Then it dawned on me…I couldn’t escape the hunger, but it just so happened that I was on my way to a certain girl’s house. A girl who lived and breathed negative emotions. A perfect feast for a Demon like me.
Tonight, I didn’t have to do any damage.
Tonight, I’d feed and be fucking happy while I did it.
I shifted, my body crying out in suffocating agony for only a blink before I cloaked myself, sniffed the air, and charged into the darkness to find the only Human I actually wanted to taste. After all, I had an invitation to give her.
A gush of warm wind woke me up later that night, causing me to stand from the bed, instantly aware.
“What the fuck?” I grumbled, confused. Looking to my right, I saw that the small window next to my bed was wide open, bringing in the sticky night air.
I locked that window.
Well, I never unlocked that window.
I had no reason to open it. The neighbors kept their fucking trash cans on the edge of the property line between our houses, which sat merely inches from said window.
Something shifted to my left.
I froze and closed my eyes, letting my other senses feel the weight of the invasion. Someone was standing next to me; I felt the warmth radiating from his body even though I was positive that I hadn’t seen anything.
“In my fucking room?” I laughed. “This will be good.”
I kept my eyes closed, pushing out my senses to see if whoever was in my room was planning on moving around—they could want to steal something.
When you close your eyes, you take away one of your five senses, so your other four kick into high gear. The remaining senses worked together to make up for the loss of one. I counted on that theory to work as I forced myself to relax, to quiet the adrenaline pumping in my veins.
“That’s a cute trick, Pup, but it won’t work against me,” I heard a deep male voice say from the same spot beside me. I didn’t move. Neither did he. “What would you do if I were a murderer?”
I scoffed, oddly not afraid. I had a feeling he wouldn’t hurt me. His energy felt more curious than anything. “Are you telling me you’re not a murderer?”
“Answer the question, Pup,” he requested in a quiet rasp.
I didn’t answer right away, calculating my options. Opening my eyes, I looked around my dark room. My twinkling lights had been turned off by the timer I set, but the moonlight cast a calming blue hue around the space.
This wasn’t normal, of course. I was dealing with something that I had no hope of understanding, not without getting someone to tell me the fucking truth.
All I knew for sure was that someone was in my room.
I could feel him. There was a shift in the air whenever he took a breath, another energy source in the room, a suffocating tidal wave of emotions, but the room surrounding us was empty.
His voice was very much real, very much here, but there was nobody.
No person. No Human…
Deciding to take the risk and trust my gut, I moved to sit on my bed before lying back against the pillows that I had haphazardly thrown around. “I don’t think I will.”
I closed my eyes again, listening to the darkness around me.
The silence was loud.
“You want to die.” His voice cut through the quiet.
It wasn’t a question.
“I want to die,” I repeated his statement, my voice hushed. I really only had one option since clearly, I was either fucking crazy or my visitor was one of the guys from the alley tonight. I was betting on both. “I’m not sure if that statement is entirely true, but I know it isn’t entirely false. What do you do when the world hardens you? When looking in the mirror becomes too painful and using your fists to let the anger breathe isn’t enough anymore? You either drown and die in your own bullshit or you fight to survive. I’m not sure which one I’m doing.”
He was quiet for a moment, seemingly shocked by my answer. I was too. I never considered my life to be so black and white, but it was. I was merely surviving because I hadn’t decided if I wanted to drown yet.
“You’re only talking to me because you can’t see me.” He stated another assumption, his voice leaning toward playful, like we had started a game of sorts. Like I had written him off as safe.
Which I had.
If he was in my room, somehow invisible, and talking to me…he wasn’t here to kill me.
I’m not sure how I knew that, but I wanted to trust my instincts. I was talking to him because the energy felt familiar, like a warm blanket from Hell.
Dangerous. Addicting. Lethal.
“That’s one point for you, Casper,” I tried, seeing if he’d sense my fib.
The voice chuckled. “Liar. You feel me, yeah?”
I sighed because this was fucking weird. Because it made no fucking sense. Because I didn’t want it to end. “Yeah, Casper, I feel you.”
The bed dipped next to me. I held my breath but didn’t move, wanting to see what he’d do next. If he’d show himself to me.
Silence stretched between us for what felt like hours. At some point, I turned on my side and closed my eyes. Bestia was there to greet me, her nose right up against mine. She huffed, sending hot air into my face, before nudging me with her snout and curling back up in her cage. I hated that I had to mentally put her in one at all, but as I got older, she got stronger. I was afraid that one day, she’d “get out” when in reality, I had just hit my breaking point and gone crazy.
She watched the empty space next to me, her head on her paws, with raw hunger in her eyes. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I opened my eyes just in case. Not knowing who it was made me feel weird but not enough to kick him out. I had a feeling it was Quint, based on his wild energy, oozing sex and confidence, mixed and layered with bitter resentment and hatred.
I didn’t need to see into his soul to know that demons tortured him like they tortured me.
The space next to me was empty, but the warmth was still there.
I waited.
Eventually his thick voice sliced through the air. “You’re fucked in the head, yeah?”
He sounded hopeful, like he might have finally found someone who understood.
I paused before answering, “Yeah.”
A heavy breath. “Do you ever get sick of the dark?”
I shivered, not from fear but from the question. It was a good one. One I’d asked myself on many occasions.
“No,” I replied honestly.
I waited for his response, but nothing happened for a few more heavy moments. His presence was like a cloak around my body. I felt him everywhere and nowhere at all.
I felt a little high, a little crazy, a little reckless.
I wondered if he was going to respond, but after a handful of minutes passed, I figured he wouldn’t. I closed my eyes, and not long after that, I felt sleep start to take me but not before I heard his whispered rasp, “Me neither.”
The sun peeking through my curtains woke me around noon the next day, my body sore as hell from the fight. I stretched, loving the burn of my muscles, the aches and pains that reminded me of a hard-won battle.
I turned over, remembering my visitor from the night before, and found a black and red piece of cardstock sitting on the empty pillow next to me.
I picked it up and read the neat silver cursive: