Have you ever wanted something so bad that you would sell your soul to the devil?
Today marks the 9th year of my contract with Lucifer. Let me take you back to July 16, 2003. I was a proud father and happily married. Work was going great and was heading to a very promising promotion that would make me the youngest CEO in the company’s history. I had everything going for me and life seemed to be the best fairytale story.
The morning of the 17th my wife woke me up and showered me with kisses. My lovely 5 year old daughter, followed not long behind carrying a tray. On the tray was a peanut butter and mayo sandwich, a bowl of cereal with orange juice (instead of milk), a glass of milk(go figure), and a handmade card covered in glitter and macaroni spelling “Happy Birthday Papa.” She kissed me and sang happy birthday and watched me intently, waiting for me to eat my breakfast. I didn’t want to eat it but looking at pure joy in her face, I couldn’t refuse and took a bite of my sandwich and a bite of my cereal, her face lit up. My heart filled with love and my eyes started to tear up at the smiles of my wife and daughter. I was the luckiest man alive. After a few minutes my wife gathered my daughter, “Let daddy finish breakfast and you and I will go and get his surprise at the store.” She screamed with excitement and ran to her room to get her shoes. “We are going to get daddy’s new bike,” she yells running down the hall. My wife’s face was in shock as the surprise was now ruined. Clearly she was disappointed and upset but I couldn’t help but laugh. She didn’t think it was so funny and she started to cry. I held her tight, kissed her and smilingly told her it was ok.
Knowing what I know now I would have never let her go. She gathered the kid and left to get my new motorcycle. Hours pass and they still haven’t returned home. I called her and there no answer, it went straight to voicemail. I started to worry and got in the car and attempted find them. As I drove down the neighborhood I noticed the street is blocked off and police are everywhere. Before I was detoured I noticed there was a red van flipped upside down. Time stopped and my heart sunk as I already know what happened.
I slammed the breaks and exited the car and ran. The policemen saw me, “Sir please get back in your car.” I threw an elbow attempting to get his hands off me and I ran to the van. Police and Fire officials were trying to clear the wreckage. I scrabbled to look inside when five or six men restrained me. As they took me to the ground I noticed two blood stained sheets. With all my power I fought my way free and ran straight to the two sheets. I knelt next to the sheets and one at a time, I pull them back.
Reports later indicated that I screamed and sobbed as I held the lifeless bodies in my arms for over an hour. It took ten men to separate me from them. The next few days were all a blur as I sat in my empty house alone and in the dark; I disconnected the doorbell and phone so not to be disturbed. Unable to cope with the death of my wife and daughter I began to contemplate suicide. Knowing that killing myself wasn’t the way I began to pray. I begged and pleaded with God, telling him I would do anything to have them back, to not have them die.
Just as I began to give up hope that God existed, a man visited me in my room. Thinking it was God I was ecstatic and I dropped to my knees and began to thank him for coming and for helping me. The man interrupted me and advised that he wasn’t God but Lucifer. He pulled me to my feet and asked to talk to me. We talked for hours that night and I listened to what he had to offer. He offered to bring them back, for the price of my soul. My eyes filled with joy at the thought of seeing them again. I agreed to give up my soul to him as well as work for him as his Soul Collector. He produced a contract that I was to sign:
“By signing this I relinquish my soul and everything associated with it to the devil, Lucifer. In agreement that he will return:
1) Wife
2) Daughter
At the return of the (2) persons listed above, I, the signer of this contract will agree to work for Lucifer as his Soul Collector until goal is met. The goal of 1000 souls is to be collected, at which time the signer’s soul and associated materials shall be returned.”
After I signed the contract he disappeared. The next thing I remembered was standing at the Motorcycle, no idea how I got there. However, to my surprise I saw them; my wife and daughter smiling and laughing. Excited, I rushed to them. I run and picked up my daughter and threw her into the air and caught her and hugged her tightly. I looked at her face and her mother’s and there is nothing but terror. There was panic and fear. I wanted to talk to them and tell them who I was but I couldn’t remember my name. What was my name? My wife and daughter screamed, while three large men came storming towards me. They restrained me and threw me out the back door, after kicking the shit out of me.
Confused about what just happened I yelled and demanded Lucifer to show his face. When he appeared he drew caution to my tone and advised that is the only time he will tolerate my anger. He explained everything that had happened. He informed me that he moved time back to before they were killed, however since I no longer have a soul I no longer existed; that they were living a life in a time where I didn’t exist. He explained that my wife married and had a daughter with someone else. A man with no soul has no identity, no name. He presented me with my signed contract. I reviewed the contents and quickly realized how vaguely written it was; nothing within that contract said they would return as “my” wife and daughter.
No owning a soul and a merchant of death I was able to phase in and out of the physical world and be invisible; for a few weeks I followed them around to see their life. They were happy and smiling. They lived their lives just like they had when I was there. It killed me to see my lovely wife making love to a different man and my daughter hugging this other man calling him daddy. After some time though I grew to accept it and was happy that they were alive and happy.
Having been fucked once by Lucifer, I don’t know why I thought he would play fair. After a couple weeks, I had left the room when my wife became intimate and I left to give some privacy (frankly I didn’t want to watch) so I sat in my daughter’s room and watched her sleep. All of a sudden I heard a crash and banging around. I ran to find out what all the ruckus was and came across a stranger breaking into the house. I ran to the master bedroom. I was too late, one of the men were already in there. The other husband was beaten and tired to a chair as unmentionable things were being done to my wife as we both stared on. I yelled and screamed for it to stop, I attempted to change into my physical form but I couldn’t, it wouldn’t happen. I watched in terror as the attack continued. The fear and terror in her eyes were heart breaking. I know I should have felt something but I couldn’t, I was sorry and wanted it to stop. Finally the attack ended with the slaying of both my wife and her husband. Anger filled my body as I tried to punch and kick at the attacker but nothing happened, I just phased right through him. Once he was finished in the master bedroom he turned towards the door and exited heading down the hallway.
As I ran to the door and down the hall I saw a bright light flash and was outside at a nearby park sitting on a bench. Sitting across from me was Lucifer. He looked at me, “It’s time for you to work now. You aren’t going to get my souls watching your old family.” Infuriated I yelled at him about what happened. “I warned you once about taking that tone with me,” he said calmly. “God in all his infinite knowledge cannot control man but knows everything that man will do,” he continues to explain. “God knew that the home invasion was coming and how horrific it was going to be. So to show mercy he took them early and in less pain. By sending them back without the accident, events unfolded as they were supposed too.” When I asked about my daughter he refused to tell me any of the details that happened… I think this was his way of showing me mercy.
That’s my origin story of how I became what I am today. I am a professor at a local collage where I teach a creative writing class. At the end of the semester each student is asked to write a two page paper titled “If Only I had 1 Year Left to Live.” The only rules to this paper are that after the year you will be forgotten, you can’t be famous, you can’t cheat (have cancer and then cure your own cancer), and can’t plan your own death.
What these students don’t know is that I will make whatever they write happen to them… ultimately getting me one step closer to reaching my quota of 1,000 souls. These stories celebrate the last year and the lives of the now forgotten.
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