Decorum Devil {1}
When man was created, seven twins from his nature came along: seven deadly sins and their exact opposites, each sibling a conflicting image of the other. Not long after creation, a war waged between the pairs and in the end, two deadly divisions came to be -- Hellhounds and Soul -- snatchers.
We are the Soul-snatchers. We allure the pure and lead them into hidden gardens of Purgatory. Showering the victims with treasures, joys and all they desire, until, we’re done feeding on the purity of their soul. After which, they are left to roam the dark and bloody terrains of Purgatory alone.
And I am Chastity; the most enticing and cunning of them all.
She tapped away on the calculator, checking and re-checking all the figures to make sure no glitch was made; nothing that would render her a cheat in her profession. Being a Civil Engineer gave her no space for errors, lives could be at stake if she decided to look out for herself only.
“You know, Silvia, if you cut out three grams of cement from every ten square of the building … no one would notice,” Mark Osborne stated, “you could have up to five- thousand dollars.”
Silvia glanced up at her partner in annoyance; his cheating schemes were getting to her nerves at this point. She was hell bent on being an honest business woman but he wouldn’t quit filling her head with nonsense of riches. A mental barrier was put up and she went back to calculating the weight mass of the building and kinetic energy needed to sway it.
A prickling sensation started slithering up her spine, the feeling of being watched once again evident in the air. She slowly turned her neck to the right and peaked over her shoulder, but there was nothing, as always. Except for the little flash of red that Silvia caught from the corner of her eye.
However, it was dismissed and she tried to ignore the feeling while continuing her work.
“Are you even listening to me, Silvia?” Mark questioned. Silvia just hummed an affirmative and carried on, zoning him out completely.
The flickering of light and the slight hissing of static broke her out of her reverie. It also succeeded in shutting Mark up. They both glanced up at the ceiling light and looked over to the lamps on the side, as the illuminated objects flickered in unison. Even the electric watch on her desk started to waver simultaneously and it was as if the appliances were all jittering in panic.
Silvia gulped. The sputtering of lights had been happening way too often.
“Must be a fault in the cables,” Mark thought out loud.
“Must be,” Silvia mumbled a reply, knowing full well that it was anything but.
“I’ll just go and check on it,” Mark made his way to the door and Silvia wanted to desperately ask him to stay, but for some reason, her tongue seemed to be glued to its spot. Within a flash, she was left alone and she could feel the dread washing over her. She knew what to expect next.
It first began with the chill wrapping its cold tendrils around her body, leaving her teeth clanking. Then, the overwhelming sensation that her every exhale of breath was being observed; the fear was paralysing. What followed next was what made Silvia always shudder in fright; she could see flashes of red from the corner of her eye, but it passed so fast that she could never catch a glimpse of exactly what it was.
“Danger doesn’t always look dangerous,” the whispers resonated through the small confines of the room. Silvia’s hands flew to her ears in a frail attempt to block out the ghostly chant.
“No,” she mumbled repeatedly, trying her hardest to stay sane. It had been happening for two consecutive weeks and she knew that something really wrong was happening to her; something unearthly.
