Beautiful Monster

Pain and Loss

The first thing Evelyn realized when she woke was that she had a pounding headache and her eyes felt puffy and sore, so she started rubbing them.

"I definitely did not have a good night sleep." She said to herself under her breath.

Evelyn felt the surface her head was resting on shake and she heard laughter coming from above her head. These clues lead to her second realization of the morning, that the surface her head was laying on was in fact a chest, more specifically Asmodeus's chest. He had his arm around her waist and he was laughing.

She started to smile along in response to his laughter but then she remembered the fate of her family and the smile fell off her face. She pulled his arm away from her and rolled onto her side, away from him.

Evelyn felt the bed shift as Asmodeus rolled over as well.

"Evelyn, are you okay?" He asked softly, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

Evelyn remained silent.

"Evelyn, answer me." Asmodeus pleaded.

Evelyn shivered as his breath blew across her face. "Go away." She told as she closed her eyes.

Asmodeus stilled. "If that is what my lady wishes." He said, and Evelyn didn't know whether she felt happy or sad. "But I will be back." He added in a whisper and time Evelyn could place what emotion she was feeling, relief. Evelyn felt Asmodeus get off the bed and she heard the door close behind him as he left the room.

She lay in bed for a little bit before curling into a ball trying to go back to sleep.

**************

"Time to wake up child." A female voice said.

"Go away." Evelyn mumbled as she rolled over to try and get back to sleep.

But it didn't work out too well for her because suddenly she felt a hand grab her shirt, pulling her off the bed and throwing her into the wall. She landed in a heap on the floor.

Still lying on the floor she looked up and opened her eyes to see Leviathan standing above her.

"What the fuck was that?" Evelyn asked Leviathan as she stood up. Brushing off her jeans even though it didn't do much good since it appeared the dirt was now a part of the material from all the times she had landed on the floor.

Leviathan shrugged. "I told you to get up and you didn't, so you forced me to do something to get you to wake up."

"You could have something else, something nicer maybe."

"Yes I could have." Leviathan agreed. "But it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun."

"Whatever." Evelyn said, walking over to the bed and laying down on the soft white silk sheets. "Why are you here anyway?"

"Aww, the little kid is sulking." Leviathan said, ignoring the question.

"I'm not sulking." Evelyn denied, sitting up. "You wouldn't understand what I'm going through since you care for nothing."

Suddenly Evelyn was lying flat on the bed with Leviathan's knee pushing her down into the bed.

"How would you know what I care for little human?" Leviathan asked, bending down to bring her face closer to Evelyn's. "With barely two decades of existence you presume to comprehend me." Leviathan said, adding more weight onto Evelyn's chest for emphasis before removing her knee. "Little human, to be a demon is to know loss."

"So who did you lose?" Evelyn asked, carefully sitting up while rubbing her chest.

"It's of no concern to you child."

"You're the one who brought up the subject. If you didn't want to talk about it you shouldn't have mentioned it."

"I didn't mention it to start talking about my feelings; I mentioned it so you could realize that you aren't the only one to have lost family, especially here in hell. In fact you lost your family in a rather mundane way."

"What do you mean?" Evelyn asked, looking at Leviathan curiously.

"You didn't watch your family get torn limb from limb while you could do nothing." Leviathan said, clenching her fists.

Evelyn was silent a moment. "Did you kill the people responsible?" She asked slowly and carefully.

Leviathan's dark grin was a slow growing thing. "Yes, they screamed while they died."

Evelyn didn't know what to say to that, but she was saved from replying by the door opening and Asmodeus walking in.

"You may go now Leviathan." He told her.

She nodded and left, still in a dark mood from the earlier conversation.

Once Leviathan had closed the door behind her Asmodeus turned to Evelyn.

"Are you okay?" He asked softly, walking forward carefully and kneeling down in front of her.

Unsure how to answer Evelyn looked down at her hands.

Asmodeus put his hands on the sides of her face and forced her to look at him. He repeated his earlier question.

"I don't know." She answered truthfully.

He smiled. "I can work with that."