A Contract With My Demon
Vane lunged for her, his human skin finally warm against her palm, but the momentum of the tape was a physical force, a tidal wave of pre-recorded destiny.
"Operator!" Elara roared at the house sized telephone receiver hovering above them. "Stop the reel! We aren't part of this sequence!"
"I'm sorry," the voice of her mother, Sarah, crackled over the gargantuan speaker, layered with the hiss of forty years of dust. "Playback is mandatory for all failed experiments. You are currently at Minute 44: The Erasure of the Heir."
The giant reels accelerated. The skeletal city on the horizon began to blur into a streak of grey and neon, the sky flickering like a dying fluorescent bulb.