Heir Of Argranos

8

DAY 4 OF 365:

It’s truly a shame that Earth is more technologically advanced than the underworld. My father may argue that hell doesn’t need things like smartphones and computers when we have magic, but he can’t argue on the fact that some demons (him included, considering he goes by Sonargra, and has a human who knows his identity) leave hell to come to earth for a ‘good time’.

So why not bring the ‘good time’ to the underworld?

Sure it’s a place full of suffering and pain, meant to be as uncomfortable as possible, but it doesn’t have to be for indigenous demons that were born there. Humans can suffer. Demons like me don’t have to.

I paused and cracked my knuckles, squinting at the harsh glare of light coming from the computer screen, and the neatly packed words on the once blank word document, a mocking contrast of my own handwriting. The cursor blinked back at me, eagerly waiting to translate my thoughts onto the page.

I glanced at the journal I had attempted to write in earlier, which contained my handwriting that looked like chicken footprints in the mud. Keeping a journal was something a lot of humans did, and I found it an activity showcasing and improving intellect and memory.

Not that I needed any improvement on memory and intellect.

A soft knock sounded on my door, and I minimized the document on my computer, about to give permission for entry when Frankie pushed it open anyways, poking her head inside. From where I sat on my large black office chair, I could see her unkempt hair, sprouting up in odd angles, and her eyes curiously peering around the room, despite the thick black curtains cutting off the sunlight and engulfing the room in partial darkness.

“Are you done with the redecoration?” She asked, stepping into the room and carefully closing the door behind her with a click.

“Uh huh…” I replied, closing my computer and getting off the chair. I patted down my ruffled sheets, and found the tiny remote that controlled the LED lights I had put up earlier, flipping on the florescent hue first.

Imagine if we had LED lights in the underworld.

“This is sick…” Frankie whispered in awe, adjusting her eyes to the light and taking in the room with a look of amazement and attentiveness.

It really was ‘sick’.

A feeling of smug satisfaction rushed through my body, and I surveyed the room with pride for what felt like the fifteenth time.

A black tapestry, with a huge, blood-red pentagram printed on it dominated the wall above the headboard. The sheets, which were once white, were now black, with five more throw pillows and three dinosaur plushies haphazardly arranged on the bed. I wanted to buy a black fur carpet that would cover every inch of the floor, but unfortunately, it wasn’t available and I had to compromise and settle for a red one, covering only the space at the foot of the bed.

Every inch of the wall was covered in posters, paintings, and pages I had ripped from books and magazines. A ginormous poster with the sigil of Lucifer cramped the space above the fireplace, with smaller quotes and graphic posters from bands I enjoyed arranged around it, forming a pentagram.

“Girlie, It’s gonna take you more than a year to read all of these books…” Frankie said, floating over to the ceiling-to-floor bookshelf that almost took up the entire wall adjacent to the fireplace, and thumbing through the books on the shelf that stood at her eye level.

The bookshelf was perhaps the one thing I had the most pride in. Made of dark mahogany wood, and still carrying a faded maple scent, it stood tall, unapologetically telling the other pieces of furniture ‘I am above you. I am your superior. I know far more than you ever will.’

Much like me, standing amongst mortal beings…

Exactly five hundred books assembled in its shelves; from Agatha Christie’s crime fiction, to a collection of True Crime, to fantasy novels, autobiographies, national geographic magazines, Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power, dictionaries on philosophy, medicine, psychology, astrology, law, engineering, modern art, English literature, Ancient Greece…

“Um… Harley, your eyes are literally turning the color of torches of hell. Not that I’ve seen the torches of hell, but you know… I’m just making a wild guess. Do I run for my life now?”

I couldn’t help a chuckle. “You’re safe.” I replied, and closed my eyes for a moment, trying to control the excitement I was feeling simply from thinking about books and the vastness of the knowledge I had at my disposal.

