All Our Stories: Chapters 1 & 2

stage 1 > What Wonderful Puppets We Are





There! They were here again. I heard them close by, but I couldn’t be sure where. Were they real? The thought struck me so suddenly, I didn’t know what to think. Of course they were real, having haunted me for a good portion of my life. They were real, they had to be. I couldn’t just me imagining everything since I could remember. That would be too easy.

No, they were real. Something that you have to know for five of your seven years has to be real. You can’t have such an overactive imagination as to imagine them for five years. Yes, they were very real. They were the reasons behind my actions as a child. They controlled every aspect of my short life. I knew they were real. I felt it at the core of my being.

Five years of my life had been controlled by the demons. They whispered to me in my sleep, at school, when I was alone, anytime. They were the reason my parents were dead. I felt like a puppet in their hands, constantly having my strings pulled for no real reward. But, it was a hard habit to break. It was almost like disobeying your parents, always doing as you were told or being punished.

Only my punishment for disagreeing with them was far worse than any physical punishment or beating. Mental punishments were far more persuasive, hitting the very essence of your being and taking it apart - piece by piece. With each disagreement, the pain only became worse. Soon, I learned to agree with my demons, quite terrified as to what would happen if I didn’t.

“Do it…” One hissed at me. The voice sounded raspy, yet beautiful. The very sound was an exhale, one could almost imagine a voice in a mist speaking in such a manner.

“Don’t be afraid.” Another voice said, this one feminine in origin. It was pitched an octave higher, as if to be speaking with a small child. It was oozing with honey and sarcasm. I felt the blood trickle pat my fingers where I had been digging my nails into my palm.

“Come now, child.” One said, materializing before me. “Don’t be defiant,” Its scaly finger ran under my chin, “because we know what happens then.” It smiled, showing disturbing teeth, jagged and placed like a shark’s. Its large, round, maroon eyes stared at me from pupiless depths, accenting the dull gray skin. Pointed ears rose far past the sides of its head. Its fingers were long and bony, having long fingernails at their end. Its skin didn’t seem to fit, hugging tightly around its bones, making the creature seem impossible of life.

Laughter echoed around me, the sounds of shadowed demons. Everything began to swirl, and I felt like I was falling through several parallel dimensions before stopping. The stop was sudden and jarring, landing me in my reality seconds before my teacher issued out a paper.

I opened my eyes to the bright fifth-grade classroom. The walls were painted light lavender and the sun rays of a newly-dawned day shone into the room. Four rows of light-colored desks, with five desks each, spanned out in front of a blackboard. An oak desk was to my right, from where I was sitting. An aged computer monitor was mounted on a small stack of books next to a file organizer. The only thing missing was Mrs. Sparks, the fifth grade math teacher.

“Dalila Haydes!” Mrs. Sparks yelled at me in a shrill manner. Her yell made everyone in the room jump and shuffle, pretending to stare at something interesting in their books. All went silent.

“Yes, Mrs. Sparks?” I asked in a calm, even tone, looking up at out bird-like teacher. She was tall, but also old. She wore a beige dress with a dull orange overcoat. Her gray hair was up in a bun and her beady blue eyes, looking up from the spectacles at the end of her nose, were on me. Her bony hand was holding an open volume of our math book.

“To the principal’s office. Now!” She had paused after the first phrase, then screeched the last word. I shut my book, put it in my satchel, and very calmly stood up. I grabbed the tote, walked to Mrs. Sparks and too the blue slip from her hand. There was a lot of muttering behind my back and, as soon as I was out the door, I heard Mrs. Sparks get on my class for it.

This happened about twice this school year. The school year, though, had only been in session for two months. This was my third time to the office for “daydreaming.” Last year, my second-grade teacher hadn’t been so mean. I knew Mrs. Sparks hated me, though. It may have just been because I was the only one capable of acing her math class straight out of second grade with minimal effort. My demons had warned me about her, but I never listened until now.

I rounded the last corner, careful not to trip over the randomly-placed green rug. No one asked why I was there, the lady at the counter hitting the buzz button to see if Mr. Manson was available. Unfortunately, though, I was stuck with Mr. Gangsworth, our vice-principal. He was much more blunt and strict than Mr. Manson and I hoped he wouldn’t suspend me.

