Alternate Earth designation 616, Christian Calendar year 2000, nightmares roam the streets and dreams no longer come true. Stories of God and His Angels are distant memory in this world where Satan's Demons are bought and sold through whispered deals and violent deaths. They walk amongst the seething masses of humanity, controlled only by the rings that bind them to their masters and the commands of their creator. Unlike like the others who lurk among, bound by no rules but those of Blood. Perhaps this Variant used to be a tranquil world, and perchance it will one day return to the ways of a more idyllic past, but until then one must tread carefully and expect the unseen. -§- Theron tossed about restlessly, cotton sheet tangling about long legs, holding and confining - heightening the dream-state fear. -§-
	"Momma! Momma! Look what I found for you!"   The last rays of the sun have slipped below the horizon, and small girl runs through the darkened fields, blonde curls following in her wake. She clutches a bouquet of wildflowers to her chest eager to surprise her arents. "Momma, Poppa, come see! See the flowers I found." No one answers her joyous shouts as she continues her fleet-footed journey to a small white cottage set on the edges of the field. Impatiently she bursts through the doors, glowing with happiness. "Momma! Pop-" The flowers fall from a limp grasp, petals spreading across the floor in a broken display. The still summer's night air is pierced by a shrill scream. "Momma? Poppa! What happened? Momma! Poppa! Say something!" Shrill cries grow ever more hysterical as the young girl falls to her knees to brush the hair from her mother's unseeing eyes. "I didn't mean to stay out so late. Why won't you talk to me? Momma! What's wrong?" "She can't hear you, pretty thing." The girl jerks, turns, blonde locks of hair wrapping about her face, catching in trails of hysterical tears. A sudden in-drawn breath is the only sound she makes as a dark figure steps from the shadows, wide grin exposing bloody fangs. "Such a pretty little girl. So small and sweet, like your precious 'momma'." Laughter, cold and empty, echoes throughout the small house as the figure kneels beside the terrified girl, wrapping her in a cold embrace. "Sweet candy child, innocent blood all for me." The dark words are whispered against her neck as she struggles helplessly. "Nothing to fear but Death little one, let me have you and Death will keep you." The words enwrap her, trapping her mind easily in a web of suggestion and compulsion as teeth sink into her neck, skin and muscle giving way to welling blood, the sharp pain forever and unreal. "Don't-...stop...please...I don't want...Death..." The words are small, fearful, rebellious, echoing across time, and unheard but for one. One who wants revenge for all the times He has been slighted, one who could coerce even the dead to rise to his commands. "I don't want to go...I want...need...to stay here. Death...death hurts...and scares me. It isn't fair..." "But how do you think Death feels?" Startled by the question, answering with a query. "Death? Feels?" "Death lives. Death feels. Death takes ones such as you, gone too soon, and keeps them forever while they go unpunished for their killing. Death sees the pain and injustice, is the first to comfort it every time, and can do nothing to stop it. Could you understand that?" "But why? Why won't somebody stop them?" "Would you stop them? Would you give up peace and happiness to spend eternity stopping their kind from destroying the peace and happiness of others? It is not only a choice between right and wrong, Good and Evil, but also a choice between Beliefs and Creators. Few are willing to change their ideals, fewer still are willing to exist eternally under Death's command" "I would." "Bind yourself to Death and be his servant, at his side, always to do his biding." "To end Death, I would even bind myself to Him." "Then bound to me you will always be, my servant among those I can not reach, bidden to me at all times. Be mine by the weight of your words, a soul to exist no more." She was bleeding, fleeing, disappearing from the light; stripped of youth and innocence, cast back at a world who would never know her for what she had been. She wanted, needed, tried to cry out that one word, but it was lost in time unspoken.
-§- "Momma..." The single word slipped through dry, cracked lips, coming to rest from a dizzying journey - awaking in a new reality. -§- Theron awoke with a start, shivering from the dreams that had been nightly companions for as long as he could remember, though now there existed reasoning behind the dreams - reminders - not that he wanted to know. "Gotta love having friends like Death." The tone was bitter, filled with dark sarcasm and more than a bit of self-loathing. "Screw with your mind, fuck with your life, leave you a psychotic mess that any psych would love to get their grubby little paws on." He untangled himself from the sheets, threw the dark blue comforter off the side of the bed and swung his legs over the side of the mattress, pausing for a moment to run a hand through his disheveled hair, trying to keep the stray blond wisps out of his face. Absentmindedly he tapped a cigarette out of the pack from the bedside table and grabbed the lighter before rising and heading towards the atrium door. Sliding it open, he stepped out onto the balcony, lighting the cigarette in a brief flare of light that cast a wavering glow over cupped hands and pale violet eyes. Below, the city air was thick with heat and smog, the grey threads of smoke from the cigarette a welcome reprieve from the toxins that ascended on lazy currents through the nightsky. Inhaling the bittersweet smoke, his thoughts wondered to the city so far below. Dark, dirty, often deadly, this city was a Haven to those that he hunted for Death. The Vampires who had escaped retribution for centuries untold until they found one too naïve to understand the implications of a Pact made with Death. "And here I am now," he said amidst trails of smoke and a grand gesture of his arms. "The sole hope for humanity, Death's own Avenging Angel, and the single most screwed up person in the existence of this world. Who were you kidding? You made a deal with a four year old girl too frightened to know that she was being won over with sweet talk and fancy words, and you keep sending her back, still frightened by what she's become, and you think you'll win? Why shouldn't I just jump?" Another gesture, glowing embers tracing the path of the cigarette flying over the edge of the balcony as it fell to the shadows below. "End it here and now? Because you wouldn't care, you would just resurrect her, me, again - send me back to fight and die until you are happy, or I'm driven insane. Who's to say I'm not already insane, standing here, speaking to someone I can't see, talking of resurrection and Vampires and slayers. What if I am insane, what if I am? Does it really matter? I'm just a puppet, you pull the strings, it doesn't matter what thoughts run in frantic little circles in my head as long as you can move me about your stage, to be your little toy is all I ever need to worry about isn't it? Just as long as I can do all that you want, I shouldn't have to worry about my life, my family, my Momma-" The words became ever more hysterical, ending with a choking sob as he collapsed into a little ball, the rough cement of the balcony scraping against bare skin. "Momma...I want, need you. Need someone to love. Don't want...don't want to be alone...like this...anymore. Too cold...by myself...I need someone...I want to die...wish I had...had never be born...too much hurt...alone..." Tears intermingled with blood on the ground as the broken voice grew silent, and he slipped back into a restless - if dreamless - sleep. -§-