The door shut behind Mira, cool air pushed out and away as she took steps into her warmer, cozy apartment, the lights flicking to life as she flipped the nearby switch. The night had been a disaster, to say the least, and she was feeling a strange combination of guilt, though not for her prey, and morbid obligation. She frowned to herself as she sighed, her eyes coming shut as she rubbed them with her one free hand, thinking about why her emotions had so suddenly changed, why she was feeling the way that she was. Where before she would be excited at the evening’s catch, eager to feel the small deaths of hope at the mercy of whatever unspeakable method she decided to employ, now, she felt nothing of the sort, instead plagued by bitter and angry thoughts at being forced to this path that she had been doing so well at steering clear of; choosing instead a path towards Anthony.

These idiots had compelled her to act, to protect the only thing that mattered to her, to protect herself, and now, she would do just that, the only way she knew how.

 She locked the door.

Stepping fully into the now lit living room, Mira dropped her bag by the edge of the back of the couch, the simple hand purse sagging to the carpet as she opened her jacket above, casting it clear and away to the corner of the room in frustration. She placed her hands on the top of the seat cushion, and leaned over, closing her eyes, taking a deep breath and sighing, wondering anxiously what Anthony was thinking of her at this exact moment, and what he would think of her later. Of the insignificant jerks who currently kept him company and their meager lives, she cared nothing for, but she was…afraid…of what her small love-interest would feel about her after tonight.

“It’s the only way,” she reminded herself. There had been no alternative, and if the small man who awaited her in the vial really, truly cared about her like she hoped, he would understand. She would try to get it over quickly, regardless of her feelings.

Mira let go of the couch and stood up rubbing her face, then placing her hands on her pleasantly shaped hips, curved elegantly in the tight grip of her denim shorts. She thought of something on the way home, driving carefully with Anthony’s Charger, each stop light and sign giving her a little too much time to think to herself when she arrived at one. She needed to change, the feeling of her sides reminded her of something then, something that she’d never once considered doing before, for anyone, and as she turned away, kicking off her simple brown sandals next to her purse and heading for her room, she felt a desperate, specific need to alter her appearance.


#    #    #    #


The small glass bottle rolled as the enormous material of the demi-goddess’ handbag buckled with her steps away, Anthony as well as the others tumbling together and impacting the relative firmness of the vial’s top cork, the hard sponge-like material moving slightly forward as the container slipped completely out of the pocket, and onto the carpet.

The all let out groans and sounds of sudden pain as they piled onto one another, the width of the tube only enough for two, maybe three of them, to be shoulder to shoulder at their size. They were all breathing heavily and struggling to get off one another as the leader of the friend group said in a rushed voice, eyes still clear with fright and body trembling,

“There! There she goes! We have to get out of here! Now’s our chance!”

All of them looked up and over to him as they hunched over, mostly separating their intermingled bodies from the interwoven mess the tumbling, improvised prison had caused. The group watched the towering woman, her footfalls heavy and foreboding as she rounded the corner, going wherever she willed to another part of the apartment.

Anthony panted as he too watched her walk away, a host of different thoughts assaulting his mind as she left their sight, the man he had punched earlier in the evening spoke once more, almost trying to reason with him, as if he had the slightest bit of control over something as awesome in power as Mira.

“You- you know her right? She’s your girl, right bro? You can talk to her, man! Get her to change us back!”

Anthony tried to catch his breath as now everyone else in the tube looked to him, all of their eyes pleading with him to get them away from this situation, to end this seemingly inescapable nightmare they’d found themselves in without reason or explanation.

He looked around at each of them, cramped as they were in the rounded, capsule-like, clear room. Anthony knew what Mira was going to do to them, and though merely a half hour ago they had appeared to want to beat the life out of him, all feelings of the previous animosity had disappeared when he’d understood in his heart what awaited them at her cruel and enormous hands.

