A Weapon’s Serenade

“I did not expect to see you here.” Apollyon raised an eyebrow at Serena who had just entered the library. The demon herself had only arrived a few minutes earlier from her sparring session with Kuria.

“Yea… didn’t know where else to go today. It all just feels so… I don’t fucking know, not pointless but meaningless? Stupid? Futile? Like, I have seen Hell. Underwater in Hell but still Hell. I talked to a siren, I met demons, demons who will help heal all the things humans can’t. And then there is today. Just a random fucking Monday with nothing happening. After all the wonders, today is just… a day.”

“Come.” Apollyon got up and started walking towards the back of the library.

“Okay?”

“Just follow me.” The monochrome looking demon led Serena all the way to the other side, the half of the library that was part of Hell.

Serena let her eyes wander around the massive cathedral-like main hall. “Woah.”

Apollyon smiled. “Let today not just be a day, make it whatever you please. With a library at your disposal, you have all the tools to shape every day to your desires.”

“I don’t even know where to begin, this place is insane. I mean, the earth library is already insane but this is bananas.”

“I’m glad you like it. You study marine biology, correct?”

“Uh, yea, I do.”

“Then why not begin there? Come.”

 Serena put her book aside. She had been reading in a corner of the library for a while now. For some reason, Apollyon had decided to stay with her and read something of her own.

“You know, I was wondering something.”

“I am glad you are. What are you wondering about?” Apollyon also put her book aside.

“You have catalogued all these wonders of Hell, you try to make life amazing not just for yourself but all the things in this world. You live in such harmony with everything that there are leviathans who seek out Nightmares to tell stories to, you have herds of cats migrating between towns to spend time with different demons and so many other amazing things in this world who all happily live with you. I know there is the option for all that on earth too but… why are we so blind to it? Are we humans just stupid?”

“Why have we only offered so few the option to join us?”

“Because not everyone would fit in with you? There are so many people who don’t think as you do, who would ruin stuff.”

“An interesting observation. Those traits coincide with something else, something deeply opposed to what you have in common with Melody, Anne, our head librarian Kate, and everyone else who we ever turned.”

“Kindness?” Serena shook her head. “No, not kindness, empathy, caring. And curiosity.”

“And a third aspect.”

“Imagination?”

“Empathy, curiosity and creativity are the core values that make someone able to withstand eternity. The core values of our society. Many humans do not see the wonders right in front of them because they cannot imagine something like that can exist, they are not curious enough to look and they are not empathetic enough to understand them when they see one. You jumped on the chance to look because you could imagine a wonder and you understood when you met one. To return a question: do you think?”

“Do I… think? As in: do I have an internal monologue? I do, it never shuts up. I never understood how you are supposed to ‘empty your mind’ when meditating. I can’t not think about something.”

“Any Nightmare who deals with humans will tell you that you are an exception among your kind. Most people only think when it is necessary, some do not like having to do even that, and a small group only acts on instinct. They do not think at all, they don’t have an internal voice, they don’t have pictures in their mind, they simply have nothing and putting them in a situation that requires thought breaks them. They will lash out and try to destroy what makes them think. The simplest way to check your ability to be eternal is to read your idle mind. If your mind is driven to think even without input, you will always have something to drive you.”

Serena leaned back in her chair. “I can’t imagine how silence in your head must be like. That has to be so sad.”

“It is normal for them. They cannot imagine the deafening noise you experience. That we all experience. Asmodeus likened it to the human myths about siren songs. The images, the words, whatever makes up the song in each of our minds that drives us, that pulls us towards a new direction, always slightly unreachable, every single day.”

“The stray thought that you should write a book. The random desire to see the cherry blossoms in a faraway land. The fleeting need to be taste something you never have before. The yearning to be seduced by dreams you only remember to have forgotten. The sudden ability to put something in profound words you will never be able to replicate. Asmodeus was right, it is a siren song. Resist it and you will live so easily among humans, you will blend in and just survive. Give in and find wonders no one will understand and always feel disconnected from those who don’t hear the song.”

“There are no demons who don’t hear it. I remember Kate, in her first years after she turned, being so alienated from humanity to an even sharper degree than before.”

“She’s a Nightmare, right?”

Apollyon nodded. “Yes. She found the minds of other humans so different from what she expected, the surface thoughts screamed out by them to be so full of negativity of all kinds, hatred, fear, every bad thing you can imagine, and a lot of emptiness. Many people just walking through life without a thought loud enough to pick up. From one day to the next, she could hear and feel all the bad things humans carry around and most of those who didn’t scream negativity were simple voids. Humanity turned from a group of strangers to a pack of animals. I do not know how she was ever able to deal with that. She must have found a way to shield herself or maybe found refuge somewhere, I know she buried herself in my mind many times.”

“Her own song faced with the cacophony of human horrors. It’s such a beautiful ability to hear the songs of others, but to find that many do not have one… I can’t imagine.”

Apollyon leaned onto the table and smiled at Serena. “But you just did.”

“I suppose I did. How strange… my instinct is to tell you that I can’t imagine even thought I did because imagining pain gets you looked at weirdly. It’s not a normal thing to be able to do.”

“Not among humans.”

“Yea, you just tell them that you can’t imagine and validate their unique experience that way. The fact that some of us can actually imagine unique experiences we haven’t had is apparently a bad thing.”

“It is a bad thing to many because it makes them feel inadequate. Calling out humans on their shortcoming never works well and many feel called out when you do something they cannot.”

“That’s why they all accept, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I am not quite sure, but I am just assuming that pretty much everyone you make the offer to accepts. You know, the ‘turn you into a sexy eternal demon’ offer.”

Apollyon seemed to be genuinely taken aback by that. “That… yes, that does make sense. It’s opening a door to finally give in to the song. That offer always comes with a taste of what our side is like, a taste of world where you can sing along. Of course they all accept. Who wouldn’t…”

“Yea… who wouldn’t.” Serena tried to force a smile.

“Malice made that offer, didn’t she?”

“Half jokingly, but yea… she casually brought up that option. I made a joking response that… that I can’t decide on an eternal life without my current ailments without even knowing what such a life would be like.”

“But you know what it would be like and that makes your life right now even worse.”

“Yea, exactly. I have a list of everything that is wrong now. Everything that has made life miserable in teeny tiny ways that all add up. And then you are faced with the option of solving it all instantly. For the small price of eternal life. Never dying, being able to read every book in existence, see every place, learn everything, create all the art you can imagine. The greatest gift treated so casually. And to know that for some this incredible gift is the worst curse imaginable. It hurts.”

“When I made the offer to Kate, I told her that I would turn her when she had finished the part of her life she was currently in, her education. I turned her early. Her life was at risk and I was unable to allow that. I didn’t know about Ara’s ability to reject souls, I fully believed that her death would mean that she would be lost to me. Now, Melody and Anne have the same line to cross. Once they finish their paths, they will be turned. That offer can be extended to you as well. Walk your human path and then be turned. I think it would be good if that path contained some time without your health issues.”

Serena nodded. “That would be great. Both the offer and the idea of a few years as a human without a fucked up body. There is so much I need to think about now… also… uhm… are you serious about that offer?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, wow… thank you. Would you maybe like to accompany me to the city centre? For some food, doner maybe… my treat?”

“On the border world side? Sure, why not. It has been a year or two since I last had a good human-made doner.”