11.01.1992; 1:13; small rocky plain in the wood:
James had needed some time to find the right places to fix the different sticks of dynamite in, since he wanted the explosion to have the greatest effect on the plain. Luckily he had taken a flashlight with him since it was difficult to find the right way onto the plain and on it... Well on it, he believed to be able to remember what had woken him up on this night so long ago.
Now, as he stood in the distance of some meters before the rocky plain, hid behind a large tree and the fuse in his hand and the now practically empty rucksack to his feet.
This was the turning point, as he knew it. He hadn't had enough TNT to destroy the entire plain, but the explosion would surely destroy large parts of it and then....
He knew that the people in the town would hear this for sure and considering human curiosity, they would win over their fear. Then they would come here and ask questions...
James didn't make himself any illusions, they would be angry on him at the beginning, maybe even kill him, but it was worth every price, because finally they would recognize that they had been wrong for 300 years and would end their isolation.
~ By speaking of the price... ~ he thought, slightly amused. ~ I think I'm fired. ~
In the four years he had started to work in a factory for dynamite, through hard work he slowly ascended to a position with higher responsibility and access to dynamite and other explosive materials. The funny thing was that he hadn't planned it from the beginning to use his job by helping his town, but that the idea came slowly, over months.
He made himself no illusion that this theft would be noticed in about three days and that it wouldn't take long for the police to find out who the thief was, but otherwise what was a job, or the life he had made for himself against what he tried here?
~ For you Maria ~ he thought, pressing the button. ~ My life for you. ~
*BAARRTTHHGHHHHHNG*
The sound of the explosion raced through the valley like a hammer and birds rose in the heavens, protesting in shock about something they didn't understand, while the few deer which existed still in the woods, fled in all directions.
The people in the town meanwhile prayed to the lord that this might not be the night they had always feared when the demon freed herself, while others just ran around in total surprise.
James was confused too, even when not as much as the people in the town. The explosion had been loud, louder than he had guessed it to be. It had nearly sounded like a scream, but this wasn't what confused him, but the total darkness that surrounded him now.
~ Have I freed the darkness from within the rock? ~ He thought. ~ Was the preacher right? ~
But at once the logical part of him took control.
~ Are you mad? ~ He asked himself. ~ It has to be a part of the rock, which crumbled to dust, nothing special and surely no magic! ~
James let this rational part of himself calm down the more primitive part of his brain, which existed already, before when the first ancestors of humanity lived under the feet of the dinosaurs.
He coughed heavily when the dust set in his nose and mouth, but despite that, the dust even so made his eyes water and made him practically blind. He left his hiding place and tried to figure out how much of the plain had been destroyed while slowly moving forward.
The darkness, which surrounded him, suddenly formed a shape in front of him, a form of darkness with large opened wings, which somehow created even more darkness as impossible as it seemed. And what he believed were eyes even shone dark in the darkness.
James fell down, stumbling over something he couldn't identify, maybe a rock or maybe a piece of wood; it didn't matter since when he looked back up the shape was gone.
~ No, it was never there. ~ He thought. ~ It was just my imagination. ~
Surely it had to be! This was no wonder, thanks to all the stories he had heard in his youth.
He stayed there, kneeled down in the darkness surrounding him and slowly the dust settled down, letting the silver light of the moon coming through, which revealed the terrifying scenery.
All the trees around him were covered with Grey dust like the ground, creating a disturbing monotone landscape in which every life seemed displaced. James noticed this, just at a distant place of his mind, since all his senses were now concentrated on the center of the dust which was still unclear.
When the dust had finally set completely, James saw that the result of the explosion went beyond his wildest assumptions.
The plain was gone, totally and completely gone, leaving nothing but rubble where it had been before.
~ The TNT could never have done this alone. ~ James thought. ~ This is... ~
"Help!" screamed a voice and James stiffened.
The voice had been female and sounded more like a timid child than anything else.
A shock went through James's bones. He had been sure that there was no one near when he pressed the button, but he hadn't checked...
~ What if... ~ he didn't want to end this thought.
