The man in the charcoal suit watched through the reinforced glass of the ward. He checked his watch. "Twenty-two years," he murmured. "A bit shorter than I expected."
He watched Elias smack his lips. "And in the end, you were just a snack," the Devil whispered to the ghost of the candy. "You weren't ended by a hero. You were simply... irrelevant."
Walking toward the hospital exit, the Devil paused at a vending machine filled with plastic toys. He pulled out a tarnished silver coin. "The gumball was a bit too vocal," he mused, his gaze landing on a small plastic whistle. "Imagine the things I could teach a whistle to say."
He dropped the coin. Clack. Clink. Roll. He tucked the new toy into his pocket and stepped into the night, his boredom momentarily cured.