Chapter Text
When he first woke up, he was in darkness. The air was stiflingly hot and arid: the simple act of breathing hurt like hell. He was lying on his back, and judging by the moisture beading on his lips and nose, the ceiling was barely six inches away from his face. Smooth silk caressed his fingers, and when he reached out to feel for a light source, he found a wall only an inch away from his body. ‘It’s a coffin,’ he thought, ‘I’m in a coffin.’ Heart thumping wildly, he began pounding on the ceiling, or rather, the lid of the coffin. His head was already swimming, and he was afraid that he would expire before he could escape. Desperate hands managed to punch a hole in the lid, and for a second he wondered if he was free. Soil spilled down into the gap he’d made, first in a trickle and then in a tidal wave which tore the coffin wide open. He clawed his way up through the loosely packed dirt, digging his way toward freedom. With a colossal effort he forced himself to breach the ground’s surface; the sudden rush of sweet air almost made him faint. He spat out clods of dirt and pulled himself up onto solid ground.
The young man pushed himself to his feet and dusted off his clothes. He was dressed in a crisp and now ruined black suit: a funeral suit. Had he really died, then? When had that happened? He squinted around, trying to cast his mind back. He remembered darkness and waking in fear, but that was it. Of his previous life or the circumstances under which he’d died, he remembered nothing. His roving eye, while not finding all the answers, instead found the simple granite gravestone marking the casket from which he’d escaped. It read:
In Loving Memory of Michael Vincent Jones. He Left This Earth Too Soon. Rest In Peace. Born July 24, 1987. Died September 30, 2014, aged 27.
The name brought back some of the memories he desperately sought: a life in New Jersey, a kickass show called Rage Quit, a long night at the bar, a quiet walk back home…and that was it. ‘What the hell happened to me? How did I die? I wasn't sick and I don’t think I was clumsy enough to get in a fucking accident…was I killed? Did I have a fucking heart attack? Did meteors fall from the sky and hit me? What the shit happened?’ He began pacing in front of his grave, fuming quietly to himself.
Another thought came to him as he paced before his tombstone: this was no video game. By all rights, he should still be slumbering in his grave, not standing out in the open air, heart beating and head thinking. Why was he alive again? Michael began to look around, trying to find something that could give him a clue. He was in a graveyard, which, seeing as he had been buried in a coffin, came as no surprise. Row upon row of headstones dotted the landscape, fading into indistinct shapes in the darkness. Looking up he saw a sky full of stars, but no moon. He strained his ears to see if he could hear something or someone, but there was only the silence that every graveyard had: the silence the living gave in respect to the slumbering dead.
His reconnaissance mission did nothing to inform him of his situation, so he gave up on that idea and began walking away. He went to put his hands in his pockets, only to discover that they were purely for decoration. Feeling somehow even more glum at the lack of pockets, he wove his way through the hodgepodge of graves toward what he supposed was the exit.
An ornate iron gate, nearly twenty feet tall and ten feet wide, marked the graveyard’s exit. A shadowy something was leaning on the rusty pull-bar, and at first Michael assumed it was some sort of prop. Then the wind shifted, and a dark cloud that had been shielding the moon’s bright face went on its merry way. The sudden wash of light revealed that the “prop” was actually a man. From a distance he appeared mostly normal: his arms were heavily tattooed, but that was the only thing that really seemed to stand out about the guy.
Still, there was something off about this mysterious person. Michael hung back and patted himself down, futilely searching his funeral suit for anything that could be used to help him in this situation – money, knife, cell phone. Unfortunately, the assholes who had buried him in a suit without pockets hadn't bothered to bury him with anything useful. He literally had the clothes on his back and nothing else. Steeling himself for the worst, he stepped forward.
Another gust of wind temporarily doused the light, and for a second Michael couldn’t see shit. Barely ten second passed before the moonlight was back, and by then Michael was only two feet away from the guy; now he was close enough to see that…that…
“Holy shit!” Michael leaped away, tripped over a headstone and fell to ground with a yell.
The “man” had two jet-black horns curving out of his forehead and over his equally dark hair. A dim purplish-blue ball of flame hung impossibly in the air between them. His ears were pointed, like Link’s from the Legend of Zelda, and Michael could have sworn he saw a tufted lion’s tail flicking in the space between the guy’s back and the wall. The inhuman…person had been sleeping - his eyes had been shut, chest rising and falling rhythmically, breath slow and deep - but at the sound of Michael’s yell and the thud of him hitting the ground, he began to stir. The purple flame flared into a brilliant blue light, bright enough to illuminate the air and ground in a three foot diameter around the inhuman dude. He yawned widely: his teeth were sharply pointed and his tongue was forked like a snake’s. One hand moved up to scratch his mustache as his eyes blinked open. The irises were a brilliant, bloody red, suspended in inky black sclerae.
“Shit, dude,” he said, “how long was I asleep?”
Michael blinked. The demon looked at him pointedly. “Uh…”
He shook his head and stretched. “Not like I really give a fuck anyway.” His tail switched behind him as he smoothed out his mustache. “It all worked out in the end.”
“What did?”
The demon smiled lazily. “Well, you’re here. I was just waiting for you.”
“You were waiting-” Realization hit Michael like a sack of bricks. He leaped to his feet and pointed an accusatory finger at the humanoid demon. “Hold on – you’re the guy who brought me back to life!”
The demon nodded. “Took fucking forever, too. Thought I’d fucked it up at first, so I decided to sit back and see what would happen. S’why I ended up taking a quick snooze.”
