Another chapter for this dark tale of mine. Do enjoy now.

I could see the poor soul's tears. They were thick and runny, and his poor sobs were nothing but a damp whimper in the poorly lit room. I already puked in the corner of the room due to the stench. A stench of dying flesh that was already ingrained in the walls before the current victim was ever worked on, and it only got exponentially worse once he started on him.

The way his fluids… dripped. How his skin ripped. I wanted out.

I wanted out so badly. To run as far as I could. But I couldn't. He…Lucifer was standing right across from me. There was nowhere to go. I could only hold myself as still as possible. As calm as possible.

It lay there, stretched out on the table, with hooks running through its wrists and lower legs. Its skin was painfully stretched out, cut with designs, and it was bleeding profusely. I didn't know why he was here, or who he was, but I don't understand how anyone deserves this.

"Don't you see how he withers, boy?"

My sullen eyes looked over the poor soul, and I weakly nodded.

"Sinners are down here for a simple reason. So simple, in fact, that I have given most of them mercy," he said as he slowly dug a knife into the thigh of the poor soul.

The poor soul let out a weak gargle. All of his cries had already been espoused hours ago. Its eyes connect with mine again. Its begging for mercy replaced with a silent cry for death beneath those red orbs…but even he knew he couldn't die here. No sinner could.

"I let most sinners galivant outside my palace walls in that carnal paradise, but this one? Oh, this one is different, boy."

"Different?" I asked in a whisper.

"Oh yes, do you see it?"

I looked him over again. Every scrape and stab, every mangled piece of flesh, and even the blood pooled under its back. But I'd been looking at him for hours and he was still the same; just more damaged than before.

"No."

"No?" he said with a little surprise as he slowly walked around the table, leaving the knife in its thigh.

Lucifer was wearing his usual white pants, a black button-up dress shirt, and red suspenders. They were all soaked in many bodily liquids from the poor soul, and he didn't seem to care at all. It was a little strange. He is always very particular about keeping his suits clean, even when giving out punishments, so why now?

A memory flashed into my mind, the mirror, and I shivered ever so slightly.

Lucifer's eyes were on me, and he seemed to realize something. He nodded his head a few times at me. The red circles on his cheeks are not there anymore.

"Well, I guess you can't see like me, boy."

My eyes drifted downwards just a little towards the mess on the table, but I quickly looked back up and at his torso. I'd rather look at him than...that.

"If you could see like me, boy, you would see a wolf… or what remains of one," he said as he stopped beside me to my left.

A pitiful whine came from the poor soul. Hardly the sound of a wolf, but any wolf, with enough time, can be made to heel.

"This little wolf… oh how big he was!" Lucifer said as he flared his arms out.

"He was a savage like none other around him," he now said in a low tone.

"He'd take what he wanted whenever he wanted it. Businesses, homes, cars, and the lives of even littler people who relied on those simple things. He had no compassion for them and no remorse for his actions, but that's not why he's on my table."

"Then… why?" I asked quietly as my eyes drifted down again, my empty stomach once again feeling queasy.

"He wrapped himself in a lie. A lie of kindness and progress, a lie so great that some nations would throw trespassers into steel cages for questioning it. He used that lie as a weapon."

A lie? Kindness? Progress? I looked up at Lucifer with a confused expression, "How could someone use a lie as a weapon?"

A sickening smile spread across his lips, the air growing a little darker around him as I heard the blade that Lucifer left in the poor soul's leg move through the flesh on its own.

"Do you remember that rat, boy?"

My eyes widened in realization and frantically snapped back and forth between the two as another fresh tingle of horror went down my spine. I couldn't stop myself from taking a small step back.

Why is he doing this? Why in front of me?

Lucifer's posture sharpened dangerously, and within a moment, Lucifer turned and crouched down in front of me. I took another quick step back, but I bumped into the barrier he erected around the table. A small fearful whine slipped from my throat.

He inched forward and as he brought his hand up, I shut my eyes as tight as I could and angled my head at the floor. I heard, no… felt his hand land on the invisible barrier to the right of my head. It radiated that same dreadful cold that felt like it would consume the heat of any living thing it touched if it wasn't held back by Lucifer.

I felt that cold wash over my body. It swirled dangerously over everything, like the sharp edge of a knife was just lightly being pressed on my skin and bones.

A panicked sob exited my mouth as I felt it hover over my eyes.

"Oh, little one," he said in a whisper as I heard him lean close to my ear, "Do you think I could not hear what you said after you left the room?"

I froze in terror. My hands and tail curled up completely.

"You utter God's name in my house and you think nothing will come of it?"

"I-i-"

"Shhhhh, little one, there's no need to fear. I won't be doing anything to you."

A pained whimper came from the poor soul on the table and the sound of a knife ripping out of flesh hit my ears. Lucifer pulled back and slowly reached forward with his hands and grabbed my right hand, the bloodied knife slowly floating into it before he closed my hand around the handle. My whole body shook in terror at the being who pinned me to the wall.

"Look into my eyes, boy," Lucifer said firmly, my whole body shivering in response.

No one disobeyed Lucifer.

I shakily opened my eyes, took a momentary shaky breath, and slowly looked up. I tried my best to hide myself, to calm myself, but the second his primordial yellow eyes connected with mine, it didn't matter what I did. All my fears. My hopes. My dreams. Even what I hated. Tears started to creep up at the corners of my eyes. My hand that was holding the knife almost went limp in Lucifer's grip as all was revealed to him. I could feel his magic slither through my mind, my face and hands twitching, and as I looked at those yellow slits, at the power beneath it… it was….

"Maddening… " I just barely breathed out.

His face, seemingly so full of rage, slowly dissipated into what seemed to be understanding. The tendrils of magic, whatever they were doing inside my head, stopped in their tracks and slowly started to pull out.

"Do you not see his tears?"

I couldn't stop a few tears of mine from sliding down my cheeks, "Y-yes."

"Do you not see his pain?"

My vision got blurry as I sucked in a shaky breath, the tears coming down a little easier now.

"Oh, now now little one, don't cry," Lucifer said softly.

He gently cupped the side of my face. Wiping away the tears with his thumb as a numb feeling overtook me.

"I-i can't… " I started to breathe heavily, "this-"

"Oh, I know boy," he said as he slowly pulled me into a hug, his cold body only making the numb feeling worse.

"You're still so human unlike so many others," he said into my ear.

"I-i just," my voice shaking.

"Want out? To run away? Maybe even save this sinner?" Lucifer said softly into my ear.

I couldn't even say anything.

"Well, little one… this rat… in any other time, in any other era, would be nothing but another blackened soul outside my gates, but today… today he is something more," Lucifer said in

Pulling me forward, Lucifer twisted out of the hug to my right until he had his arm draped over my shoulders. I wanted to pull away, but he kept me against his side as I now stared at the poor soul again. Its teary eyes looking at me.

"He is your first coal into the oven."

Slowly, I watched the blade I held start to glow red. The heat from it even in its handle. It was not only hot, it felt… wrong.

"Stab his heart."

I looked at the poor soul with wide eyes and I wanted nothing more than to drop the knife in my hand. But I couldn't. There's a force around my hand and I can't let it go.

"Do it."

"Please Lucifer… I-"

"No excuses, boy. None at all. Now, save him."