The woman directed me down a beige hallway, very narrow and short. The carpet was pal lavender, like the walls in Mrs. Sparks’ room. While most kids would be having mild nausea, I felt nothing as I knocked on Mr. Gangsworth’s door. A hoarse voice inside told me to come in.

The wooden door opened easily, making no sound on its oiled hinged. The walls an carpet of this room were beige, a darker shade than the hallway’s. Two dark bookshelves were along opposite walls, both having an artificial tree at the end. In the middle of the room, right in front of the large window on the back wall, was a heavy pinewood desk. Nothing but a green desk lamp with a golden chain and a name tag were on that desk.

I closed the door behind me calmly, stepping forward to sit in a light-brown leather chair before the desk. I set my books down underneath the chair and looked up into the brown eyes of or vice-principal. He had tan skin and a large, round face. A neatly cut plot of black hair covered his head.

“Dalila Haydes?” Mr. Gangsworth asked questioningly. He had a calm voice for such a mean man. I noticed his large hands were folded in front of him and his eyes showed his confusion.

“Yes, sir.” I said, hiding a smile with a cough at his disappointment. He had been expecting a fifth grader out of fourth grade, probably ten or eleven. Not a freak that was seven. He also seemed baffled by my lack of anxiety. My voice had been calm, not pitched up or shaking. Evidently he just liked his job because he scared kids.

“Ah, well…” Mr. Gangsworth murmured, then made his voice come back to its usual volume. “What are you here for?”

“I don’t really know, sir. Mrs. Sparks just sent me to the office.” I shrugged.

“Do you remember today’s lesson?”

“But of course. Right before I was sent off, we were going over greatest common factor.” I sighed, staring at him. The whole time I had been talking, I had stared. He seemed a little uneasy by my stare, so he called Mrs. Sparks. I sighed as I heard her screaming over the phone. Evidently lies were taken very seriously around here.

“Yes, yes.” Mr. Gangsworth mumbled, keeping the phone a safe distance from his ear. Then it grew quiet and he actually put the phone to his ear. He seemed surprised at whatever she had said because he quickly hung the phone up and dismissed me at the bell.

I never did learn what she said that day. The people in my math class didn’t even know what she had said. I pondered this as I walked, half-dazed, through the maze of white hallways to my next class: music. It was like our rotation class, really. Today was music, tomorrow was gym. It was gym for the rest of the class, anyway, considering my health conditions.

The bell rang.

I noticed the hall I was in was deathly quiet, all of the doors shut. I walked absently through until I came to a door with a window. The wood of the door was dark and aged. I realized, by the lack of lighting, that I was in the old wing of the school, closed off from everywhere else.

How did I get here?

/Look through the window, Dalila!/ A voice cooed in the back of my head. I blinked slowly and took in a breath. Then I looked inside.

I dropped my books and stifled a scream.

Inside were toys. Many, many toys. Layers of dust covered them all, the heaps of broken toys staring at me, smiling. Dolls were holding tea cups, their glass faces cracked with age. One’s eyes were popped out, giving it a demonic look. The toys were only in the center of the room, the walls were lined with cots.

Hospital beds. Their brass feet and heads fallen with age. Each one had blue-ish white sheets carefully tucked in around something. Something shaped like children. Cold, dead children.

The evidence of death, now that I looked, was everywhere. The peeling lead-painted walls had splatters of dry blood on them, some marks looking eeriely like small fingers had ran down the wall. Ropes, broken and torn, hung from the ceiling. Cups sat on perfect nightstands, glass vials by them empty.

But the sheets were clean.

/Dalila…/ All the voices whispered to me, sounding so much closer than before. The voices together sounded like a rasping hiss: an exhale.

/Your fate lies here./ One voice, singled out. The dozen others echoed after it. It was the gray demon’s. He, no, they, were going to kill me.

“Years of forcing me to obey has shaped it.” I muttered, holding on to something. “It’s the perfect plan for homicide. I can’t disobey them or I will die.” I laughed quietly, hoarsely, insanely. “Obeying them also means death, my inevitable doom.”

Muttering to myself, I became aware of someone yelling in the background. It became louder and louder until I put my hands over my ears.