"Is someone there?" he screamed into the night, which became slowly clear again.
There was no answer, so he slowly made his way through the rubble, walking carefully until he nearly stumbled over somebody.
She sat with his back to him, trembling, her arms wrapped around her legs and trying to look as small as possible. The first thing James noticed was that she had hair as black as the night, unlike anyone in the town had.
Slowly, he went around her, seeing that she was an adolescent, maybe 17, but not older, seemingly unwounded by the explosion, which seemed a wonder. The next thing he noticed was that she wore nothing but a top and a loincloth made of old linen and the temperature was below zero now.
"Here," he said, taking his jacket off and laying it around her shoulders. "You will become sick if you run around like this."
~ At least she isn't hurt. ~ James thought.
The warmth of the jacket seemed to help her and her eyes, the color of dark-green emeralds, which were unbelievably pretty, James thought, slowly began to look at him instead of in the air.
"What are you doing here?" James asked her and when she didn't answer, he continued. "Are you alone?"
It passed some seconds and James believed that the strange woman... or rather girl, would remain silent, but then she began to speak slowly and quietly.
"My mother..." she explained "I was with my mother..."
"Do you know where she is?" James asked her unsure, somehow the woman had a dialect in her speech he couldn't identify... maybe Canadian?
"No… " She murmured "She was with me and then... I..."
She trembled again heavily and James believed to know that, despite the temperature, she was maybe suffering from shock, a heavy one.
While he thought about this, he looked around and a more terrifying thought pushed the first out of his mind.
~ What if her mother was here? ~ His eyes stayed centered on the rubble, which had once been a plain. ~ If she lies under this? ~
"Where?" he asked the girl, staring on her, "Where is she?"
The girl just continued trembling, seemingly sunken in her own world.
James looked back on the rubble. Most of the rocks were just as large as his head, but some were large as cars and he doubted that anyone would survive if they were trapped under them.
~ Maybe the men of the town can... ~ Then it hit him. ~ They will come and when they see me and her... ~
James looked down on the black-haired girl.
"What is your name?" he asked, trying not to sound as worried as he was.
"Lu...." the girl began slowly, "Lucy."
James nodded, thinking that it was a beautiful name.
"Okay, listen Lucy, we have to go, my..." he hesitated. "My parent's house isn't far away from here, so we can go there and maybe find help." James hesitated again, noticing that she wore no boots. "Can you walk?"
The girl... Lucy nodded, trying to stand up and James helped her by taking her arm. When he did so, James noticed that her arm felt warm, not cold as he had suspected and he believed that it was even heavier than it should be, but otherwise it had already been a long night for him.
"Come on, it isn't far." he explained and led her away from the remains of the plain.
They walked deep into the wood while James took up his rucksack on the way, trying not to leave any trace... Except the large heap of rubble, which had once been the so-called 'demon's prison'.
James didn't run for once because he didn't want to exhaust his companion or the fact that he didn't know the way he was walking, but he walked fast and was lucky to see that the girl kept up. He hoped that the people of the town hadn't recovered from the shock so fast, since else they might run into them.
~ They will most likely first ask the preacher what to do? ~ James thought ~ Or they could make an assembly? ~
But he didn't know for sure and so he concentrated on what lay ahead of him, namely rocky ground with much old wood and no clear path. Wondering, he looked to his companion who, despite the fact that she had no boots or even socks, walked as fast as he did, without complaining about the little stones, which had to be picking the soles of her feet, or the cold.
~ It has to be the shock. ~ He said to himself, concentrating on the ground under his feet again.
Finally, even James couldn't say how long, they reached the town and his house at the same window where he had climbed out.
"Come, we have to go in fast," James told the girl, "else we might be discovered."
"Discovered?" the girl asked, confused. "Have we done anything wrong?"
James shook his head.
"No," he explained, trying to assure himself of it, "but the people in the town are a bit... different than the rest of the world and they might think it."
On the questioning look of the now even more confused girl, he added. "I will explain it to you when we are in." he promised. "Now hurry."
