaming, into whatever awaited the dead. He dreamed of being dragged away by enormous dogs with forked tongues and ugly grins on their horrible faces, their teeth sinking into his bones and pulling him apart, dragging him bit by bit to Hell. He wished he had the power to defeat the man in black. In his sleep, he rolled over and curled into a ball, whimpering.

No. Not what I'm looking for. Keep moving on.

The young woman dreamed of a long, high wall. It was white, and it stretched in any direction as far as the eye could see. She sat with her forehead resting against the cold and unyielding stone of the wall. Beyond that wall, she could hear life. Beyond that wall was a world for lovers, for friends, for people who had possibility and potential, the ability to make something useful out of themselves. That was why she had been exiled on this side of the great white wall. She wished she could have joined the world on the other side. But that was quite impossible. She had tried. She belonged on this side. Lonely. Alone. Devoid of purpose or use.

Yes. You'll do nicely. The man grinned to himself and stepped into her world.

A man appeared, a man whose eyes burned like twin stars. She tossed and turned in her cot as she slept. His touch was soft and comforting, and he brushed her cheek affectionately. He whispered to her in his smooth, rich voice, though she couldn't understand what he was saying, and his full lips brushed her cheek as his long, thin fingers brushed a lock of dirty-blond hair behind her ear. Laurie Dalton sighed and turned over again, burying her head in the makeshift pillow. The man pressed a wide, long-fingered hand to her chest and squeezed at it, scraping her skin a little bit. A symbol appeared, although she did not understand it. The wall disappeared with a wave of the man's hand; he took her hand in his and dragged her onto the other side, into the world of purpose.

When she woke up the next morning, she recalled only hazy details of the dream, but felt a great comfort upon thinking of it and trying to remember further details. Something warm and soft seemed to burn within her heart, and it made her feel better for a short time. She remembered the wall and a man with beautiful curly hair and deep brown eyes. He had dragged her beyond the wall. She wondered what it meant. Probably nothing. Dreams didn't mean anything. Not the ones you had when you were asleep and not the ones you had for the future. Just a load of meaningless brain-scratch, was all. Much like herself, actually. Meaningless, purposeless. Months had passed, the world had turned, and still, she found herself lacking in any purpose or meaning. She had always been of the opinion that life was what you made of it, but for the past two years, it had been rather the opposite; life was making her its bitch. Her older brother had graduated college, married, and gotten a job as a pediatric oncologist, treating children's cancers; he was good with children, and he was an excellent doctor. Good for him. Laurie, meanwhile, had obtained a GED, became a waitress at a greasy spoon, and had found herself without that job when the diner closed. That had been nine months ago. She hadn't been able to find another job since, although she'd applied to everything that came across, followed up, and done everything else you were supposed to do in order to get a job. The world seemed to have simply forgotten about her entirely, no matter how much she tried to proclaim her presence.

And so she felt like fading away. Maybe the white, blank world of her side of the wall wouldn't have been so bad. Again, a brief flicker of the handsome man from her dream floated across her mind. If only it were that easy.

She had considered college. There were complications, though--such as the fact that she hadn't a clue what she wanted to do with her life. She simply wasn't interested enough in anything anymore. Her childhood dreams had drained away like water through a sieve; she simply didn't have the energy to create any new dreams. It all looked equally black and bleak in the future; it was all she could foresee.

Had once wanted to be a veterinarian, but she simply wasn't very good with animals, no matter how much she liked them. Plus, she was afraid of blood and needles, even if those needles were going into another creature entirely; she had gone on a job-shadow in high school and fainted when the person she was following had to sedate an animal for surgery.

Had once wanted to simply marry and become a housewife, perhaps even have a child or two. But that wouldn't happen. She was chillingly convinced of that. No, she was stuck forever in the damning twilight of Just Friends and Just Like a Little Sister. Although Laurie was twenty, she had not yet held hands with anybody. Every man she had ever asked out had flatly turned her down, and nobody had ever asked her out. It made her feel disgusting and disgusted.

She had a lot of Just-Friends once, but now, even those had all vanished into the darkest reaches of adulthood. Gotten married, moved away, found new jobs, went to college. Alone again, naturally. She was getting used to it, but that didn't mean that she liked it at all. She was afraid of being alone.

Had once wanted to work on a farm (she'd even been in the FFA in high school), but farm work was harder and harder to come by in the age of industrialization and advance of the service-based economy. The farming communes had vanished with the cynicism of the 1980s and the backlash against the hippies and counterculture revolutionaries, who she'd secretly used to admire. There had been a period of about four years where she'd been nuts about it, and for that short time, she'd felt at peace with the universe at particular points.

