Velli

  I push the door open to my home and realize someone is there. I won’t make it to my bed. I will sink to the floor and hopefully never wake up. The thing stands in front of me in the hallway. The thing’s boldness alarms me. I expect an intruder to pop out of a room to surprise me or to crawl through a window to steal the valuables it thinks I have or to kill me after coming from a shadow. This thing stands right in the hallway with open arms… for a hug.

  Colors crawl up its body, and its size bounces a couple of inches every second, up and down, up and down. As it walks toward me, its gait switches with every step. It’s Prometheus.

  It’s Prometheus, and he hugs me. I know there’s a catch. I know how this ends. He said he would kill me if I didn’t deliver, and I didn’t deliver. I don’t have the strength to run anymore.

  I’m sorry, Mom. I hope we’re on the same side in the afterlife. Maybe not, actually. Maybe hell won’t be so bad. I could ruin heaven for her. The disappointment on the face of an angel. I accept the hug from my executioner.

  “I’m so sorry about your mother.” His voice is as sweet as my first-grade teacher’s.

  “It’s…”

  “You don’t have to say it’s okay. It’s not.” He lets the hug end and continues to speak in a feminine voice. A lot goes through my head. Could Prometheus be a woman?

  “How did you know?” I ask.

  “I know so so so so so much, Velli.” His—or her—voice is as innocent as a child’s. Something about hearing my name warms me. No one has called me it all day. “I went out of the way to pay for the funeral. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No.” That’s all they want to do, spend feel-good money. Fine, I’ll take it. “How are we going to do this? How am I going to die?”

  Prometheus shrugs. “Enjoy a pizza first. Last meal and all that. I ordered you a pizza. It’s in the dining room.”

  I expect Prometheus to turn his back on me and walk forward. Instead, Prometheus hooks his arm into mine to escort me to the room. My suicidal thoughts from earlier are replaced by fear. How will I die? With intense concentration, I examine his face. He smiles, and the smile shifts to different types of teeth and skin tones every second, but it is warm and welcomes me.

  Once inside the kitchen, I separate from him. His eyes follow me as I walk to the pizza boxes. One cheese, one pepperoni. A single plate from my kitchen cabinet lies in front of it.

  “I know a lot of things, but…” He steps up beside me. “Sorry, I don’t know what kind of pizza you prefer. I hope the classic pepperoni or cheese is to your liking.”

  I have a suspicion Prometheus lies to me about not knowing which pizza is my favorite—like that would cross a horrifying boundary, so he holds off with that information. Regardless, I load up my plate. Prometheus pulls out the chair for me.

  “Please, join me, Prometheus.”

  Prometheus nods, and he slips into the chair to my left without even pulling it out. After a while, he speaks. “You’re not going to eat?”

  I eye his body up and down. “No… not yet. Or rather, I don’t think I can. I’m nauseous. Tell me how you’ll kill me, please.”

  “I say this with all due respect.” Prometheus pauses. “I knew you would fail because everybody fails at your course of action. You would be surprised how many people have come to me to get powers and failed.”

  “So you’ve never given anyone powers?”

  “I didn’t say that. The successful chose the other way. They see the world for what it is. An empty gray place where everyone has buried their morals for a limited time to make something greater than themselves. They choose to manipulate people just like you, the easiest targets, the Unchosen, the Cursed, whatever you may call them, and it works every time. Look at you now. Look at the way your life is working. People with Weaknesses are the most forgotten, the most stepped on, and that makes them the most desperate, the easiest to manipulate. Do you understand?”

  “How many people have you done this deal with?”

  “I will soon reach a thousand.”

  “Impossible.”

  “I don’t just help people with Weaknesses. In fact, it’s mainly people who want a little more power who come to me and are willing to sell out the gullible.”

  I don’t speak. It’s all so logical. I never had a chance. I’ve been cheated. I have lost everything when the answer was right in front of me the whole time. There’s this whole other world out there, where everyone is getting whatever they want. I live in this world, and I can’t even keep my mom alive.

  “Why are you telling me this, Prometheus?”

  “To offer you something no one else has offered you all your life… justice and mercy.”

