Luke looks down at the paper and awkwardly plays with the pen as he reads the words once again before looking back up at Damien with a nervous expression across his face.

“What is it that trouble you?” Damien asks as he smiles and furrows his brow with concern. “Tell me and I will ease your quandary.”

Luke bits his bottom lip as the words try to form inside his mind, but all he manages to do is drop the pen to the floor in spectacular fashion.

Damien’s smile broadens and he laughs softly, “It is okay to be frightened, not everyone gets this experience, and those that have tread with the same trepidation you are now tasked with. So, ask away before you don’t have the opportunity to do so again.”

Luke lets out a stuttered sigh and places his head in his hands. “W-W-Why me?” he asks nervously.

“Why not you, that should be the question asked of the others, but not asked of it yourself.”

“I-I-I, I don’t get it,” he says with raised brow.

Damien laughs softly once again. “Tell me what part you don’t get, and I will try and fill in the holes.”

“All of it, every single piece. I just don’t get it at all.”

He laughs louder this time and casually sits on the corner of the table. “You’re going to need a little more structure to that question if you want some sort of answer, because there is the long version or the really, really, really condensed version, and neither of those answer the question you really want to ask. Take advantage of where we are, for here we have plenty of time, and there is no need to rush what does not move, so go back to the drawing board and ask again, ask again and I will answer.”

Luke squelches his lips together and closes an eye as he searches his mind for the words he needs to structure the question he wants to ask, suddenly he sits up straight with a wide eyed wonder and tilts his head slightly to the side. “What doesn’t move?”

Damien’s smile transitions into a wild grin. “Time Lucas, time does not move, not here anyway,” he says as he gestures around them.

“W-W-What’s so special a-about h-here?”

Damien leans in towards him. “I’ll tell you a secret,” he whispers as he looks around the room playfully before leaning back in towards Luke, “it’s not really HERE that’s so special.”

Luke stares at him for a few moments as his brow furrows downward, then he jerks upward and smiles broadly. “Is it ME!” he asks excitedly. “Can I stop time?”

Damien laughs hysterically, slapping his leg with delight. “YOU!” he roars gleefully. “HAVE YOU EVER STOPPED TIME BEOFRE?”

“N-N-N-No,” Luke stammers as his cheeks glow brightly. “B-B-But if y-y-your not talking a-about me, w-w-who are yo-you talking about?”

“ME!” Damien bellows. “IT’S BLOODY WELL ME! I STOPPED TIME!”

Luck smiles smugly, “Bullshit.”

Damien’s brow conclaves into itself, and stares deathly at him. “Why the NOT can’t it be me?”

“B-Because well, you’re you!” he says.

Damien’s face twists up with rage as the very sky turns black. “DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND WHO I AM!” he screams as lightning plows from the skies and strikes the ground around then. “DO YOU…” and then Damien stops in his tracks and the skies clear as quickly as they darkened, and he stands before the quivering Luke with rosy red cheeks. “I-I-I’m sorry, I totally forget myself sometimes. You get used to people KNOWING who YOU are regardless of the clothes you wear, and you forget sometimes that not everyone can see your TRUE form,” he says as he unzips Damien like a suit, and steps out in all his glowing glory.

“O-Oh m-my G-G-G-God,” Luke stammers as he falls to his knees.

“Close enough,” Damien says with a wry smile upon his blackened lips.

***

Follow the below link to purchase A Twisted Halloween 2021 to read all 31 five minute short stories.

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 thirty-one 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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