A month had passed since the Madam bought him from the slave market. He still didn't know her name; she was, and remained, simply "Madam." Kilis didn't care. He now had food, clean clothes, and his own bed. He could finally live happily, free from the constant, gnawing suffering of hunger.
But his new life had changed. Even though he ate enough, he still felt hunger and for the past day, a voice had been speaking to him.
"Little boy, why are you always so silent?" the voice echoed inside his head as he tried to sleep. "I don't even know what you sound like."
'This stupid voice,' Kilis thought, pulling the expensive blankets tighter.
"Hey! I know what you're thinking!" the voice chirped. "Aren't you the least bit curious who I am?"
'I don't care. Leave me alone.'
"Can you even talk, or can you only think? No matter!" The voice suddenly boomed with theatrical pride. "I am a great demon from another realm! They call me the most terrifying, the most evil, one of the strongest! They call me... Beelzebub, the Great Demon Pillar!"
'...'
"I know, I know," the voice continued, mistaking his silence for awe. "You don't know about demons. In your pathetic mortal realm, we don't 'exist.' We come from the Hell Realm, the Third Realm!"
A shadowy figure, vaguely man-shaped, peeled itself from the darkness in the corner of the room. It had no features, save for a wide, toothy smile. "How does it feel, knowing you mortals aren't alone?"
Kilis didn't flinch. He was just trying to sleep and was intensely annoyed that he couldn't.
"Man, you are so boring," the shadow huffed, its smile fading.
'Why are you here?' Kilis finally asked, his internal voice flat.
"Good question!" Beelzebub said. "And to be perfectly, 100% truthful... I have no fucking idea."
'Can you disappear again?'
"No can do!" The shadowy figure replied cheerfully, zipping around the bedroom in lazy circles.
"I'll make you an offer," the shadow purred, its smiley face widening. "Give me your body, and I can grant you any wish you desire."
'No.'
"Wh—WHAT?!" Beelzebub recoiled, his shadowy form flickering. "Do you realize what an honor it is for the great me to make such an offer to a mere mortal? And you just..." The shadow buzzed in agitation. "What an odd little creature."
"How long do you mortals even live? Eighty years? Ninety? I've only read some garbled fairy tales about you."
'Dunno.'
"Don't tell me I'm stuck like this for decades!" The shadow dramatically collapsed onto the floor, spreading out like a dark puddle. "This is a catastrophe! At least talk to me, you boring child!"
Kilis just rolled over, and, with the sheer exhaustion of a child who finally felt safe in a real bed, he fell asleep.
"This... stupid... kid!" Beelzebub seethed. "Fine! If he won't talk to me when he's awake, I'll just have to teach him a lesson!"
The shadow shot across the room and leaped onto the sleeping boy, disappearing into his head.
***
Kilis suddenly found himself standing in a dark, empty void. "What? What is this dream?" he said aloud, his voice sounding strange to his own ears.
"Aha! So you can talk, little one!" Beelzebub's shadowy form materialized in front of him, now five feet tall.
"What are you doing in my dreams?!" Kilis yelled.
"I TOLD YOU!" the demon boomed. "I am the Great Beelzebub! And so you understand my greatness, I will deign to tell you the secrets of the world. Don't cry from gratitude, my benevolence is just my nature. It's all right."
Kilis just looked annoyed, which only irritated the demon more.
With a snap of shadowy fingers, Kilis found himself forced into a chair. "Sit!" Beelzebub commanded. "And listen!"
"There are five realms in total. The Mortal Realm, where you live, is just a nursery. Most humans here don't cultivate, don't know about cultivation, and certainly don't know about the other realms."
The demon raised a finger, anticipating the question. "And before you ask 'What is cultivation?!'—it means opening your spiritual pathways and embracing the power of the realms."
"What does that have to do with me?" Kilis asked.
"Ah, little boy, that's the interesting part. You may not know it, but your pathways are already open. Artificially, it seems."
"What?"
"Someone forced your pathways open, but you haven't established a proper 'Stage.' It's... sloppy. Almost like our demon cultivation."
Beelzebub began to pace. "Where to begin... For mortals, there are Nine Stages of cultivation, from the pathetic Bronze Stage all the way to the Immortal Supreme Stage. But for us demons, we use Trait Cultivation. We are bound to a single, core trait, and by cultivating that trait, we progress. We aren't limited by tidy little 'stages'."
"But I'm not a demon," Kilis said.
"No, but you have demon energy in you," Beelzebub said, jabbing a shadowy finger at him.
"Demon energy?"
"Yes! Someone injected you with raw, chaotic energy and forced your pathways open with it. But that energy is useless—it would just drive you mad—unless it's anchored by a Trait."
Kilis's mind flashed back to the dark basement, the syringe with the black fluid, the blinding rage, the blood, and the feeling of power as the other children turned to dust.
"Ahhh," Beelzebub purred, his smile widening as he read the memory. "So that's the trait!"
"What? Get out of my head!"
"I can look into your mind, stupid. I know what you're thinking. It seems you were injected with chaotic essence and then forced to devour the energy of those other children to stabilize it."
The demon's shadow loomed over him. "Your Trait... oh, this is a good one... your Trait is Gluttony!"
"What?"
"It means, little one, that by killing and consuming, you get stronger! What an interesting, interesting trait!"
The demon leaned in close. "Tell me... didn't you notice? That even when you eat all that fancy food, you never feel full?"
"How did you know that?" Kilis whispered.
"Because it's a side effect of the Trait!" Beelzebub cackled, enjoying the boy's confusion. "When normal demons don't feed their Trait, it begins to feed on them. They're consumed by it, and they go mad!"
The demon's shadow loomed over the boy's chair. "You're a ticking time bomb, Kilis. Soon, if you don't follow your Trait... if you don't consume... you're going to go completely insane!"
Kilis was stunned. He didn't want to believe it, but faced with the evidence of his own unnatural, gnawing hunger, he had no choice.
"Okay! Now for something that will really blow your tiny mortal mind," Beelzebub announced, clapping his shadowy hands together. "I'll tell you about the other realms!
"This pathetic little mudball is the Mortal Realm. Above this one is the Immortal Realm. Then there is the glorious Hell Realm—that's my home, thank you very much. Above that is the boring Heavenly Realm, and at the very top, there is the ■■■■"
Beelzebub froze. He had been about to say the name of the fifth realm, but only a static-filled garble came out. At the same instant, spiderweb cracks began to form in the dark void of the dreamscape.
"Oh, fuck," the demon whispered, his jovial form flickering violently. "I forgot."
Beelzebub's shadowy form began to collapse in on itself, as if being sucked into a vacuum. "Right! We should definitely stop for today! Class dismissed!"
And with that, he vanished.
Kilis was jolted awake, his heart hammering in his chest. He was stunned. He hadn't wanted to know any of this, but the revelations slammed into him. He couldn't remember what Beelzebub had tried to say at the end—the name was just a painful, censored buzz in his memory—but the rest was more than enough.
He sat up in his bed, looking down at his own hands in the moonlight.
"Am I even human anymore?" he whispered to the empty room.