Flauros was not his name.  It was his persona's name, yes, but it wasn't his.  It never was.  Not that it mattered anymore, anyways.  Not when his time was up.  He'd known since the start of this killing game that he'd wind up dead.  After all, he could tell that most of the class disliked him, and that they found him all talk and no bite.  Which he was- he couldn't deny that.  He knew his whole demon persona was BS.  Even if sometimes he really was convinced he was a monster...

No.  No, no, no.  This was not about him.  It was never about him.  Not at home, not at his old school, and not here.  There was no room for a freak of nature like him.  The only attention he deserved was negative attention.  He'd learned that easily enough.

Which was why if he was viewed as some unholy creature, he must be a demon.  Some sort of monstrous being from Hell.  That was when Flauros had been born.  Because if he was going to be treated like that, then he was going to give everyone a good reason to.  For he was the demon overlord Flauros, a duke of Hell, sentenced to an eternity stuck in this god damn useless mortal body.

He yelled at his vessel a lot.  Why won't you move, you useless thing?  Get up.  Where's your strength?

His vessel, in return, cried almost every time he found himself alone.  It was pathetic.  It was weak.  He was stuck with an embarrassment of a mortal body.

...no, he was the vessel, and he was pathetic, and he was a weak embarrassment.  Deep in the back of his mind, he knew that.  He knew that the facade he wore wasn't just for those around him, but for himself too.  

I need you to know that I killed someone.  But I can't keep it a secret nor can I live with the burden.  Please, meet me at the rollercoaster on the fourth island.  I'll show you where I've hidden the body.

I'm sorry.

He clicked the pen shut, staring at the note.  After a second of staring, he added a hastily-drawn sketch of a bird.  A finch.  A bird that was a symbol of freedom.

Some freedom this was.

When he'd heard the announcement yesterday, he'd known what had to happen.  He didn't want to hurt anyone, but sacrificing his own life wouldn't do anything.  So he had to make a choice.  He had to take someone out quickly and painlessly, and whatever his execution was, he'd take it.  He didn't want anyone else to suffer one of those horrible bouts of torture.  It had to be him.  

He knew he wasn't physically or mentally capable of taking out someone with one stab with a knife.  He didn't have the strength to drown someone, either.  He was well aware of the fourth island's rollercoaster, though.  He knew the ride went around the tracks twice, meaning it went through the boarding dock at full speed at one point.  

He took the note to Sophie's cottage, slid it under, and knocked on the door.  He'd seen her go in, so he knew she was home.  After he knocked, though, he ran as fast as he could towards the central island, all the way the fourth island.  The run took him probably ten minutes or so, but he knew it would help provide him with the time that he needed to set up.  He hurried into the haunted house, grabbed the tarp from the hospital-themed room, and rushed back out, making his way over to the rollercoaster and hiding it behind the control booth.  From there, he just waited.  As soon as he saw Sophie appear on the bridge to the fourth island, he took a deep breath and hit the 'start' button, the rollercoaster cart lurching to life and beginning to roll down the tracks.  

Thankfully, Sophie approached quickly once she saw him standing on the boarding dock of the rollercoaster.  

"Flauros?" she whispered, stopping at his side. "...where's the body?"

He pointed up to where the cart was at the top of a drop. "In the first cart.  ...it's Caim."

He knew that Sophie and Caim were close, and chances were that claiming it to be the steampunk engineer would cause Sophie to act more on her emotions.

"...he agreed to it, for the sake of everyone," he added. 

Sophie's hand flew up to her mouth, her brown gaze unable to break from the rollercoaster cart as it came back around the loop towards the boarding dock.  She took a subconscious step closer, trying to see what the body of her friend looked like.  There was no body, but she didn't know that yet.

"Sophie..." He paused, then sighed. "...I'm sorry.  I lied.  A lot."

And then he pushed her as the cart chugged along right through the dock.  There was a sickening crack, and a splat, and all the noises that shouldn't come from a human body.  He felt warm, sticky blood splatter against his face and clothes, but it took him a moment to process what he'd done.  He wanted to break down and cry right there, yet he couldn't.  Not yet.  He quickly wrapped the tarp around Sophie's body while the cart was away from the dock, removing it from the tracks.  Then, he did his best to wipe everything down.  It wasn't perfect, but enough that nobody would really notice unless they knew.  It took him a little bit to drag the tarp into and through the haunted house, finally discarding it in the back corner of the hospital-themed room and getting out of there as quickly as he could.

Somehow, fate decided that he wouldn't get caught on the way to his cottage.  As he shut his door behind him, he stood there for a minute.  His legs felt shaky, threatening to give out beneath him.  He forced himself to go to the bathroom, and his eyes wandered to the mirror.  He was soaked in blood.  It made him look even more like a monster.  He pulled the fake demon horns out of his hair, tossed the barrettes into the sink, yanked off the necklaces... Layer after layer was removed, just leaving him in his base clothes as he wiped the blood and makeup from his face.  