“Dalila Haydes!” I heard the teacher scream. I opened my eyes, seeing hers level with mine. “I will not have…” The rest of what she was saying was drowned out by a loud ringing noise. I grimaced, getting my hand slapped with a ruler so hard, my hand bled.

“Do I make myself clear?!” I heard her finish. I nodded, staring down at my hand, tears stinging my eyes. I could do nothing about the ruler mark or the blood. After class was dismissed, I somehow managed to get my notebook and bag and trot over to the bathroom.

It was cooler there, the concrete walls keeping it more insulated than the rest of the school. A little window, four feet above my head, was the only source of light. Eight wooden, green stalls lined the left wall, anchored by the concrete floor. I put my books down and walked over to the sink, one of the two in there. No one else was in the bathroom, but something was bugging my senses, pulling me to it.

The bell had already rang, but it was normal for me to be late for class. I made my way over to the handicap stall, grabbing toilet paper and wrapping my hand with it before grabbing my things and walking quickly to lunch. The teachers saw my hand and didn’t question my tardiness. I felt everyone’s eyes on me as I walked over to a round table and sat down. Alone.

My only friends had been in my actual class, but skipping two grades completely destroyed all the friends I had ha and any chance of making new ones. For the most part, everyone ignored me. Some were jealous because I could easily have passed their grade’s test, but, the voices had told me to fail. Something important was to be held here, in this grade.

I hadn’t argued, and I still didn’t when they told me not to eat. I didn’t feel like eating anyway. I was still too disturbed by the vision to bother. They had became more and more frequent, and, as time progressed I could no longer tell vision from reality.

Although sitting down, someone bumped into me. While I was used to being picked on, this was the worst. The red-haired guy dumped his plate purposely on my hear, no doubt getting stuff in my hair. I stood up, and his smiled broadened. I stared, and I heard the demons laughing, making me madder. Then, his smile was gone, now sent into choking. His hands were around his neck as his windpipe constricted. He made such a gurgling sound… it was horrible. He fell over, convulsing, then growing very still.

Was it reality?

No, the reality hit me now. I was sitting in the nurse’s station, waiting for her to finish cleaning out my hair before making me change into new clothes. Her vibe was oddly worried, but I didn’t want to ask her about it. Problems only became worse whenever you tried to cure them. It was quite a paradox, in my opinion.

I took my time to study the neat room. The walls were white, possibly having a lavender hue to them. The border around the very top of the walls was yellow and blue, having happy bumble bees at even intervals. Cabinets to my right were white, having posters about safety on them. A little freezer was on top of an out-dated red counter top, the outside shell worn, but not rusted. Cabinets also were on the lower half. To my left were file boxed made to look like wood. Beside the stacks of boxes were to lice lights, their white poles making me uneasy. I knew I was sitting on the blue bed in the center of the room, the nurse behind me.

I stared at a poster directly in front of me. It had to do with mental illnesses. A single word stood out at me:

Voices.

It had never occurred to me that insanity could be causing my problem, but I didn’t understand why it would suddenly come to me now instead of earlier. But, I still believed my voices were real. They were my masters, making me a very wonderful puppet.

The nurse sighed. She would have liked to have called me home, but she was well aware of my living in an orphanage. It took awhile, buy the nurse finally had my hair cleaned out. She sent me on my way, considering by the time she was done, the school day was almost over. I walked outside, waiting for the buses to come. The light shone in my eyes, keeping me from seeing the bus numbers as they came in. If it weren’t for one of the other kids who rode my bus, I’d be stuck at school until someone could pick me up.

I sat in the sixth seat down on the right, the oddly numbered side of the bus. Right in the middle, where I liked it. No one sat with me. No one talked to me. I was left with only my thoughts, which were hardly company. Some boys in the seat across from me were pointing and laughing.

“Look,” the left one snickered to his friend, “she’s talking to herself.” His hazel eyes were full of amusement. I dug my fingers into my cut hand, silently enduring the pain expressionlessly.

“And the weirdo gets weirder.” The one closest to me said quietly, thinking I wouldn’t hear.

I never had had a good temper. Now, though, it flared. A pencil rolled on the floor under my feet. I bent over to pick it up, realizing it was a pen. I clicked it, so the sharp point was showing. I needed no whispers from the voices, no conning.

