A puppet sits on the shelf of a store,
Who longs to find happiness.
One day a young girl walked up to him
And admired its beautiful work.
She was upset at the puppet, however,
For it was not smiling.
And so she made it her mission to make it happy.
Every time she returned to the store,
She would tell it a story.
She would tell the puppet of many wonders
That she experienced,
And even of her own personal life,
Including what she could never tell others.
The puppet felt happy
That it meant so much to her.
He smiled whenever she were around.
The puppet then decided
To give the girl the strings.
She held them in her hands,
But set them back down,
Reminding the puppet that it did not belong to her yet,
But that she will one day claim him
And wield his strings.
The puppet waited for that day.
Waited for days.
Waited for weeks.
Waited for months.
Waited as her visits became less frequent
And her stories less open.
He waited for so long,
He had begun to pain
Not only in waiting
But in his disgrace
When he denied anyone else to wield his strings.
When he would see those saddened faces,
None more memorable
Than one girl
Who shared her enthusiasm to the world
And who the puppet knew
Would have cared for him properly.
To have sent that girl away
Was a memorable pain,
But unlike his final,
Most stinging pain
When the girl who he waited for
Finally returned.
He was overjoyed
That he would finally go home with her,
And then destroyed internally
When she told the puppet
That she no longer wishes
To hold his strings.
A pained smile across the both of them,
And a shattered world behind one of them.
Days had passed after that
And the puppet had not found anyone else
He was willing to give his strings to.
He sat on the shelf,
Regretting his foolishness
In letting the only other girl
Who he would allow his strings to leave upset,
Because of the puppet's denial
In the fading relation
Between he and the girl
Who he first offered his strings to.
This tormented him so much on the inside,
That he began to wear.
No one wanted this decayed puppet.
And then he decided,
He decided no longer to be a puppet
And let his foolishness
Cause the sorrow of others.
He stood
And began walking.
He grabbed scissors from a separate aisle
And he severed his strings.
He put the scissors down,
And walked out through the back.
He sat outside in the alley,
Happy as he was destroyed
That he will not disappoint
Any longer,
And fell asleep.
He woke up, however,
To the realization
That someone,
Something,
Was tying a new set of strings to him.
He lay in defeat,
Knowing he could not be strong enough
To deny anyone else
To hold his strings.
But then a thought had occured
In which he would no longer be a puppet
And instead something greater.
The one,
The thing,
Began talking to him,
Asking what his wish was.
The puppet then wished
To become a being
Who could control humans.
That one,
That thing,
With a red grin
Upon a silhouette
Which emitted steam
Granted his wish,
And the puppet
Became a demon,
With his paint scrapped away
And replaced with the skin of human
And his wooden,
Welcoming eyes
Replaced with black,
Soulless eyes
Highlighted in blood red.
The puppet stood
And began to live freely
As one who no longer needed someone to control him.
He infiltrated the minds
Of innocent humans
And forced them to do his bidding.
He encountered conflict on the streets
And felt the energy enter him,
Filling him with ecstasy.
He began making conflicts
With the people he controlled
By forcing them to start fights.
He found an underground club,
Sent out his minions,
And began an all out fight,
Filling him with euphoria.
He turned the underground club
Into an arena.
One day,
As he was indulging on the energy,
He had a quick flashback
Of the girl who caused him
To become what he is.
He became paranoid,
So he began feasting more and more
On the negative energy.
He couldn't rid himself
Of these flashbacks.
He figured that
If he gained ecstasy from the energy of fighting,
What could he gain from murder?
He assembled an army,
And conducted a raid on a mansion.
Once the front doors were forced open,
His absent minded slaves
Moved upon the staff,
Painting the walls red.
The demon walked into the bedroom alone
To find a man,
Cowering in bed.
He drew a knife
And walked close to him,
The man growing more panicked.
The demon stopped,
He looked at his hand,
Which held a knife,
Which shined with his reflection.
He remembered who he was,
What he was,
What he wanted,
And how he lost it.
In a fit of
Rage, remorse, reminiscence, and a great desperation to rid of those flashback,
He slit his throat in cold blood.
He looked upon the body
And saw the girl.
He dropped the knife
And he looked in complete horror
As the girl stood up,
Took the knife,
And slowly dug the knife in his chest.
The demon screamed in terror and agony
And his minions rushed to him.
No one was there but the demon
And the dead man.
The tried to calm him,
But the demon snapped
And killed everyone.
The mansion
The blood
And the regret
Now belonged to him.
However,
Armed forces invaded,
And began firing upon him.
He did not phase.
He began another murderous rampage,
And ran away
To an abandoned warehouse.
The armed forces
Were told by the demon
That if they left him alone,
He would not harm another person.
They decided
That this was their best option.
He lived there
In complete misery
For years.
One day,
A girl walked in,
Who the demon recognized
As the girl he had driven away
With his denial,
Now grown to a beautiful woman.
She walked up to the demon
And told him
To end his rampage.
To end his rage.
To let go of his regret.
He looked upon her
With dead eyes.
The eyes of a man deprived of life and meaning.
She bent down to the demon
Who was sitting down,
Defeated before her,
And pulled out a mirror.
She held it to the demon's face
And asked what he saw.
He looked
And saw a young puppet,
Dull and plain.
He saw a young puppet,
Listening to every word of the first girl,
Gleaming with happiness.
He saw a young puppet,
Sad that he may not see the girl for a long time.
He saw a young puppet,
Denying others to hold his strings
In wait of the girl.
He saw a younger woman,
Broken that she may not hold the puppet's strings.
He saw a young puppet,
Destroyed to know
That the girl did not want to hold his strings.
He saw a decaying puppet,
Driving others away.
He saw a decaying puppet,
Cutting his own strings.
He saw a decaying puppet,
Being reborn as a demon.
He saw a demon,
Indulging on the energy of others fighting,
He saw a demon,
Tormented by flashbacks of the girl.
He saw a demon,
Killing everyone in his fit of agony.
He saw a demon,
Who sat alone for years in an abandoned warehouse.
He saw a demon,
Dead eyed,
In tears,
Looking at a mirror of himself,
Of the horrible thing he had become.
He buried his head,
And sobbed.
The woman reached her arms out
And embraced the demon.
She told him
That he did not have to be this demon any longer
If he would embrace her back.
The task was not to embrace her,
But to allow himself to feel someone else's touch without violence.
He hesitated,
But gave in
And embraced her back.
He did not see
That she pulled out a pair of scissors
And severed the invisible strings behind him,
Which then burned up.
He lost all power as a demon
And became a puppet once more.
She let go,
Stood up,
And offered a hand up.
The puppet sat before her,
Wondering if he should take her hand
And renew himself,
Or stay there,
And once again become a decaying puppet.
He thought longer than one normally would,
But eventually decided
That it was time for a new era.
That it was time for a new beginning.
That it was time for a new being.
He took her hand,
Stood up,
And he transformed
Into a human.
They were both overjoyed
At the dawning of a new beginning.
They began walking out.
He looked back
With one demon eye.
