Assiah was a broken, unpredictable playground. Perhaps Mephisto knew that from the start, and maybe that's why he loved it so much. It was clay—easy to mold, to shape into whatever he so pleased—and it was wood at the same time, something he could carve to his heart's desire. Yet there were spikes in the clay, and there were splinters imbedded in the grain of the wood; if he weren't careful, he would most certainly bleed.

He could take leaps of faith from the swing set, could grapple onto the next rung of the monkey bars and hopefully land on something soft if he messed up, if he slipped. Mostly it was a pile of ants he'd land in, and they'd bite him; but he grew more careful, learned to judge before he leapt, and now, more often than not, he ended up on a soft pile of ant-less sand. Of course, if some of the chains on the swings broke, and the monkey bars were thoroughly rusted, he would fall; but that only added to his fun, the elation of not knowing when the next falling would occur.

The humans were the dolls. Of course they were the dolls—easy to manipulate, to control, to fool. Yet at the same time, it was so much fun to play with them; and the more he played with them, the better he got at building them up before breaking them down. Yes, Assiah wasn't unbreakable in the least; but all that mattered to him was if it was fun or not.

And it was.

He just never expected that anyone else was playing so very carefully in his broken playground, so carefully that their presence seemed to be a mere trick of the light.

The song: Stronger by Thirty Seconds to Mars. Love it so much. But while singing along with it, I came to realize that it wasn't so innocent, after all… if anything, it's rather inappropriate. Maybe it's just my mind playing tricks on me.

Anyone care to guess who the other person in the playground is? ;)

And yes, I know this is short, but this was just something that took up literally a little more than one wide-ruled notebook page. I kept it pretty much as it was, except for the very end. Yes, you heard right; one page. Not one sheet. One page.

Enjoy, my mini - er, friendly readers!