When the final bullet hit the wall, the boy removed his hands from his head and looked up. A tall, wild demon, its leather wings transfigured into a long black coat, looked down at him with eyes like the pits of hell and placed a gun to his head. The boy felt the cool, hard barrel but did not feel afraid. His mind was too far away to feel anything at all, so he simply stared back at the demon, his own eyes icy and bitter. Sirens wailed from far off, a warning bell that the ISSP were on their way, and the demon's wings fluttered fretfully. The boy stared at the gun, reflecting on how easy it must be to pull the trigger. Even a child could do it. The demon looked back at him, as if reading his mind, but instead of ending the little boy, it stowed the gun inside those great, black wings and turned away.
"You should be grateful, kid."
The boy watched as it jumped onto the windowsill, wings unfurling slowly, and leapt into thin air…
Vicious blinked in the inky blackness. He stood up and stretched the cracks from his bones. More nightmares. He'd been getting them more and more frequently since the "talk" with Father Bennett, and the scabs on his back still held that little memory. It wasn't something Vicious was going to forget easily. It was a shame, he thought as he pulled on a rough, dirty shirt, that the few hours of sleep he managed to get could be tainted by nightmares. It had been several years since the demon flew away, yet it still haunted his dreams and teased him with those words. "You should be grateful." He should be grateful that he was spared, grateful that he had been given a chance to live. But, Vicious smiled grimly in the darkness, the only thing he was grateful for was being shown how easy it was to pull a trigger.
A bell tolled far off amongst the towers of the orphanage, signalling the start of the day. Vicious went to the sink and threw some water on his face, then pulled a comb through his long, silvery hair and watched his own bored expression in the chipped mirror on the wall. Every day was the same. He could barely stand it. It wasn't the early mornings, or the hard work, or even the strict and angry teachers. It was the dull monotony of day-to-day life that had him wishing for something better. With a final disdainful sigh, he opened the door and moved out into the hall, joining the throng of children that crowded the corridor. They all followed Father Bennett into the hall for morning sermons. Father Bennett, now there was a true bastard. He was easily the worst of the teachers. Vicious wondered whether even the Devil himself would grant the man passage into hell for all the monstrosities he administered on a daily basis, and yet the smile on that thin, simpering face never wavered. The chapel was a dark little room with old wooden benches along either side. Dusty, stained-glass windows hid beneath cold, grey stone arches and a pulpit stood at one end between the pews, allowing Father Bennett to look down his nose at the rows of snot-nosed brats shivering in the cold. The orphans filed along in a line and sat down obediently, hands clasped in their laps, eyes fixed intently on Father Bennett. After prayers, Father Bennett talked to them of sins and of confessions and of God's wrath. Vicious never understood why God had wrath when wrath was a sin. To whom did God confess? The old man spoke of greed and temptation, and how children should never talk back. Vicious tried to avoid the temptation to talk back.
"You should be grateful!" Father Bennett shouted at them, cane cracking sharply on the dented, wooden pulpit. "Grateful that God is merciful! Grateful that he's given you a place to live, food to eat, clothes on your back!"
Vicious thought of his dream, and of the demon granting him life. There was no such thing as God. But he prayed carefully and sincerely, as did all the other children at the orphanage, every day, in the hope that one day He would answer them.