“No,” he said after hesitating a moment, “no we need to get out of here, it’s not safe here, for any of us,” he concluded with dark certainty, though entirely afraid to admit it to himself. Anthony wanted to believe Mira wouldn’t hurt him, he even wanted to think that he could in fact reason with her, in order to spare his fellow tinies an inevitable, grizzly death, but he could not place their lives in the trust of the demonette’s unpredictable nature, that in and of itself was a hopeless prospect that could only end one way.

After a quiet, but brief pause, the dark-eyed leader said hurriedly, as the group immediately went into action,

“Help me with the cork! Come on!”

Anthony watched for a guilty instant as the rest of the men began to push, shove, and kick frantically at the tube topper, but as his realization set in, he too pushed his way aside and started to kick at the softer material with all he could muster, the simple cork cap seemingly impossible at first to move to them, and yet so easily placed there by Mira before. He wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do to help the formerly hostile group, they had, after all, threatened his partner, and himself, as well as insulting them both and harming his best friend, but he knew in his bones it was right to attempt to save them. What convinced him to quickly try and help was the fact that they were people, with families, lives, and dreams, but to Mira, he felt his soul shudder at the thought they would only be insects to her.

With a soft pop, the cork came free at last, and a couple of the men tumbling out with the last of their extra exerted effort, all of them with haste disembarking the confines of the glass tube though as the brief hope of freedom was realized.

The men helped each other get out and stood in an anxious, loose circle, Anthony being the last to exit and being helped up by the African American man who had been on his team earlier in the evening during basketball.

“Come on, the door isn’t far, let's get the fuck out of here!” came the panicked voice of the lead man.

“No,” Anthony said, coming to his feet, and trying to add his personal experience to the non-existent discussion, “She’s fast, much faster than you think. We won’t make it.” He breaths out swallowing hard, trying to reason with the group, “Our best bet is to hide and wait for her to fall asleep. If we’re lucky, we ca-“

Anthony’s eyes spun as a strike from the student he’d quarreled with previously crashed into him across the jaw, sending him over, a bright flash of white and a ringing in his ears his only perceptive feelings as the floor rushed up to meet him, Mira’s familiar apartment layout spinning with the next throb of his head.

The downed man tasted the unmistakable copper tang of blood in his mouth, pain flooding his face as his lip swelled in a moment due to being punched, the rest of the group looking down at him as the foolish idiot started to jog from them, not looking back as all but Anthony’s former teammate hurried after him the next second, their minds made up. The three men paused and gazed hesitantly at the imposing structure that was one of Mira’s discarded sandals, to them it was the size of a huge yacht, the edge where her sole would meet its comfortable embrace about as high as six feet to their scale, about an inch in her own, a terrifying reminder of just how small they were not just to the rest of the world, but to her own, incomprehensible stature by comparison. They were only the size of insignificant ants to her, and her undecorated brown footwear gave them a grim reminder they were nothing when before something like even her feet.

They continued on soon after, Anthony catching a glance from the dark-skinned man as he watched them head away, trying to decide the best course of action in his terrified mind.

Anthony shook his head and started to rise, “Don’t…” He said holding his head in agony, turning it back and forth, “Don’t, man.”

The fellow basketball player hesitated only once more as he finally, at last, turned and finished getting Anthony up to his feet, looking to him with fear as he sputtered out, “S-so, what do we do?!”

Anthony’s head pounded with a painful ache, but he focused his thoughts as he held his palm against his temple.

“Under the couch, come on, she’s going to see them when she gets back, they won’t get far.”

“What do you mean, they won’t get far?! What’s she gonna do?!”

Anthony turned and said apprehensively just before starting to sprint away, truthful as he could be, but scared himself at the thought,

“I don’t know…”


#    #    #    #


Mira closes her door to her private domain, lifting her right hand and fluffing her gorgeous brown hair groggily, as if she’s somehow just woken up from a long nap. She scratches her nose and says quietly to herself, confirming her plans aloud for no obvious reason,

“Well, at least I finally have an excuse to wear these pants…Forgot I had them.” She mutters as if nothing is out of the ordinary.

