The forest lingered in silence, the wrecked car groaning as metal settled into stillness. The demon stood just beyond the smoke, crimson eyes fixed on the mortal he had saved. Shadows curled faintly around his hands, reluctant to vanish, as if some part of him was unwilling to let go.
The human stirred again, a soft groan leaving his lips. His lashes fluttered, and slowly he lifted his head from the steering wheel. Glass crunched under his movement. His hazel eyes blinked open, dazed and heavy, searching through the smoke and night.
Then he saw him.
The figure at the edge of the road looked unreal—tall, poised, otherworldly. The moonlight painted his sharp features in silver, and his eyes glowed faintly like burning coals. The young man's breath hitched. His mouth opened, but only one word stumbled out, cracked and raw:
"Demon…"
The dark being tilted his head, watching. He expected fear. He expected screaming, denial, prayers. But what he saw instead was confusion—and perhaps a strange, reckless acceptance. The boy was too exhausted, too broken, to resist the impossible truth.
"You should be dead," the demon finally said, his voice deep, smooth, and threaded with a sharpness that echoed in the air. "And yet you cling to life."
The young man gave a shaky laugh, bitter and small. "Figures. Can't even get dying right." His hands dropped weakly from the wheel, and his head fell back against the seat. "So what now? Do you… eat me? Drag me to hell?"
The demon stepped closer. His boots crunched over shattered glass. "If that is what you expect, why do you not beg for mercy?"
"Because I don't care anymore." The boy's hazel eyes locked onto his with a hollow steadiness. "You'd be doing me a favor."
The words struck deeper than they should have. The demon's lips pressed into a line, unreadable. He had seen countless mortals weep and plead at the edge of death, but never one who met it with such weary resignation. Something about it unsettled him.
He leaned closer, his presence washing over the boy like a suffocating tide. "What is your name, mortal?"
The young man hesitated, as if even that answer felt like a burden. "…Eren."
The demon tasted the word silently. Eren.
"Eren," he repeated, his voice turning the name into something heavier, as though binding it in the air. "You live only because I chose it."
Eren's lips curved faintly, but it wasn't a smile. More a bitter acknowledgement. "Lucky me." His gaze flicked briefly to the demon's glowing eyes, then back to the ruined dashboard. "Why? Why bother saving someone like me?"
The question cut deeper than Eren realized. The demon straightened, his crimson eyes narrowing, though his silence betrayed the truth—he didn't know why. He should have left. He should have walked away. But something about the mortal's brokenness held him fast.
"I should not have," he said at last, his tone sharper than intended. "Consider it… a mistake."
Eren let out a tired breath, the sound halfway between a sigh and a laugh. "Guess even demons make bad choices."
The demon's jaw tightened. He turned his gaze back to the forest, where the smoke was slowly thinning, revealing the fractured quiet of night. Something stirred in his chest again, that foreign ache, dangerous and unwelcome. He clenched his fists against it.
Without another word, he melted into the shadows, his figure dissolving into the darkness between the trees. Yet even as he vanished, the echo of hazel eyes and a broken voice lingered with him, refusing to be forgotten.
Back in the wrecked car, Eren closed his eyes. He was alive—but he did not feel saved. The last image burned into his mind was the crimson glow of eyes that should not exist, watching him like a curse and a promise all at once.
And for the first time in years, he wondered if his life had just been claimed by something far worse than death.