Demon Slayer

“3,4,5, Ha I won, I killed 5 demons.” I said walking around the abandoned fairground, as I wiped the black blood off my sword and sheath it for later. “Sorry Elle I killed 6, pay up” Jacob said walking towards me with his hand out. Egotistical pain in the butt, I think to myself. Jacob had shoulder length brown hair and dazzling light blue eyes, you just want to dive into. Jacob and I have been friends since we were in diapers. I have had a major crush on Jacob since forever, but unfortunately he doesn’t see me as anything other than a friend. “Fine it was 20 bucks right?” I said hoping he doesn’t question my statement. “Nice try, it was 25, and you know it” he said, rolling his eyes, acting like I was a bother. “Oh look here comes the commander,” I said, trying to distract him from the impending debt I now owe. As soon as the commander walks up a three demons come charging at us, I pull out my gun and sword and start shooting.

The problem about killing demons is that they are more resilient than you think. You have to shoot them with a special kind of bullet, laced with a specific type of poison. I shoot one in the head while Jacob and the Commander start firing a clip of bullets into their heads. Within a couple of minutes all three are down for the count. It’s taking longer to kill them than it usually does.

When I was ten, half the world caved in; we lost billions of people all around the world. A couple days later these demons popped out and life on earth has been a literal hell. So most of the remaining survivors moved to the State penitentiary after the prisoners escaped. Our new dark and dirty home was one of the safest places to live, as it was mostly underground. As the world changed so did we, there are now two groups of people, the demon slayers and everyone else. I am a demon slayer, one of the best in fact; not to brag or anything, my parents have been preparing me since I was born.

My father was a commander in the army and wanted me to be like him, “Hi commander,” Jacob said as he nudged me to stop daydreaming. “Hi dad, Jacob and I killed a total of 11 demons today,” I said looking at the ground hoping to avoid the verbal lashing I am bound to get. “Only 11? How disappointing, you are supposed to take over when I retire.” He shouts, giving me a glare, and continues to walk forward, expecting us to follow him. “You are supposed to be the best fighter here, what a disappointment you are.” He scalds. “But” Jacob tries to defend me, but it’s no use. I will never measure up to his impossible standards. My father walks away shaking his head. “Why do you never say anything to him? Me and you both know there has been less and less demon sightings.” He says as he rubs the back of his neck and gives me a tight lipped smile. “I don’t say anything because he is going to retire in a few years, and then I won’t have to put up with his shit anymore.” I said, balling my fists.

Why does he care? My dad has talked to me like that for years, so why now? “Come on let’s go in” I say while walking towards the gate, I wave off the guards and walk straight in, the room is so depressing the white brick walls covered in pictures of lost loved ones and it seems like every time I look at the wall it seems to have more and more pictures. I spot the picture of my mom and a wave of guilt and pain radiates through my body, and I continue walking to my cell, sorry room. There are two sides of the prison. The cells and then the dining room and the kitchen. The cells are divided by girls and boys at the opposite sides of each other.

As I walk up to my room I push the black cotton curtains, “Hey Reagles” I said flashing her a smile. “Hey, Eliza” she said as she flashes me a smirk. She hates being called Reagles almost as much as I hate being called Eliza. Even though Eliza is my name I rather go by anything else. My mom really wanted a girly girl who would be her personal dress up doll, but as soon as I discovered combat boots, I never wore a pink frilly dress again. I changed out of my blood covered green camo jacket and black leggings into some basketball shorts and a loose t-shirt. “I’m going to the war room, you coming?” I say to her as I pull my long blonde hair into a bun. “Yeah, just let me put my shoes on” she says as she struggles to pull her boot on. We walk down the long dark hallway, passing by at least 50 cells into the war room, at the end of the hallway.

My father is sitting at the head of the table as usual, still stewing about my fuck up. As soon as he sees us he gestures to me to sit down and for Reagan to stand along the wall. My dad is an pain in the butt, why won’t he let her sit down? There is an empty chair right next to me. My father has never liked Reagan, she is the complete opposite of him and I, she would’ve been my mothers dream. My mother left her prized possession to her, her heart shaped locket. That lockett was the one thing she ever truly loved from my father. And my father hates that she is so different from us.

