"RUN EVERYONE!" screamed a spirit-man, "IT'S THE CHAOS SERPENT!"

Every single man, woman, and child in the tiny village fled in pure terror. People stopped in the middle of what they were doing, whether it was cooking, cleaning, bathing, using the loo, and ran as fast as their ghostly legs could carry them.

Nobody even stopped to grab any of their valuables, the only precious thing in their minds was their own survival, their own salvation. Imagine, if you will, if a dark cloud of fire, lightning, and sulfur one day flew over your town, while shooting down death rays of pure destruction on anything in site: That didn't come up to a fifth of the fear those people held.

One lady even accidentally kicked a piece of log from the fire she was cooking over, which promptly rolled into a fairly large stack of recently reaped wheat, and set fire to the entire village. Now once the people did come back, they expectantly find all they held dear in ashes for daring have been in the path of the Great Destroyer...

Even though the Great Destroyer technically hadn't done anything.

"Cretins," muttered Apep, calmly walking through the chaos.

In the snake-boy's opinion, humans were just as dumb and wild in the afterlife as they were in the Land of the Living. He wouldn't even give them the praise of being called animals; at least animals' instincts usually led them into an organized flee, not the sheer insane, mass hysteria that humans took a flying leap into.

No doubt afterwords, they'd run crying to Horus, or Ra, or Set and tell them all about how big, bad Apep came and ruined everything (as usual) and needed to be slaughtered (as usual) even though the destruction was of their own moronic, oh-so-humanly-typical doing (as usual).

Oh well.

Not that Apep gave a two-cents worth about the fact that the people feared him. In fact, on a normal day, this kind of horror WOULD be his fault. On a normal day, Apep would be spending less time thinking about how dumb the human spirits were behaving, and finding ways to make them act even MORE dumb.

However, on a normal day, the Solar Barge would also be swooping in to stop him.

Which it hadn't.

Swearword.

His foot suddenly kicked something, and Apep bent down to pick up a child's doll. It was a pretty thing, with long hair possibly made from ghosts' silk, definitely a prize any young girl would be proud to embrace. Apep couldn't help but think that such a toy was rather beautiful in way, for it's serene picturesque of childlike innocence. The brightly colored dress, the wide smile, the scent of sunny days spent along the peaceful Nile bank while wading with the water lilies...

He promptly began to rip it's head off.

"Mommy!" a small female voice cried, that Apep assumed belonged to the doll's owner. A woman quickly scooped up the child, and ran as fast as she could.

"You shouldn't buy her stuff made in Nubia!" Apep yelled after them with a wicked chuckle, and tossed the remnants of the doll in their direction.

Eventually the screaming died out, and the Chaos Serpent figured that they'd all finally fled.

"Well that was fun." he remarked to himself, "But now back to business."

The road to the palace of the Gods was often told to be long and treacherous, filled with chambers of torture and dimensions of unspeakable horror; this however was no problem to Apep, seeing as he himself was the most horrible thing you could encounter in the Duat. Rather like... what modern humans would call... "the Boss level in a video game." He was not really the boss of anything though, save for the other minor Chaos serpents, and a select few demons whom for whatever reason turned their backs on the Gods (demons in Egypt were not like those of their Christian counterparts; they normally worked for the Gods to help cause necessary strife in the world).

That being said, the incident with the small village pretty much repeated itself wherever Apep went, the shock, the terror, the screaming, the running around in little circles, and usually topped off with some grand finale fire or explosion. And all while Apep's mind was mostly on smacking some sense into Ra, he couldn't help but feel some pride and accomplishment in that he could cause this much destruction just by passing.

It might even lure out Ra before I even get there. Apep thought, a bit smug.

After a while, he had passed the more populated living areas, and found himself crossing a shining, surreal, valley. Such scenes were common, so Apep felt at ease wandering through the tall grass, which came up to his waist in his rarely seen human form.

Why is my humanoid shape that of a child, anyway? Apep thought, after allowing his mind to wander a bit. This question caught him, and his expression took on annoyance.

I haven't thought about it much till now, but I guess it really doesn't make that much sense, he thought, Here I am, one of the oldest beings in existence, and I wind up being perceived as a mortal eight-year-old? Where is the logic in that? Ra looks full-grown, as do many of the others Gods. Am I the victim of some sick joke? Maybe if-

Sifff... there was a sound that came from the grass and made Apep stop in his tracks.

There was nothing but the breeze floating through the multicolored sky, and twinkles being thrown off the golden grass.

Sifff...

As quick as a whip, Apep literally dived into the grass as if it were water, and crawled about with obvious snake-like movements, slicker and faster than any human should be capable of doing.

Whoever was following him made the mistake of squealing when he dived, and without even turning his head, Apep's arm shot out like a cobra strike through the grass and grabbed the stalker by what felt like a neck.

