Friend Request

And there I was, sitting in the void with him. It was just the two of us and a table in between, around us there was only darkness. He sat there with his black suit, pale skin, persuasive smile and keen eyes, just analyzing me, sizing me up and down to see if I’d take it.

“Come on, it’s just a little deal! I’ll go easy on you, I’ll promise no one gets hurt, I just need to hit my quotas.” he had the persuasive face down to a T, but he seemed to be running low on time and was getting . “I have thousands of other dreams to visit, deals to offer and souls to corrupt. I know you have something you want deeply or you wouldn’t have shown on my radar. Just tell me what it is and I’ll make you a nice and simple deal. No one will get hurt, you don’t even need to sell your soul to me, I’ll just make sure to corrupt your soul a bit on my own.”

“Wow there, I really don’t like my soul being corrupted, thank you very much.” I got up to get away from the table and from him.

“Wait, wait, wait, you can resist it all you want and it won’t turn you evil or anything, just a bit less good than the goody-two-shoes you are now. Just a bit more selfish.” I crossed my arms, turned around and waited for him to finish. ”No self-respecting devil would offer a deal without getting at least a bit of corruption back, not even one as to fill up their quotas as myself.” He waved his hands and a contract appeared on the table, alongside a fountain pen. The contract was still half finished, but it did say that the effects created by it would try and divert my decisions into being more selfish and self centered, although not affecting my soul or free will in any way.

I stopped walking away and considered the situation I found myself in. A devil appeared in my dreams, offered to grant any one wish I wanted and the only price was that I’d become a bit more selfish?

“What’s really in it for you? Would you really grant mortals any wish they had and just make them a little more selfish?

“Or lustful, or greedy, or prideful, any little sin will do.” I was still looking at him with suspicion. “Look, I was lazy, I slept a lot and got behind on my corruption, so if I don’t get a bucket load of contracts done by the end of the month, I may very well be demoted to a lesser devil again, or even worse. Believe me, you don’t wanna find out what’s worse.” He looked genuine and scared, but then again, he was a devil.

“So you’re offering unrestricted wishes to a bunch of people in exchange for a small push in the wrong direction?”

“Quantity over quality is the name of my game.”

I couldn’t believe I was seriously considering this. If I was really to go through with it, I’d make sure not to fall into his game. After putting any serious thought into it, I decided I wasn’t going to ask for anything life changing. Sure, a million dollars sound nice, but if I was being put into a path of corruption, even if just a bit, a wish like that was sure to corrupt me way faster, maybe not even with this guy’s help. The bigger they are, the harder they fall, right?

No, I was getting something small. Thinking on what I would have wanted, all this time in a pandemic came to mind. Spending over a year and a half locked indoors, interacting with very few people besides text messages and zoom calls for more important things. I missed, more than most things, a genuine connection with people face to face.

My usual friends just started to hang out again and classes were just getting back to normal, but all it took was for a single person to go positive and it would all stop again, quarantining to keep everyone safe, I was fed up with that. I wasn’t going to wish the pandemic away, if I wished for something big like that this guy would have a way easier time corrupting me, maybe making me responsible for the cure and letting the pride go all the way up to my head. I will leave that wish for any of his other visits, if they feel more incorruptible than me. Nah, I was going to wish for something simpler: a friend, to always be by my side when I felt alone.

“OK, I think I got it.” He leaned over on his chair, eager to hear it. “All I want is a friend. Whenever I need a friend, I’ll have a friend with me.”

“Incredible!” he went to writing it down right away “’Whenever the signer of this contract expresses out loud the wish for a friend, they will then have a friend, and the two of them will meet shortly after.’ How does that sound?” he showed the contract for me to read. Beside this sentence, it only had the clause that it would corrupt me slightly, but what kind of corruption could having a friend really give you?

“Looks great to me.”

“Great.”

I took the pen from his hand, ready to sign the contract, when a thought occurred to me.

“Wait, if you’re trying to corrupt me, maybe you’ll stick me with bad influences and people who’d make it easier for me go to the dark side.” He looked at me with a look of shock, which turned into realization, which then turned into annoyance at the fact our meeting was getting even longer. Wait, did I just doom the next people he’d make a contract with?

“Done!”

“Awesome! Could you also just make so that the friend won’t be sick or anything, so we don’t have to separate right after we meet?”

“Here! Take a look.” Between the first and last sentence of the contract, he sandwiched two more: ‘the friends this contract involves will all be good people.’ And ‘the friends this contract involves will all be healthy.’ “How does it look? Good? Done? This one is taking a lot of time you know that?”

“Sorry for wanting to be careful in a literal deal with the devil.” I responded quickly. I took a good look at the contract, nothing seemed like it could possibly backfire, except for that corruption part, but with a wish this small, what could he realistically do to go through with that, not to mention he wasn’t even after getting me screwed over, he just wanted me to be a bit more selfish.

“You done yet?”

“Sorry. Yeah, here you go.” I put the contract down on the table and signed it.

“Good. Great. I’ll check up in a while to see how the wish is going–”

“Wait, I’ll see you again?”

“ – anyway, gotta go, a lot of souls to visit and my quota isn’t even close to done. Bye.”

But I didn’t have time to answer, as I fell into the darkness and closed my eyes.

And then I woke up.