The Rise of Deceit

When I had been given instructions to confuse and deceive, none of us had expected it to go this far, to lead to this much destruction and demise. Some whispers to the media, to rogue cops, and to large men with weak minds were simply meant to cause anger and strife among the humans.

But as I looked down on the world, simmering with fire and rubble, my lips curled in a smile. I had done my duty well. The war had left the world divided, unable to return to it’s original glory. I expected a promotion when I returned to Hell, no longer simply a Demon of Deception, but one of Pride or Lust – a part of me even hoped to enter into the Highest Flames.

I had been praised for my use of the media during election cycles, ensuring that news outlets took strong sides and made blatant and bold statements that left no room for objective thought. My work had been slow, tedious. I wanted the crowds to believe the strong “yellow journalism” we had fostered so many decades ago. I wanted them to see everything as black and white – no gray, no middle ground.

And they did their duty well. Riots broke out after a choice was made and a new leader put in place. I ensured their chaos was spastic, coming from both sides with little to no goal in sight. I pushed weaker minded individuals to enter the ranks of their opposer under a disguise, to make them look bad, to incite more violence.

Once I took pieces of the media, they ran with it and I no longer had to work their segments. I then moved on to cops and peace officers who had an unnecessarily violent history and Prejudice had been whispering to them for a long time. Together, Prejudice and I made them believe that they hated those that looked different from themselves, making them more willing to pull the trigger. I then used my media to show off their downfalls.

The plan really began to move when the officer was white and the deceased was not. This was the beginning of their end.

A summer of violence and gunshots forced people into hiding, with help from a virus that Chaos and Fear had crafted. Humans were locked up day after day like a pot of water ready to boil over. I whispered to them as they hid alone, behind masks and barriers, telling them they were alone, that they should take matters into their own hands.

These victims of mine left their homes with their hands holding guns they had found with no license and no registration. My whispers led to more deaths.

I soon found that my target was race, I needed to exploit the uncomfortable conversations, leave no room for grace, and watch as they tore apart every word they released.

For five years, cancellations of celebrities, clashes over high school classes, and over-exaggerations on the devices that humans depended so heavily on ruled their minds. My work was easy as I whispered in big offices and their human nature took them to the extreme.

Then the locket was lost.

The little girl of one man had lost a heart shaped locket passed on from her mother as a family heirloom. As he was walking from his driveway one night, aware of the devestation of his young girl over the lost artifact, he saw another little girl that didn’t look quite like him. She was walking to her house across the street, wearing a beautiful necklace.

Prejudice had worked on his heart long ago, and he demanded the little girl give him the piece surrounding her neck. The little girl recoiled in fear, saying her grandmother had given it to her, but the man insisted, grabbing at it with such force that the girl fell back, hitting her neck on the curb and dying instantly.

What the man didn’t know, is there were two lockets, each family heirlooms from twin sisters hundreds of years ago. The man didn’t look like the girl but he had unknowingly shared blood with her.

The incident was caught on video, the very security cameras he had around his house. The riots began after I placed the tape strategically in the media’s hands, watching as it soared to viral status. This moment can be considered the beginning of The Race War, a war of division that led to the demise of humans.

They burned the man’s house down, killing his family. Everyone that looked like him was murdered, my friends Fear and Prejudice assisting in my work. Every city was on fire, with race killing opposite race, each of them acting off of my words and my clever lies.

The war lasted a year, with one color of man in one area of the world, and the opposite color thousands of miles away from them. Those that had mixed blood and light brown skin found themselves on the run from both, praying they could survive in the middle.

Hundreds of thousands of humans died at my whispers of deceit. A heart shaped locket that symbolized love through generations had divided the world, ending in destruction and bloody deaths.

My work was over, and my boss was happy to take the reins over a world that was in such a fragile state.