I started my car and pulled out of my garage, ready for another day of gruelling work. I smiled when I heard I write sins not tragedies by Panic at the Disco playing on the radio.
The whole ride, I kept feeling uneasy as though being watched by someone...
But the feeling worsened when I realised I had forgotten something but didn't know what it was.
I walked into my office, still in a daze, trying to recall what I was forgetting.
"Matt! Matt!?" Josh waved his hand in front of my face, and I lost my train of thoughts.
"What?" I snapped at him, but felt sorry immediately. Josh had been nothing but kind to me, and yet I almost always treated him poorly.
"Did you hear about the new customer?"
"What new customer?"
"The one with a million dollar project! And whoever gets it done will be promoted!" Josh sounded like a kid high on sugar. He sure did look ready to jump around the office and scream out of his lungs.
"Oh cool." I replied, awkwardly patting Josh on his back.
"Come fast, the meeting is starting right about now!" He called as I entered my cabin.
I ignored the sense of foreboding and took my notepad and pen and walked out of my cabin, bumping right into Sam.
"Sam!" I kinda whined rubbing my forehead where it hurt the most and she laughed and help me up.
The moment she helped me up her warm hand left mine and she pushed me forward towards the meeting room.
"All the best Matt." Sam beamed and sped walk in.
I froze for a moment, missing her warmth.
I sighed and followed her, knowing that she deserved this project for how hard she worked.
Just as I open the meeting hall cabin, I heard a very familiar smooth voice. "Is everyone here?"
I slipped into the cabin, and found almost all of my colleagues glaring at me.
"I'm glad you finally decided to join Mr. Pearson." Mr. Romero, my boss pointed at the seat next to him coolly and I sat immediately without looking and thinking about anything else.
"You may proceed Mr. Diablo." Mr. Romero nodded and I slowly lifted my head to see our potential customer and froze.
Not metaphorically or figuratively.
I literally froze at the sight of the man who had haunted my waking thoughts.
So that's what I forgot about.
The devil smirked when I finally met his deep red eyes. For some reason I was reminded of Gulmohar flowers, and the dark red skin of cherries.
I smiled back at him politely, not wanting to create a scene at my office.
He looked taken aback.
He narrowed his eyes at me before he began the presentation.
~*~
"Wonderful, Mr. Diablo!" Mr. Romero nodded and clapped along with the rest of us, politely.
"I hope you can bring my vision to reality?" He cocked his head slightly and Mr. Romero immediately stood up and reassured him.
"Of course, Mr. Diablo! While your expectations are pretty high, I am going to make sure that this project is a success and put my best men on deck for it." He grinned and gestured for me to get up.
"I would like you to meet Mr. Pearson. He'll be in-charge of your project." Mr. Romero introduced me to him, completely shocking both me, as well as the devil himself.
"Nice to meet you." He quickly recovered from the shock and quickly extended me his left hand, offering a signature smirk in my direction.
I glared at his left hand as I extended my own, and shook his unusually hot ones.
Hot. Not warm, or clammy.
As though he had been carrying a handful of fire.
I winced as he gripped my hand tightly and shook, his face sporting a clearly amused expression as he watched my obvious discomfort.
"Mr. Pearson, please take him to your cabin and explain to him about your previous projects, so he can get a clear idea. I will let you pick your team out later."
I held my left hand gingerly and nodded.
~*~
"Aww! Look! You both chat using gifs! How cute!" The devil chuckled as he looked through my phone, his ebony black hair glistening under the bright lights in my cabin.
God I have to change these lights... I frowned.
"Give me my phone back!" I glared, but couldn't fight it off him. As usual the evil maniac had me rooted to my chair, unable to move, unable to look away or do anything else, as he continued to be annoying.
"You and Josh are so cute!" He waved my phone in front of my eyes, showing me a conversation from a few nights ago when he had asked me for a favor and I had agreed, making him respond with a red heart emoji.
"Too bad you are hungover about someone else." The devil shrugged, his lips in a straight line but I could see the shameless mirth in his eyes.
"What the hell is your problem?! Give me back my phone, and let me explain how your project will be completed so I can get my promotion!" I exploded.
"OOoooooohhhhh promotion!" The devil smirked again, and my hand really itched to slap the smirk off his face.
"But do you really want a promotion that bad?" The devil lifted a perfect eyebrow up.
"I need it so that I can repay my college loans faster, and get a better housing, preferably one that can support an entire family." I said, clutching on to the mental image of two beautiful, mischievous children running around a small yet cozy home, a laughing Samantha chasing them around.
"Aww that's really cute!" The devil laughed as though he was able to see exactly what I wanted from my thoughts.
"Give me back my phone." I gritted my teeth, refusing to look him in the eye, wanting to be anywhere but there.
I hate it when people can read my mind. Or know exactly what I am thinking. Maybe there's a reason I never voiced them out, and kept them locked tight within the confines of my mind, the one place I can trust no one will be able to access.
And yet here we were.
"Here." He dropped the phone carelessly on to my desk and got up.
"You are leaving?" I wanted to get up too, but I was still unable to move, physically.
"No. I am going to offer you a choice now, an easy way out of it all." He shrugged, and I squinted trying to be able to see where his broken halo and sad grey wings were.
"What choice?" I said, finally breaking the silence.
"You can have either the promotion. Or you can have the Samantha contract via the hard and grueling trials. Believe me when I say that they can only get worse." He laughed silently, as though thinking about a private joke.
"What!" I shrieked out.
How dare he thinks I would let go of the love of my life, just for a freaking promotion!?
"Well if I were you, I would take the promotion, and get the hell out of here." He shrugged.
"NO! I choose Samantha!" I glared at him, and stood up when I could suddenly feel my legs again.
"You sure?" He raised his eyebrow, watching me with those creepy red eyes of his.
"Of course, idiot! This is the love of my life!" I gritted, trying to keep it low. This was still the office after all.
"So you don't mind your career going down as long as you have her?"
"Nope"
"What about the excruciatingly painful trials I have in store? You will go through it all, for her?"
"For her I will do anything!" Except murder, I added silently in my mind, Desdemona's idea from our first conversation making me cringe mentally.
"Not even if you see Josh after a few years, though less talented than you, clearly living it up while you struggle to make ends meet?"
"Nope, it doesn't matter, if I had Samantha by my side through it all!"
"Well then." He shrugged and opened the door of my cabin.
"Wait! That's all?"
"Yeah! What else did you expect? You in the middle of the road and Sam in your arms, suddenly?"
Truth was, that was exactly what I had expected.
"Well if you want her, you still have to work for her. And don't worry about your career too." He left immediately, and I continued to stay where I was, trying to process what had happened. Was this another one of this shitty trials?
~*~
I groaned as I was stopped by a huge number of cars in front of me when the light turned red.
I was definitely not going to be home in time for the evening news. I really needed to know how my stocks were doing, and how the elections were going.
A sound like the scrape of nails against metal pulled me out of my thoughts.
More than hearing what happened next, I felt it. The tremors, my whole car wobbling at the sudden huge weight on top of it. I looked up at my car ceiling to see four identical dent marks.
I swore, shaking my head.
A deafening female scream made me almost jump out of my car, but I stopped when I saw what was causing the scream.
A woman on top of her car, who continued to scream, as what looked like a gigantic black bird sat on her.
It turned it's face towards me and I realized it was not a bird.
Definitely not a bird.
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A/N:-
So this chapter is more than a 1000 words... it's freaking huge.... but I needed this to all be in one chapter... maybe I'll edit it later? I don't know.
Vote and comment!