She walks down the hallway, donning long, baggy blue pajama pants she’s genuinely not fond of and a large, loose-fitting grey t-shirt on her body, the ends of her bottom garment a tad too long and flopping under her heels at times when she steps. 

Rounding the corner, still scratching her head a bit, and putting her foot down into the living room, she spies the empty vial without effort, the lid popped and its contents emptied. A second later, however, without even being surprised, her eyes lock onto the tiny forms of three little men, rushing for the locked front door in impossible vanity, the tiny figures all too easy for her heightened senses to spot even at this distance.

“So you guys got out, huh?” Her voice booms with sheer indifference, “That’s a pretty stupid move, the door’s locked, and you could never manage to squeeze under there. Trust me, a lot have tried.”

The men begin to scream as they propel themselves with renewed vigor, the leader, the one who had called her a slut and had attempted to harm Anthony, positioned in between the quickest, and the slowest member of the pack, all of them running in a loose line for the apartment exit at an agonizingly slow pace.

She watches them, for a short moment, observing quietly the most pitiful speed they can muster with all their meaningless strength.

Mira yawns and covers her mouth as she stretches, completely immune to the prospect of violence she’s about to inflict, taking her first step and covering the same distance in an instant that they could in a full minute.


#    #    #    #


Jeff is running, absolutely as fast as he can, only about twenty feet behind Josh as the trio make their mad dash for freedom, the night a complete and utter vision of terror he could never imagine before. He hears the echoing taunts of the woman high and far above, her words making his stomach knot and heart sink as they invade his ears.

“She’s, she’s done this before?!” He finds himself wondering with shrieking trepidation, though that being the least of his immediate concerns.

He hears next something that manages to get him to look over his shoulder, the titanic booms of her feet as her soft toes and soles impact the carpet floor. She takes a total of four steps, each of them shaking the unfamiliar ground as he feels his bones start to rattle and vibrate under his skin with her casual, careless trod.

She’s on him in moments, covering the vast distance from the hallway entrance to their sprinting forms with no effort at all, her towering, terrifying presence now directly behind him as he glances over one last time, now, however, seeing only the top of her left foot and only the lowest part of her blue pants, the enormous set of decorated white toes and sole bending and coming off the ground with incomprehensible speed, rising high, high into the air above him. He looks up as small pieces of dirt and rubble fall down from it around him. Dust, merely dust from the dirty floor that had been stuck to the underside of her monolithic foot, now like gravel to him, something very soon he will share a lot in common with.

Jeff screams the last thing he’ll ever say, a pitiful and completely pointless plea to the bottom of her foot, the skin of the lowest part of her body filling the sky, casting a shadow around every direction he could ever hope to flee in as it comes down without pause, growing larger and larger and larger until it blocks out the light and crushes him to the floor in a mere half second, his body bursting in the next instant, the pain so quickly over that it takes an equal amount of time for her foot too come off the ground again and take another step towards the remaining two insects, the former human ant's arms and legs sprawled unnaturally in odd directions, clearly in ways not meant for his tiny body to be in, stuck to the bottom of Mira’s foot.


#    #    #    #


A spot of blood is left behind on the floor, as well as a warm tingle of it on the skin of Mira’s sole, but she doesn’t even slow down, or give the poor human she’s just killed a single thought, focused only on her main target with his death now in range of her vengeance as she looms ever nearer.

The girl lowers her gigantic body now, leaning down onto her hands and knees, behind the pair of scurrying little human gnats as she feels her breasts rub up against the basic shirt she’s wearing, the oversized shirt not revealing any of her enjoyable features on purpose. These disgusting bugs, she thinks inwardly, are undeserving of gazing upon her true amazing feminine appearance, and have earned only the right to die like the lowest form of annoyance possible, appropriately so, beneath the wrath of her body.

She wants the jerk who’s been such an affront to the couple, alone, and to do so, she quickly dispatches the last visible survivor so that she can more personally execute their self-appointed head.

Mira raises her right hand and balls it into a fist, like a boulder made of flesh and pretty, glowing skin, the weight of which is capable of shattering lives, destroying soda-can sized buildings, and just about anything else it wants.