The girl still didn't look very convinced, but then she nodded and carefully climbed through the window. It was the first time that James noticed the little bag on the girl's belt.
After he had climbed in and had closed the window, James offered Lucy with a gesture of his hand to sit down on his bed, which she accepted, seemingly gratefully.
The bed creaked very loudly under the girl's seemingly low weight and James made a mental note to later ask his father to oil it.
~ How can you think of this now? ~ A part of his brain asked while the main part of it was busy in lightening the candle. ~ Surely half the town with enough brains is out there searching for you to make a nice meal afterwards with you as the roast. ~
A part of James doubted that they would kill him for what he did, but then again the preacher had once told them how the town had killed a man 200 years ago because he had wanted to leave the community and reveal it to the world... James had little doubt that it was true.
"Listen..." he began, speaking to Lucy, who looked at him with worried eyes, but he never came to end the sentence because the door to his room opened.
James turned around in shock, half-expecting a mob to come storming through the door, wanting to lynch him for the 'sacrilege' he had committed, but it turned out just to be his mother looking on him with timid eyes.
"James! My god, I thought already..." she began speaking, until she noticed the girl on his bed. "Who is she?"
She spoke the last words in a tone of greatest mistrust, nearly fear, and James knew that his mother believed to see the demon in this girl.
~ If I can not reason with her, I even so can't with the rest of the town. ~ James thought and laid a hand on his mother's shoulder.
"Mother, this is Lucy. I discovered her at the plain...." he hesitated shortly, "after I blasted it."
All blood drained out of his mother's face and she crossed herself.
"James, you..." she began, more than terrified, but her son simply shook his head.
"No," he stopped her with a harder voice than he had intended. "Let us speak outside."
Without waiting for an answer, James turned around to Lucy who studied the scene with very intelligent green eyes, which captured him for a second. This was the exact moment when he noticed how beautiful she was.
"I have to speak with my mother." he explained. "Please try to warm yourself up, it has been very cold."
Lucy nodded unsure, pulling her legs close to her body and wrapping her arms around them until she looked like when he had first discovered her.
~ She is not trembling anymore. ~ James noticed. ~ Neither through shock or cold. ~
But James knew he hadn't the time to care for how she felt right now. She lived and he had to take care that she would survive the rest of the night... if he could do the same?
"James, who is she?" his mother asked him when he had closed the door.
"A girl I found at the remains of the plain. She is still under shock, but she is better than when I found her." James hesitated and clenched his hands to fists when he added "I don't know for sure, but maybe I have killed her mother."
Again the blood drained out of his mother's face, but this time she seemed more able to hold herself together.
"What if she is not who she claims to be?" his mother asked him silently, looking to the door to his room as if she feared the devil would come out of it in the next second. It was indeed near to what she believed. "What if she is the Demon? James, the demon has black hair too and Lucy, this name is..."
"It is a nice name, mother." James replied more than stressed. "And she seems a nice girl, considering what she has been through tonight."
When he saw that his mother still wasn't convinced, he added.
"Mother, have you seen any wings on her back?" he asked her. "Are her eyes burning like hellfire or did she roar like a thousand lionesses?"
Martha Dower slowly shook her head, indeed there had been no signs of evilness on the girl, but somewhere in the back of her mind, something continued to warn her when she had looked into those green eyes.
"Please mother, I need your help," James said, stopping her thoughts, "more than ever before."
Martha Dower looked in her son's Grey eyes and sighed finally, maybe he had been right all the time.
"What can I do?" she asked calmly.
"For starters, where is father?" James asked.
"He has gone with the other men of the town." his mother answered. "They came here a few minutes after the explosion, asking us where you were, but we didn't know, so he went with them to discuss with the others what to do now. They went into the church, but I stayed in case you came back."
James nodded. He was disappointed, even when he didn't show it. If the whole town would have raced to the 'demon's prison,' he would have been able to sneak away unseen, but now it was too large a risk, especially with the girl on his side.
"Then I... we will have to stay here until the air is clean." he spoke out loud, not taking his eyes from his mother.
"I won't tell them anything." his mother promised.
