The Ghoul's Little PlayThing

Marcus scoffed.

"Angels love it here — or more precisely, they fucking hate Demon. They live like kings. And one thing they'll surely never do is help a Demonic."

Keiran, with a goal set in mind, knew he had to find others. He jumped onto his bed, a million ways of escape flooding his thoughts before his eyes grew heavy and he finally went to sleep.

****

Hours passed as morning finally arrived — not that they could see the sun. Their only indication was the speakers in the walls, which routinely screamed at 5:30 AM.

Waking up, still with heavy bags under their eyes, Keiran and Marcus looked at each other before turning to the once again empty bed beside them — Mia still nowhere to be found.

The boys got up, got ready, and dressed. Just as they were about to step out:

"ALL CLASS 9 STUDENTS, 1 - 8, ARE REQUIRED TO MAKE THEIR WAY TO THE TRAINING GROUND BEFORE 8 AM OR ELSE."

"What the hell is or else supposed to mean?" Keiran hissed.

Marcus chuckled.

"Just their way of saying if you're not there, you're dead."

"What are we even doing in the training grounds anyway?"

"It's just the routine weeding," Marcus said as he casually wiped lint off his blazer. "Basically, we're congested here, so every once in a while, they tell us all to come to the training grounds, and then they select a few of us that are doing really bad and force us into a highly infested region of demon haunting."

Keiran's mouth had been left agape since Marcus's first few words.

"How the hell are we supposed to survive that?!"

Marcus slowly shook his head, and a slight laugh escaped his lips.

"We're not. The entire point is to end the useless Demonics in a uhmm—" he formed air quotes with his fingers, " 'more appropriate' manner."

Keiran just stared, completely lost for words.

"Don't get me wrong — they can just kill us if they wanted to. But this way, they can say they didn't do anything, and we were the ones who were cut out to survive."

He took a deep breath.

"It's a cleaner way to kill us because they say they pick at random, but in all my years here, they've never picked an Angel."

Keiran, annoyed, flailed his arms in frustration.

"Of course they do!"

Hahaha

A burst of laughter escaped Marcus's lungs, laughing so hard his eyes were squeezed shut. He gripped the edge of the wall for balance, his pitch sky high.

Finally catching his breath, he said,

"You still don't get it. They rule everything. No one's challenging the IDC — absolutely no one — because they're wise enough to know what they can do to them... or at least not dumb enough to want a death wish."

Marcus pulled the door handle.

"So, you ready to go to this thing, or are you still whining?"

Keiran clenched his fists, his muscles twitching.

"What makes you think they won't pick YOU this time?"

Marcus slightly turned his head.

"Because I'm not useless. I made sure of that."

*****

Making their way to the training grounds, numerous rows of jets stood in place, and of course, where multiple Demonics were gathered, so were soldiers — they were littered everywhere.

Countless students clustered together, with little to no space for free movement and endless chattering.

SHUT UP!

Someone's voice cut through all the noise as a short but muscular man revealed himself with a blowhorn and a mean look on his face. Standing beside him were two soldiers holding lists — probably the list of students in each class.

"FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO KNOW THE DRILL, THIS IS SIMPLE. FOR THE REST — YOU HEAR YOUR NAME, YOU STEP ONTO THE FIRST PLANE, AND YOU PRAY TO YOUR GOD!"

Keiran and Marcus huddled together between heaps of bodies, as every so often someone would gradually slide their shoulder behind Keiran and move behind him.

Marcus snickered, turning to Keiran and using one hand to cover his mouth.

"They're trying to push you forward — 'cos if you're in front, it means they're not."

"JASPER HAYES!"

The man with the blowhorn screamed as he flicked through the list of names.

"SERAPHINA LANGFORD!"

The rumbling started as confused students began to push themselves back and forth. No one had stepped out.

"LUCA ARMANDEZ!"

The rumbling and movement between them increased — just confused, clustering students slowly backpedaling further and further away from the man. He pretended like he didn't hear or notice this as he continued with a straight face.

"ELIANA KATSORAS!"

"NOO!"

Everyone's heads turned in the direction of the scream as a frantic girl crashed to the floor, teetering on the edge.

She continued to scream as she gripped her hair at the roots and pulled with every fibre of her being, tears cascading down her face, her lips quivering.

The students around her cleared the position immediately as she started banging her fists against the floor — over and over and over until...

CRACK

Her hands were bloodstained, and her left wrist hung loosely as bone tore through the flesh — yet no one approached her.

With a squeaky, high-pitched voice, she wailed,

"I did everything I could, please don't kill me!"

She pointed her broken hand in the direction of the man.

"Please, I'll do better, I'll do anything, just don't let me end this way!"

The man passed the list to the soldier at his side as he folded his hands together with just about the care of an exterminator looking at a cockroach. His effortlessly expressionless face said it all — she was less than human to him.

"Miss, save us all the trouble and just get on the plane."

She shook her head furiously.

"I'm not getting on that... That death plane!"

She picked herself up.

"I'm getting the hell out of here."

She wiped the tears from her eyes as she headed for the door.

"Please don't do that, miss," the man replied cold.

She said nothing else, marching forward with a broken wrist, disheveled hair, and a mixture of snot and tears riddling her face, leaving a dripping blood trail behind her.

No one dared to touch her. If she had friends, they were nonexistent now. As she marched, they made an open space for her to walk through — pushing each other out of the way.

The man grabbed his two-way radio from his utility belt, pushing a button that transmitted static that filled the silence for a while before he spoke:

"Terminate Eliana Katsoras."

Another cold tone replied back in a crackling voice:

"Confirm termination?"

The man let out a sigh — not one of pity, but of exhaustion. He slapped his forehead and turned back to see if she was still walking toward the door and she was.

"Termination confirmed," he spoke into the transmitter.

BOOM

A gasp escaped everyone's lips involuntarily like they had all been invested in the same sop Opera. Keiran was in front of her and saw it all — the pain in her eyes, the exhaustion — but the most prominent thing in her eyes was fear. She'd been living her entire life in fear for a while now... All she wanted to do was walk away.

This was the only brave thing she had ever done. And to everyone who thought she was dumb, ask yourselves this: Could you do the same?

As she took a step forward, Keiran watched as her head exploded, it bubbled for half a second and then nothing, blew up into a million bits — her brains smudged and littered on everyone's face. Her body dropped to the floor with a terrifying thud.

Keiran's eyes widened, his breath shallow as his clammy hands rose to his face. He picked off a piece of warm grey matter.

This... This was what the IDC did.

He stared blankly. His body didn't even let his mind bind, as he thought: Would anyone step up if it was me? Would anyone protect me?

So this was what the world's strongest and largest organisation decided to do with their power.

He chuckled within himself.

And they think we're the demons.

The man stared around, analyzing them all, before finally lazily pointing a finger at someone, you could just tell he didn't really care anymore —

after all, they still needed another dead.

"WHO?"

Keiran.