6:00 A.M. Like a semi crashing through his bedroom wall, the
alarm sounded from Marcus’s bedside table. After only three
hours of sleep, which, again, had been invaded by twisted
nightmarish landscapes, the idea of waking so soon nearly
caused him to scream. His heart thundering in his chest, his
face still buried in the pillow, he slung his left arm out
of the covers, striking out at his arch nemesis. After
several fumbling attempts, he managed to slam his palm onto
the snooze button and silence the sound of the Eagles’
Hotel California. After several bourbons and a
can-and-a-half of cleaner, Marcus had finally given up on
removing the stain from his beloved chair and staggered to
bed. Even after several hours of scrubbing until the sponge
had begun to dissolve and his hands to crack from the
chemical cleaner, he had still been convinced that he could
salvage his beloved friend, but exhaustion and drunkenness
had finally won. With an exhausted groan he let his arm slip
off the nightstand to the floor beside the bed and lapsed
instantly back into unconsciousness. He felt his body slide
into the quicksand of sleep. He sighed, praying that the
next nine minutes would be peaceful.

Silence washed over him and the world of alarm clocks and
day jobs dissolved into an empty city street. For a moment
he stood there, on the sidewalk, studying the landscape
around him, vaguely aware that he still wore only his
T-shirt and boxer shorts. From the soft blue light and chill
breeze he judged the time to be somewhere around dawn,
though he could not be certain from the overcast sky. He
shivered, staring up at the rows of empty black eyes lining
the sides of the towering skyscrapers around him.

Why can’t I ever just end up on a beach somewhere? He
thought. Or in a threesome with two Playmates, like
normal guys?

The wind picked up, pushing him from behind. He staggered
forward a pace, regaining his balance, and turned to look
over his shoulder down the avenue.

Maaarrrccuuusssssssss…

He whirled around. The voice had seeped from the open
doorway of an office building to his left. His stomach
soured with dread. He sighed heavily and shivered knowing
all too well that his dream-self would follow the sound of
his voice being whispered. With slow, careful steps he
walked towards the black rectangle in the building face, his
bare feet aching from the city street debris beneath them.
For a moment he lingered in the doorway hoping that his mind
had played tricks on him. He poked his head into the
building and scanned the room. It appeared to have once been
an old tavern of sorts, a neighborhood dive with oiled wood
walls covered in cheaply framed black and white headshots
and several round wooden tables and chairs, a few of which
had been overturned by previous looters. In the back of the
room, Marcus could barely make out the outline of a pool
table beneath a low-hanging stained glass lamp. The place
appeared to be empty, so Marcus took a few tentative steps
inside.

Walking over to the bar, he realized that the place could
not have been deserted all that long ago as half-empty mugs
of beer still sat on their coasters upon the bar’s copper
top. Behind the counter, dishes sat in a sink filled with
water and the greenish digital numbers on the cash register
still glowed brightly against the gloom. Suddenly, footsteps
echoed from the back of the room, near where the pool table
stood. Marcus’s head snapped up, his heart thundering in his
chest.

“Hello?” he said quietly, not really desiring an answer.
Behind him, outside, it had begun to rain heavily. Marcus
wondered if perhaps the sound of the water striking the
asphalt street had made him misinterpret another sound. He
took a step forward. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

Moments ticked by to the sound of water pouring from the
awning over the front door to the sidewalk.

“You’re the boy who bought my chair,” a deep, gravely male
voice said slithering through the darkness.

“Excuse me?” Marcus was caught off guard. “Your chair?” His
curiosity overcame his fear and he walked towards pool table.

At first he saw nothing as he scanned the pitch-black
shadows surrounding the table. He reached up and scratched
the side of his head, confused and suddenly wanting his
alarm clock to rescue him with another bad song. He sighed
and turned to go, but the sound of a match striking across
the side of a matchbox snared his attention. He spun back
around.

In the far corner, off to his left, a strange misshapen
thing sat huddled in what appeared to be his treasured
armchair. Marcus could not suppress the grimace of shock and
disgust which instantly twisted his features. Perhaps once
this thing had been a man, but now its limbs had taken on
the gnarled texture and grayish pigment of a dying tree.
What served as skin was mottled gray and black, slick as if
from rain or sweat and cracking open in places in long
jagged lines of red, like lava breaking through a landscape
of soot and obsidian glass. The thing hunched forward, its
stomach so sunken that Marcus could see its backbone through
its belly, the deformed lines of its ribs straining
obscenely against the layer of broken skin containing them.
It raised its head, which looked like a gourd that had begun
to collapse in places from mold and rot, and watched Marcus
with eyes of scarlet made milky by thick cataracts. Its
right hand extended to the light of a red candle suspended
in midair beside the chair and then returned to its lap, the
match mysteriously having vanished.

Marcus’s mind was blank with panic. He stared mutely, both
horrified and fascinated by the creature. The thing tilted
its head inquisitively, blinking several times as if to try
to clear the fog from its sight, though somehow Marcus knew
it could see far better than even he.

Finally, Marcus found his voice. “Wha...who are you?”

The creature tried to smile, but the act was grotesque as
what was left of its lips curled back over the rotten stumps
of its front teeth. In place of incisors jutted large white
fangs, the only two teeth not touched by rot.

“I am known by your people as Desiderium.” It sat
back a little in the chair, its skin creaking with the
movement as new fissures split, red and hateful.

Marcus shook his head slowly and said, “I’m sorry. I’ve
never heard of you.”

“Hmmm…” Desiderium murmured. “Humanity is so very peculiar
to me. You take the time to label what you cannot truly
comprehend and then, a mere few centuries later, you have
completely forgotten your own lore. I find it rather
amusing, don’t you?” Its voice was harsh, like the hissing
of two pieces of sandpaper drawn slowly together, forever.

“Are you a demon?” Marcus was unsure why he asked the
question, but in his dream it seemed logical.

Desiderium laughed a little under his breath, then said,
“Another label. Hmmm…yes, I am a demon, though that
word irritates me as most mortal words irritate me. They are
so…limiting. I am the Demon of Hatred, to be exact.”

Marcus frowned as he thought. The creature before him, to
Marcus, appeared more wretched and pitiful than the ferocity
that would come with such a title. Hatred brought to mind
bloodlust and violence, fire and brutality. If the
creature truly is a demon, he could be lying,
Marcus reassured his dream-self.

“I never lie,” Desiderium spat. “I have no need to lie,
especially to something like you.”

Marcus was stunned. He took a step backwards.

The creature leaned forward, folding its long, twisted
fingers over its bent knee. “Where are you going?”

“I…I have to go…to work,” Marcus sputtered. Distantly, down
through the darkness of the bar, he could hear the faint
melody of a song whistling in from the vacant street outside.

The creature smiled, its fangs glistening in the
candlelight. “You hate work, don’t you? You hate your
life.”

Marcus was backing up faster now, past the pool table. He
bumped into a chair, knocking it over and nearly falling
himself. “No…not exactly. It’s fine...”

In his dream he felt the need to pick the chair up. He
stooped over, fumbling to right the overturned piece of
furniture, and in doing so began to turn his back on the
creature in the corner. The world slowed. Marcus watched his
hands reaching for the chair while his mind screamed at him
of the foolishness of his actions. He felt heat on his back,
the roaring of flames in his ears.

“You will…” Desiderium’s sandpaper voice hissed through his
mind, sharp as a razorblade against his consciousness.

Marcus turned and screamed as a ball of flame engulfed him.