Tedious Humans and Setting up David

Chapter 4

Ugh. Moryn hated being such a simpering idiot, but it was the kind of man who would appeal to Terra, especially since he was so very sexy. It had taken all of Moryn’s self-control not to burst out laughing maniacally when he heard Terra’s thoughts about David. She had fallen so thoroughly for him, and he hadn’t even been trying. The only bit of his extensive experience cultivating charm displayed in that performance was the smile. Not that he had to try very hard; the girl looked like she would practically go after anything with a pulse. And then she went and prayed about it, like she assumed thinking carnal thoughts would damn her soul to hell. Moryn knew well enough that it wouldn’t, it took much more than simple lusty thoughts. Adlai would weigh the good deeds from the bad deeds in all souls’ lives, and whichever way the scales tipped decided the Afterlife they were condemned to.  That meant Moryn and his Demons had to work very hard to tempt humans into some awful things or completely away from good deeds before they would go to Death’s Afterlife. Lusting after a stranger was barely a drop in the bucket.

Moryn walked down the street as David, aiming to finish setting up his charade. It was simple enough to just snap his fingers or think a thought and have things be the way he wanted, but sometimes things needed a little finessing. David needed a good backstory, so he needed an apartment and a job and a history. Moryn could then make it real in everybody’s minds, but it was good to make it actually true sometimes. So he was going to go rent an apartment in a complex across the street from the Shady Elm Apartments, but still a good 10 minute walk from Terra’s place. It was late afternoon, and the streets of Turon City were stuffed full of cars, and the sidewalk was only slightly less packed. Moryn took in the city as he walked, looking around disdainfully. The sun shone off tall office buildings made of concrete and/or metal with lots of  large, glass-paned windows. He noticed a drone high up on a 20th floor thinking about jumping out a window because he just found out his wife had cheated on him. Moryn mentally told Zander, a minor demon, to go talk the man into killing his wife and the lover, then jumping out the window. He could do it himself, but he had an apartment to decorate.

Walking into the main management building for the apartment complex, Moryn put his David countenance back on. It wouldn't do to walk in with a psychopathic grin or a furious scowl on his face, whichever he happened to be wearing at the moment. The receptionist looked up from her phone and smiled brightly at David. She waved him on back into the landlord’s office. In only 10 minutes of discussion and paperwork with the dumpy, frizzy-haired landlady, David walked out minus some amount rent and deposit money, but plus a set of keys to a one-bedroom apartment on the third floor of Building 6. He waved at the receptionist as he left, noting the giggles as he walked out the door. Moryn rolled his eyes; David was ever the ladies’ man. Well, might as well keep...Lisa in mind for later. Maybe she’d prove to be more entertaining.

The walk to his apartment building was only a few minutes long, and Moryn was shortly into his new flat. Tossing his keys on a table by the door, he was pleased to see his Demons had been hard at work arranging his new apartment. Although Servants, like Liara’s Angels and Moryn’s Demons, were not technically allowed to have the deities’ powers, Moryn liked to lend scraps of his out so that he didn't have to think about it. It was a simple enough task to delegate and made it so that Death incarnate didn’t have to play homemaker. It looked like, he supposed, a normal human apartment: living room with a sofa, a chair, and a television on a stand with various electronics underneath and a small kitchen with all the necessary things, a cut-out wall above the counter with two stools underneath, and a tile floor that ran over into the small dining area that had a dark, wooden table and four chairs to match. A short hallway extended beyond the kitchen and dining area, branching into a bedroom with a bed, bookshelf, desk, and a small bathroom. Moryn grabbed the laptop computer from the desk in the bedroom and collapsed on the couch with it. Time to see what all the humans were up to these days.

Moryn realized that he hadn’t yet dropped David, and immediately reverted to normal. He relaxed, lying on his back with his head and feet propped up on pillows on either end of the couch, wings draped where they fell, one over the back, one drooping onto the floor. He started up some complicated piano music from actually talented composers and went to work, perusing the internet, web, stream, whatever the humans were calling it now. He found it amusing that, in every instance of the universe, humans always assumed they were the first to ever come up with something. It was funny that they thought they were unique at all. Every new universe, Liara created a new planet in a similar solar system, similar circumstances, and created humans. He found it ridiculous, but Liara seemed to love humans best, which meant that Moryn focused most of his personal attention on humans, leaving his Demons to deal with other planets. Which didn’t necessarily mean that planets didn’t spontaneously explode or giant bloody massacres occurred now and again; Moryn’s goal was simply to steal, corrupt, and destroy Liara’s creations as much as he could. Humans were also unequivocally arrogant, making his job a lot easier.

After going through the information online, Moryn estimated that this species was probably 100 or so years from colonies in space. That was only a short ways behind four other species in the universe at the moment. In fact, all the sentient beings developed at roughly the same pace, give or take a thousand years of evolution. In the three universes before this one, all sentient beings also all eventually “invented” new technologies, went into space, colonized planets, met other species, went to war, and eventually entirely wiped each other out. Unfortunately, none of the other four were near Earth, so the cycle was still a long way from the destruction phase. Such a shame. Chaos and death were Moryn’s favorite things in the story of every universe.

By the time Moryn got bored, it had only been a few hours. It had been a boring day full of boring humans. The only interesting human was a Demon to be or one who was a challenge to corrupt. The latter got boring the moment they were corrupted, unless they became the former. Those were his favorite; corrupting saints into devils was his favorite pastime. He wasn’t really in the mood for more time with humans now, though. No sooner had his next thought entered his mind than two Demonesses, Adelaide and Anima, popped into existence next to him. Moryn grinned and pulled one Demoness down on top of him as the other started running her hands over him; his Servants were always prompt when he called. This night promised to be much better than his day.