James nodded, not being able to express his thankfulness in a better way.
"Please, make her a cup of your good tea." he asked his mother. "I have to go back to her and..."
He didn't speak any further, since his mother grabbed his hands.
"I'll make two." she told him.
James looked surprised in his mother's eyes, and then he allowed himself his first true smile for this evening.
"Thank you." he said.
His mother didn't say anything, but pulled his hands to her mouth and kissed them, before going into the kitchen.
James looked at his mother, who searched for the materials for his tea, for a short time and then turned around back to the door to his room.
"James," his mother's voice stopped him when he had already touched the knob of the door. "Think of putting out the candle, the light might attract attention."
James nodded thankfully, thinking that his mother was no doubt the most intelligent member of the family, and entered his room, closing the door behind him.
His good mood was stopped when he discovered that Lucy was kneeling before the open chest on the end of his sister's bed, seemingly searching through it.
"What are you doing?" James demanded to know.
His harsh tone made Lucy turn around in shock and she looked on him timidly.
"I..." she began. "I was searching for some clothes... You told me to keep myself warm, so I thought..."
She stopped, her voice trembling again.
~ Well done, ~ James rebuked himself, looking in Lucy's fearful eyes, ~ really great. ~
"I'm sorry." he told her while putting out the candle again. Luckily the moon shone fully into the room tonight. "Really! It was a long night and it is not over yet and I am... tired."
Lucy nodded slowly, turning her eyes back on the open chest.
"Whose things are these?" she asked interested.
"My sister's, but they are too small for you." he explained and then corrected himself. "They were my sister's things."
There was a longer silence in which James knelt down beside Lucy, while she looked on him carefully.
"I know how it is to loose siblings." Lucy revealed sadly. "I had two younger brothers, who died much too young."
James looked surprised on the girl, who had her eyes on the contents of the chest again.
Finally, her eyes glittered when she had found something and without asking, Lucy grabbed into the chest. She pulled out a little golden cross, which hung at a necklace and studied it with such curiosity that James believed she had never seen a cross before.
"Your family is religious?" Lucy finally asked.
James nodded.
"Deeply, yes." he replied coldly.
"My mother told me and my siblings once that humans create gods to justify their deeds and to give their useless existence a meaning." Lucy explained calmly. "You see, my family isn't very religious. They mostly believe in fairy tales, spirits and magic, but I always intended to learn more about Christianity."
"Believe me, you have missed nothing." James assured her, while he thought that this was indeed a miraculous girl. "At least, it's not practiced here."
Again Lucy looked on him with many questions in her eyes, but then she simply held the cross to him and James took it, holding it in his hand, staring on it.
"It was my sister's cross." he explained. "It was a present from me to her when I came back from a job once. She loved it more than anything else, cherished it, and I thought they would have laid it with her in the... the...." he stopped, somehow unable to continue.
Lucy looked on him with unreadable eyes and she raised her arm, touching his face. He let her do it and noticed the first time that he had actually cried. Instead of saying anything, she led her damp finger to her nose and smelled on it and finally, even licked it.
"Oh," she said with a genuine smile when she noticed his look. "Sorry, but I believe that if you smell or even taste the other's tears, the pain becomes clearer to you."
"I must look weak to you." he explained, shaking his head. "My sister died four years ago and I still cry."
"It isn't foolish to still care for the ones who are gone." Lucy said, touching his shoulder softly. "We all do in our ways."
~ A good girl indeed ~ he noticed ~ if the whole town could see... ~
James looked on the cross and an idea blinked up in his mind.
"Please, come nearer to me?" he asked her.
Lucy looked surprised on him and for a moment, James believed to see cold suspicion in her green eyes, but then she did what he had asked her.
When she was directly before him, James opened the buckle of the necklace, placed it amongst her neck and closed it. Finally, he looked smiling on her, finding that it fit very well on her.
"But it was your sister's..." Lucy asked confused.
"Yes," he explained, "but now it is yours. I know she would agree with me to give it to you."
~ And maybe the people of the town will think twice about calling you a demon when they see the cross on your breast. ~ James added mentally.
