The lull of the midsummer night makes everyone lazy. When the power went out in his houseboat, the first thing Niko did was eat all the ice cream that was left in the freezer. 

Niko was a tall man with olive skin and loose, brunet, curly hair. His eyes were a deep brown, and he was rather thin and lanky. Attractive and ethnically ambiguous by society’s standards, sitting in the dark, eating black cherry ice cream from the carton. 

He heard a “clack, clack, clack” and scratching about. Then he remembered that his Russian blue cat, Tsarina, was last seen sleeping in the kitchen cabinets. He grabbed the flashlight, and went into the kitchen.

Tsarina was still snoozing, and Niko didn’t want to disturb her.

He heard some more clacking sounds, distinctly from the living room. Tsarina awoke and saw her companion in distress, so she walked in front of him. Niko followed her.

The sight of what was inside make his heart beat quicken. 

They found a demon lounging on the couch. He was the color of shadow, the horns of a bull, red eyes with slit pupils, deer legs, an arrowhead tail, and bat wings. Two pairs on his back, one under each of his horns, and one on each of his wrists and ankles. 

Most disturbing was his 2nd “face” located on his stomach, with its beady red eyes and teeth like an anglerfish.

Tsarina left before the demon could take notice of her, but Niko wasn’t so lucky.

As he tried to back away, the demon made eye contact with him, red eyes glowing in the dark. He gave him a wide smile, showing his sharp, white teeth. 

“Well, hello there, handsome.” 

Niko froze up. The demon’s voice was deep and pleasant, worthy of an ASMR video.

Niko blinked, and saw the demon disappear. For the love of the ocean, please let it be a hallucination!

He felt something warm and wet on his back, turning his head to find the demon again. He looked a lot more human close up. Niko tried to walk away, but the demon held him close to him. Turning around, Niko saw it was the second mouth licking him.

“Don’t try. I’m not going to let someone as handsome as you just slip past me.”

Niko’s thoughts raced. Shit, shit, shit! How do I make him go away? 

Can he read my thoughts? For the love of the ocean, I hope he can’t!

“W...why have you come for me?” Niko cringed when he heard his voice tremble.”

“Your body.”

Am I hearing that right or am I going insane?

“If you wanted to fuck me that badly, you could’ve asked. I’d have let you.” The stress was getting to him now.

The demon chuckled a bit, Niko’s attempt at resolving tension didn’t work. “No, I’m here to possess a human to use in a plan of mine, and you seemed like a very attractive choice.” The demon rubbed Niko’s shoulders, enjoying the combination of fluster and dread that Niko was feeling.

That feeling of power was interrupted by Niko kicking the demon’s 2nd face between the eyes and making a mad dash for the door.

Just as Niko was about to reach the door, a tendril of shadow grabbed his left ankle. While he was trying to pry off that tendril, one got his right ankle. Soon, Niko was pinned to the floor, his stomach on the ground, and without hope of breaking out.

He heard the clack of the demon’s hooves, triumphant and proud. “You’re a fire-cracker, aren’t you, Niko?” Oh you don’t know the half of it-how’d he know my name?!

Niko called on his strength to free him, but it backfired. He only ended up getting the shadow tendrils around him bound him tighter. He could hardly breathe. 

“If you keep struggling, you’ll only end up strangling yourself. And we can’t have that, can we?” 

Niko was thinking up a witty retort when he felt the sting of the demon’s tail. It was like a red-hot blade had pierced his flesh. The pain was great for a few moments, and then it became dull. Niko became drowsy as the pain subsided, and was knocked out soon afterward.

The demon, Mallomor, found his attempts at possessing Niko unsuccessful. His mind was alien to him. Not knowing what else to do, he took away the binding of the shadow tendrils and carried him to his bed.

Mallomor didn’t want to face the consequences of not being able to possess a human, so he slept alongside Niko. Those consequences would mostly consist of being tortured and stripped off any meager ranks or privileges he had gained.