The early morning hours were the best for gardening. It was not quite as hot as later in the day, and he rather enjoyed watching the people living in this small village hurry around as they started their days. It was nice and quiet compared to living in a big city, too, and with the rainforest surrounding the clearing the village was built in on all sides he also had the plant life he loved all around him.

Certainly there was no running water to speak of and only enough electricity for the few lamps in the humble houses, but he didn't particularly miss the television or computers. The only downside was that he could not disappear into the anonymous mass like in cities. Everybody knew everybody else at least by name here, and sooner or later someone would become suspicious that his appearance remained like a young man on his mid or late 20s.

But for now this was a perfect place to live.

He tied one of the creeper vines growing on one wall of his house to a frame to support it. Most people considered them a nuisance, but he had chosen to nurture these tenacious plants instead. There was something admirable in the way they stubbornly clung to life and kept coming back no matter the attempts to remove them.

He chuckled. That was probably the reason the local kids had started calling him Vine when he hadn't given a name after moving here. And it had stuck.

Suddenly one of the creeper vines wrapped itself around his wrist. Then another. And then they were all reaching out for him, trying to trap him in their embrace. Squeezing him until it became harder and harder to breathe.

What was this? They were not the type that tried to strangle any small animals coming nearby and even if they were, no plant would harm him. That simply didn't happen.

This couldn't be real.

~*~*~

Vine woke, feeling completely groggy. Slowly he swung his legs over the side of the bed. There was someone at the door to his bedroom, but it was difficult to focus on more than the outline.

The figure came closer. Its movements were strangely swaying and the air around it seemed to blur like in a heat wave. It was thin and pale, almost to the point of its skin being white, with unnaturally long limbs and wrinkled visage. Like some twisted version of a goblin.

A dream-eater. An infernal creature he had only seen on one occasion before and even then only from a distance. Usually they only feasted on the negative energies in human nightmares, but he had heard plenty of warnings as a child that any who disobeyed the god's will would be devoured by those monsters.

As the creature came within striking distance, Vine grabbed the sword hanging on the wall above his bed and slashed at it. Paranoia? Yes, but that had allowed him to stay alive this far.

The razor-sharp blade connected with flesh right below the dream-eater's throat and milky white liquid - not at all like red human blood - gushed out of the wound. But it closed almost instantly and the creature gave him a grin full of sharp teeth.

Vine swore under his breath and slashed again, this time halfway through its throat. The misshapen head rolled back for a split second before snapping back in place.

Damn it! What did it take to kill that thing?!

The creature made a sound that might have been wicked laughter and reached its hands for his throat.

"Don't you dare touch me!" Vine hissed.

The next moment the white body exploded from within, the milky blood and pieces of pale flesh littering the previously clean floor.

Vine quickly donned a light water-proof coat and his boots and tied his black hair back in a hurried ponytail. He had tried to cut it a few times, but it always grew back to little below his shoulders almost overnight.

The sun had already started its descent, he noticed as he walked out of his house. And there were several more dream-eaters in his garden, busily gnawing on what was probably remains of children. Like sensing his presence, they turned on him almost as one.

"You have no idea who you are up against," Vine snarled, falling back to an older form of speech almost without noticing. Almost. And he had tried so hard to keep up with the times in order to blend in.

No matter. Right now survival came first. A black flame appeared around his right hand. "Begone!"

There was a brief flash of darkness and the creatures exploded just like the earlier one.

Vine remained frozen in the spot for a few minutes, his body trembling and his breath leaving his mouth in shaky puffs. So much for the pretense of humanity. It had been a long, long time since he had used his powers in this way, but in the end he was not that different from those lesser demons. A being long forsaken by god.

At least he had tried to coexist with humans and kept his nose out of the struggle between heaven and hell. Now he no longer could. Not with the denizens of hell at his doorstep.

Black wings like those of a raven spread and the demon took to the sky. Dream-eaters always moved in large groups. The few he had killed were more than likely nothing more than a drop in the ocean. Far above the earth he could get a better look at the jungle and the clearings made by human hands for habitation.

Those bastards...Wrecking the forest and the villages in it like they owned the whole place. Vine gritted his teeth and adjusted his flight path a little.

They had spread rapidly. There was smoke wafting up from the ground, no doubt caused by forest fires, on multiple places, and he could practically smell all the human blood spilled even this high up.

Now what was that? The beasts were crowding the small church built in the area a few years ago. So someone was still alive in there.

He dove lower and crashed straight through one of the large painted glass windows built high on the stone walls.

The occupants proved to be the young woman who always assisted the priest and seemed to practically live in the church, and a small child he didn't remember seeing before. The kid's clothes were torn and sooty, like he had had a close encounter with a fire, and he was staring at Vine with fearful, yet defiant eyes.

The woman tried to move closer to the altar while sheltering the child with her own body. "Go away!" she screamed. "This is holy ground! N-no demon should be able to enter!"

"Oh, please. Humankind's faith has not been strong enough for centuries to uphold any kind of 'sanctuary' against anything more powerful than those vermin." His eyes flicked to the direction of the door as the wood cracked a little. "Apparently not even that."

She brandished the small disc, a symbol of her faith, hanging around her neck at him, and the demon completely ignored it. He was much more interested in the child hiding behind her, little hands fisting the chain of a pitch-black key. "Let me see that."

The child inched further back.

Vine made a grab for the key. And instantly pulled his hand back when the item burned on touch worse than all the fires of hell.

Just then the door broke into splinters and multiple monstrous creatures rushed in. The first wave was torn to pieces just as they cleared the threshold, but there was no way he could kill them all. There were simply too many.