He sighed, as he knew he had to tell her the whole story if just to make her clear in what danger she was... Correction, in what danger he had brought her in.
"Come," he said, standing up to his full height. "I have to explain to you the whole situation."
Lucy stood up and James noticed the natural elegance, through which she was doing this. He led her to his bed and they both sat down.
"You surely have noticed that this town isn't like others." he began, waiting on her to answer.
She nodded slowly.
"Sure, I don't have to hide myself in other towns." she noticed. "And then there's the way your mother reacted on me."
James nodded sadly.
"Yes," he explained, "and then there's all this."
He showed around with his hands, showing that the room like the house and the whole town were in no way comparable with the standards of the modern time.
"It is practically like the middle ages." he complained. "Even the Amish have more comfort."
"I didn't want to say anything." Lucy replied calmly.
"It is because of the legend, all this is because of it." James told her. "Once this here was a normal, prosperous town, but then something happened and a legend was born. Allegedly demons once lived here, a whole family of them up on the plain near the town. They tortured the humans in the town, but finally the humans were able to get rid of them, except one. This was a female demon with..." James hesitated shortly, looking to her, "with hair black like the night and eyes as red as the hellfire itself. She nearly killed the whole town when an angel sent by God came and defeated the demon. But the angel, a female one too, wasn't able to kill the demon so she imprisoned her in a large rock deep in the woods instead. She then gave the people in the town the holy mission to guard the demon's prison, or else the demon would free herself and bring about the end of the world."
James stopped. He had told the story, the part what mattered and now Lucy looked on him with unreadable eyes.
"The rock you... destroyed, was the rock of the legend?" she asked and James nodded. "And your mother thought I was the demon."
James nodded again sadly.
"Now she knows you aren't," he added quickly, "but most of the people in the town aren't as sensible as my mother, my father for starters. They'll probably lynch you if we don't flee from here or are able to convince them of the fact that you are just a normal human."
Lucy stared on him, still with an unreadable expression on her face.
"See, I knew I should have been more careful before I blasted the plain, but I had to do something." James explained, trying to justify himself. "This town is obsessed by its 'holy mission' and caught in another time. Sometimes I believe this isn't the USA, but the last part of the old British colony as it once was." he sighed. "I had to do it for my sister... You have to know that she died of appendicitis, something every good hospital in the country could have healed with ease."
There was a longer silence, but finally Lucy nodded.
"I understand," she said, "as good as I can."
James nodded, but didn't know what else he could say.
After a while, Lucy looked curiously on the mobile TV on the other, ever empty bed. Something that James noticed at once.
"Shall I switch it on?" he asked her.
Lucy nodded calmly and James stood up, turning his back to her while working on the mobile TV.
"It is a new one, very expensive." James explained while he pushed the power-button. "I don't know why I bought it, maybe to prove to myself that there is still a world outside the town."
With this, he extended the antenna of the TV, bringing a slightly trickling picture of CNN on the screen.
"I hope this is good enough," he said, turning around to her. "I'm lucky that there is really any reception, you know it is always difficult with these in the mountains."
Lucy nodded, her eyes captured by the TV screen.
Finally, she freed herself from it.
"My mother has no TV." she explained. "She is not interested very much in what the humans around her are doing."
"Oh." James noticed, thinking that maybe they both weren't so different after all.
"She isn't strange," Lucy assured, "but she has been disappointed by humanity very often and fought in too many wars."
The girl remained silent a moment and James thought that her mother must be an interesting person, as her daughter.
"She even so trains me so that I'm able to defend myself, this week it is survival training." Lucy added as irrelevant fact.
"What?" James asked her unbelieving.
"Do you think this is the way I usually clothe myself?" she asked him with a slight smile, pointing to her top and her loincloth.
James shook his head, in all the trouble he had forgotten this again.
"But I think I'll always disappoint her." she explained. "I'm back in my lessons and somehow can't really fulfil her expectations."
"No," James denied. "I don't think that you could disappoint anyone."
"I heard her say that my love was better than I." she explained. "But one day I will make her proud."
