Meeting with the devil

The world first froze, simply going from one instance of constant motion, to the next of utter silence and stillness. There was no moment of slowing down. No warning or hint of its on coming occurrence. At one moment the world was moving, and the next it was not.

Rebecca took two steps before she was able to come to a stop, nearly running into the stranger who had been walking in front of her. She should have been terrified and confused. By every right she should have been. But she was not. Deep inside of her, she had a feeling that this moment was coming, that she would be called into service. She hadn't known what that meant. She didn't know where it had come from. But now, as reality simply ceased to function before her, she felt sure that this was the premonition that she had been feeling.

Slowly, the world around her faded away, turning to blackness as though it were coming apart bit by bit around her. The sky was the first to disappear, peeling back to become darkness that came down around her, devouring the landscape and the buildings and the people until there was nothing left but her and a small segment of land beneath her feet, no bigger than a single step in any direction.

It was dark and quiet for a long moment before a figure emerged from the darkness. A massive figure, with muscular red skin, sharp bones like fangs stabbing out in a variety of places. Its face was all that she could see in any reasonable amount. Bigger than anything that she could imagine. Its mouth was a mass of jagged and sharpened teeth, stained red and yellow, and its eyes were an intense and bright red, staring down at her as if they were trying to tear her asunder. When she could pull her eyes away from the face in front of her, she saw that the segment of land she was trapped on was locked in place by a series of elaborate chains, presumably held by the creature's far off hands in the darkness.

"You are not scared," the beast boomed out, its voice ringing through her entire body. Every thing about the beast seemed designed to damage her.

"I am not," she replied, surprised at the own calmness in her voice.

"And yet, you do not know me. You do not know my purpose, nor yours. You do not know where you are, or why, or what you are."

"That is correct."

"You should be afraid."

"And yet I am not."

There was a silence as they stood at a stand off, neither willing to bend to the others will. Rebecca could tell that this beast wanted her to fail, to admit her faults and let herself be destroyed. But she would not do so. Something inside her was burning, keeping her from doing so. And she wanted to know what was going on.

"It should appear we are at a standstill," the beast finally boomed.

"I suppose so."

"Then there is only one thing left to be done."

Finally she caved. "And what is that?" she asked.

The beast retreated, disappearing once more into the darkness. She expected her world to return around her. That this meeting would be over, and that she could return to her life.

But it did not.