In my dreams, the evil infects me and I can think of nothing else but to infect another.
The first is hard.
I am still weak and we grapple in a dark alley
Before I finally gain a stranglehold and reach into him through his mouth.
The result is loathsome.
He becomes my partner and turns our third
Then fourth victim.
We run as a large gang now, and defeat the police with a grim flourish.
By the time the army is attacking us, we’re an army ourselves.
Nations fall in quick succession.
Oddly, I feel my reservoir of darkness depleting now.
While the world grows darker around me, hardly a soul left waiting to be lost,
My ruinous strength is about to fail.
Finally, a day comes when I can no longer be evil and I turn light:
My first-to-be-saved a young boy I had turned while he was tagging a bridge nearby.
The boys eyes open wide,
And I gesture to him “Hush!”
I dismantle my top lieutenants with his help
And within days the army of darkness is on the run.
We spend weeks hunting down the last of my erstwhile acolytes.
The news has no idea what to report.
The prince of darkness has saved a world that was at the brink.
The planet enters a period of peace and prosperity.
The boy becomes king,
And as I watch on from the crowd they cry: “he saved us!”

 

I slink away into the shadows.
I capture the remnants of hate and anger, the little I have left,
And box them up with a warning sign.
Then I bury it deep in the earth near my home.

 

“It’s done.” I say.

 

“It’s done for now.” a voice says.