To His Hell and Back

It did feel odd— unnervingly so— that despite the jumble of memories refusing to take shape in his head, he was feeling calm. Too calm. Conversational, even. The figure across from him wore his mother’s skin, a mockery he would normally have met with instant rage. On any other day, the usual him would have walked forward without hesitation, ripped that skin apart, and let his fury paint the rest.

But something held him back. Some buried instinct gnawed at him, whispering that every moment spent here was stolen, that lingering too long would cost him something greater. He felt the urgent need to leave, a pressure at the back of his mind reminding him that this place was no place to stay.

Sighing, he fixed his gaze on the creature. "If you continue wasting time, stripping away my memories piece by piece, do you truly believe you’ll ever reach the point? Or are you only hoping I won’t notice how thin your tricks have grown?"

For a breath, silence. The demon did not answer, and Cassius, sharp as ever, understood why. The truth was simple— it didn’t have the strength to hold him here forever. The cracks were already showing, and both of them could see it.

"So then," Cassius demanded, the words rolling with a practiced authority that was second nature to him, "stop delaying. Return what is mine. My memories and the truth." The demon must have thought of him as a prisoner but he was still a King who does the demand and so his tone never fail to taunt instead of plead.

The figure tilted its head, and though it wore the familiar softness of his mother’s face, it was not her. The features shifted under an invisible strain, warping into something entirely foreign. It was her face, and yet not— it twisted into an expression his mother had never once worn, something impossible and unnatural. A perverse distortion of memory, a new mask crafted by an old monster.

"You want your power to grow," the demon said and Cassius narrowed his red eyes.

What stupid question was that? Of course anyone would want their power to grow. He has her to protect... her?

"That was why you have came here," pointed the demon, "But do you know that your heart that is always so cold had began to become warm?"

"I thought that most people would be rejoicing over the fact that now I have a warmer heart," pointed Cassius but the demon shook his head.

"You seem to have forgotten..." the demon’s voice trailed. "When you killed me you wish to have no one to protect anymore didn’t you? You know that to have someone to protect was such a difficult task, but more than the difficulty, you fear the idea of failing your task to protect and have to watch them die instead."

Cassius’s eyes shifted to the demon as its stolen skin began to crack and peel, flaking away like paint from an old fresco. What emerged beneath was no longer his mother’s serene face but the true visage he had once known— haggard, full of scars, and unmistakably male.

The figure rose like a shadow taking form: shoulder so board like a mountain, towering, a mass of sinew and scar tissue that spoke of wars older than memory. His skin was marked by wounds that never seemed to heal, crosshatched with old gashes and burns.

The demon’s face appeared rugged and rough around the edges, more like a warrior than prophet, yet his presence carried a wiseman weight; and when he spoke, the words came not as a brute’s growl but as a measured cadence, like a man who had seen everything about the world

Silver eyes met Cassius’s, cold and gleaming— the same silver eyes he had seen in that fateful battle. The same eyes belonging to the demon he had killed, the one whose death had birthed his own monstrous power.

The memory returned with sudden clarity, sharper than he expected: his mother standing at the center of a candle- lit circle, her smile radiant and cruel, stretching from one corner of her lips to the other. She had summoned the demon with a voice like a blade, her demand as audacious as her grin: Give him your power. The demon’s only price had been as absurd as it was grim— Kill me.

Cassius’s voice echoed in the dim void. "Is that why you wear her face?" he asked, realization threading through his tone. "Because you resented her for daring to make such a bold request?"

"Hated?" The demon’s lips twitched, the faintest hint of a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. He turned away slightly, like a man humored by an old misunderstanding. "Far from it. Boy, think back. When you cut me down, did I look hateful? Did I even once appear angered by her audacity?"

Cassius had buried that day deep, dismissing it as one more necessary act in a lifetime of necessary acts. Yet now, pressed by the demon’s words, the memory rose again. "You were smiling," he said at last.

"Of course I was," the demon murmured, almost tenderly. "I wanted to rest. That was the bargain, wasn’t it? Your mother wanted power. I wanted an end. You—" he tilted his head, silver eyes glinting—"you were perfect. You could kill a demon. All I had to do was play my part. Pretend to fall."

"Pretend?" Cassius scoffed, a sharp laugh leaving him as his fingers twitched at his side. "That was the most vicious battle of my life."

"I’ll take that as praise," the demon said, his grin widening, wolfish but not unkind.

Cassius rolled his eyes, though his chest felt heavier. "So what now? I killed you. You’re supposed to be gone. Isn’t that how it works?"

"Not exactly," the demon yawned, stretching as though this conversation bored him even as his eyes glittered with amusement. "You killed my body, boy. But I live here now—" he tapped the side of his temple, "in your consciousness. While Bubbly..." the name came out like a lazy joke, "he’s the one playing with your power out there."

"Then why are you here?" Cassius questioned and the demon looked away.

"You want more power but if you consume more than this you are about to become a demon."

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"Demon isn’t too bad, it’s just a change from one race to another," he shrugged and the demon grimaced.

"All demons have one flaw. The flaw of never leaving Hell. If you do anything foolish, you are going to stay in Hell forever and you’re going to leave her for good. Though when I told you this last time you demanded like a madman for me to spill a way to prevent it from happening."