  “The Doorman of Mystery cares about justice and mercy?”

  “That’s a title I was given. What’s my name?” His voice is aged now, like a grandmother or grandfather.

  “No one knows your real name.” I refuse to take the bait.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “You’re telling me you’re Prometheus, the one from the Greek myths.”

  He stares at the pizza in front of us and doesn’t answer my question but asks a question of his own. “And what did Prometheus do?”

  “He gave mankind fire.”

  “Fire to do what with exactly?”

  “To protect all mankind, to keep them warm at night.” I don’t want to play his game of pretending he was some titan that should be thousands of years old, but the ideal interests me.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “All I’ve wanted to do,” he says. “All I’ve ever wanted to do is to lessen the divide between humans and gods.”

  I open my mouth to consider asking again if he’s really Prometheus, then I shut it. There’s no point. He said who he is, and I’ll either believe him or not. He sits there and changes again, a beautiful blur showing all of humanity. Could that be his new punishment? Randomly changing into different people, humanity, he loved so much? That’s not worse than the punishment according to his Greek myth. According to legend, he was strapped to a mountain and eaten alive only to come back to life and do it again.

  “Were you lying before about Her? About the origin of this world?” I ask.

  “Would saying no or yes make you feel better?”

  “The truth would make me feel better.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. You wouldn’t recognize the truth, and if you did one day, you would question it again the next. What reason do you have to believe the truth? What reason do you have to believe a lie.”

  I don’t speak.

  “Are your goals the same, Velli?”

  “What? I mean, I honestly hadn’t thought about it.”

  “So, your mother died for nothing?” His voice is like a drill sergeant’s. “People still get to treat you like dirt?”

  Anyone else I would have jumped across the table and choked, but the sting of the truth in his words stuns me. My foot taps. I don’t know what to say. He’s right. I can’t let this go. “My goals are the same, Prometheus.”

  “You still want… need to make this world a better place for those with Weaknesses?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “How will you do it?”

  “I’ll go straight to the isle with them. That’s where I’ll make them love me. I’ll get them to come with me without mentioning the sacrifice. It will be like placing a frog in a slow-boiling pot. They won’t feel the heat until it’s too late.”

  “Good. Go and do the same, do the same as everyone did before you. Sacrifice at least three of your own people, those with Weaknesses, to save all of them. Everyone who was just born unlucky.”

  Wait. I don’t know about this.

  “Hush,” he says as if reading my thoughts, and he leans toward me. “All of the Unchosen will die pitiful, meaningless lies. Let them die for something! Change the world!”

  I couldn’t… not people with Weaknesses, even people whose lives are worse than mine.

  “What lie do you hold on to?” he asks, spitting in my face now. Every face he shows is both desperate and furious, and every eye is yellow and wild. “It’s all been proven wrong. Who is here with you now? Where is your mother? Where is your father? Where is Dream? Where is Piedmont? Where is Rose? They have lied to you about justice and have abandoned you to go to the afterlife or live a luxurious life. What justice can someone Cursed ever have? There is none but the one you make. The only change can be done by your hands.”

  “Yes,” I say. “That’s right.” Confession’s prophecy from the Conference of Desires comes to mind. Many myths must a man hear. Pick one, and serve that master. Search beyond those who are near, and choose well because, in every religion, there is hell. Believe no lie, no matter who dies.

  Perhaps it’s time I believe in a new myth.

  “Will you do it? Will you get at least three people with Weaknesses, make them love you, and prepare them to be sacrificed to Tiamat on the Island of Tselem?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’ll be a long journey. I suggest you bring more than three because Tselem is a dangerous place. Some call it hell.”

  Prometheus’s hands move like a blur and fling out to our left. Something leaves them. A knife. It slams into the wing of a person standing in the doorway. It’s Carreon. The knife Prometheus threw sticks into him. I can tell from his face that Carreon tries to change into another shape or form, but the knife won’t let him.

  “Carreon?” I ask. “What are you doing here?”

