It was dark and grey, like someone had leeched all the color out of the world. I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten here, where I was. I looked down, wiggling my toes in my sandals, to dispel the uncomfortable feeling of being lost, but even the neat cobblestones beneath my feet reminded me that I was somewhere foreign. I looked up again, watching the cobblestones wind a path far in front of me, featureless and disappearing into the haze of white fog all around me. Cobblestones in front of me. Cobblestones behind me. And on either side of this path nothing but dense trees. The trees looked somehow ominous, with pale bark and dark grey leaves, as if they’d never known the sun.
“What’s wrong?” A male voice asked. I started and looked around me for the source of the voice.
The man was leaning against one of the trees, and I realized I’d missed him the first time around because he somehow seemed to blend into the shadow of the tree, even though the fog was too thick for there to be much of a shadow. He had black hair and pale skin and eyes so pale grey they almost felt white. He was handsome, and looking at me with some concern, but I was certain I’d never seen him before.
I think I started to say something, but then I caught sight of what he was holding in his hands. There he was, casually leaning against one of the sinister trees, peeling a persimmon. “What are you doing?!” I cried, jerking backwards a little. “That’s a persimmon!”
He blinked and looked down at his hands, as if he hadn’t realized what he was doing. The knife in his hands was just as dull as our surroundings, but was clearly wickedly sharp, and he wielded it familiarly. The dark orange fruit, though, was the really shocking thing, the only spot of color I could see in this world. Then he smiled at me, and the expression seemed… almost mischievous. “Don’t worry.” He said. “It’s an ordinary persimmon, not one of the magic ones. It’s perfectly harmless.” I’m not sure if he thought that would reassure me, or actually meant to upset me, because he added afterwards, “Do you want some?”
I shook my head violently, and took a step back, but that just seemed to make him laugh. “You humans.” He said, chuckling a little to himself. “Demons are really just like persimmons, you know. Without their magic they are perfectly ordinary, if still occasionally useful. But even without the attributes that make us dangerous, you humans seem to tremble at the very idea of touching that ‘forbidden fruit.’ You make up power simply by perceiving it.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but he was looking at me with a sort of conspiratorial smile, as if he expected a certain kind of response. It was hard continuing to look at him. I could hardly believe my eyes as he continued peeling the persimmon, carelessly dropping bits of vibrant orange peel on the path, as if the skin of the sacred fruit was only so much dirt. After a bit of silence, I managed to open my mouth and half-mumble, “Well, even if we are just “making up the power,” eating a persimmon is against the law. I could get executed for it.”
I was watching for his response, and that was how I saw it: the shock that flashed momentarily across his face was almost tangible, frightening me quite thoroughly. And then he laughed, but I couldn’t tell what he meant by it. It did genuinely seem amused, but something about it made me sad, for reasons I couldn’t quite explain to myself.
He shook his head, and then met my eyes with an expression that almost felt… tender. “Oh, my love. Don’t you remember? You’re already dead.”
I stared at him, but he wasn’t done.
“I killed you.”
There was a long silence between us for a moment, as I tried to take in that piece of information. I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of his statement, or even call him a madman, but I couldn’t bring myself to really deny it. The moment he said it, some part of me had felt that it was true. It sank in. He seemed to be waiting for a reaction, his hands perfectly still, pale eyes watching me carefully, but I could not think of anything to say, any reaction to make, and after enough time had passed, he sighed and took a couple steps towards me.
By reason, I felt I should be afraid of him, but I was not. He simply placed the half-peeled fruit in my hands. “You don’t have to stay, if you don’t want to. It’s a choice. You made it once, but you can make a different choice this time. You don’t have to eat the fruit if you don’t want to stay, but once you do, you’ll have to come back.”
“I thought you said the fruit was harmless.” I said, glancing at him numbly.
“It is.” He responded, and again there was that feeling in my chest, a strange sort of sadness that he himself wasn’t displaying. “It’s more of a symbol, if you will. That you accept being a part of demon culture, and there is no going back from that.”
I stared at the fruit in my hands, then looked up again to find him, but the man was gone. When I looked around again, I found that the path behind me had suddenly been blanketed in gorgeous yellow leaves, shaped like little fans. I looked down at the persimmon again, and somehow knew, just knew, that if I put it to my lips that gorgeous path behind me would disappear. But if I let it go, the path before me, and the man waiting at the end of it, would be lost to me forever.