“Fucking hell I hate this job.”

Steven Lopez said to himself as he leaned back on his chair, releasing a loud breath out. His work shift wouldn’t end for another two hours, and he had nothing to do. Of course, even if there were something to do, why would he do it? Might as well just tell one of those down a floor to do it for him; and if they say no; just sack them. If they do a bad job; just blame them for incompetence and sack them. Maybe they do do a good job but give some attitude; blame them for making the workplace hostile and sack them, probably sue them too while he was at it. Yes, it was an easy life for Mr Steven Lopez, the most effort he would ever have to do in a workday would be to hand papers to people the floor under him, or to just point to the door for them to leave.

Mr Lopez was an inherently lazy man, so when his father set him up with a management position in the Rock Hard Gladiators organization (or RHG for short) who deal with making super powered people fight each other for sport, he was indifferent to it. Even the sport itself wasn’t worth the effort of even turning on the TV to Mr Lopez; it always seemed one-sided or simply boring with uninspired and uncharismatic people fighting in it. Heck, even the commentators were shitty, never making anything of the matches more interesting and essentially just saying what happens anyway for the audience to see. As if the audience needed assurance what they literally just saw.

Mr Lopez’s face tightened in disgust; there were few things in the world that entertained him. Perhaps the only thing that ever does is firing his underlings. The feeling he got from pointing towards the door and saying those magical words. “You’re fired.” That felt good to Mr Lopez, to see their shocked faces as they left the building and the other workers stared on in fear, unable to even gasp in fear. That feeling of power felt good to Mr Lopez, that feeling of authority he could exert on those people under him, like a king with his peasants, while never needing to give proper reasoning.

Every time the people above him ever asked why so many people were being fired, he would always be able to make a good excuse. “They were incredibly hostile. They refused to do the work. They were unable to meet the quota. They were unproductive and held everyone back.” And the ever so classic one; “They were sleeping on the job.” Classic. The people above never double-checked anything he said anyway, most likely to busy to check the department, so they would just swallow his excuses. Absolute cakewalk.

THUD

A sudden loud noise woke Mr Lopez from his thoughts, snapping him back to reality. He quickly got out of his chair; more like leaping out of it like a rabbit in fear of a wolf. He approached the door ever so slowly, sneaking his way to the wooden exit of his office.

THUD

Mr Lopez’s heart was in his throat as he jumped in fear, the sound was getting louder, and it was getting closer. His hand shaking, he reached for the golden doorknob slowly and cautiously. Whatever the sound was, he had to investigate it.

THUD

Slowly, he wrapped his hand around the cold handle, gripping it tightly with his whole hand. He slowly twisted the handle, and pushed his hand forward. The door creaked as it opened. As if fully opened, the outside revealed itself.

Empty.

He breathed out, finally able to relax. It was nothing; maybe someone was just playing a prank on him. Probably one of them down a floor is thinking they’re real sneaky. Just one more person on the list to fir-

THUD

Mr Lopez’s eyes widened. The sound was right outside. Now his whole body was shaking in fear. His breath became faster and faster, his heart beating as loud as an alarm clock within his body. He gulped loudly, and moved his head forward, slowly leaning over to see what was outside, putting his hands on the wall to stay balanced. He turned his head to the left as he looked outside.

Empty.

Once again Mr Lopez breathed out. It really was just a prank. Someone must be throwing rocks on a wall to scare him, or something like that. There is no danger. But poor Mr Lopez was oh so wrong. No sooner had he proudly and calmly he thought that to himself, that he felt something cold touch his hair.

Before he could even react, he felt his whole body be yanked out of the doorway, floating through the air; light as a feather. Suddenly, he felt something hard hit his back; hard enough for him to even hear something in his body crack loudly. Much like when he got a massage last week. But poor Mr Lopez was oh so wrong. As his eyes caught up with all that happened, he saw something truly horrifying in front of him.

The creature was absolutely horrifying to the refined eyes of Mr Lopez, seeing such a creature was enough to make him gag and widen in his so much you would think his eyes were ready to pop out. It had a human form, but it was no human. It had gray dried skin, the bone underneath clear to see in outline through the skin, grotesquely sticking out. The thing had a humanoid form, yet it was gigantic, it was double the height of Mr Lopez, a true giant. Then there was the face.

It was horrific, nothing that Mr Lopez could accurately ever describe to anyone. It had the form of a human skull, but the skin was as if glued straight onto it, no muscle and no fat to make it have a human appearance, more like a disgusting parody of a human face. The bone was outline clearly on the face, the skin was even stretched to some extent as if it was ready to snap open and make the bone pop out. But there was one final detail that terrified him. Instead of eyes, the creature had small blue flames in its sockets, glowing brightly.

In pure fear and shock, Mr Lopez quickly turned his head and shouted at the top of his voice.

“Security!”

But poor Mr Lopez, even he realized there was no help, for when he looked to his side, he saw red. There was blood on the floor, in a large puddle just lying there on the floor. In the center of this large red puddle lay something. He couldn’t see what it was, but then he saw a bit of blue. It was a security guard. There would be no help for Mr Lopez.

He looked forward again at the creature, too afraid to notice his whole body shaking violently. Tears welling up in his eyes as he felt the pain from his back and top of his head, feeling his hair being stretched out from its usually gel filled appearance. Fear. That’s what Mr Lopez felt. Fear filled his mind as his mind ran as quickly it could to find what to do.

But then the creature spoke. It spoke in a dark and shallow voice, like a person with a damaged voice box.

“It is time for you to pay for your sins.”

Mr Lopez was too scared to feel confused, and acted on impulse when replying.

“I don’t know what you are talking about! Let me down or I will have this whole building’s security down on you!”

Suddenly, the creature lifted something with its other hand. At first he couldn’t see what it was, so he squinted as best as he could while he felt his hair stretch out even more. It was a pass for a receptionist for the RHG organization.

“Look I don’t know who this is or what he did, but I had nothing to do with! Now let me go!”

The creature roared in rage, its voice absolutely harrowing and terrifying, the sound more akin to a banshee’s scream than any living creature, and winded up one of its hands in the form of a fist, as if threatening to use it. Its bright blue flames shining brightly, the flames nearly touching Mr Lopez’s face.

“You are part of this organization! You sent this man to kill one of my friends and you will pay for it!”

“Nobody ordered that guy to fucking kill your friend, get that through your head you idiot!”

But poor Mr Lopez noticed what he said too late, and his mouth hanged open in shock of what he said. He had no opportunity to take it back, as the creature’s fist sped up towards him.






When security finally arrived to the area, they were much too late to save Mr Lopez. When they arrived, all they saw was the body of a security guard, and then they found Mr Lopez. Poor Mr Lopez, he did not know of his own evil, perhaps if he had said differently he might still be alive. But it was not to be for poor Mr Lopez. Blood covered the wall where his slumped body lay. At first they didn’t even know that it was Mr Lopez. Why? Simple, his whole head was nothing but a mashed mess of flesh and bone; his face caved in and was nothing more than a bloody mess. Some of them gagged, a few even had to force down vomit that had slid up into their mouths, but all of them were disgusted and shocked by what they saw. In fact, for the longest few seconds they had no idea that it was Mr Lopez, since when they checked for his ID card, it was gone.

There was however one final detail that the security guards saw that truly sent shivers down their spines. One detail that they didn’t notice until it was terrifyingly clear. On the wall, painted in crimson red blood as if it was paint, was written an absolutely terrifying message that would haunt the minds of the security guards. Blood dripped down from the writing as they read the words of whatever killed Mr Lopez. The writing said:

Death in repayment for sin