"You and I both knew this day was coming." To any outsider, the hospital room presented the dreary, yet commonplace scene of an old woman dying alone in a hospital. The obligatory flowers on her bedside were as withered as the woman's arms. Machines traced the progress of her heartbeat, the oxygen in her blood.
But, those with the correct vision would see that besides the bed stood a being with the appearance of a young man. He was dressed in an archaic vest, with a mop of hair dangled over his face. His cat-like yellow eye was the only spot of color in the washed out Dreamscape.
"It's been a long run, Shooting Star. I must say, I'm impressed with how long you've lasted. Especially with me as company." The woman was silent. Oxygen hissed out of the tank.
"It's been a fun ride! Chasing away your boyfriends, driving your friends and family to an early grave. I'm so glad you let me, your 'secret admirer', into your life. I can't believe that all I had to do to end the Pines family lineage was perform a pointless imitation of sexual reproduction in your dreams!" The dream demon ran a hand through the woman's thinning hair, frowning as a clot came off in his hand.
"You had to watch them all die. Bleeding Heart, Glasses, Fez, Hand, Icy Hot, Question Mark, Llama, Pentagram, even Pine Tree. One by one, they left you behind. And now, it's finally your turn." In a perfect facsimile of tenderness, the demon stroked the flabby folds of the old woman's cheeks.
"Everyone is alone in death." A breath wheezed through the woman's throat. The demon waited for a death-rattle spitting out one final curse for the demon that had ruined her life.
"Bill, you idiot." Wrinkled lips curled into a smile. "I'm not alone. You're here." The woman's eyelids drooped downwards.
"Shooting Star?" The woman exhaled. The monitors screamed their pure tone.
A pinpoint of light rose out of the dying woman's mouth, hovering right above her head. The point cast a golden light throughout the Dreamscape, reflected in the demon's eyes. The demon plucked the soul out of the air with a clawed hand, and delicately placed it on his tongue.
The Dreamscape exploded with color, memories projected onto the grey surface. A rainbow of plushies, sweaters, enough glitter to drown in. Laughter and singing, the mouthwateringly greasy smell of fried dough. The ghost of soft caresses by hands and tongues. And at the center of the kaleidoscope of senses, a mellow golden yellow, shining bright as the sun.
Inside the demon's stomach, nine other points of light glowed, fireflies greeting an old friend. As soon as he swallowed, he would be free. The souls would be consumed to break the seal that bound him to this place of existence. The universe would belong to him.
If he swallowed. Somehow, he was having a hard time getting his throat to work. A warmth that wasn't the burning heat of anger or the fevered madness of magic flooded his body. An oozy drip of tar fell from his eyeless socket, and dripped to the ground.
With a sigh, the demon unstuck the glowing pinprick of light from his tongue. Instead of rushing off to wherever souls went after death, the radiant pearl floated down to his stomach. The nine souls in his stomach buzzed, pushing out at the walls trapping them.
"Yeah, I suppose you'll want to be with your friends as well." The demon's index finger grew into a sickle-like claw. He plunged it into his belly and ripped up, slicing open the pouch. One by one, the points of light squeezed out of the tar-oozing wound, and shot into the sky, to wherever souls went to.
One last point of light lingered around the demon's head. He could almost hear her, teasing about how he always did things in the most melodramatic, gory way possible. The soul flashed once, as if winking, and shot into the sky to join the others.
"Goodbye, Mabel."