Apocalypse Live: Something of Imp-ortance

4.
Hopelessness.  Panic.  Pain.  If only these simple words could describe the anguish and torment of existence.  Simple existence was like constant drowning in a pool of acid.  It ached to breath, to eat, to walk and yet that pain was smothered by the heartache and longing of something more, something he'd never known and never would.
Yet when his smallish nose drank in the sweetest hint of something not of darkness and dread it became obsession.  Not to destroy it, not to possess it, but to know it.  Red fur, if you could call it that, bristled in anticipation to see what it was that seemed to momentarily lift the burden from his small shoulders.  Yes, Frederick P Imp was desirous of it, whatever it was.  He didn't know words like good, clean, and wholesome, and yet the air he brought in through his rabbit like nose was gloriously hinted with the hideous taint of good.

It had taken days to find the source.  A place so near the edge of the pit he'd nearly missed it.

Oblivion, total and complete, lay in the pit.  That abyss.  The lake of fire.  A fire that burned so hot it consumed even the light.  Yet somehow a moment of complete bliss wrapped itself inside his sinus so delectably, he ventured to the edge.

Frederick's claws gripped the edge tightly, digging into the rock as he scratched his way around the lip. There was no telling where the fire began, but the consuming heat melted skin to rock.  He had to tread quickly or risk fusing with the edge.  Thankfully his resolve ebbed the physical pain just enough to make his way ahead.

He knew it was close, but as he came within grasp of the source, he heard something unexpected.  Voices.

"Melchiresa!"
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Evan peeled the bloody rag from his hand.  How had he not bled out yet? The neon biohazard bag sloshed with his bodily fluid, and somehow he still lived, albeit oozing.

Rayne was down the hall.  Somewhere.  They hadn't bothered to tell him where she'd be.  Probably best since she'd died five times from her home to the hospital.   She was dying on a loop.  Her heart would stop, and he'd miss her long enough to hear her voice crying in his head.  She'd then sit straight up, vomit and punch someone in the face while making a rude remark.

Hardly a polite thing to do since they had saved her.  She should choose to live or stay dead.  Evan's nerves couldn't take it if she passed out and had to be brought back again.  What were the odds of it working so often?

His thoughts were interrupted by the doctor coming in with a needle and thread on a tray as well as a waiver.

"Hi!"  The doctor smiled too cheerfully.  "Normally I don't do this but we seem to have a rash of illness and to speed this along Judy is going to take care of you.  She's a resident and the best we have but I still have to observe."

Evan smiled, "Fine.  It's just really annoying, all the bleeding is..."

"Hi!"  Judy interrupted him with a warm smile.  "Let's get you in and out shall we?"

Evan hardly new what to say.  She was adorable.  Her scrubs didn't hide her curvaceous figure in the least and her brown hair flipped flirtatiously around her ear just before she began to slowly wash her hands.  The blush quickly started at his toes and wormed the way up his leg.  This was going to be complicated.
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The morning had come far to quickly for Brooks.

Alex was cold and stayed bundled tightly in bed.  With no fever and a madden rush on hospital beds, they wouldn't see her for days.  She had sent him off with a quick kiss on the cheek before she rushed for her cotton and woolen sanctuary.

Brooks scratched the scalp under his short brown hair in an effort to wake himself from the concern at the back of his mind.  He was in class after all and needed to concentrate.  The ice bucket around his feet was keeping him cooler than he would have been, but was quickly turning into a bucket of warm water.

The college was open to students who were willing and able to brave the elements.  The doors didn't dare close; what else was there to do?  Almost no stores, save those offering food, were open due to the outlandish weather.  The studious would come in for their degree, the others would sit indoors watching television and drinking up the money their parents so willingly paid.  It was just a normal day.

"Brooks!"  Mr. McClure broke the silence.  The five student who had braved the weather stared.

"Hmm?"

"Do you want to leave?  You seem out of sorts."

"I'm sorry, it's just really hot in here."

"It's fifty degrees.  Are you still sick?"  The professor straightened his glasses with a gloved hand.

"No sir," Brooks replied.  "I am feeling better, just really hot."  The other students moaned their chilled discomfort.  "But there is no need to turn the heat down.  I'll take care of it."

"Be quick!"

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Rayne bit her lip waiting for the other line to pick up.  The phone rang far too loudly for the night she had been through.

Her chest hurt, the light was to bright, her brain ached and everyone seemed to be shouting through the walls.  Hundreds of people shouting for the doctor.

"Hello?"  Rayne was so happy to hear her mother's frantic southern twang.  "Hello?!"

"Mom!"

"RAYNE?  Hello?  Are you okay?  We'll obviously you're ok!  We haven't heard from you in days, almost a week.  We were getting worried."  Rayne shouted to drown out the noise.

"Mom, it hasn't been days," she laughed.  "I called you yesterday.  And we talked for hours."  Rayne felt a moment of grief at the thought of her mother getting old.  She envisioned a feeble woman with a walker.  It looked too much like her mother for Rayne to laugh.

"Hello?  Rayne.  You did not.  You called me Friday and it's almost Friday again."  Rayne looked pensively at her cellphone.  Wednesday flashed in the bottom corner.  She had called her mother on Tuesday.  

Maybe mom's busy.  We all forget the days sometimes.  "How is Hillary?"

"She's fine.  She has a new boyfriend.  Is there a delay. It's taking a long time to hear you speak.  Hello?"

"Maybe there is-"

"Rayne?  We'll I guess--oh there you are."

"Bad connection."

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Frederick's tiny eyes drank the army that lay before him.  Thousands of demons and fallen angels prepped and seething to escape.   At the head of the army, standing on a ledge not a hundred feet up, was the Watcher.

Many watchers had guarded humanity during the early days.  Then came the fall from heaven.  Some had fallen victim to the seduction of human kind.  Some had been teachers of foul things.  And yet all who fell found themselves staring into the void, pain and loss of total love.

The Watcher was none of these.   He couldn't have been.  No smeck of humanity permeated like with the others.  He may have been the first, but none knew, and those who might have were beyond the hope of even this place.

The Watcher.  Melchiresa.  He was a sight to see; slender and serpent like.  His skin, like scales, flashed colors unknown to human eyes and yet was as dull and dim as the blackness that surrounded him.  His eyes were a total void.  Archdemon.  Warrior.  Seducer.

Infront of the Watcher was a haze of not dark.  (Frederick had heard of this mysterious light, but never actually seen it.  Or maybe he didn't remember.)  Melchiresa had to squint against the thickening mass of brilliance in front of him.  Something flashed against the scale like skin and flickered.

Frederick stalled in awe at this sight.  He'd never seen an archdemon before.  It was...

Pain!  Frederick finally moved and flesh was rent from his foot.  He couldn't stop to cry out, lest someone notice.  It would heal, and quickly.  He already felt the raw nerves reattaching and the skin growing.  Even healing was painful.  He had to look away and just listen.  Demons had been meant for heaven so there had been no need for a pituitary glad.  Boy could he have used one now.  A few endorphins would have really hit the spot for his aching limb.

"We stand upon the blood slicked precipice.  We are a hair's breadth from shedding the bonds we have held so long and stepping into true freedom.  Freedom from Lucifer.  Freedom from Him.  Alone we are strong, together, stronger."

There was no way the Watcher and his army were going to let Frederick near that shining thing.  He was going to have to find another way.

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