All Write, Already!

She was covered in dust, her body lying in that awkward position that tells you she didn’t naturally come to lie there, but was tossed there, or collapsed there unconsciously. She was what most people would ignorantly describe as a demon. She had fire engine red skin, a slender forked tail that wriggled around with respect to how excited or stimulated she may or may not be, two small calf horns atop her head, and adorable little batwings protruding from her shoulder blades, the kind which might be worn to a Japanese night club, were they not organically infused into the rest of her musculo-skeletal structure.

It’s the subtle differences that give her away as being something unique, however. For instance, demons tend to have nasty features, but she was quite lovely. She had jet black hair, that betrayed some deep blue hues when illuminated by bright white light, and it was currently in complete disarray. Demons don’t usually have hair at all, and when they do, it’s rarely what one might describe as attractive. And apart from the wings, horns, and tail, which were quite modest by demonic standards, she didn’t really have any beastly features. She was quite fit, though not particularly muscular, and she had smooth, radiant skin, admirable even covered under years of dust as it was.



A soft cloud of gray rose up around her as her consciousness suddenly jolted back into her with a shudder, and she opened her large eyes, batting her eyelashes furiously to get the particles out of them. Her eyes, like the rest of her, were mostly human, were it not for the extraordinary metallic silver of her irises. She rubbed them with her small, delicate knuckles, and modestly pulling her knees up to her chest as she rose to a sitting position, her head and shoulders rolling this way and that as she stretched her severely underused muscles.

“Good morning,” a hideous voice said from a few feet away. Her vision hadn’t focused yet, but she knew that voice better than she knew her own, as her own was barely there at all when she spoke.

“Water please,” she squeaked, and her eyes widened a moment in shock. No sooner had she spoken the words before a mug of hot water had been placed in her hands between two enormous finger-like appendages. She drank the steaming water greedily, ignoring the pain from the heat in her throat, feeling life shooting out to her limbs as her core temperature rose. “How long have I been out?”

“Don’t know,” said the monstrous voice, “Don’t count.”

“Where am I?”

“President City,” the beast said, whose features she could now make out to be as adorably horrific as ever. He wasn’t a demon either, but someone would be hard pressed to figure out what he actually was. Suffice it to say that primitive humans might refer to him as an orc or an ogre, though both were technically inaccurate terms.

“How did I get back here?” She asked to no one in particular. She knew the beast wouldn’t have an answer, and, knowing this, he didn’t feel obliged to respond to it.

“Or what’s left of it,” he said ominously.

“What do you mean?” she asked, her gigantic silver eyes suddenly probing the room for a window. There was none.

“No one lives here,” the ogre replied simply.

“Except for us,” she corrected.

“Except for us,” he agreed, nodding, and sitting back down on an old, torn up queen-sized bed the way one might awkwardly perch on an ottoman. It cracked and splintered under his weight.

She took another drink, and handed it back to the beast. “Thank you Pigdish,” she said and she stood up, stretching her arms and legs, and kissed his massive, hairy cheek before exiting the room. He smiled a smile full of blunt, broken teeth, randomly placed throughout the inside of his lips. It was a rare thing, for him to smile, but the skin and muscles in his face conformed awkwardly nonetheless, and he stood and followed her out of the room, hunched over, the hump in his back nearly dragging against the ceiling.

The doors in the house, which would have seemed modern were it not so post-apocalyptic, had all been hastily remodeled to suit the larger frame of the ogre’s muscular and misshapen body, and thus weren’t doors so much as massive apertures carpeted with doorknobs, insulation and drywall. The little red not-demon stepped over the debris carefully, so as not to puncture her petite bare feet. She tiptoed outside of the house, and took in the scenery around her. Her tail darted and flicked around in concern. President City was in ruin, and had evidently been that way for quite a while. But only now was nature beginning to pry it’s way out of the rubble with brown and green gnarled fingers, slowly, delicately penetrating the concrete and glass rubble.

The not-girl frowned. Pigdish stood behind her, wanting to comfort her or console her somehow, but had learned from millenia of experience that delicate touch was not his forte, and it was always safer for him to keep a distance, if he didn’t want to hurt anybody. “It’s better now, at least,” his voice rumbled, and it traveled a good deal farther now that they were outside.

“How do you figure?” she inquired, scanning the ruins for someplace she might be able to get a shower.

“You’re back now.” He smiled again, twice now in the last 5 or so years.

She stopped her scan, and looked over at him affectionately. “Thank you, Pigdish. You always know what to say to make a girl feel better.”

“What shall I call you this time?” He was required to ask, even if he already knew the answer.

Her smile widened, and one might have noticed her blushing, were there any way to decipher the red of her blush from the red of her everything else. “Same thing as always, dear Pigdish. My name.”

Pigdish nodded, and his smile disappeared, which did not mean he was suddenly unhappy, just that his face had finally conceded that smiling was not really something it wanted to do. “Thank you, Mistress Cy Lin.”

“No no, stop with that crap. It’s just Cy. Like last time. And next time. Just Cy.”

He nodded again, completing this particular formality, “Sorry. Yes, Cy.”