She pounds the floor, not even hard from her own perspective, and as her hand impacts the carpet another of the men is dead, crushed in an instant beneath the deadly accuracy of her strike, her pinky and the side of her hand covered in whatever is left of him. That one nearly didn’t have enough time to even scream, she was almost too fast for even that, almost anyways, and the next thing she felt was the distinct crunch of his bones and his warm crimson release coat her epidermis in an ugly, dismal pattern.

Mira keeps her hand still as the last man, her main prey and focus of her fury, stops dead in his tracks and stumbles backwards, beginning to sob uncontrollably in a frenzied panic, falling back and onto his posterior and balling like a disturbed infant. She’s looking down at him as his eyes track with terror over to her gaze, abject disbelief and shock written on his face, and when the two meet eyes, she locks him in her typical sinister glare, her features and look entirely devoid of regard for his very existence.  Her brown eyes bury into his soul, and the complete lack of emotion on her features destroys utterly his previous perception of fear.

She’s killed them both as if they were nothing, and she’s about to do the same to him.

With purposefully intimidating slowness, Mira grinds her fist back and forth into the carpet, intentionally desiccating whatever is left of the second man she’s killed tonight in as many moments. After she knows the lone tiny man is watching her macabre display, she slowly lifts her hand and lets him see what’s become of his former friend, now turned to a mess of red and indiscernible mutilation.

“You all die the same, you know.” Mira says without any specific tone, “Scared and running.”

She moves her left hand and holds herself up now with her right, resting her incalculable weight, as if to even now, still add insult to injury, on the splattered debris of the lead runner who's just died, as she plucks the frozen little human from where he’s collapsed, his fear exploding from his lips as her fingers grasp him with the required pressure to make him feel pain, and not with the delicate touch she affords her lovable Anthony. 

Mira stands now, her complete height dominating his senses as he’s hoisted many hundreds of feet into the air, like a quick rising elevator to hell, without the prospect of salvation and instead only the promise of annihilation.

She examines him for a second, eyes squinting and rolling her wrist back and forth trying to get a decent look at him, a frown forming on her beautiful visage as her lids close back together, disappointment clear in her features, as is also writ in her voice.

“I don’t see why the others looked to you; you’re nothing, not at this height, and not before.”

Mira’s eyes come open again and her deep brown orbs keep him sharply in focus as she speaks to him, his body trembling with incurable fright.

“You make me sick, really.” She pauses, “I don’t know why I’m even wasting my time with you.”

As the impossibly massive woman speaks to her prey, her eyes glance down and sharply to a blur beneath her body, something familiar to her, as her lightning edged eyesight finds it in an instant. A tiny man, it would appear, and definitely not Anthony, stumbles clumsily out from beneath the couch next to her left foot, the white nails of her toes shifting for a moment as her conscious responds momentarily to the new target, though her intent not in any realm or fashion, hesitating. Casually, with a terrifying lack of perceived human reaction, she quickly lifts her foot above the newcomer, and as his tiny scream shrieks out, she slams her sole into the floor onto him, dead center upon his minuscule body, the bones of his destroyed existence breaking and shattering in the next second, blood coating a half dollar sized splatter on her floor and foot as he pops unceremoniously.

Mira in the same motion scrapes her foot backwards, sliding it away and making the small remains streak on the carpet and on her skin, the action pushing home the fact that the tiny African American insect’s death is just a mere inconvenience, a new little mess on the carpet, and not an extinguished human life. The next second with fluidity she places her foot back to where she’s killed her newest kidnapped victim, having scraped his remains mostly off her sole, as if their mangled presence on her skin offended her, she looks back to the meager form still painfully held between her fingers and continues where she left off, as if the event hadn’t taken place at all. Her toes settle back into the soft embrace of the carpet, her gorgeous, weaponized body finding balance and totally relaxed once more.

“Wanna try messing with Anthony or me now? You disgusting little worm?”