Michael tried to wrap his head around this new information and came up with nothing. “But…why? I mean, thanks, I guess, but why would a fucking devil want to resurrect me? Don’t you have devil shit to do?”
The demon frowned and let out a small hiss. “For starters, I am not a devil, dude. I am a motherfucking demon. Huge difference. Secondly…” Here the demon actually looked a little embarrassed. He shifted around from foot to foot and put his hands in his pockets, while his flame flickered slightly and his tail began swinging like a pendulum. “…I can’t actually tell you why I brought you back. Sorry, man.”
Taken aback by this rebuttal, Michael stared at the demon in horror. Then, like he had many times before, Michael got mad. “What the fuck does that mean? Why can’t you tell me? I’m so fucking confused right now; I just want some goddamn answers!”
“I know, I know.” The demon ran his fingers through his hair and scratched the base of one of his horns. “You were dead, and now you’re alive, and you probably don’t remember anything right now, and you’re upset about all that shit. I understand. I just can’t tell you. It violates a set of rules that are old as dicks, and I am not the sort of guy who’s powerful enough to break those rules. You’re just gonna have to be in the dark for now.” He held up his hands when Michael’s eyes widened in fury. “I’m sorry, but that’s just how it has to be.”
The resurrected YouTuber crossed his arms and glared sullenly at the demon. “Can’t you tell me anything?”
“Uh…” The demon’s sharp teeth worried his lower lip and he twirled the tip of his mustache around his finger. “…I like your videos. They’re pretty fucking funny.”
Of all the things he could have said, Michael was not expecting this. He ran a hand through his curls and looked down at his feet. All he could think to say was, “Demons watch YouTube?”
“Who doesn’t watch YouTube?” The demon’s patronizing tone irritated Michael’s already frayed nerves, but he managed to keep his mouth shut for the time being. After all, anything that was powerful enough to bring him back to life was powerful enough to put him back in the grave. Meanwhile, the demon was still talking. “…heard about the incident and decided to try and bring you back. I’d never done anything like this before, so you get the honor of being my first undead, uh, ‘companion’ I guess. Worked like a fucking charm, too.” He nodded in approval.
At this, Michael had to interrupt. “That’s-that’s-that’s just it, man! How the fuck did I fucking die?! I’ve been trying to remember ever since I…woke up…but I haven’t remembered anything! What happened to me? Why am I dead, or undead, or what the fuck ever?”
The demon shook his head. “Sorry, dude. I may be totally fucking awesome, but I’m not God. I only know what the article in the Statesman said.”
“What did the article say?” Michael pressed. Jesus, it felt like he was trying to squeeze blood from a fucking stone.
“Only that you, Michael Jones, prominent YouTuber, were found dead in the streets about two blocks away from his apartment. Didn’t find anybody nearby, so they assumed it was a drive-by or a robbery gone wrong. Coroner’s report said you’d been shot about five times and died from blood loss and extreme trauma, or some shit like that. You were buried about a week ago, which, coincidentally, is when I started trying to resurrect you. Fucking hard as dicks, resurrection. Nobody ever told me it was so difficult.”
Michael mused over this new information. “But…this doesn't make any fucking sense! I know I’m not the nicest fuck on the internet, but I don’t think I did anything worth being killed over!”
The demon threw his hands up in the air; Michael saw that his black t-shirt had ‘Make Mistakes’ written on it in bold white letters. “That’s not my job, dude! I am a goddamn demon. I fucking cause chaos, kick ass and drink beer. I don’t do detective shit.”
“All right, fine.” Michael gave up on talking to the demon for the time being. Meanwhile, he was growing increasingly tired of the graveyard, so he walked toward the iron gate and started shaking it. He could see the padlock holding the gate shut, but it was rusted, so he thought with enough shaking, he could break it. Unfortunately, at the moment, it was holding fast. He shook it harder, growing more annoyed at the clanking and clanging of chains and bars.
The demon looked over his shoulder with a margin of interest. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“I’m trying to fucking leave.” He shook the gate as hard as he could. The padlock clanged in protest, but it still wouldn't budge. “I can’t stay in this cemetery forever. Fuck!” He kicked the lock as hard as he could. The bars bent out somewhat, but the lock still held fast and the gate stayed shut.
“You’re not getting anywhere,” he commented. His forked tongue flicked out from between his lips for a few brief seconds. “Do you want, y’know, some help or something?”
Michael turned away from the gate – not before giving it one last kick, though – and looked back at the demon. “What the fuck could you possibly have in mind?”
“I know a place where you can stay for the time being. You’ll be safe – well, safer – than you will be anywhere else.” Michael opened his mouth to protest, but the demon cut him off. “I know you want answers and all that shit, but you’re not gonna find them here. Besides, if you stay here, someone’s gonna notice you’re not dead, and before you can say ‘Anal probing’ you’re gonna either be behind bars or strapped to a table while scientists cut you into itty bitty tiny little pieces so they can figure out what makes you tick.” The demon shrugged and made to walk away. “I mean, if you want to stay here…”
“Fine, don’t be an asshole. I’ll fucking go.” Michael crossed his arms again and stepped away from the gate.
“Great.” In the blink of an eye, the demon was back at his side. He put his hand on Michael’s shoulder; he could feel five sharp claws sinking into the cheap polyester of his jacket. “I’ll take you to the place I mentioned then. Hope you like mad scientists!”