  “Boss… you told me to come back, man. I didn’t do nothing, and you know I didn’t hear nothing. Is that…?” He stares at Prometheus. “No, it is certainly not. I won’t tell anybody that you’re meeting with him. You just have a friend over, a lady friend, if you like. That could boost your reputation. I can spread that rumor. Prometheus definitely isn’t here, just a lady friend, a cute one, too, boss. What’s your type? Brown hair?”

  “Velli,” Prometheus says, his temperament changed, colder now. “Why is Carreon here?”

  “He works for me.”

  “Do you like him?” Prometheus walks behind me.

  I straighten. He places his ever-changing hands on my shoulders and rests his chin there.

  My body tightens. “Not especially. He serves a purpose.”

  “Do you think he’s a good person? List his crimes.”

  “He’s stolen, cheated, and betrayed everyone who’s ever loved him, screwed over anyone with a Weakness, and murdered like a coward to get what he wants.”

  Carreon feels it too. The mood is shifting. Something dangerous is in the air, and we both could fall victim to it. With the slightest of movements, I motion for Carreon to remain calm. It doesn’t work. He pulls at his wings, trying to escape. Prometheus doesn’t seem to mind his attempts.

  “You’re smart, Velli. Always reading books. What do they tell you to do to succeed at any task? Like if you want to write an epic fantasy, what should you do first?”

  “Write something small, maybe a novella.”

  “Good, and if you want to do a marathon, what should you do first?”

  “Maybe a 10K or a half marathon.”

  “So, if you want to get the nerve to sacrifice at least three innocents, what should you do?”

  Everything becomes still.

  “Velli!” Carreon yells with full knowledge his life is in danger. “There’s something you should know about Prometheus.”

  Prometheus tosses something, and it lands on Carreon’s mouth, a sticky, bright-green claylike substance. Carreon Bane’s words are muffled and incomprehensible.

  From Prometheus’s ever-changing body, he pulls out something new and yet old. Death’s scythe from the Fairy-Tale Forest. “You left this,” he says. “It’s yours. You should get used to using it.”

  Carreon Bane yanks at the clay-like stuff with both hands, stretching the sticky substance. It doesn’t break. He scratches at the sides of his mouth until there’s raw, wet, bloody skin all around the green goop.

  I accept the scythe and walk forward to Carreon. The look in his eye—he’s sad. He knows he’ll die. It’s pitiful. I can’t let him speak. If he speaks, I’ll feel the guilt of my sin.

  It only takes one big slice to separate his head from his body. Then I turn my back on him, as everyone’s turned their back on me, and look at the only ally I have left. Prometheus. He smiles. It’s not as warm.

  “You did well, Velli. I’m proud of you.” He pats my back as he leaves an incredible silence until he speaks again. “It doesn’t have to be the Unchosen, by the way. Just anyone who’s been forgotten like you. Oh, answer the knock on the door this time.” Prometheus picks up both Carreon’s head and body and leaves through the back door.

  There’s a knock at my door.

  Anne Graves

  I knock on Velli’s door, and we wait outside—Jeremy, Lue, and I. Lue said he was very private and that perhaps this was a bad idea. She hints that he’s going through a lot, and there’s real passion in her voice, even a stray tear when talking about him. It’s weird because, frankly, she strikes me as emotionless and resentful when she talks about anything else. Yet I saw the passion. I saw her eyes fill with water when she said they were worried about him and hadn’t heard from him in days.

  Jeremy replied that he was Velli’s general, and as Velli’s general, it was his duty to check on him and go to war with him. I saw him glance at me in an attempt to see if I was impressed. I was—with Velli and the love he’s generated in these two. In a way, I think he has the same effect on me.

  I was the tie-breaking vote of our trio. Maybe I was selfish, but I had to see him. I must sit at his feet and learn from him. I left Baby Bailey with my mother. I refuse to see my baby until I have my Curse under control. Velli is the bravest person I know. I will do whatever he asks of me to be more like him.

  Velli answers the door.

  Substack Link- For short stories of fantasy and horror that sometimes involve the characters from here

  https://iifinch.substack.com/

  Reddit Link- short stories here as well but you also get a bit more community.

  https://www.reddit.com/r/Finchink/