The pathetic former human starts to sob, in between dry heaves and odd combinations of tears and coughs, he pleads for his life, like dozens of others Mira has encountered in her macabre adventures in college, though this time, it not only falls on deaf ears, but she finds no pleasure or enjoyment in the sounds of his begging. It feels like, like it’s been ages since she reveled in this sort of thing. Like she’s now a totally different person, and this dark and sinister side of her is simply an unspoken illness of hers she’s gotten used to bearing. Anthony, she reflects to herself as she watches the tiny man try hopelessly to squirm, his limbs all held firm beneath Mira’s powerful left thumb, pressing him against her index finger, he’s responsible for all of this. The small boy crush of hers, still alive and unharmed, lost somewhere in the apartment she hoped, has begun to affect her in ways she never thought possible, in ways she knows is genuinely for the better, and now for the first time ever, arriving at a deep understanding of just how much he’s helped her.

This day, she curses to herself, why did these idiots have to push her and Anthony like this today, why did they have to set her back so much? She had been doing so well, and she was sure that her roommate, wherever he was, was not just judging her, but was probably so far beyond disgusted, she hated him once again. It was all for him though, they would have hurt him, they may have even tried to take his life. And Mira, she promised noiselessly within, a cold anger rising in her heart, would never allow anyone to do something like that to Anthony. She would die before she let that happen. She would kill to ensure that never came to pass.

There was, however, something else to everything that had happened… Maybe this was all some form of denial. Maybe Mira had wanted to orchestrate some kind of conflict, some kind of outcome that warranted the prospect of further human deaths. Maybe something else had taken control and she hadn’t even been aware.

“Maybe,” she thought to herself, a creeping crawling thought slowly sneaking its way up her spine, “maybe I am still a monster...”

Several silent moments passed as Mira thought to herself, no noise save for the small prayers from the captive humanoid ant was audible as her mind tried to understand her life and the new course it had taken, at the veritable crossroads of her future, and that of her potential lover.

Mira blinked her eyes. Bringing herself back to reality.

The huge demon girl caught a whiff of something that shook her out of her contemplative posture.

“Your scent is revolting,” she started again, the half-considered idea she’d come up with for a painful end to this jerk cast aside after catching a bit of his smell, “So eating you is out of the question. And your little friends trying to scurry away by my toes didn't feel good to me at all to squish... Honestly, I don't even care enough to try and enjoy myself at this point... I just want you dead. “

A louder, more frantic sound of pleas and tearful sobs came again as Mira revealed her obvious intentions, vocalizing them for the first time, making the truth of the matter real, and shattering completely the tiny prisoner’s hope for mercy in the same casual sentence.

“Your begging is just annoying to me, in fact, one word pretty much sums up your entire existence at this point. You're just...”

Before finishing her insult to the victim who had previously posed so much more of a threat to the demonette and her own loving pet, the girl rolled her thumb fully down, starting down at the man’s legs and gradually applying more pressure as her finger dismissively went forward, a horrid gurgling, screaming sound and the splintering of calcium accompanying her grotesque form of execution. The thumb made it to passed the former man’s sternum as he spasmed and burst without warning, his head and the upper half of his frail torso exploding in a small blast of blood, ruptured muscle, and other disgusting body parts that were never meant to be opened to the air. Mira had kept a blank stare the entire time as she watched her white painted digit squeeze the insect from foot to head, popping his tiny skull and largest center mass like a rotten grape with the building pressure of liquids and vitae.

“…A nuisance…”

Crimson now coated a decent portion of her left hand, the massive girl, high above, looking down at the splattered remnants and cocking her head slightly to one side as her fingers came together, rubbing the bloodied tips and toying with the still warm liquid as she curiously examined its consistency and watched with dark fascination how it covered her skin. An act of momentary boredom with the former body of something that was an hour before, human.

“Hmm. Nothing.” She thought to herself as all was silent, again.


#    #    #    #


Anthony had heard it all. Sounds he was sure he’d never be able to forget.

