The Demon's Angel

Chapter 16

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I stared dumbly at the limp form of the mutant. It had passed out, from either blood loss or pain. I looked down at its blood, which coated my hands. It had blood that looked like any human's. For a moment, I deflated, but my mind quickly pushed down any guilt. 'This is a demon. Satan's child, just like all other mutants. God couldn't love them. They don't deserve to exist in the first place, let alone continue that existence any longer.'  The mutant before me would be a message to all of its monster kind. The symbols carved by my hand, leaking blood onto the ground around its body, would allow everyone to see its sins, just as God sees the sins of everyone.

Still... I couldn't help but be confused. I had always thought that mutants were inhuman in every way, no more emotional than robots. They only pretended, simulating human emotion to lure people in. But this one... it was the most demonic I had ever seen, and yet... this one showed emotion. I saw the fear in its eyes before I had hurt it, relished it, even, without realizing it. It flinched away from me as if it had seen all of my rage and hate, and it cringed when Harry called it a monster. When I first walked over to it, it had spoken and acted like a normal human being. Joking, laughing..... I had almost thought that I had been mistaken; that it was just some weirdo acrobat that never took off their costume. It was real, though, and I had to stop and remind myself, 'This is what they do! They trick you into believing in their humanity before they strike!' They can only hurt!'

    Despite everything in my head screaming at me to not to allow myself to regret the service I'd done to humanity by eliminating the fiend, doubts still festered. It had insulted me, and by the look on its face, it meant what it had said. But then it had saluted at us, grinning like our whole conversation was just a bunch of hilarious inside jokes, a secret thing that only us and it knew. Then, it ran. Its acrobatic ability and the muscles that my cutting revealed proved that it could have killed us easily and been gone before anyone knew what happened, but it only tried to get away. Why?

And why had it been praying? There was no point, especially for a creature such as itself. God wouldn't listen to its prayers.When it began to pray, I saw only red. My cuts grew deeper, more vicious with each stroke of the knife. I'd even hit bone in a few places. I thought that this would stop it, but it didn't. It screamed in pain, but prayed through it. Samantha stole its necklace, and although it hissed at her like an angry cat, it still did not cease. Nothing could stop it, as if it truly believed what it said.

I noticed something else. Even as it spoke to us, it was afraid. It joked and talked to cover it up, but I saw it. I looked at what I had done to it, and realized that it was right to be afraid. Even as I watched, I could see the creature's life fading.

I raised my knife to finish what I had started, pressing it against the mutant's throat. It was going to die anyways, but I paused to stare at it for a moment. Its face twitched slightly at the pressure applied to its windpipe. A realization hit me as I looked upon its pathetic form, pinned up by my arm against a tree. 'I should be happy,' I thought numbly. 'But I'm not. I'm not proud of myself for this.' That realization shocked me. Lars, Samantha, and Harry talked and giggled, congratulating each other behind me, as if that creature wasn't dying because of us.

I tilted my head, eyes roaming over the mutant's face and body. I stopped at its pocket; it bulged with some unknown item, though a beaded string hung loose. I gave it a careful tug, and as it slipped easily into my hand, two items followed. Out tumbled a tiny bible and, out of that bible, a small piece of paper. A rosary, wrapped gently about the demon's other possessions, swung from my pinched fingers. I knew about the cross necklace, and it had obviously prayed. However, something about that tiny bible, laying in a pool of its owner's blood, made me want to vomit.

     Suddenly, I felt a strange and unexpected surge of pity. Its life was ebbing away slowly, but despite knowing this, alongside the fact that its pain was my fault, I didn't wish to hurt it more. Carefully, I allowed its body to slide to the ground until it hit the bloody dust with a final small thump. It laid motionless, though a quiet, pained moan slipped from its mouth. I turned around, watching my friends. Samantha was laughing, brandishing the creature's necklace like a trophy. I felt sick inside. "Give it to me," I commanded. Samantha pouted, but when she saw my impatient scowl, she handed it over. "What's her problem?" she muttered to Lars. He gave a small shrug.

I turned and knelt on the ground. As gently as I could, I rearranged the mutant's limbs, so it looked as if it were sleeping. Or in a coffin; the color draining from its face only seemed to complete the look. When I attempted to move its broken arm, it squeezed its eyes shut tighter and whimpered brokenly, "Nein! Lass mich allein! Warum tut mich so weh?" Harry flinched. "It's cursing us in its demon language!" he cried, swiveling around to make a run for for it. I rolled my eyes, and Samantha grabbed his shoulder, effectively yanking him back. "Idiot! It's speaking German!" I ignored them and instead picked up the mutant's possessions. I paused to look at the paper. It was a photograph. The mutant beamed innocently, surrounded by a young woman with flaming hair, her older counterpart, and another mutant, this one with speckled, birdlike wings. Its intensely protective expression as it smiled at its demonic friend reminded me of an avenging angel. A scar that even the grainy camera couldn't miss wound its way around the creature's neck.

    I grimaced at the smiling group, hugging each other casually, ignorant as to what sorrows the future would bring. My guilt began to overflow. "This mutant...." I whispered. "It.... he has a family. Someone loves him, and.... and we took him away." I let out a hysterical giggle. My friends and accomplices stared worriedly at me. "We killed him, and those people are never going to see him smile, or laugh, or even cry again! They won't even know what happened to him until it's too late!"

  I stared down at the mutant silently, and suddenly, I remembered that  he had called himself the Incredible Nightcrawler. Just as suddenly, my head flooded with images of all of the very human features he had shown that I had overlooked in favor of the ones that weren't. When we walked up to him, I had seen an innocence on his face that I had pushed aside for the color of his skin. The sound of his laugh was replaced in my mind by the fangs that his smile revealed. The sound of his voice, his screams, his sobs, all sounded like a normal teenager's.

     Samantha, Harry, and Lars watched me nervously as different emotions battled to gain control. For a moment, sorrow and regret forced fat tears to well in my eyes and roll lazily down my cheeks, but just as quickly, apathy won over. I pushed away all of the images and my guilt. No one needed to know about this. In the dense forest, it was doubtful that people even came back to where we were. His body could rot away, and no one would be able to find anything of him, besides a ruined book and scattered bones. He'd be erased. I could erase this from my life just as easily. Expressionless, I arranged his possessions on top of his mangled chest, which heaved just to take in shallowest of breaths. I placed his hands on top. 'Goodbye Nightcrawler. I hope that God can give you peace.'  He deserved that much.

I  turned away and wiped my knife on the mutant's ruined shirt before tossing the wreck of fabric to the ground. "Let's go." As we all walked away in complete silence, my friends staring at me worriedly, I couldn't help but think, 'His family will be heartbroken.' However, I pushed away the thought with another. 'Ignorance is bliss. They'll never know.'

Less than a minute later, an agonizing wail pierced my ears, proving me wrong.