The room was black from the starless, unyielding sky. Shards of amber light leaked through the crack of the yawning door. The golden rays streamed across the room to a bed with a black haired boy, who lied in bed with his eyes half open in false slumber, his focus completely on the open closet door. A deep, powerful voice rumbled from the wardrobe.

" '. . . We'll give his mangled limbs due burial;
And all students, clothed in mourning black,
Shall wait upon his heavy funeral.'

The scholars exit and the Chorus enters-
'Cut is the branch that might have frown full straight
And burnéd is Apollo's laurel bough
That sometime grew within this learnéd man.
Faustus is gone: regard his hellish fall,
Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise
Only to wonder at unlawful things,
Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits
To Practice more than heavenly power permits.’

And the Chorus exits. Terminat hora diem; terminat Author opus. Finis.’ “

The owner of the deep voice closed his book reverently and set it down by his large, hairy, indigo feet. If you could even call them feet. They were closer to resemble the mix between an elephant’s stamp and a jaguar’ paw, no matter how he kept his claws  trimmed back. The large beast, Bartholomew, sat, hunched over in the tiny closet on a great pyramid of books. The stacks of large texts, massive tomes, and small pamphlets quaked and tilted under the brute’s weight.

“So what, that’s the end?” The boy chimed, sitting up in bed, his short raven locks swishing about joyfully as he bounded from his sleep act.

“Yes. It’s the end.” The beast replied softly, pulling the square shaped spectacles away from his triangular eyes  and setting them down on top of the copy of The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved of Death Doctor John Faustus, “Which means it is time for you to go to bed, Damien.”

“But what was with the ending? Why didn’t Faustus just repent or whatever? Couldn’t he have gotten his second chance?”

“Yes. He could have. But he willingly signed his soul over to demons. They had enough power over his mind to keep him from returning to God’s love. That is the abilities of demons, to set you against yourself. Which is why it is not wise to go into contract with one.”

“I think it’d be worth it. I mean, he got twenty-four years of fun, and all he had to do was repent in the end and it all would have worked out.”

“Twenty-four years or twenty-four-hundred years. It makes no difference. The second you are lost, it all is worthless.”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure I could have lots and lots of fun with a twenty-four-hundred years.”

“How about when you match those years in service to a devil?”

“But I’m too smart to get caught up in a contract like Faustus.”

The great beast sitting in the boy‘s closet shifted his weight on a large, neatly stacked mountain of books and pulled a small brown leather tome from the bottom of the stack, kicking the copy of Doctor Faustus into its place in the pyramid. He stared at the small book, which seemed tiny when held by his blue claws. “Yes. Doctor Faustus thought he was too. But that is enough. It is time for you to sleep. Hrm… The Homeric Hymns. I’ve not seen you in a while, old friend. I wonder where you’ve been hiding?”

“Aw man…”

“None of that young man. Especially not after last night, spending five hours arguing with you that the Tragedy of Julius Caesar was in fact a tragedy!”

“I still think it was a comedy. Come on, the way that Marc Antony turns the entire nation against the conspirators?”

“Well I’m sorry, but history records it as otherwise. And I’m not going to get caught up in another philosophical debate. Go. To. Bed.”

Damion heaved a great, pouting breath as he plopped back into his pillow and turned on his side to sleep. The great beast smiled benignly for a moment before drawing the door to a close with his massive claw. The Amber slivers died away from the room as its owner sighed, drifting into sleep.

“Now that his night-time story is done, it is for time for my own.” Bartholomew whispered to himself, gently retrieving his glasses and returning them to their proper place. The blue creature reverently opened his book and began to read under the stale hum of the golden bulb.

'Oh In-sewn God—born from Zeus' thigh—
Some  folk say in Drakanon.
Some in windy Ikaros. . .'