And that was it.  Staring back at him from the mirror was a frightened teenage boy who had just done something irreversible.  His legs suddenly buckled, and he collapsed on the floor, hugging his knees to his chest as he sobbed.  He didn't want to be like this.  He didn't want to keep forcing himself to be strong when he wasn't.  What had he done to end up like this?  Why had he been treated like less than filth his entire life? 

Maybe that's why he hadn't reacted like everyone else had when Iris had dropped his facade.  He knew how to spot someone who had been shaped by forces they couldn't control.  He'd wanted to go visit him in his cottage, but knew he couldn't so long as he had to maintain his demon persona.  The persona he hated with every fiber of his being, but the persona he knew everyone else saw regardless of whether or not he was wearing it.  God, what was wrong with him?

He tugged at the dark strands of his hair, frustration boiling up inside him as the tears rolled down his cheeks.  Just a few more hours.  Then he'd be okay.  He wiped at his face with a sleeve before slowly and shakily getting to his feet, looking at his reflection one more time before getting ready to shower.  Yeah, that was all he needed right now.  A shower.

He always took burning hot showers, because it let him feel something.  It made him feel like he was on fire, but it was better than nothing.  It was a way to reassure himself that he was human.  Humans felt things.  Demons did not.    

After he showered, he quickly pulled on a fresh pair of the same clothes he'd been wearing and hurried through his routine.  Base layers on, accessories on, makeup on.  He was all good to go in no time, but his hair was still a bit damp.  He didn't care though, that was just one more way he'd be able to lead his classmates to the right decision.  He slid back out of his cottage and made his way towards the central island.  He'd go to the library and read, maybe.  

That plan quickly went out the window as soon as he heard the body discovery announcement disturb the peaceful noises of the birds and bugs.  He was practically in a daze after that.  He saw the body again but didn't really see it.  He could feel Sophie's ghost watching him- hell, he could feel all the ghosts watching him.  They all knew what he'd done and hated him for it.  He hated himself for it, too.  He was already bracing himself for how they'd react once he was in the afterlife with them.  

The trial was going exactly as he'd planned for it to.  He knew Azrael would be able to bounce back from Will's accusations, so there was no need for him to step in there.  And after helping Azrael come to the conclusion that the rollercoaster cart was the murder weapon, they were right on track.  Evangeline had been cleared by now as well, crossing two potential suspects off the list.  Somehow, Zeben's account of seeing someone who looked like Azrael hurrying back to the cottages never came up again.  It was fine, though; there would be other opportunities to expose him.

"Flauros, is your hair wet?" Azrael suddenly asked him.

He wanted to say right then and there that yes, his hair was wet, and yes, he was guilty, but a part of him knew that he would inevitably get caught anyways, so he might as well hold out just a little more. "If I have not showered and I smell bad, I will choose to shower.  That is all."

But then, something a bit unexpected happened.  The conversation turned to Caim.  Someone who Sophie trusted.  Someone who could have messed with the programming of the rollercoaster to make it easier to throw off Sophie and push her with less resistance.  Someone with drawing skills as a result of being used to sketching blueprints.

No, this was not supposed to happen.  And everyone was confident, too.  Confident that Caim killed Sophie.  No, no, no, this was wrong.

"It's a finch," he blurted.  There it was.  Three simple words.

"...how do you know it's a finch?" Will asked, confusion evident on his face.

Finally.  It was time.

"Because I wrote the letter," he admitted.

He went on to give them all one final show.  He explained his plan, he explained everything that happened, and made sure that everything matched up with the case.  There was no way they could deny that he was the blackened now.  

And then came a surprising question.

"Hey Flauros... how... old are you?" Azrael asked him.

He lied.  Said he was eons old.

Lied again, said he was nineteen.

He was fifteen.  He finally admitted it on the third try.  He was fifteen in a class of seventeen and eighteen year-olds.  He hadn't wanted them to know because they would've taken him even less seriously.  But since he was going to die, he supposed he could tell them the truth.

It was time now.  He closed his eyes.  He waited for that metal band to clamp around his neck like it had for Rori, Ryn, and Stolas before him, and drag him off to his execution room.  He hoped Sophie understood how sorry he was, he hoped he understood that because of both of their sacrifices, the rest of the class wouldn't starve.  

A part of him was scared.  A part of him was really scared, actually.  He didn't know what his execution would be like.  But at the same time, he was ready for this.  He was ready to accept his fate and die.

So as he felt the cold metal close around his neck, Finch smiled.

***

(2019 words)

no words can describe how much writing this broke me