Angelo takes a tentative step forward, only to meet its gaze with his own.

“Nice doggy,” he says nervously as he holds his hands in the air.

“I’ve been called many things over the years, but this is the first time someone has referred to me as a nice doggy! Do I look like a fucking dog to you?” He sneers.

Angelo thrusts his hands before him and shakes them vigorously. “I-I-I, I meant no disrespect, I SWEAR! Y-Y-You have to understand how utterly impossible this situation must seem for me, and how you, h-h-how you could actually exist.”

He snarls and flexes his pectoids like a bodybuilder would at competition, then smiles slyly. “Your mind is reeling with irregular fire patterns as you try to process the stunning beast before you, while deep below all that, in the heart of your being, you also know that if I am to actually exist, then you will ultimately die.”

“W-W-Why?”

His brow furrows, and his smile turns to a grin that would put the Cheshire Cat to shame. “Come now orphan, you know what I am, WHO I am. And in all that, you know what must take place here between you and I. Do not make this moment less by denying the truth of it all.”

“I-I-I, I’m not, I just don’t understand why I must die just because you are real.”

He laughs loudly, and flexes once more, showing off the muscles that run up his spinal column and across his shoulders. “Because that is what must be, for that is what is. I have existed for a very long-time child, long enough to be etched into the history books under several different names, each with their own sordid histories. I am eternal, yet my existence is based in the realm of mortals. I must not leave a record of my true existence, for if that is done, if the world was to know the truth, the REAL truth, then it would explode upon itself like a child who climaxes when learning to masturbate for the first time. That is the reason you must die.”

“B-B-BULLSHIT!” Angelo snarls aggressively as he bares his teeth and clenches his hands into fists. “YOU ARE A LIAR! YOU SAY WORDS IN THE HOPE THAT ONE DAY YOU WOULD BELIEVE THEM, WHEN DEEP DOWN YOU CRAVE AFFECTION! YOU CRAVE ANOTHER’S COMPANY! BARE YOUR SOUL TO ME AND KNOW I WILL NOT PUSH YOU AWAY! SHOW ME WHO YOU TRULY ARE, AND I WILL SHOW YOU ACCEPTANCE!”

For moments they stare at each other locked in battle with each other’s psyche, until finally he smiles and claps his hands together in celebration. “Well done child, WELL DONE INDEED! It has been many years since one such as you, has seen through my ruse, and forced me to show my true colours.”

“I-I-I, I have,” Angelo stammers nervously with an awkward smile upon his face.

“Yes, my friend, you have seen through my lies and for that I am sorry.”

“S-S-Sorry?”

“Yes,” he says with a wide toothed smile, “I’m sorry I lied to you, I’m sorry I mislead you to believing I cared for causality. I’m sorry, because in truth I am hungry, and it’s been so long since I FED!” he cries as he tackles Angelo to the ground and bites deeply into his neck.

***

Follow the below link to purchase 2020 Book Twelve to read all 20 five minute short stories from smashwords, or look up 2020 Book Twelve or Matthew Tonks on Amazon to purchase there.

Before you lies a piece of a puzzle far grander than you could ever know or imagine. For scrawled in blood upon the pages hidden within the above tome is stories twisted twenty in all, soaked in the embers of my insanity. Five minutes to glimpse inside the eyes of someone new, five minutes to answer, five minutes to sin, five minutes to do almost anything. A god, a demon, a harlot, a whore. A fascist, a killer, a sinner, a door. Death and division, humanity askew. A belfry of bats, a sea of black cats, so many moments out there to see, so many things you could see with me. So take a seat beside me and call it voodoo, because now you ride with me too…

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