The Devil's Contract

​The office was an oddity in itself. A long table, two chairs either side and no windows. The room was lit by fluorescent lights that gave everything a sickly tone. He came in through a door at the end of the room, sat down on the chair his side and looked at me. He turned the room from sickly to sinister. Of course he did. When it comes to signing this contract what happens is serious, but at least effective.

He had nothing in front of him, yet after seeing me all he could do was look at the table top. I found this unusual, it would make more sense if I avoided I contact with him. Perhaps this wasn't him and was just a representative. I immediately felt more confident and a little aggressive. I stared daggers towards him.
"What do you want?" He asked in a tired voice. The voice didn't echo in the bare room, it just cut through across the massive table straight to my ears.
​"I need money." I replied.
"That's not what I asked you."
He raised his eyes again and my mind fogged up. It was hard to tell, but I now had the answer. Perhaps he needed me to be more descriptive, but money is so simple. How could I describe it better?
"I want a lot of money." I said.
"A fortune to keep you and those around you happy for the rest of your life?" He suggested for me. It was what he was looking for, a better answer to put on the contract I suppose.
"Yes."
He looked down again.

"Sign the contract and it will be done." He told me.
I looked down now and saw a sheet of paper. At first I didn't understand the strange symbols, but as if it read my mind the page shifted out of reality and returned bearing the Italian language. I blinked twice and there was no evidence to say it wasn't Italian before. Immediately I began to feel nervous, but I tried to persevere. Did he know it was now false confidence?
I began reading the contract and the room grew tense. It was as if all the forces around me wanted me to hurry up and make a decision the moment I read the first word. I gave in and quickly scanned the document. All I saw was benefits and nothing that suggested a loss. Every line was not a promise, but a guarantee of all my desires being fulfilled. There was more on the contract that fortunes. There were guarantees of more sinful desires and my heart began to leap out of my chest as I imagined it. I could practically taste long-lasting happiness and I smiled to myself, completely forgetting about him on the other end of the table watching me.

Satisfied I reached for the pen beside the page. It was a strange pen and I knew from picking it up I needed to dip it in ink. Again, as if reading my mind a small bottle with ink appeared by my side. When I dipped the pen into the bottle the ink turned red and my head felt lighter. I looked up to see he was looking at me. Watching me with a stone cold face that told me everything I needed to know. The ink vial did not contain ink, but my own blood. Somehow I felt that a lot more was taken from me than the vial contained and I felt a lot weaker. Still I persisted to stare back at him until he backed down, but he didn't, he would never. Why would he? I was fool and I saw it now. The powerful fear I felt was akin to that of fly in a spiders web. I felt hot and my skin began to itch as my heart raced. 

I couldn't do it. Everything about this felt wrong and my desire for money grew a hundred fold. I was suffering from inner turmoil between choosing my fate. If I didn't calm down I would have to leave. He was already deciding what to do with me once I signed the contract. I could no longer see his face, his whole body somehow caked with shadow despite the light above him. I felt a cruel smile in that darkness.
"I...stop looking at me." I replied staring across the room at him. He was me, well, he looked like me. He was me if I signed the document, happy and expecting. Then he was me if I didn't, poor and angry.
In a rage, a rage so powerful after seeing such trickery, I picked up the vial of my own blood  and threw it at the suited man who sat there.

The bottle shattered against a surface in-between us. I didn't see anything between us until now, but this time I could see it was a glass pane. It began to crack and the left side began to fall apart. Shards peeling from the frame and shattering to splinters that could pierce you right through. I saw the room behind the glass wasn't what I saw through the glass. There were now only a few spots of paint, which came into view only when the fluorescent light flickered on. The glass began to fall from the left side toward the right slowly. I saw the now decayed room, decrepit and his half of the table completely shredded, as if claws and teeth had gnashed at. The dirtied fluorescent light cast an off grey light when it flickered on, my heart stopping every moment it went dark.

He stood up and began walking towards the door. His steps weren't the defined click of fancy shoes now, but the fleshy thumps of bare feet. I couldn't move.
When he reached the door he looked at me again, glass falling off, getting closer to him, soon to reveal his true form.
​
Before it did he flicked the light switch, plunging us into darkness before I could see the monster. I heard the door shut and I was alone. I stood up and made to leave, reached the door and pulled it half open before I heard a click behind me. Glancing back I could see the room back to what it once was when I first arrived. Glancing down the table I could just make out my signature on the contract as it burned out of existence.

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