Steel currently is sleeping with one eye open. He is exhausted and hurt all over the body.
River isn't sure what is happening.
For few days, he's been trying his best to become stronger, somehow. River has never heard of a demon growing into a better or improved version of themselves. It is all so weird and unheard of.
Steel is a weird demon.
River doesn't understand what does it mean to be stronger or better. She understand the opposite of it though.
Demons love falling down into the abyss of desires and ruin their own psyche and body. Going down and down to finally emerge as a worst version of themselves. What is a demon without desires? Nothing but also something that is little lost.
River wants to fall deeper and deeper into the darkness again. She is glad to have her consciousness back. Being able to think and talk with Steel is a weird but pleasant experience. But losing all sense of self is the greatest of all.
River can describe it as being more than her consciousness that is more louder and more sharper. She loses herself but she becomes more greater in mass and simple thoughts. Flesh revolves around with a new will to create her into a world of its own. A world that lives with everything and everyone.
It is just like a hivemind, or is it? She doesn't know.
'it is hard to remember things.'
Whatever it is. She loves being a imperfect creature. It is such a blessing, she won't ever want to let it go.
There's a question that comes to mind though. How deep is imperfection?
She have no idea how long can one fall until they reach the bottom. It probably is a long fall. Not a literal fall though.
Perhaps, Mother would know something about that. She can only imagine the answer of the Mother.
Not like she can ask it.
'Now what?'
Nights are such a bore. She can't talk with Steel cause he's asleep or half asleep. So her only connection to the world is gone, the sight.
She can still read his thoughts. But doing so is like breaching someone's privacy. She's a demon but she understand basic manners.
Such a shame.
What even is sleep anyways? And is Steel getting enough of it? Steel is a weird one but could he really be so irresponsible to not take this addictive substance that is so important for his survival?
Maybe she got another topic to wonder about for the night. Maybe she need to take this substance for herself too.
'oh wait, I can't open my mouth. Such a shame, I wanted to try it…'
With that disappointing reality. The night continues.
***
It hurts all over the place. That Devil Snake with Feet really did a number on him.
'That sadistic worm really wanted to torture me first and then devour me. Can It get any- nevermind'
It's just hard to fall asleep when you have few holes that are patched by burning your own fresh. Steel should have thought this thing through. He had seen a character of some survival comic do this thing.
But it is obvious that fiction is different form reality. Or that character had some extreme pain tolerance.
He would finish that comic someday if he survives.
For now, all he had to do is recover. His demon body is somewhat better than an ordinary human of those who hasn't opened their soul paths. So he is sure that he can recover faster than an ordinary human.
If only he could sleep without worrying about his surroundings. It is such an inconvenient situation. No there's no proper sleep for the wicked and he has indirect blood of many innocent creatures.
They all probably had someone who cared about them. Would someone care about him if he were to die?
He has some connections between humans. But those connections are superficial and they probably won't be sad if he were to disappear. Also nobody would even remember if were to die so there's really no point in even thinking about it.
What about Steel though?
Steel doesn't have anyone in particular who he cares about. What a normal human would care about? Probably their parents? Well, his human parents were dead from the start so he doesn't really have any memory or knowledge.
He did tried finding some info about them. But he got nothing that could shed some light.
Such is life.
His entire life only been about survival and following the broken voice of Mother's curse.
That terrible curse.
Even thinking about the damned thing gives him chills. Something that is shaped together with his demonic soul. can it get any worse? It always does though.
It isn't like he can ignore that broken voice. If he were to do so his very nature would break apart into a fragment of himself that made the choice of following the will of the broken voice.
In short, it manipulates his body or mind or probably soul? Or all.
Like that teleportation paradox, in which the original body of the host is destroyed and then rebuilt in a different location with the same memories of the original. Like an artificial body. So basically achieving teleportation.
There is some existential crisis in there somewhere but Steel misses to understand what's so bad. It is still better than his own predicament.
From whatever he gathered with observation, whenever he tries to disobey. He is basically rebuilt and reshaped inside of his own body into a new version by the curse but the death and all the memories of the previous version is overlapped with the new version. So he experienced his life twice with the added death of the previous one?
By now, he has experienced his existence three times. So he disobeyed only two times. After that, he never dared.
Who would wanna experience that ever? Shaking that trauma off takes mouths or he has just never recovered as he still fears it.
He could entirely be wrong about it too. Perhaps, all of it is just an illusion and a mind game. But he doesn't thing an ancient demon God wouldn't just do something so unnecessary to torture her disobedient children.
Steel couldn't help but sigh. Why such an elaborate curse is even put on him? Couldn't she just torture his brain a little if he disobeyed? He wouldn't really say that he preferred it but after experiencing the former twice makes him rethinks a lot.
He can't even imagine what would have happen if the missions were impossible for him to complete. Luckily, the missions given to him by the curse is just to be a delivery boy for River.
He sighs and then frowns.
'what am I even thinking about?'
Is the stress of survival getting to him? He wouldn't say that he is a very negative person. But maybe as a demon he can't help but look at the worst sides of things.
Being a demon is hard when he doesn't know what is a demon suppose to be. Maybe he should ask River about it.
Maybe later though, she has her own worries, right? She is an old demon after all. She probably is thinking about something wise and serious. Bothering her would be a disrespect.
She's strange but that strangeness comes from living for so long and also cause of the nature of flesh storm.
Could it be that he has a tiny bit of respect for a fellow demon?
It could be that or just his tired mind trying to hold on to something so it can keep on going.
He sighs again and tries to a find a bleak comfort on the cold ground