The Dark Years

Scary Demons and Keeping Score

About an hour after Llisona dropped the girls off at their room, Reyna and Emmie were lounging in their sitting room in complete silence, still trying to process the day's events. Suddenly, a resounding knock came at the door.  Reyna had completely disassociated, so Emmie answered the door to find demon looming over her.

If Emmie hadn't been the brave little girl she was, she would've screamed. The demon kind of resembled a human except for his messy blood red hair and his black eyes with red pupils. He had an overpowering aura that seemed to smother her. 

"Good evening, young mistress. My queen has sent me to escort you and your sister to dinner," the demon said in a deep, silky voice. Emmie was so nervous all she could do was nod. She scurried over to Reyna, grabbed her hand, and dragged her out of the room. The demon led them down rows and rows of corridors, the majority of which were black and red with the occasional gray thrown in for a pop of "color." They passed dozens of demons. Some who appeared humanoid like their guide while others looked like what you'd expect a demon to look. Some were rather attractive while it physically hurt to look at others.

At long last, their escort opened the door and announced, "Your guests, my lady." Inside was a massive light gray dining hall. An extremely long, black table that had easily a hundred red velvet chairs pulled around it sat at the center of the room. Llisona looked up from the head of the table at the far end where she was looking over various documents. She waved her hand, gesturing the girls and the demon inside.

"Adramalech, there's no need to be so formal. I swear, I assign you one task below your station and you become a drama queen!" The red haired demon only chuckled in response. "Hey darlings, please sit down. Let me introduce you to Adramalech, my second in command. I had him escort you so no one would bother you. How are y'all feeling?" Reyna and Emmie sat on either side of Llisona before responding.

"I'm doing ok," Emmie sniffed unconvincingly. Reyna just stared down at her folded hands. 

"You don't have to be ok, I know this is hard. Just tell me if there's anything I can do to help, alright?" Emmie nodded, but there was still no response from Reyna. Standing a few feet away from the ladies, Adramalech stood awkwardly. He wasn't used to Llisona being so caring. In addition to this, demons were used to making people feel such horrible emotions, not alleviating them. 

"Adramalech, sit down. For the next couple days you will be the girls' escort until I have the official announcement sent out. You might as well get to know each other now. Adramalech nodded stiffly. He felt like this job was beneath him, but he wouldn't dare go against the queen.

A moment later, a few well dressed demons brought in steaming plates of chicken for the girls and a strange, thick looking soup for Llisona and Adramalech. Adramalech looked down at his soup in confusion. Llisona saw his face an laughed before telling him in demonic,

"The girls don't know what I normally eat. I'm not about to let them know exactly how much of a monster I am until after they're sanity is repaired." He nodded stiffly before eating a spoonful of the soup. It wasn't bad but it also wasn't normal. 

Emmie and Reyna slowly and melancholically began to eat their chicken. After ten agonizing minutes of silence, Llisona asked,

"How would you girls like me to bring NK down here?" Reyna immediately perked up.

"You can do that?" Llisona smiled.

"Of course. But you do have to be aware, the longer he's down here the more he'll start to....change." Reyna narrowed her eyes at her aunt.

"What kind of changes?"

"Well," Llisona said slowly, "His eyes will most likely turn red and he'll look a bit more demonic from the energy down here. It is also possible for both you girls to receive demon forms from being down here for too long, but that's unlikely. The physical changes do nothing to change the personality." Emmie and Reyna looked at each other and seemed to silently communicate, which slightly bewildered both Llisona and Adramalech More Adramalech than Llisona, she was just curious about how they managed to do it.

"We want NK," both girls said simultaneously. For the first time all day, they looked excited. Llisona was slightly jealous that they were more excited to get their dog back than live with their aunt. NK - 1, Llisona - 0.