Tears ran down his face as he ceased all attempts at struggling, his body going limp in the grip of the warm, black thing that reminded him of some kind of barbarian god. The man held him up as he moved to rise, beginning slowly to stand as the moments crept by, dragging Anthony to his feet as he did so, the entire scene as it had played out between all parties, unmoving to his mind or what passed for his own subconscious.

“Come on Anthony, get up. It’s alright.”

The absurdity of that thought was suddenly too much as the inch tall man felt his feet pushed beneath his legs, propped up by the tattooed entity as he fell over to his hands and knees, trying to stem the flow of salted release from his eyes as they shut in frustration and remorse.

“She…” He breathed out, with clearly difficult effort and anguish lacing his words, tilting his head back and forth in denial, “She killed them…”

“There was no other way.” The demon said plainly.

“You are alive, and that is all that matters. To me… and to her.”

Anthony turned his head, streams of sorrow coating his cheeks as he beheld the man who returned a sympathetic half-smile down at him.

The young college student held his stare for a few moments, rebellion against the facts evaporating soon after as the truest reply came back to him, something that could not be refuted, the logic in what had transpired absolute, though, no matter what reality was, still completely unfair to Anthony  as he struggled to control himself. He knew inside too, that the group who had confronted the pair likely had violent intentions, they probably were going to hurt him, but he didn’t care about himself, he only cared about Mira, and she had acted quickly without wasting any time to protect them both. The young African American though, Anthony reflected, he died, as he felt, completely needlessly and by mistake, something that was sitting unbearably heavy on his mind. He could only see his death every time he closed his eyes.

Anthony stood up straight, wiping his mouth and nose with the back of his hands, his eyes calming and his crying beginning to come to an end. He had to confront Mira, right this second, and as he glanced back at the demi-god, he started to walk towards the edge of the couch, towards the light as the veritable goddess above called out for him.

“Anthony?” she said in a low, hurried blurt, nervous anxiety evident in her voice, “Are you here somewhere? It's ok to come out, now! Please, come out!”

Mira looked around the room, specifically to the floor and near the furniture edges. She took one step back and scanned around behind herself, the little thing was smart, and pretty quick given tinies, so she was careful in her movements and thorough in her scouring as she searched from her rooted position.

Anthony felt the light of the room cast down on his face, the brightness of the artificial illumination hurting his eyes as he narrowed them and called out to his roommate, her left foot displaying a couple of red speckles of blood on the side closest to the couch.

“Y-yeah…I’m here…” He said apprehensively.

Mira swung her enormous frame around immediately, finding him in an instant, and when her gaze snatched onto his own, Anthony couldn’t help but flinch.

“Oh…” She exhaled sharply, relieved, “Thank goodness, you’re alright.”

She moved without thinking, kneeling over slightly onto one knee to scoop him from the ground as she had a hundred times before, but this time, something else happened as her knee crashed to the ground near him.

Anthony recoiled from her right and left hands as they moved to seize him, taking an involuntary step back as the woman paused, hesitating as her pet displayed a different kind of open fear. Mira blinked and felt a tiny prick of pain touch her heart at his reaction to her, though she had tried to brace herself for what she had expected, she herself looking next to her opening hands and how they still had blood upon her healthy skin.

She blinked again and looked at Anthony, his eyes worried and fearful of the red wash that stained her palms and fingers as if the act of being near it harmed him physically. The two met eyes again as Mira’s own gaze begins to water at the thought of all the metaphorical steps back she had taken, possibly beyond the chance of redemption because of her justified actions.
Quickly, thinking on impulse, she brought and rubbed her hands to her sides onto her pants as she knelt with one leg to the side of where her friend stood, trying to stifle his emotions as well and seemingly finding no such luck either. Slowly though, as Mira saw her garment begin to take in the color, she came to a gradual stop, the act she found was now, as she came to the shared regretful conclusion, futile.

Neither of the two said a word for the next couple of tense moments. Everything terrifying Anthony had ever known, but tried to ignore about Mira, was now completely on display and made a reality as her body sat stained with gore and fresh signs of a massacre.

Mira, just as ever though, took the lead once more.

“You’re… You’re not hurt, right?” she said, keeping her head and her voice low, curling her lip nervously.