“Blondy…” I heard people whisper, now realizing I had a pen, but was doing nothing with it. People started to point and laugh. Giggles and snickers followed. I had had enough.

Setting my books to the side of the seat closest to the window, I scooted over to the edges of my seat, holding the pen threateningly. The boy I was aiming at rolled his eyes. The other boy laughed again, sending the bus back into giggles.

Then, they went silent.

Anger was what had fueled me. The voices, although speaking to me, telling me to do it, played no part in my actions. The pend, quite fat, but sharp, was embedded deep into the boy’s arm. The driver didn’t look up to see what caused the silence or gasps of horror thereafter. The boy I struck just stared, trying to pull the pen out of his arm.

I grinned at him happily and suppressed the urge to laugh. Everyone muttered and he glared. I put my books back in my lap and resumed my position of staring out the window, watching as we went past cars on an overpass. I closed my eyes, letting my demons speak to me just so I didn’t have to stare out the window or listen to people.

I let my mind wander about, finally settling on one memory. My parents had died when I was two, but it was my fault completely. It was the beginning of my memories. The voices had shaped me into an abnormally smart baby, and by the time I was two, I knew math and how to write, but never to speak. My parents had assumed me mute until the night of their demise.

The inside of my trailer smelled of smoke, the fake-wooden paneling of the walls holding in the foul stench. I was in my small room, playing with a stuff Elmo that was my only toy. It was no longer red or smiling, instead a pink color with a stitches up mouth. Its eyes were slowly popping out and it smelled horrible.

Outside, it was raining and storming. The occasional thunderclap shook the house. I stared at the dirty once-white carpet each time I saw lighting and counted in my head. It was a fairly normal night. I was trying to find a way to pop Elmo’s eyes out, and my parents were watching TV or arguing. I never really knew which anymore, the TV being so loud.

Then, the voices started to talk to me. I had found them fun then, learning so many new things and able to get away from my parents. I had, truthfully, never wished them dead. The voices just told me what to do, and I did. I was just a puppet then. Come to think of it, I still am a puppet.

/Get the gun./ The demon I knew as Waelcyrge said to me. Elmo was still staring at me. I didn’t know where the gun was, and I put my doll down and stood up. For a two year-old, I could walk quite well.

/It’s in the wall, Dalila./ Another demon, Valkyrie, said. I stared at the wall in my room, confused. Then I saw the dent. I pulled on it, revealing a small space. Sure enough, a gun was there. But, it was old, probably from the 1800’s. I never really thought it would shoot.

/Go to the kitchen./ I walked slowly out of the room, holding the gun oddly. The voices told me to put the gun on the counter top, and I did. There was a bottle of pills and a glass on the counter top, I grabbed them, just as the voices commanded…

“Dalila!” Someone said, passing by in the isle. They had been yelling my name several times, and I blinked as if waking from a dream. “Get off the bus!” It was the last stop and the closest the bus got to the orphanage. I got up slowly, walking down the isle way groggily. It seemed like I was sleepwalking when I spied myself in the bus mirror. I stumbled down the buss steps and stared at the park before me.

The grass was green, but covered in the freshly-fallen fall leaved of the trees scattered throughout the park. A single asphalt walkway twisted forth through the trees, having old-looking lampposts on it at equal intervals. I knew at the end of this path was an orphanage, formerly a sanitarium and before that, an insane asylum.

The truth of the matter was, although the people of our orphanage tried to hide it, we were in the middle of the city. No one would ever adopt us, and we’d always have to depend on someone to help us. The majority of the people staying in the orphanage went insane by their first year. Most of the adults in the orphanage were jumpy, and the few of us that escaped were mentally unstable. This orphanage held something far more terrifying than our memories and bad deeds.

A building, two stories high with a numerous amount of windows, started to emerge from the trees. The bricks matched some of the brown-orange leaves that had fell from the trees recently. The windows had white stone around them and the steps leading to the double wooden doors were of the same color. Rectangular, slim windows were at the top of the oak doors. They were ancient, the doorknobs being replaced by metal door handles. I passed the orphanage, however, taking the path around to the back.

The trees thickened as the path narrowed into a dirt trail. A fence was up ahead, the bars being black and tipped with arrowhead-like spikes, also a similar black. Two stone columns served as the cemetery gates, the stone gargoyles protecting the dead within and keeping them from escaping.

