A Sold Soul

He thumbed through the cookbook absentmindedly, not really seeing anything on any of the pages.  His hands seemed determined to find a recipe that would spark the rest of his being into actually cooking something, but they weren't having any luck.  His mind simply wasn't there.  Actually, if he was being honest with himself, his mind hadn't been spending much time around his body at all that day.

He suddenly slammed the book shut and went back to his computer.  He could always order pizza.

Three unicorns, two llamas, and a course in oceanography (or was it oceanology?) later, he managed to force himself off of YouTube.  A quick glance at Facebook told him nothing new was happening anywhere at all in the world, so he tried to pull himself back to the real world.

No such luck.

After selling his soul for a username, he scrolled through the newest blue-birded abyss of his online life.  He then quickly shut his laptop before something else could suck him in.

And he closed his eyes.

He peaked through his eyelids at the chaos surrounding him.  How could he have done this?

They deserved it!

He tried to convince himself it was true, but it wasn't doing any good.  No one deserved this.  He glanced quickly at the corpse lying closest to his feet, not daring to look for more than a second.  She certainly didn't deserve this.  She had only been trying to help.

You couldn't stop yourself!

It may have been true, but it didn't change the fact that he could have simply never come here in the first place.  He could have stopped his niece from having anything to do with the Archers.  He could have turned his abilities in on himself a long time ago, and none of this would have happened.  So many things could have gone differently to stop him from ever getting to the point where stopping himself was a necessity.

You couldn't have known!

"SHUT UP!"  He screamed as loud as he could at the voices in his head.  They weren't helpful, and no one was around to offer him even the slightest odd look for chastising them.

No one is anywhere to offer you any kind of look!

Apparently yelling at them wasn't going to do any good.

Moreover, he knew it was true.

Far off on the horizon, a single standing structure caught his attention.  A dark pillar rising above a vast, blank . . . nothingness.  Within seconds, a wave of energy had carried him to its large metallic door.  He brushed off a thick layer of ash to reveal an all-too-familiar acronym:  L.A.N.C.E.

They were prepared for you!  They're still alive!

But do you really want them to be alive?

It's better than no one!

Is it?

"I told you to shut up!!!"

He easily threw open the heavy door, trying to remain void of hope . . . in either direction.

And he opened his eyes.

Who was he kidding?  It wasn't selling his soul!  It was simply adding another form of entertainment to his repertoire.  With the amount of free time he had, he could use all the help he could get to keep himself from getting bored.

Boy did he need a hobby.

Or maybe another job.

In the meantime, he took the advice of one of his fellow interwebbers and followed a link to what promised to be the best video he would ever see.

Ok.  So maybe it was selling his soul.