Anthony swallowed hard and cleared his throat, wiping his eye with one hand and saying quietly back up to the girl.

“…No… I’m…I’m ok.”

Mira exhaled the dread she had been trying to hold in, both her palms coming to the floor next to her as she held her weight up, finally pushed to face the conversation she knew would eventually come after tonight.

“Anthony…” She started again, holding in her fears and emotions, trying to focus, “They were going to hurt you, probably even kill you. It was too close to seven…You…”

The couple let that sentence hang in the air, the truth clear to both of them, and in no way a matter of disagreement between the two.

“If I hadn’t….” she pauses again, trying not to cry, “If I hadn’t done something, they would have taken you away from me… You know I can’t…I cant… You have to understand…”

The man feels his nerves capitulate as his hand comes up to cover his mouth, rubbing his face, trying to gather his thoughts with the action of his nervous palm. He’s never had a more difficult conversation with anyone, ever before, and it brings him pain to know how Mira feels in this situation. She’s obviously remorseful, she was surely trying to keep him safe, and it's clear she was successful in doing both of those things, despite her methods and despite her morals. Anthony knew she was in the right. It was either him or them, just like the black demi-god with no name had told him. His roommate had acted, when he had wanted to try something foolish that would have seen the end of both of them, and he realized now, no matter the cost, all that was important was they were alive and that she was safe. She really, honestly, had saved them both when he, in fact, was about to recklessly do the opposite. He tried immediately to formulate how to say that, but his emotions and thoughts were a wreck, and time it seemed, had suddenly run out.

Mira scoffed and chuckled darkly to herself the next instant, resigning her accumulated relationship progress and her lover’s judgment of her actions to apparent failure, whispering to Anthony as much as to herself as she stood back up to her full height without pausing this time.

“Maybe you don’t,” she said as she turned to walk away, throwing him a regretful glance before she did so.

Anthony blinked at her swift motion, and felt his mouth drop and his blood return to his body as he stammered after her, the first stride of the girl taking her far away, towards the hallway following a boom of her footfall as he gave chase with his arm extended out to her, as if able to reach out and take her hand in return.

“M-Mira! Wait!” he shouted, trying in vain to reach her tumultuous heart as it fled away.

“If you don’t stick to the edges of the walls,” she muttered out coldly without turning around, “it’s not my fault what happens to you. I’m going to bed.” She said, knowing for sure he would hear her abrupt change in feelings towards him, treating his safety with suddenly far less concern.

“Mira!” Anthony yelled one last time as she rounded the corner without looking back, walking down the hall as he slowed his own reactive chase at last, still only a small distance from the couch, hearing her huge door swinging open, then slamming shut with a huge crash of wood that made him jump at the sound even though he was on the other side of the apartment.

The young man sank over and down to his butt, capitulating in an instant, his breath rapid and his heart blasting in his chest. Both of his hands came up and covered each eye as he tried not to cry again, the pain, fear, anxiety, and horror of the earlier scene all joining forces together against him. He was…Alone…And he felt as much as he tried to think of what to do, of anything he could do, and failed. It was all just too much, he had been a part of things no one could ever understand. This life he was living was proving to be too hard, and the fact that he had so much more of it to endure yet made his bones ache and his soul tremble with his body. The only person, on this whole earth who even remotely understood him, was…Mira…And now she didn’t want to even try and avoid killing him if he strayed too close to her stride.

“Would you like me to go away?”

A voice came from behind, a voice like a chorus of voices, many, and somehow simultaneously none, being particularly distinguishable.

Anthony jerked his head around and saw the tall, black-clothed man with his hands in his trouser pockets and looking over to him quietly, no judgment or disappointment in his eyes or on his features, his tribal, sharp battle-tattoos etched deep into his skin alongside proud scars earned in unknowable struggles.

The young human glanced away, towards the ground, understanding who it was immediately and feeling an admittedly small bit of relief.

“No…”Anthony said softly.