I took a breath and walked past the gargoyles. The plaque stationed at the front of the cemetery was cracked, but I could still read the top words of the bronze, having been scratched out and rewritten. Originally, for the insane asylum, I assumed, it had said what appeared to be “all our demons.” But, after the asylum had been changed to a sanitarium, it was changed to what clearly said “all our stories.” I didn’t stand around to read the whole plaque, for the first words disturbed me.

Very few of the graves had names on them. Many of the white limestone headstones were knocked over or weathered past recognition. Leaves covered the ground, submerging most of the fallen or small graved under their inches of darkness, making them invisible to me. A certain fallen grave was the one I was drawn to. Like a zombie, I wandered over to it, kneeling.

The grave was weathered and had moss growing on it. I rubbed off the moss, feeling the grave and realizing it had fallen inscription-side up. I hastily reached into my green school bag, grabbing a sketch pad and pencil. I ripped a piece out, putting it on the fallen headstone. I rubbed the pencil across it, getting a lighter outline, but understanding the name immediately. One of my demons’ names was inscribed upon this headstone. I heard laughing and a single voice screaming. An odd absence followed. I stared at my outline of the words upon the headstone:

“Valkyrie, 1850-1885”

I realized what had happened then. Valkyrie had been at this asylum or sanitarium. She had died here, probably in a horrible manner. She had became a demon, haunting many children until me. I had expelled her from my mind by finding her grave.

I had found how to expel my demons, but, I feared it wouldn’t be so easy for the rest. Something inside me, but not my voices, to me that each demon had some way of being expelled. I would just have to find each one. But, it wouldn’t be easy, seeing as my demons knew I had just figured out their secret.

That’s when I realized just what wonderful puppets we are. As a race as a whole, we were puppets. Presidents were puppets to the FBI, us citizens puppets to presidents’ false promises.

And children by their parents, guardians… and demons.









stage 2 > Devil's Spawn





Everything was in an antique, pastel view. The colors looked chalky and seemed almost like someone was doing chalk smear art, the edges uncertain, blurring into oblivion. I stared up at the white sky, shivering at the color. It wasn't just white, it was like spun cobwebs in color, eerie and disturbing, making a chill run through me. Looking away from the disturbing sky, I saw a meadow of light green, disappearing at the horizon. Children's drawings of flowers, a circle with bumps around it, decorated the meadow in varying shades of red and orange-red.

The main feature, however, was a tree. The one thing that looked real enough to actually touch. All the rest of the meadow was fake, I couldn't even feel anything brush against my ankles as I walked through the green expanse, toward a tree that never grew any closer no matter how far I walked. I tried running, but started coughing, coughing blood. My heart felt like it was going to burst and I fell forward into the green, rolling to look up at the sky as I panted for breath, coughing wet coughs, but nothing coming up but a little bit of blood that wasn't worth spitting out.

"Dalila," Something, maybe a voice, said. It was soft, like spun silk, and almost cottony. I attempted to look up, but my head spinning and vision turning black around the edges. I gasped for breath again, paying no attention to the words that may have been said as I lie there, eyes closed, trying to learn to breathe again.

"Pick a flower," The thing said, possibly thought, to me. I refused to open my eyes, in fear that the peaceful meadow with its white sky and red flowers would be gone. "It will open. The bee will sting you, and, if it doesn't, you will not last longer than a month." The words were burned into my mind, replayed over and over again until the very mention of the word 'flower' or 'Dalila' became sickening. My head felt like it was being cleaved in two, then back together, by some horrific device to the point where I /had/ to open my eyes.

Above was a canopy of dark green, the green I had observed when looking at the tree from the meadow. I did not question how I got here, too many bizarre things had happened within the last day that surreality was the new norm. A pressure on my head pressed down now, like someone was sitting on it, but not killing me. I forced myself up, grasping branches to keep me from falling over from the combined affects of chest and head pain. Finally, painfully, I pulled an orchid-colored flower off the tree and collapsed, falling into the grass on my back after my knees buckled.

The flower was stubborn, it wouldn't open. The thing told me it would open. Why wouldn't the flower open? It was so blurry, I couldn't even see the outline of my hands, by far if the flower opened. But the bee would not sting me. I didn't see anything black, no yellow blobs. The demons must have had something in store for me because the fog obscuring my vision cleared, allowing me to clearly see the orchid-colored tulip-looking flower open.

