Into the Abyss полностью

True it was rather frightening and turned people away and caused them to faint. That hurt, that hurt a lot, but was it always his problem? How much of it was people’s irrational (OK, so maybe rational, given history) biases against demons. If people gave him a chance they’d like him, he was sure. Look at Rupert; well maybe he was a weird case. Look at Jenn, she didn’t trust him completely, but she was at least starting to deal with him as a person, not an object. He also had Tizzy and Bogsworth as friends. Gastropé was still a problem, but he wasn’t sure he wanted that guy as a friend anyway. Yeah, he felt lonely, but no lonelier than he’d been in Harding, and things were getting better.

Now true, the demon form was also symbolic of the slave state he was in, although since Jehenna had summoned him last, and then cut and run, he hadn’t had to worry about his slavery too much. He wondered what those guys were up to? In the end, it was also true that he was stuck in this form for a long time. Well not completely stuck, he now knew he could pretend to look human. If he really wanted to. The scary thing was, he was no longer sure he wanted to. Ever.

After all, if he looked at the positive side, there was a lot to be said. One, he was stronger and tougher than anybody he’d met, at least physically. He could fly, that was fun and handy. He hadn’t really worked much with it, but apparently he could shoot some form of energy bolts and things like that. Or at least his Tae-Kwon-Do was translating a little too literally around here. All of his senses were keener than the wildest animal’s. He had telescopic vision, some form of infrared vision, and who knew what other similar things. No normal weapons could hurt him, even if they did, it was nearly impossible to kill him. At worst any wounds would send him back to the Abyss, where he could regenerate. He could shape change! Crap, he was damn near a superhero!

He didn’t get hungry or thirsty. He wasn’t like one of the little humans so dependent on shelter and weapons to protect themselves from nature. Humans got hungry, humans got sick and came down with diseases. As far as he could determine from what Boggy and Tizzy had said, he wouldn’t age either. He was immortal! He could live for thousands of years.

If he was going to toil his life away in slavery, that could be a problem; but if he went out and did something with his life... Talk about a chance to overcome existential dread! Given all that, who would want to be a scrawny teenaged boy? Who would want to go back into the tiny little alabaster pimple of a body that humans got stuck with.

Face it Tom, he told himself, what are you bitching about? It was every guy’s dream come true. Superhuman powers, flight, super strength, invulnerability, telescopic vision, trans-dimensional hearing, energy bolts, shape changing, dimension hopping. What comic book hero could ever do all that? If this were a video game, he’d kill to have a character like himself! He was almost a minor god! Well maybe not a god, let’s not get carried away here, he was not that powerful. Most the wizards he met could bend him to their thumb. Something close to godlike but not so powerful, and with more limitations. What he was, Tom suddenly realized, was a demon!

A demon! Well, it had literally been staring him in the face for some time. He’d even kind of pretended at it for a while. It had simply never hit him like that before. It was kind of a, what was the word? an epiphany, that was the word. So what kid wouldn’t be thrilled to be a demon? ‘I Was a Teenage Demon!’ was a perfect name for a grade B horror movie Tom thought. A TV show would be ‘Teen Demon’ or better yet, the ‘Demon Diaries’. Who wouldn’t be thrilled? Well apparently he wasn’t.