Such Sights

The featureless plains of his eternal prison stretched out in all directions.

Nirnasha screamed. He had always been screaming; time meant nothing inside the configuration. The professor had locked him in here a second ago. The professor had locked him in here an eternity ago. Endless nothingness, forever. Eternity was more prolonged than you’d think.

There was no sky, only the colourless earth as smooth as a stone. It had no texture; it had no temperature. The ground faded into the not-sky in the distance, giving the impression that all was one. The configuration stole all tones and hues – it was beyond even black, white, and grey. All was perpetual hissing static.

The demon dropped to his knees and felt nothing. He clawed at his head and felt nothing. He’d always been on his knees, clawing at his head. He always would be. His shrieks bounced back and forth across the landscape before he’d even spoken. ‘LET ME OUT!’

Purple lightning rippled on the horizon. The perfume of sulfur and ozone plumed into the self-contained atmosphere. The earth shifted beneath Nirnasha’s feet. Thunder ripped through the fabric of the universe. The world began to tilt, first one way and then the other.

His chest’s exposed organ – wrapped in chains and barbed wire – pulsed. Thump-thump. Nirnasha knew what this meant. Someone was attempting to open the configuration. How long had it been? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that the person succeeded. Only the brightest humans could crack the code and free him from this box.

The lightning intensified. The odour ripened, and enormous cracks in the ground split and zigzagged this way and that. The lightning set off a chain of electrical detonations. Soon, the entire not-sky was popping and booming, racing towards Nirnasha.

He was getting out. And the poor fool who’d opened his cell had no idea what lay in store for him. Only the brightest had cracked the code; it took even more brilliant minds to trap him inside again. He threw his head back and cackled laughter as the vortex sucked him in. He had always been laughing. ‘YES! YES!’

The world flipped upside down and onto its head. The ground became the not-sky. That, too, splintered and shattered. Nirnasha fell into the abyss. The dimness of the world decreased, giving way to blinding white light. Invisible hands snatched him from his prison, grabbing and ripping, tearing and splitting. And then: silence. Stillness. Sunlight. Motes of dust drifting. Wooden floor. Dirty window. And a human presence.

Nirnasha breathed in the air. He relished the taste – before he stained it with the coppery screams of blood. He drew himself up to full height and opened his bloodshot eyes. Crimson tears spilt down his ruined cheeks. He addressed the person in the room. ‘WE HAVE SUCH SIGHTS TO SH—’

A goldfish-eyed young boy stared up at him. He blinked first, one eye and then the other. His mouth hung open, and drool beaded on his lower lip. A second ticked by between the demon and the child. And then the boy’s face broke out into a grin, and he clapped his hands like a seal. He laughed, and spittle flew from his mouth. ‘A genie!’

Nirnasha frowned. He looked down at his body, adorned with spikes rusted with a millennia’s coagulated blood. Scars criss-crossed his pale flesh, purple and blue and pink. Chains dangled and rattled. Clasps enclosed his wrists and ankles. Although it had been a long time since he’d seen his reflection, he knew his mangled face broke the human brain. Nothing suggested he was anything other than what he was: a demon. Nirnasha must be dealing with a very dense human specimen. ‘WHAT IS YOUR NAME, BOY?’

The child perked up at the asking of such a simple question. His eyes lit up. ‘Kennard! Kennard Cheshiree, sir. What’s your name? Boy, a real genie! Wait ‘til the fellas at school hear about this. They’ll stop beating on me! Do I get three wishes? Are you a real genie? What’s it like in a bottle? Can you breathe? Is it—’

‘I AM NIRNASHA. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO RELEASED ME?’

Kennard gestured to the configuration’s parts scattered across the dusty floor. The bits of the box lay – in thirteen sections – around him. ‘Boy, it’s sure nice to meetcha, Narnia! I found your funky genie lamp in my grandpa’s attic.’ He frowned and put a finger in his mouth. ‘Though, I guess it’s not his anymore since he went and died. Can you make me super strong? Boy, I’d sure like to give those big fellas in the year above me a taste of their own medicine. How’d you become a genie? What’s your name?’

Nirnasha raised an eyebrow. The configuration had kept him contained for centuries since the professor recaptured him. Many had attempted to open the box. All – to Nirnasha’s frustration – had failed. But here came this child who had stumbled across something beyond his comprehension. Fortunate for the boy that his brain operated at such a level, brighter minds had gone mad looking at the demon. And the boy succeeded where others had not. ‘YOU SOLVED THE CONFIGURATION.’

Kennard grinned – his front two teeth wide enough to slot a penny through. His bowl-cut haircut did little to hide his pumpkin-shaped head. ‘So, do I get them three wishes, then, huh, mister, huh?’

Nirnasha sighed. His usual approach was to torture the poor sap into madness – an eternity of agony. With the hapless fool disposed of, he would be free to roam this realm and conduct his purification. He’d done so a few times across time and space, between periodic containments in the box. But this time was different; the opener was a child. Nirnasha was a demon, but he wasn’t a monster. There was another way to prevent recapture within the configuration. And that route involved playing genie for a child whose number of teeth was higher than his IQ. There was also something endearing about the child. Something about him made Nirnasha want to assist him. With his help, the fellow schoolchildren would rue the day they ever hurt Kennard.

‘Yeah, sure, what do you want, kid?’