"Sure you will or even have...." he stopped. "…Your love?"
Lucy smiled, going with her hand through her black hair.
"Yes, we practically grew up together." she told James. "I wanted to mat... marry him some time, but... his heart stopped beating for me."
James nodded understanding; this was when he began to see the 'girl' in another way.
"How old are you?" he asked her.
"Older than the most humans think." she replied smiling.
He wanted to ask further, but was stopped when Lucy suddenly began to laugh rich and genuine.
"What is it?" he asked, becoming infected by her laughter.
"I still don't know your name." she noticed smiling.
James grinned, he had indeed forgotten to say it.
"James Dower." he explained. "And you? I mean your full name."
"Lucy Canmore." Lucy replied after a second.
"Canmore..." James repeated. "Sounds Scottish."
"It is." she assured him. "My mother came from Scotland, it was here where she met my father."
"Well..." he began, but stopped when the door opened and his mother came in, with two cups of her special tea on the tablet she was carrying in front of her.
"I didn't want to interrupt you both." James's mother said, even sounding so.
"It is okay, mother," James replied, "we were just talking."
His mother nodded and was going to say something more, when they heard the front door open.
"I'll come at once." His father's voice told someone outside the door, to be followed by footsteps moving in the direction of James's room.
James didn't wait, but went out of the room, meeting his father half of the way between the two doors.
"What...." his father began, looking on his son as if he would see a ghost.
"What have you done?" his father asked him and his voice was a chaos of different emotions like surprise, fear, suspicion, but even so relief about seeing his son again.
"I blew up the rock in the wood." James explained, confirming his father's fears. "The 'demon's prison' is no more and look, the world hasn't gone under."
His father seemed to sway, knowing that his son spoke the truth.
"James, you...." he choked.
"Father, we don't have time for this." his son pleaded. "I nearly killed a young woman tonight who was at the plain and if the preacher finds her, he might really kill her."
"A woman?" his father asked, now suspicious again.
"She isn't the demon, Abe. She wears Maria's cross and no demon could do so." Martha told her husband, "I have come to believe that there never was one."
James's father looked on both his son and his wife, the two humans that meant everything to him.
"The preacher said we should call him when we see you." he explained slowly and James knew that he was fighting with himself, trying to decide between what he had believed all his life and the loyalty to his son.
"Father please, I ask you," James began and his voice was indeed pleading and desperate, "just this time, trust me more than the preacher or any old story written in a book."
James's father looked in his son's eyes, which were so much like his own, unknowing what to do.
"Abe, we have to go!" a voice screamed from outside. "The preacher wants us to be at the demon's prison as fast as possible."
James's father's eyes stayed captured on his son, looking sad and for one moment, James believed he would call the man in, capturing him and send him before the preacher to judge him.
"I'll come." Abe replied to the voice outside "I'm just catching my jacket."
While he answered, he never took his eyes from his son's eyes.
"Practically all men are going to the plain." he explained. "The rest are with their families, so you can sneak away. Wait some minutes, then use the way behind the house leading to the road and be careful."
"Thank you, father..." James began, but his father shook his head.
"Just be careful and don't come back so soon." he explained and added silently. "I love you."
James nodded sadly, as he knew he would maybe not be able to return here for years until the town had calmed down.
Without turning around or saying anything more, James's father grabbed his jacket and stormed out of the door, closing it behind him.
James's mother looked on the scene with mixed feelings, as it seemed as if her husband and her son had reconciled, but despite this, their son would leave her again.
"I'll make you something to eat for the way." she offered with a smile and went into the kitchen before her son could say anything or even notice the tears forming in her eyes.
James didn't say anything, he didn't know what, but while he went back into his room he swore to find a fitting way to say goodbye soon.
When he entered his room, he noticed that Lucy still sat as he had left her, sipping on her tea.
"Is everything well?" she asked James with her eyes studying him intensely. "I heard a man speaking... Was it your father?"
James nodded.
"Yes, he will cover us." he explained. "But we will have to flee soon, as long as most of the men are occupied at the remains of the plain." he hesitated, studying her still few clothing. "Best I'll give you some of my old clothes... if mom kept them."
