Yawning Black Hole

Sydney Sime

Alex stubbed his toe - it was going to be one of those days. A black gremlin had placed the rock right before his left foot as he laboured slowly jogging up the final incline.

“Bugger” he said audibly. The small monster snickered and attempted it a second time, however Alex caught sight of the creepy creature and caught it by its hair - raised it high into the air and slapped it on its fat black rear end, catapulting him onto the other side of the road.

Romulus looked pleased with himself as he watched the drama unfold from a distance … he always savoured cruelties both large and small with equal pleasure.

The Demon-wraith Romulus appeared human, however, all of his vital organs had been surgically replaced with other ‘parts’ that better suited his needs convivial to his sinister indwelling character - he needed his body to be cooperating and coinciding with his dark soul within. The new heart he had just acquired complied and tolerated the pure evil that motivated its irregular rhythm. All of his other organs complied too. It was a marvel that they tolerated one another, or could co-exist at all.

Romulus had even gone to the trouble of grooming these body parts before they had come to be his; tempting their previous owners into various forms of abject sinfulness. The ‘donor’s' freshly acquired depravities delivered to Romulus the perfect blend of life and death for him to then utilise.

Romulus drew his power from anything and everything outside of himself - and so it was that if you could see deeply within the spiritual aspect of this demon you would find nothing but a yawning black hole.

This is one reason it was particularly difficult for Puck or any other searcher to locate him - for technically there was no ‘him’ to locate.

And yet, there was still a will within this character to survive, as well as an inherent coldness to warmth, a cunning instead of reason, an antithesis to love, and an envy that found its only happiness in the demise of others because of a well polished and seething jealousy towards the universal good.

Alex knew Romulus well - or at least well enough to tremble at the very sight of him. Romulus pointed at his car door as he sat down into an elongated sedan with a chauffeur at the front partitioned by glass.

Alex hesitated, he felt like he was going to be sick.

Thin eyes, thin nose, pallid complexion, blue white skin - tight too tight, slim too slim, with a diamond earring, perfect teeth, he appeared around forty. Light on his feet, T-shirt and jeans and a Chanel scarf, jeans tapered to crocodile shoes, with matching man bag. This was Romulus’s current appearance.

With his hand pressing on the hollow of Alex’s back the chauffeur guided the worried man into the back of the waiting car. Alex caught his foot in the door and the fat black hobgoblin could be seen pushing the door, jamming it tighter.

Romulus surprisingly stepped out of the sedan, and tapped on the front window, leaning into the front window he said to the uniformed driver, “you know what to do … I’ll walk awhile.”

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series