The man in dark artistic rendering nodded at his response and took a few steps forward, coming to stand adjacent to where the poor boy sat defeated, his hair and toothed fetishes dangling and making small clinking noises with his chainmail rings as he does so without a care.

The man looked down at him for a moment and examined him with a careless smile, his teeth still hidden behind his largely human features.
Coming to sit next to Anthony, the demi-god let out a satisfied groan, getting comfortable before speaking and allowing his human friend a bit of a reprieve.

“I know it’s hard, and I know you are lost, but there’s something I should tell you Anthony Drewgann.”

He looks over at the inhuman deity now, again, and barely holds his head up as the man smiles over to him, canine teeth razor-edged and coming out to greet him as he grins.

“All things worth having require work, pain, and at times…even loss.” He says, pausing momentarily after the last word, “All things, my friend, without exception. I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but it’s going to be alright…All you need to do is…Well…”

He stops for some reason and looks over in the direction of Mira’s room as if he can see through the walls, smiling still and placing a reassuring arm around the back of Anthony’s neck, pulling him close, over to where he can whisper into his ear, the young man not trying to move away at all.

“Well….I really shouldn’t be telling you this….But...”

“…What?...” Anthony says licking his lips, fearing what might be said next.

The devilish entity’s tongue comes out and licks a sharp incisor on his upper jaw, excited about what he’s about to divulge. The devious man casts his gaze around is several directions, seemingly checking for some strange reason if there might actually be witnesses to what he’s going to privately let slip.

Finding no one, he leans back over, closer even than last time and says in a conspiratorial tone, as if Mira is in the same room, “She won’t be coming out for at least seventeen minutes…You have time…If you choose…”

The two are staring into each other’s eyes, the black demonoid’s, shining gold orbs against Anthony’s, the same shade as Mira’s and vague glimmering with sudden hope and understanding. He passes the words across to the young man, his flickering life-flame starting to grow and remember its own strength with the secret coming out and giving him a chance to save everything about the couple’s relationship.

The demon winks and remains quiet. Anthony simply nods in return slowly, connecting the dots that the man is trying to help him learn and exploit to his advantage.

“But!” the man says standing back up, slapping his knees as he lets go of his companion, “That’s not my business, of course. That’s just for anyone… who might need to know.”

Anthony stands up quickly in turn, not nearly measuring up to the man, but uncaring as he reaches his full height, newly invigorated by the new goal forming in his head.

“Right…Right! I can do this…I’ll just go to her…to her room… and tell her what I have to say.”

Making a balled fist, the man thumps the human’s chest with his hand, trying to solidify his composure as it finally recovers, fully now it seems.

“Go forth and conquer,” the huge man said with odd formality.

Anthony turned briefly to look over to where the immense form of the hallway entrance started, the darker, unlit portion of the apartment, not a welcoming or at all comfortable prospect for him to begin to travel through. He knew though, that the black demon was right, if he could force himself to talk to Mira, try and help her understand like he did that she was correct in her actions, he could help at last assuage her pain and the evening’s events. People had had their lives ended due to her calculated decisions, but the pair as a fact were not among them due to those indisputable choices.

The young man turned to speak one last time to the barbarian who had convinced him of this course of action, his head turning as his voice came out, but was next met with only open air,

“I hope she-“ Anthony blinked as his eyes flickered, confused and surprised, his head darting around in the same fashion. The thing of warm flesh was gone, where he resided during these times he didn’t show himself, or more importantly, where exactly he had vanished to now, was impossible to say, as usual.

The young man nodded to himself and whispered, closing his eyes and bowing his head, banishing all fears of failure or disappointment. He had to try and reach Mira, just like he had when she had nearly eaten him from her cereal bowl. It was the same exact situation, though arguably with vastly different circumstances, but he could not fail. He would not leave her to darkness.

Anthony checked his phone, roughly 2 minutes had passed in the time since the man with golden eyes had given him the unmistakably accurate time limit, and as the demonette’s pet shoved his phone back into his pocket, sprinting away towards the hallway in the distance, he knew the black-haired deviant was right.

He had time.