[ wp ] Years ago , you made a deal with the Devil to be granted a single wish . All your memories of the deal were then wiped . Years later , your wish is fulfilled and you are about to find out what price your younger self was willing to pay to make it come true .

There was not a breath of wind on that overcast autumn afternoon and a cold light filtered through the clouds, its warmth stolen with the falling of the leaves. Aaron pulled his coat tighter to himself as he walked alone between the gravestones; a trip that he had long delayed. He stopped before a small slab of stone, clasped by moss and deprived of affection. The last time he was here, the words etched upon its surface had taken the air from his lungs. Now he gazed upon them with a solemn reverence. 
 
 Inhaling deeply, Aaron spoke. 
 
 `` Mary. When we lost your mother.. something in me broke. I stopped being a father, when a father was what you needed. I turned my back on you when I should have held onto you all the tighter. It was n't until.. until I lost you that I realised. I had drunk away the time we had together.'' 
 
 He paused, regaining his composure which had swiftly deteriorated as his thoughts fell formed on his lips. His eyes rested upon the date set into the rock, and his steel returned to him. 
 
 ``..From that day I pulled my life together. I got a good job. I bought a house. I.. I got married again and we.. we have 4 grand-kids! And now.. now I help people who used to be like me. I try and make sure no little girl has to grow up without her dad anymore.'' 
 
 Aaron placed a wrinkled hand upon his daughter's gravestone with more love than he had ever given her in life; as if to bid her good luck as she left for the final time. Tears blurred his vision as they prepared to fall, and a wry grin formed upon his face. 
 
 `` Everything I've done for the last 48 years has been to make you proud. You gave me that, and I hope when we meet again, you will be. But until then.. I'll keep trying to be the best man I can be. I will see you soon.'' 
 
 He retracted his hand and wiped his eyes, his final regret put to rest. 
 
 At that very moment, a great crack rippled through the stone, and from the crevasse oozed a dark incomprehensible... yet nostalgic. It pooled upon the soil which buried his child, forcing Aaron to step back in horror and revulsion. Amidst the utter blackness arose a shape, slender and vile and as a headlight to a deer: utterly petrifying. It stretched and twisted and finally assumed the shape of a man, robed in shadow. 
 
 The figure stood tall before the aged grandfather, deprived of arms and with a malice that fell from it like fog. A wicked set of teeth smiled through what now resembled a hood, which promptly fell back to reveal a handsome face with ebony hair and eyes of midnight. Then the air of evil subsided, veiling beneath a semblance of regency. But it was not a lion, but a snake that looked upon the terrified mouse before it. And memory flooded back. 
 
 `` You.. if.. if you're here..'' Aaron stammered. 
 
 `` Then you are free from regret. As you wished those many years ago.'' Satan replied, with a voice of mercury. The last he had heard it, it was silk. Words failed him. He wanted to feel gratitude to this sinister shape; everything good that had happened to him had come from it. By all rights, he owed this being his life; with it's help, he had made his daughter proud. But something held him back. It gnawed at the corners of his mind. 
 
 It's eyes narrowed, and Aaron knew that it had read him. Fear coiled it's way around his heart. `` Why have you returned to me? If.. If what you have said is true, then I have no more I could wish for.'' His question seemed to appease it, as the tightness in his chest slackened. He was deathly mistaken. 
 
 `` Oh, nothing like that. I'm here to return what I've borrowed from you.'' It replied. Confusion washed down upon him as Satan's words pushed his terror further. 
 
 `` What.. what did you borrow from me?'' He asked, almost expectant of further blessing. An evil smile cost him the air from his lungs. A villainous laugh threw him to his knees, but he could not look away. In that instant, all pretense of it's benevolence dissipated, and all awe he could have had was stripped away. As he struggled to breath, the devil gave him it's answer. 
 
 `` Your receipt. You wished to live without regrets, and for that you paid a price.'' It paused, allowing the anxiety to flow through him like a poison. As it watched him squirm, unsure of whether or not it wanted him to speak or to simply endure his tormenting, Satan opened it's mouth with a whisper: `` The life of your daughter.'' 
 
 All life drained from him, taken from him, stolen away. Everything he had worked for died with those words: guilt and regret sought to drown him in their vast intensity. Desperation took hold, and in the anguish of a lifetime condensed into one moment, he once again sought to bargain with the epitaph of honesty that set it's will against him. `` I.. I want to make another wish. I-'' 
 
 `` Wish the undoing of our previous meeting?'' It sliced through his grovelling like a serrated blade. `` You wish me to return what I have taken, and likewise you wish to return what I have given you?'' The darkness sneered. `` You have lost my gift and have naught else to give.'' 
 
 `` You took my gift!'' Aaron cried in protest. It laughed and again he was choked of air. 
 
 It leaned in close, and revealed two grotesque appendages which it placed with an unsettling tenderness upon his terror stricken shoulders. `` You took it from yourself. Now go and squander what remains of your life. I will see you soon.'' 
 
 Like a morning shadow it shrank back into the floor, retreating into the places where light does not touch before disappearing entirely. A broken man remained, weeping alone upon the grave of his daughter.