Increasingly, though, she felt as though the wall from her dream was almost a literal being, something that had slid into real life somehow--something that cut her off from the rest of the world. Of course. Why not? She didn't deserve to be there on the sunny side of life. It just wasn't a world for people like her. It was a simple truth. Accepting it was as simple as embracing the truth that the sun rose every morning.

Perhaps it should have bothered Laurie more that she was thinking like this, but she paid it almost no mind. She used to think a lot about a lot of things, but she found herself thinking less recently; it hurt less when you tried not to think about things that were getting you down, and the entire world was getting her down, every miserable minute of living in this place. She wasn't upset, though. Just couldn't get the energy up for all that.

It didn't upset her that she couldn't muster the energy to be upset about anything anymore. Not much use in it, she supposed. She didn't care much anymore. Laurie used to care a lot about a lot of things, but she'd found herself caring less and less as each day ticked past. As everything she had was stripped away from her, she had found herself slipping into the warm, numbing embrace of apathy and ennui. She just felt as thought she were floating. Drifting away. And for once in her life, she felt sort of like a swan. Floating away into a chilly blue heaven… It was comforting, the warm embrace of apathy.

The only thing that penetrated that warm shield was the rain--the soft, entrancing music of its fall, the overpowering scent, the gentle touch of the cold water against the bare skin of her arms.

It was a long way down to the pavement. Briefly, she wondered how it would feel to just jump. To just let go and drift away one last time, and be granted the comfort of oblivion. Wasn't as though the world would mourn the loss, was it? The world never cried for the forgotten or the lost. She twisted her hands around the railing and stared at the pavement several stories below, chewing her lower lip thoughtfully.

"Now, I don't know you, and for all I know, I'd be lying if I told you that you've got everything to live for." Laurie yelped in surprise at the sound of the voice. She whipped around, her back now to the five-story drop just beyond the railing, her arms curling around the railing. The person who had spoke to her was a man--dressed in a black leather jacket and scuffed-up jeans; curiously, he didn't appear to be at all wet from walking in the rain, although he had no umbrella. He advanced, hands in his pockets, and leaned with his back against the railing as well, grinning at Laurie, whose jaw dropped. He looked like… just like… like the man from her dream. "But I'd like to give you something to live for, Laurie." He had a warm and friendly voice; hearing it was like sitting by a fire with a blanket around one's shoulders and holding a cup of hot cocoa with tiny marshmallows in your hands; it made one feel warm and safe all over, even in the cold autumn rain. She didn't say anything, owlishly blinking her soft blue eyes at him. That couldn't… it couldn't be him, could it? Fleetingly, a thought came to her--a guardian angel?--but she dismissed it. Mystical nonsense. She tried not to hold with that sort of thing.

Finally, she merely squeaked; immediately, she felt silly, wishing she could've said something cool and interesting, something that could've portrayed her as sophisticated or grown-up or at least pretty cool, to impress him, to make him think that she was somebody worth helping. The handsome man laughed richly, but not unkindly.

"Come on, you can talk to me. I won't bite. Unless you're into all that." Another rich, loud laugh. She looked into his deep eyes, and for a moment, they seemed to flicker red. That was silly, though, wasn't it? People didn't have red eyes. "I've come to you for a reason, Laurie. What's say we go and discuss it over some tea? I'll tell you your future and how we're gonna make it together." She opened her mouth to protest, but he put a finger to her lips, quieting her. "I won't take 'no' for an answer." A charming, entrancing grin spread across his face, and he put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to him. Laurie squeaked again, afraid, but consented to being led away, back down the stairs towards the streets.

------------------------------------------------

They wound up in a cozy little café, sitting across from one another in a back corner table; he was sipping from a tall glass of chocolate milk with a sad-looking puff of whipped cream on top of it. She had hot green tea, and was indeed feeling warm and comfortable down to her very bones after drinking some, though perhaps some of it was due to the company of the exceedingly nice man. Their corner was dimly, but charmingly, illuminated by a green candle in a little glass globe, and the glass globe sat inside of a wreath made from small plastic pine boughs. She'd been very quiet so far, and the man didn't seem to mind much; he would hum a little bit, or sing snatches of songs under his breath--he seemed to quite like Rolling Stones songs--or just one particular song, it seemed. She smiled across the table, a little more confident with the warm tea inside her, and he grinned in return. It was a Cheshire cat's grin, and seemed--fleetingly--to have far, far too many teeth in it. She blinked, and the illusion was shaken away. His teeth were perfectly-aligned and perfectly white once more. Perfectly handsome.