As I’m sitting at the table with a bunch of men who look like they have never seen a woman before, staring at me like I am a piece of meat, they are a bunch of hungry Rottweilers, ready for the kill. Disgusting pigs! “As you know they've been less frequent demon sightings now. Eliza only killed eleven today.” My father emphasized the room. “ Why is that?” General Miller demanded. General Jones stands up and walks to the head by my father “I suspect” General Jones starts as my father coughs “We suspect that they are building up their numbers to attack, one of our spies has been checking the demon nests and there is less and less.” Jones says as he picks at the dirt underneath his fingernails. My sister spoke up for the first time. “Isn’t that a good thing.” My father rolls his eyes and clenches his fists. “NO that is not a good thing, there are thousands of demons and I know we haven’t killed them all.” He looks at me and says “Our demon killers aren’t that good” “Why are you even here? Shouldn’t you be cleaning something” my father glares at my sister. She quickly leaves the room with a rogue tear falling down her cheek.

What a prick, what gives him the right to verbally accost her in front of these men? All eyes look towards me to say something, I slowly sit up in my chair and say “So what do you suggest we do? We don’t have enough demon slayers to kill them!” I remind my misogynistic father. “We will send a distress call to all of the other colonies and see if they help, and in the meantime we train everyone to kill.” “Eliza, you are in charge of training, don’t disappoint me; again.” My father grunts at me. And then he literally stomps away like a toddler. Only a couple more years of this bullshit, I think to myself.

Weeks go by with everyone training to the point of exhaustion. Everyone is showing significant improvement but we still lack time and numbers. The two other colonies have shown up to bring up our total number of fifteen thousand people ready to fight. And over the last couple of weeks he found out that the demons have a leader, his name is Maximoff. We have barely any time, our spies have told us that the demon army is marching this way; and that they should be here by tomorrow morning. We have to be ready! I’m sitting in my room trying to sleep and my sister says “I’m scared, I don’t want to die.” “You won’t die.” I added, truthfully I am terrified that everyone I know is going to die. But I have to trust my training and I have to begrudgingly accept my fathers plan.

I tossed and turned the entire night, until it was time to prepare for war. Everyone looked ready with black battle paint on their faces, and their swords sheath, and guns ready to aim. We looked ready. Luckily Jacob and I had a plan. The demons started to run towards us as the prison defense system kicked in. “We live here, we die here, make them regret ever being born,” I yell before the action starts.

The prison guards start firing the cannons and machine guns killing some demons and the right and left flank charge towards the herds. Blood starts to stain both sides of the ground. But it looks like we’re ok for now. My group (the middle flank) charges towards the action. I pull out my sword and stab a demon in its underbelly and then swing my sword at its head. I miss it and it claws my shoulder. I wince with pain as I see my blood start to drip on the ground. I stab my sword in its heart for retribution. The demon dropped like a bag of rocks.

I continue to fight until I see my father go down and he’s dead. I can tell as soon as he hits the ground he has claw marks covering his entire body. I am now the leader of our colony. Even though he wasn’t the best father, I will miss him. He was still the father who taught me to fight and let me sit on his shoulders to look up at the stars. I let out a pained scream and charged my fathers attacker, Maximoff. He had a cocky smirk on his stupid face. “Woops” he says, staring straight at me with a weird look on his face. “You killed him,” I shouted at him. “Why do you care? He wasn’t your real father.” He exclaimed. “What do you mean he wasn’t my father”, of course he was my father. Right? “Did you really think that bag of bones was your father?” he says, giving me a quizzical look. He’s just trying to distract you from killing him. I swing my sword and it clashes with his, “Enough with these mind games.” I say as I strike his calf and black blood sprays my face. He winced with pain and retaliated by striking my belly with a deep scratch.

He’s not trying to kill me? I think to myself, why would he not try to kill me. I do a spin kick, knocking him off guard, he falls to the ground, I take my sword and stab him in the heart, “Your my sister” he gasps as his eyes roll back into his head, and his last breath comes out of his mouth. “What the hell.” What does that mean? I surely can’t be his sister? Can I? And if he is my brother, who is our father. Or was he just trying to get in my head? I have so many questions.

Jacob walks up to me and looks over my body, trying to tell if I’m alright. “ I’m fine” I say as I give him a glance over. “ Good, then I can do this.” He said softly. He pulls me by the waist to him and kisses me. I instantly kiss him back. We pull apart and start walking back to our home.

The battle was finally over and all of the demons were killed, We Won! Nothing can hold us back as long as we believe in ourselves and do the right thing! We had minimal casualties, we will rebuild and come back even stronger, we can take on anything!

THE END