Emotional Support Demon

A black furry stuffed snake lay on the floor. When the woman finally fell into a deep sleep, the darkness pooled around the embarrassingly cute toy and coalesced into a sinewy form of a snake with taloned hands. Sespral looked at the sleeping woman. Her body was covered with bruises and cuts, some of which still bled unto the sheets below her. The reptilian demon glided over to her drawers and pulled out the first aid kit within and administered to her wounds.

Just an hour before, two men, her father and her husband, had laid into her with a vengeance. The husband didn’t like the amount of time she had spent at the country market, not when she had duties that needed tending to at home. Her father expressed his disappointment in her failures as a wife before turning to his son-in-law and telling him he knew what to do. The older man left, letting the younger man hit the woman until his anger was spent, her screams of pain still echoing in the demon’s memory. The man’s indiscriminate blows had sent pillows and stuffed animals from her bed to the floor, including that of the demon’s toy form. The man had finally left, slamming the door.

As its eyes went from cold black to red hot, the demon recalled one other memory, that of a contract accidentally signed in the blood of a much younger woman, forcing the demon to be her succor when she needed it.

It covered her with a blanket and replaced the kit. Sespral’s eyes flashed red as it became one with the shadows, disappearing from the room. A contract needed to be fulfilled, and the succor promised would be delivered.

* * * * *

Sestral found the older man in his study, sleeping in hiscchair. Sestral debated just slitting his throat and being done with it, but a single thought made it smile, a smile with far too many teeth. It pushed with tremendous force on the chair’s handle, popping the chair up,. The man woke with a start, angry at being awoken. He only saw the demon, so the demon got his full attention.

Sestral reached back, then let its hand fly, tapping the man on his bulbous nose with one of its talons.

“Boop.”

The man froze upon hearing the word spoken in a thousand hisses. That he was not dealing with a mere human quickly permeated his consciousness. Sestral smiled, letting the man see his razor teeth.

The man’s overalls became wetter.

The demon then used the handle to put the man back into a reclining position before reaching into the man’s chest to see if he did, in fact, have some sort of heart. It found one and pulled the beating muscle out. Wonder where that was just an hour ago? It shrugged, then tossed the heart away before gliding out of the room.

* * * * *

The husband was in his office. He heard his door open. Without even looking, he barked at whoever entered, telling them to leave. His chair was spun around.

Sestral smiled. The man froze, his eyes wide.

It had stopped off in the garage to grab one little thing from the firearms safe. It was now ruined, its door ten feet away from its safe, but the rifle retrieved was now dropped right into the lap of the man before him with a box of what it hoped was the right ammunition. The man’s reflexes, honed on thousands of hours on the range, operated to load the cartridges into the hunting rifle. It was something he knew, and his confidence grew with each round that disappeared into the weapon. Eventually, the eldritch horror in front of him may as well be just another rabbit or deer.

Sestral backed up a little. The man smiled as he let the demon have it, quickly filling the small room with smoke.

As the smoke cleared, the man realized he had done nothing to the demon. Sestral yawned, even clapping one of his taloned hands on his open mouth. The demon cracked its knuckles.

The realization of what he was facing finally spread throughout the man’s brain. The rifle fell to the ground, followed shortly by the man himself, now on his knees, prostrating himself before the demon. He began begging for his life.

The demon rolled his eyes.

Why is it always those without mercy who beg for it the most?

It glided over to him, picked him up, and stood him up. It picked up the rifle, looked at it, and looked at the man. The demon turned to leave. The man relaxed, thanking it for sparing his life. The demon smiled. The man wiped the sweat from his brow. Then the demon threw rifle. With force. Of which the demon had plenty.

The rifle spun right through his neck, severing the head from the body. The head rolled onto his desk while his body just dropped to the floor.

A single talon went up as the demon stopped in its track. He had remembered something; it began searching for the wall safe it knew was in the room. He quickly found it, smiling that it was open. It cocked its head, looking at the blood seeping from the man’s head. How convenient that the husband provided the perfect medium to leave a message with. It glided to the desk and picked up the head. It left the office with his grisly souvenir, returning to its post.

* * * * *

In the morning, the sun broke. The golden rays climbed through the window, waking the woman. She stretched, working out the kinks. She screamed when she saw the note writ large on her wall in blood, her husband’s head below it. She was hit by waves of relief, heartbreak, and an all-new worry. She hugged the fluffy black snake on her pillow, drawing some measure of security from its very presence.

The note read: “You had too many monsters in your life. Now you have only me.”