We lay my love and I beneath the weeping willow...

A dark red body swung slowly back and forth from the branches of a bare willow. Here was where they hung all demons, beasts of all shapes, all the nightmares they feared.

Many had been wrongly hung here, feared for no reason at all.
Mr. Sanguine was not one of these.

No, no, he was definitely meant to be here. He was a demon, a nightmare, a god. No, no, he was supposed to be here.

The body swung quietly, back forth, back forth, a red slash on the land. The beast looked almost at peace like this.

Far below, a boy stood. He coughed quietly into the sleeve of the hoodie, looking up at the quietly swinging figure. A frown crossed his face and his teal ears lay back. His long tail twitched and he sighed in annoyance.

"Stop playing around, Sanguine."
"As you wish."

Slowly, the red creature twisted its broken neck to look down at the figure far below, a twisted smile crossing its face for an instant. He had had so much fun letting these little humans pretend that they could kill a god.

It entertained him.

"Better. You know what to do."

Closing its eyes, the beast waited. Far below, the figure in the hoodie retreated.

---

The townspeople came to take down the demon the next morning. They would dispose of its body, purify it. The priest was all ready for the ceremony. As the first one reached up for the body, an unearthly voice boomed out.

"You truly thought you could kill a demon?"

The beast's eyes opened. With a grin like sharpened knives, it turned to face the screaming villagers. With an abrupt turn, he scratched the tree, which began to bleed, more and more gallons of blood flowing from the tree every minute. The villagers screamed and cried out as the blood washed over them in tides, drowning some and sparing others.

It was then that Mr. Sanguine broke free from the noose that he had been hanging from. With another grin, he bounded down among the survivors.

When he left, he left only corpses in his wake,
as per orders.

Mr. Sanguine was not one to disobey orders.