And the devil gave comfort

“Are you coming tonight?”

Daniel heard Kate say on the other side of the line. And while he found much enjoyment from teasing the poor girl, he decided not to make a comment on how nervous and meek her voice sounded at the moment.

Just as he was about to answer however, he was interrupted by the sound of a power drill reading up before he could even get a word in. Growling to no one in particular, he quickly closed the door from the room behind him shut, making the reinforced frame shake behind the force he’d put. Daniel counted his blessing as he was left alone in the eerie silence of the empty hallway underground. Had it not been because of his instance of having all red rooms have the added security of being noise isolated and the clear favoritism he got from their boss, then their entire operation would have had gone down the drain all because of a girl which caught his attention one night decided to call him at a very inopportune moment.

Recomposing himself, he quickly placed the usual mask she knew him by. Fake enthusiasm paired with a pinch of sarcastic comments waiting to happen already coating the words as they came out.

“Don’t worry Kay, I haven’t forgotten,” and he was being honest about that, not out of a sense of sentimentality towards her, though he would be lying if he said he wasn’t excited to see her again, but solely because he never let any piece of information escape him should it be helpful in the future. “I just had to get some things done here at work, but the boss said as soon as I’m done I’m all set.”

There was a pause on the other side of the line, and he could hardly contain the feral grin from spreading across his face as she unknowingly continued feeding to tease his more animalistic impulses. Thankfully for Daniel, he had good control over his less than restrained self, most of the time at least.

“J-just don’t be late, okay?” her voice trembled with anxiety and doubt, almost as if she believed he would turn his back on her like many have done before. Imagining what face she might have in that moment and how worry was eating her on the inside, a distant memory of a shy and nervous boy flashed before his eyes. His hands tighten until the knuckles became white as he was forced to remember his weakness, and how pathetic the world had made him to be.

Sighing out loud, his seething rage calmed before replying with a soft yet reassuring. “I won’t be.” Daniel smiled sincerely as he said that, regardless that Kate wasn’t able to see him do so, his voice would have surely carried his current expression well enough. And in his good spirits, he allowed to let his tongue loosen a bit.  “Otherwise, who is going to keep you in check when you start another scene again?”

Already did his mind imagine her cheeks turn a similar shade of red as the one used to dye her long hair, flustered and speechless at the jab. Daniel allowed himself to laugh loudly as soon as Kate began cursing at him so loud that even the line began to cut to static in certain point of her outburst. There wasn’t any ill will behind the little jab, and both of them knew that. Though that didn’t stop her from being bothered by being the butt of the joke, but Daniel will be the first to admit he deserved all of it.

“-and besides, I was drunk and very pissed off, so don’t go pointing fingers!”

“I know, I know, I just couldn’t help teasing you… I’m sorry.” Daniel replied, rolling his eyes. Though he really wasn’t sure, he could have sworn Kate had said something under her breath along the lines of ‘you better be,’ before going back to the comfortable silence the two of them enjoyed in equal manner. Sadly, he would have to break that silence. “Have you heard any news about what happened to your old classmates?”

The brief instances of peace and solace that had settled quickly shattered, allowing for grief and fear to seep through the cracks and drown them in it, one of them at least. Daniel continued faking this somber shift in attitude, despite his face showing no emotion.

“They.. don’t know.” Kate sighed, clearly distraught at the mention of the tragedy that people she knew suffered. Those three words alone spoke volumes of how much she was trying and failing to keep her worry from consuming her entirely. “One moment they were there, then the next it’s like they never even existed! And it doesn’t help that they don’t have anything that could tell them who or why they took them.”

Daniel only eyed one of the doors on the long hallway intently, picturing the pitiful figures shackled on the other side, sobbing and begging for their lives. His face distorted into an angry scowl, he still remembered how rude and loud they were in the resort like it was yesterday, disrupting their work flow and nearly assaulting a poor waiter just because. The thought they needed to be set straight was a thought many shared with many that night, but only few would act on that urge.

However, he couldn’t be honest about his desires and with the fate of those the rest of the group were mourning for, so with practiced ease he made himself sound genuinely apologetic and meek as he comforted her with lies. “I just hope they are alright, no one should ever have to go through something like that…”

“No they don’t. not even if they were assholes.”

It will forever escape him why Kate insists on punishing herself instead of the world. It made no sense whatsoever! How was it that even if they were pretty much the same, it always came down to the sole difference of how they reacted. She and him, were the fucking same! Both understood the hardships of the world, they had been beaten by it, brought to their knees and thrown to the mud. It wasn’t hard to even think for a second they might as well have held the same scars he had, and even then Kate kept persisting that nothing could be done other than forgive and forget. It grated at his nerves how illogical she was.

“No, I guess not even they deserve it.” Already he could feel his composure giving up on him, and the neutral expression in his face all but became an ugly snarl not unlike a rabid dog about to bark its lungs out. Still, Daniel knew better than to be vocal about his current instability, so all he could do in his frustration was simply tighten his grip around his phone that the case began to crack under the pressure. “All we can do now is just hope for the best and pray…”

Pray, what a hilariously hollow word to come out of his mouth, it almost burned his tongue merely having to say it. Hypocrisy he hated the most, and there were no greater hypocrites than those who utilize the teachings of something supposedly pure to excuse all the evil deeds of men. Part of him entertained the idea of picturing the devil himself sharing this line of thought as he was cast down from the heavens, all because he decided to think rationally unlike his maker.

Daniel stopped himself from going down that stream of thoughts for the moment, noticing how uncharacteristically quite the other end of the line had become. And while highly improbable, he feared that perhaps those thoughts had accidentally been externalized. Thankfully for him, Kate’s silence was due to another matter entirely.

Upon realizing that their little call was about to end, he slowly began to let his façade begin to peel off. While she started explaining her reasons why she was about to hang up as if she was scared he would get mad if he didn’t receive any decent excuse for it. He was mad, that much was true, but the reasons behind said rage were very different from whatever her mind could conjure up.

So once he was done reassuring her again that he would show up to another one of her old class’ reunions to try and help their missing peers, he hung up with a simple and calculated “Goodbye.”

It took a lot out of him not to try and punch a wall because of her stupidity, to burst to the door he watched with hatred. It’d been years since Daniel had felt so much emotion, that much rage and frustration that only help in making vulnerable. The fact that he wanted to brutalize and hurt another was a thought which had not been in his mind since his first kill, and he thought he had moved on from those measly desires, that he had ascended into something pure and just. He was not a mindless beast.

No, what he did had purpose, and as such, he could not risk that greater calling for his more primitive urges, no matter how loud they were. And killing those rude brutes would go against that very visions of his. Despite Kate irked him because of how similar yet so different they were, it was slowly driving him crazy, it was as if she was mocking him for what he had become.

Placing a hand over the rusty steel door he had been so transfixed by during the call, Daniel couldn’t help but laugh manically at his plight. Despite his slip on control, he enjoyed believing that he was a patient and righteous man, that no matter how difficult it may be, his plan would work in the end. Daniel simply had to help Kate be guided in the right direction, to truly set her free from that self-destructive way of thinking. When that happened, then what rested on the other side of the door would be her first step into her purification, in succeeding him and taking the mantle of Leviathan.

For now, Daniel would just have to wait a while longer.