"Drying out?" he asked pleasantly. She nodded. "That's good." He brushed a stray silky black curl of hair out of his eyes. "Very good," he repeated idly. He took a sip of his milk and licked his lips. "I bet you're wondering why I brought you in out of the rain like this. Aren't you?" She nodded, having slightly suspected an ulterior motive. Still, it was nice to be treated that way by a stranger, even if he had some reason for it other than simple kindness. Nobody had treated her so kindly in years, if not her entire life--not even her family. "Yes, I knew you were. You're a curious girl, and that's a good thing. Well, my dear…" His grin widened. "…I am the man of your dreams."

A flash back to the previous night's dream; she gasped softly, and hoped he didn't notice.

"No… not even that. I am the answer to your prayers." His voice became a deep, silky purr. "I can give you whatever you want. Whatever you need, at the very depth of your soul. It's in my power to give it to you. I could give you the knowledge of all the worlds in all of the universe. I could give you passionate lovers. Loyal subjects. Servants to cater to your every whim. Extravagant riches. Empires. Aeons. Entire precious worlds. I could give you power, beyond your wildest dreams, and with that power, you could destroy whatever lies in your way and rebuild the world as you see fit. A paradise for the forgotten… justice for the lost…" One of his long, thin fingers gently stroked her cheek; he was so close now that she could feel his warm breath against her skin. His breath smelled sweet but somehow rusty… almost as if it smelled of old, tacky blood. A shiver ran through her skin, through her entire body, and seemed to stick in her throat like a knife of ice. "You are the one I have chosen to do this. You are mine." His long, thin fingers brushed against the collar of her shirt; her eyes half-closed, and she felt the warmth that she had felt in that dream. His hand cupped her chin, tilting her face upward slightly, so that she looked into his eyes--red? brown? Whatever color they were, they were beautiful; she could have looked into them forever. "So I think we oughta have ourselves an understanding." She nodded eagerly and listened very intently. "I'm going to slip the keys to the kingdom into your hands. I'll give you immeasurable power--the ability to shape new worlds. But after I give you this power, I'm going to work you hard, you understand. All I need from you is your word--a promise that you will not fall asleep on the job, that you'll stand by me every step of the way. Promise me… and I give it all over to you. Your new life. How does that sound?"

There was hardly any decision to make, as far as she was concerned; given the choice between continuing to sink further into failure and the chance to become important to somebody… what else was there to do?

"Cross my heart and hope to die," she said eagerly, breathless with excitement.

"Really, now?" he asked, grinning. Distantly, it occurred to her that the teeth in his big, charming grin were awfully sharp-looking, sort of like a cat's fangs. She briefly wondered how they'd gotten that way.

"Yes," she said louder, more confidently. "I'll do anything for you; we most definitely have a deal."

"There's a girl." His grin widened even further, seeming to take up an unnatural amount of his face. "Take this. It'll be the mark of our covenant. That will be your power. Not to mention I think it'd look better on you than it would me. I'm not really the jewelry sort, see." He waggled his long, thin fingers, and a small, clear crystal marble appeared. It glided and slipped between his fingers expertly, and her eyes followed it closely and curiously; it came to rest on the very tip of his left index finger. "Take it," he repeated.

She took the little marble from his hand; as soon as her fingers touched it, she felt something like fire run through her heart. She gave a soft cry, suddenly dizzy, and clutched the crystal tightly in her hand. A brush of the man's long fingers seemed to restore her easily, righting everything with the world again.

His words still rang and echoed in her mind. Shaping a new world… a paradise for the forgotten… power… but more importantly, purpose, structure, direction. She would be doing an important job for somebody; she had been chosen for it. She liked that, liked it a lot. A promise, a covenant, a vow. Laurie smiled. A new life, a second chance, given to her by a guardian angel in a leather jacket.

------------------------------------------------

People. Pft. They were only too happy to proudly march towards disaster when given their orders, weren't they? He got the feeling that humans liked being lied to; they swallowed enormous lies like water, and were easily led astray by the smallest and simplest of tricks. People rarely questioned his motives or purposes, especially the ones who fancied themselves to be good people; they trusted him easily. The wicked and cruel were far more paranoid and harder to manipulate--though it was a fun and interesting challenge that he often played anyway.

But he had selected his pawn, and soon, he would make the first move in his favorite game, although he had many that he liked to play. The game of havoc, the game of stars…

Yes.

Let the games begin.