Although my human disguise was still in place, the eyes don’t lie, and neither do they deceive, and because of this, all emotions I felt strongly must somehow showcase themselves through the color of my eyes. Golden for excitement and other suitable emotions, red for anger and other not so suitable emotions…

Frankie released a shaky sigh of relief once I opened my eyes again. No doubt, they had reverted back to their normal color. “Well, that was weird…” She began awkwardly. “Anyways… your room looks great. These books can’t be finished in a year, but I admire your thirst for them. I have a doctor’s appointment, and Henri is locked up in his room being a w***e for poetry… again. Don’t forget to feed Napoleon; I’ll be back before midnight.” Frankie rushed out in one breath, heading to the door, and almost tripping over an empty box of pizza on her way out.

“Wait!”

“What?” She replied distractedly, picking up the empty box and scanning around the room for something else that needed to go into the trash.

“Is the doctor’s appointment going to take that long?”

Frankie sighed, an expression of uncertainty settling in her eyes for a moment before moving on and giving way for her usual bored and tired gaze that painfully exposed the fact that she was suppressing another emotion. “It’s just a regular checkup. I have plans with an old friend after. But I will be back before midnight.”

She shuffled over to my desk, and grabbed the empty soda bottle on it. “This is the first and last time I’m doing the cleaning for you. You have a trash bin for a reason. Use it.”

I rolled my eyes, and watched as she discarded the items in my bin and carried it out to dispose into the larger trash bin downstairs, even though it was only half-full.

In less than twenty-four hours, it would be Monday; the start of a new school year. High school… I had tried an in-depth research on what and how human schools were like. What I ended up with was a conflicted review of various experiences. To some, they term it ‘the best years of your life’ and to others, it was ‘the most accurate representation of human decadence and practically the reincarnation of hell of earth’.

Either ways, the fact was that I felt ready and mildly excited to intermingle on a large scale with human beings my age. How did they view their mortal lives? What is important to them? What made them tick? What are their weaknesses and strengths?

And most importantly, how do I rule them?

False innocence claims that power is corruption. Passive ignorance claims that power is a magician’s show –a manipulative reality that fades. But power is power. It is my birthright, and mine to claim wherever it exists.

A soft meowing sound came from below me as something uncomfortably caressed my bare ankles.

I jumped, hurling the book I had absentmindedly removed from my bookshelf a few meters away from me. The heavy hardcover hit the floorboards with a dull thud, the pages of the book face-planting downwards and no doubt creasing.

Napoleon meowed, and wagged her tail in satisfaction that she had scared me with her unannounced presence for the second time in a single day.

“Bloody hell… how did you even get in?”

She ignored my question and resolved to simply circulate me, rubbing her fur on my skin, and leisurely swishing her tail in various angles.

“Fine, you’re hungry, I get it. Come on.”

I carefully stepped over her movements so I don’t trample on her by mistake. As tempting as the thought of the deed was, I still wasn’t entirely pissed with Napoleon. It was hard to stay angry at something so cute and passively evil.

She followed closely behind me, meowing every now and then, falling into step with her tiny and elegant paws next to me, leading the way, and then falling behind again.

Before I went downstairs to the pantry where Frankie kept enough cat food to feed seventy cats in seventy lifetimes, I decided to check up on Henri in the drawing room two doors away from mine. He spent more time in there than he did in his actual room which was opposite Frankie’s.

Napoleon meowed in protest when she noticed that we weren’t following the path to her food, but I ignored her and knocked on Henri’s door.

Silence answered me, and after the third knock, I was about to give up and trudge downstairs when a muffled voice came through the door. “If you’re not Virginia Woolf risen from the grave, here to take me away to where all the poets die, I will resort to violence.”

I tried the doorknob, but found out it was locked.

“Open the door Henri.”

“Go away!” He yelled back from the other side.

“Napoleon is throwing up and I don’t know what to do. Frankie isn’t home.” I lied, and gestured for Napoleon to meow, or fake a gagging sound so my lie would be reinforced.

The evil little grimalkin got the hint and gave her most convincingly pathetic purr, which sounded like a baby on the verge of death –in a cute way, of course…

I heard an urgent shuffle from the other side of the door, a dull crash, and a whispered ‘f**k’ before the door swung open, revealing Henri in a silk bathrobe, adjusting his glasses with a petrified look of worry on his sharp, scholarly features.

He regarded me, and then Napoleon, and when he realized he had been tricked, groaned. “Machiavellians… the both of you…”