He heard another tiny scream from his other side, and the soft scraping of attempting to run. This one's leg was soon also snatched by the serpent reflexes of Apep, who then stood up and pulled the two hostages up in the air for inspection.

They were two small demons, who looked scared out of their minds.

Apep stared at them. The adrenaline of the short hunt had been enough to revert his eyes to their more menacing form; red, slitted-pupil snake eyes that took up almost half of the child-form's face stared back at the demons. He did not blink. These kind of eyes didn't have eyelids. They were disturbingly empty and soulless, made even more so by the pencil-thin line of an expression his mouth was shortened into. It was the expression a snake stared at a soon-to-be-dead prey with.

Stunned for a moment by the evil-God's icy transfixation, the demon he had by the leg stammered before finding his high-pitched, gravely voice.

"H-Hi Master..."

Apep blinked his eyes back to their gray human form, then growled and glared at the two demons.

"Sek! Mot!" he snapped, "I did not give you permission to come with me on my quest..."

"We thought you'd use our help!" piped up the one Apep had by the neck, "You always use us when confronting Ra!"

Apep slowly turned his head to the smaller demon with a cold stare, "Did I grant you permission to speak, Mot...?"

Mot realized his near-dire mistake, and quickly covered his mouth in panic.

His master brushed it off, and dropped the demons on their respective butt and head.

"How dare you directly disobey your Master!" he scolded them, and they lowered their eyes so they wouldn't have to look into their Boss's eight-year-old face.

"You technically did not tell us not to come..." Sek said quietly, fiddling with his claw-like thumbs.

"You just... left..." added Mot.

Sek and Mot, in case you are little low on your Egyptian mythology, were two demons who's main purpose was to assist Apep in attacking the Solar Barge every night. They usually did good enough at their job, enough that on some nights when Apep felt particularly lazy, he would sit by and let the two of them do most of the attacking.

Loyal as they were, they were a bit like annoying puppies. Apep obviously demanded respect, but Sek and Mot tended to be kiss-ups, and would express hurt and sorrow if they felt ignored by their beloved master...

They had probably been in their usual hiding spots when Apep realized Ra wasn't coming.

And then left.

Without telling them.

Oops.

Apep took a long, deep breath. Normally he would rip Sek and Mot to shreds, sew them back together, rip them apart again, then continue that cycle till he got bored (this never killed them, seeing as they already lived in the Land of the Dead. But it still hurt like hell.) for daring to make such a bold move without his saying so (even if it had been slightly his fault).

But the three of them were all alone in the middle of a sparkling valley of mystical golden grass while whale-shaped clouds traveled across a rainbow sky in the Underworld.

Evil as he was, Apep knew this was not the time nor place for ripping to shreds.

"... Fine." relented Apep.

"What?" perked the two demons.

"You can come. I guess I could use the company anyway."

Mot sprang onto Apep's head, "!" he blabbered happily, before being ripped off by said master.

"But DO NOT do that..." growled Apep, threateningly.

"Aye-aye!" Mot made a L with his hand and put it on his forehead, which Apep guessed Mot thought was a salute. He was not the brighter of the two.

They then continued through the seemingly-infinite field, in an almost satirical scene: Three of the darkest, most despised beings in their universe trudging through one of the most beautiful terrains a human could ever lay eyes upon.

…

About two hours had since passed. They were still in the valley.

Mot was never seen walking in any other form besides a soldier's goose-step, and was humming a cheerful little tune, rocking out in his own little world at Apep's left. Sek walked like a normal person at the right, and was busy inspecting the area around them

"... Rather pretty, is it not?" he commented.

"Excuse me?" inquired Apep.

"The part we're in. It's pretty."

"It is. Don't get used to it."

"Right."

If Sek's master ever succeeded in his lifelong challenge, this field along with everything else in the universe would be gone. Literally. Returned to the primeval ocean that was existence before it existed...

Darkness. Empty. Cold. Lifeless. No more hopes, no more dreams, no chances, no past, present, or future...

Why? Secretly, Sek did know why. There were too many questions surrounding their job.

If everything truly came to an end, would what become of him? Of Mot? Did Master care? What exactly did go on in a snake's mind?

But he knew better than to question Apep. That was something you just didn't do.

The closest thing he had ever gotten to an answer was one comment Apep had made after they had, yet again, gotten their butts royally whooped by the Gods:

"They think are Something, while we are Nothing. And it's true. But we were all Nothing once, before this eternal war caused by the coming of Something... and if we must be Nothing, then they shall become Nothing too..."

It still didn't make sense to Sek. But he digressed... it didn't have to make sense to him. He just had to do his job, and whatever happened in the end, make the best of it.

Sek looked over at Mot, who was still safe and content in his happy world without question.

It was rather laughable.

To envy the innocence of a demon.