"Thank you." Lucy replied. "But why don't you drink your tea first? It is becoming cold."
James looked at the tea standing on the desk before him.
"You're right." he explained and took the cup in his hand. "Besides, I haven't relished anything warm since ages."
He began sipping on the tea. Sensing that it wasn't hot anymore, he drunk the whole cup in a row.
~ It is sweet. ~ He noticed ~ mother must have used her last sugar for it. ~
Just that moment, he felt himself becoming dizzy and sleepy.
"Uhh." he stated and felt his legs becoming weak.
But Lucy was indeed very fast and grabbed him under his arms, leading him to his bed.
"You must be tired," she said smiling and if James had been in a better state, he would have noticed that the smile didn't mean anything good. "Sleep."
James wanted to say something… that they hadn't enough time and that they had to hurry, but he couldn't even move his mouth when his world became black.
11.01.1992; 10:27; the Dower's house:
Slowly, the curtain of slumber fell from James's mind and his slowly awakening senses told his brain that it was already morning.
~ I have to go to work. ~ He thought. ~ If they notice that I'm late... ~
But then his brain informed him that he was, first, not in his usual bed and then that he had more reason to worry than just possible trouble with his boss.
"Shit!" he cursed and jumped out of the bed, looking around for an angry mob wanting his head, or at least two powerful guardians, taking care that he wouldn't be able to flee.
The room however was empty.
"It is okay, James." Lucy's voice spoke to him from the main room, screaming through the door, which was just leaned open. "We are here in the kitchen."
"Lucy?" he asked the girl... even when he had the suspicion that it was better to call her woman, based on the history of her life. "What..."
When he opened the door, he saw his parents sitting with their backs to him. Lucy meanwhile was, still with his sister's necklace around her neck, studying the mobile TV on the table, which she had somehow got without paying James a look.
"Oh, everything is okay." she explained, smiling without turning her head from the TV. "After you had fallen asleep, I was able to speak with the preacher and the rest of the town. I convinced them that any violence is senseless and that you had proven the truth by blasting up the plain."
James stared on her in wonder. This couldn't be true!
"Mom?" he finally asked them, but they were somehow, oddly, not moving. "Father?"
Still the figures didn't move and when James had got far enough to see their fronts, he realized why, even when he didn't want to.
The eyes of his dead parents looked on him.
Well, there would be if there were still things like eyes in what had once been their faces. There were no noses, no lips and it seemed as if large claws had gone through it.
But they had been killed just by the holes in their stomachs and just from the looks in their eyes, James knew that they had died slowly.
The pure horror let him stumble backwards and fell down on his rear.
"Aghrhhhhh..." he wanted to scream, but his lungs didn't obey him, so it was just a whistling which emitted from his mouth.
"Oh, I forgot to thank you." Lucy explained without looking away from the TV. "Without you, I possibly would have been trapped in that damned rock forever."
With this, James saw Lucy extending her.... Wings?
The extended wings destroyed the illusion completely and instead of a woman, now a demon, a real demon sat on the chair in front of him.
~ My God, they were right! ~ James thought, not even feeling panic, but total and complete surprise. ~ I... ~
"Thank you, even for showing me a bit of this New World. USA? Nice name!" the demon explained. "I made a little present to show my gratitude."
"Wh...." James began, but never got the chance to end his question, since he saw the front door slowly opening.
Finally, the door was opened completely, revealing a figure at the entrance, whose details James couldn't recognize at once since the incoming light dazzled him. Then he realized what stood in front of him and began to scream, believing to hear something snap in his brain.
"Brother... " The creature greeted with false love.
Lucifia smiled and didn't even turn her head on James's screams.
~ Mother is wrong. ~ She thought. ~ Humans are useful, sometimes. ~
"By the way," Lucifia asked herself. "Where am I going to find you?"
".... and now, the new crime-rates for Los Angeles..." a commentator on the TV said, which made the demon smile.
"Los Angeles?" she asked the commentator. "Let's see, nomen est omen."