Hello everybody. I was watching a special on the history channel about the dangers of the dark before electric lights, and so this was pretty much inevitable. I was being lazy though and put it off for like, two weeks, but A2Dthe colour blind zebra talked me into writing it, thankfully ^_^ Even though I need to be finishing the next chapter of my multichapter stories… ah well, it's almost done.
Primal Fear
Pride casually walked through the darkened streets of a nighttime Central City. Their was something very appealing about the barely lit alleyways and the way the shadows flickering in the flames of the streetlamps. Of course, that might have had something to do with the nature of his being, but the way that people would ignore the immediate dangers of near blindness as if they didn't exist spoke a bit differently to the child.
That was one thing he would never understand about humans. They always spoke about the dangers and beings that lurked in the cover of night, as if they planned to avoid it like the plague, and most did. Every night though, the sin could find people wondering the streets away from their homes. It would make sense to him if they didn't have a home to go back to, but over half of the time, he found that they did.
Although one could ask what he, a child who couldn't of been any more then nine or ten at the most was doing calmly making his way down shadowed passages and sketchy streets on a regular basis. One could ask that, but they wouldn't get an answer.
Instead, Pride would just continue his way down the cracked sidewalks, always keeping in the faint glow of the streetlamp. Always keeping just enough in view that someone else coming down the street could see him.
So far this night hadn't been any different from the tons of others he'd spent patrolling the sleeping city. His father had allowed him years ago to set up his own little… police force, one could say. A single being keeping guard over the whole of the city, making sure nothing and no one too important went out of line.
When he heard the footsteps desperately attempting to silence themselves behind him, a smirk ran across his face. There were several ways to keep an entire population at bay and safely inside their homes at night. Fear was one of the best tactics, and one that he happened to enjoy the most.
The sin slowed his pace just slightly, giving his stalker an easier time in approaching him 'unnoticed.' He'd played this game before, and despite the easily predictable moves of his opponent, it never seemed to get old.
At the end of the street the sin stopped under one of the streetlights, it's orange flame flickering distorted shadows across his face. Almost as if he had counted down, the man grabbed him up off the ground, placing a grime covered hand across the child's face.
Pride didn't even attempt to struggle, hanging almost limp in the man's arms. Without questioning the lack of a fight from the small boy his captor quickly tried to run off with him, most likely hoping for some sort of ransom, or at least a hostage for some greater crime, only to find his feet tangled and immobile.
Yes, it was so predictable, the sin had never had much problem knowing what his opponent was going to do next, and yet it never took away from the joy of his little game.
"What the hell?" the man holding him yelled as several tight bindings began wrapping their way up his legs, trapping him further. When he pushed the child away from him, Pride easily landed on his feet, turning around with a smile to face his newest opponent for the first time.
"Well hello there mister. Don't you know it's dangerous being outside at such a late hour?" Pride asked, a cheerful, almost concerned tone to his voice. The man quickly looked up from his ever increasing bindings towards the child they seemed to be originating from, a small swirl of pitch black swirling underneath his feet.
"What the? The hell are you doing kid? Cut it out," the man demanded, panic beginning to rise in his voice as one of the thin black strips carefully coiled it's way around his neck. Pride's smile only widened, a small laugh escaping his lips.
"Aw, but you seemed so eager to play this game when you grabbed me," the black haired boy whined. Despite the initial thoughts of humiliation and setbacks one would think having the body of a child would present, there is also a multitude of different advantages and ways of controlling others with it as well. It was the perfect way to lure someone into a false security, and it is by far the easiest to twist into someone's fear.
"What are you talkin about? What is this stuff!" the man was almost screaming now, the panic heightening with each time the binds would tighten. Pride's falsely innocent smile quickly twisted into something much more hardened and sarcastic.
"That stuff," the sin started, his voice having changed almost completely, causing the caught man to freeze in his struggling from shock and fear. "Is an embodiment of darkness, and an embodiment of pride," he said, chuckling at the confused expression of the trapped soul.
"In fact," he began again, walking in circles around the man, the mass of shadows outside of the light source darkening to an unnatural level before lifting up off the ground to surround the two. "one could say, it's an embodiment of fear as well, from the way you humans react to the darkness," the sin said, his entire being seeming to mock the dirty, tangled man.
"W-what… what are y-you?" he barely managed to ask, the binds tightened to a point that threatened to literally squeeze the life out of him. Of course, that wouldn't have been any fun.
Without answering, a dozen eyes and mouths appeared in the dark at Pride's will. Quickly the mouths full of long rows of huge, dull teeth lunged toward the now screaming man, effectively tearing him limb from limb with ease. It was only moments before the screaming stopped completely, the stone sidewalk below him coated in liquid red and any traces of the monstrous darkness gone, except for the lone child left behind.
"What's going on here?" Pride quickly turned around to face the voice that called out to him in the darkness. A young woman caught sight of him and quickly ran over to the small boy before he could say anything.
Looking around in the dim light, her eyes seeming to widen to the size of dinner plates at the sight of the puddle of blood beneath their feet. "What happened here, are you hurt?" the woman asked frantically, and Pride smiled happily as the black shadow slowly returned under him, working it's way over to his new companion unnoticed.
"I'm just fine ma'am, thank you so much for asking, but…" he said happily, stopping for a moment when the woman shrieked as the shadowy bindings twirled around her, locking her in a similar cocoon that the man he'd just deposed of had been trapped in. Yes, all these humans were so easily predictable, but that didn't lessen the thrill of dismembering and eating them alive, not by a long shot.
"Don't you know? It's dangerous outside at night."