A little bee, not much bigger than the tip of my ring finger, looked at me from the flower's center. It refused to move, backing further into the flower's petals until it closed again. The purple flower dissolved, along with the meadow, tree, and pain. I was now in a black void, the bee staring up at me from the decaying remains of the flower in my palm.

I was aware of the demons laughing. Still, though, as the minutes wore on, the bee still stared. It was staring in such a zombie-like manner, I tried to run. But, it was on my hand. It wouldn't come off, it wouldn't move, it would just stare. Even when I looked away, started to run, bees were everywhere, floating in the air, still and lifeless, but staring. Every single one, the same. The same gaze, body, color. They all hung there, as if suspended by invisible line.

I screamed, trying to close my eyes, but unable to escape. The longer I held my eyes shut, the closer the bees came, until they were barely an inch away. Then, their wings started to beat. One at first, but the rest coming along with it until the dead bees were alive again, but, still, they stared at me, transfixed. I couldn't peel my eyes away, and I was too afraid of what might be around me.

"Dalila," The bees all said in unison, monotonous, no emotion at all. All the voices exactly the same. "Our master: devil's spawn." The ground collapsed beneath me and I was left, falling from the scene of the bees, unable to awaken from my nightmare, no matter how much I tried. The falling sensation was horrible, like falling through an endless abyss. We all know the feeling of dread that accompanies the helplessness of the falling, knowing the bottom has to be near. But, unlike you, I cannot awake until I hit the bottom.

And, tonight, the bottom was the school hallway that had been music class. But I was running, running from something, forbidden to turn back. The door numbers had changed, and I was running for such a long time until the end of the hall came, shrouded in darkness. I refused to turn, and something slammed into me, knocking me through the wall, into a never-ending corridor with black and white tiled floors and a low ceiling, the walls seeming to close in. Instead of doors, there were nightstands.

Pretty white nightstands, each with an orange bottle, white cap pulled off and bloody fingerprints on the white label.

"Dalila," A chorus of disembodied children's voices floated down the hall, monotonous as the bees'. "We're waiting for you. Join us, Dalila. Dalila.... Dalila.... We're your Heaven, join us, we're waiting... Waiting..." A single voice giggled, the high-pitched sound of a child getting away with something that would have been naughty. It was horrible, each girl's giggle echoing down the hall, followed by the laughter of the boys.

"No, no, no!" I screamed down the hall, forced to move by some invisible force. "I will not join you. No! Leave me alone!" Tears streamed down my face, my legs involuntarily moved toward the darkness that was ahead, where the children were chanting my name over and over.

"Dalila!" I screamed at the noise, it was so human. My eyes flew open, and one of the four girls in the room I was sleeping in looked at me, rubbing her eyes. She had black hair and brown eyes, and, when I flung my arms around her, she smelled like strawberries. She squirmed, I released her immediately, my relief for hearing something as human as a voice degrading quickly. She glared at me.

"You were screaming in your sleep," She said, voice having an accent. I was too disoriented to identify it, but it sounded sort of Russian. "You should do something about that. Maybe shoot yourself, because we all know that is your wish." She held up the tattered pinkish-white rag that was my Elmo. I glared at her, baring my teeth and growling similar to a dog through my teeth. The girl looked at me like I was crazy and threw Elmo at my face. Why had I done that? How did I even know what a dog's growl /sounded/ like? I'd never been around dogs or watched television, by far bothered to try to sound like something I didn't even know of that well.

The other girl, Sina, I believe, walked out the door in her pajamas. I looked over at the alarm clock, the disturbing large, red, glowing font staring at me. It was Saturday, and seven o'clock in the morning. I must have been screaming pretty loud, I thought, sitting up in bed and standing up, nearly overcome by the dizziness that followed. I usually screamed in the night, and everyone was used to it by now. I /had/ been in an orphanage since I was two, after all.

I walked into the bathroom, taking my pills and refusing to look at the horrible orange bottle, like usual, and threw on a black dress, pinning up my white hair in a black rose clip and brushing my teeth until they were white. I stared at my ice blue eyes a moment, waiting for them to change to a darker hue, as they had done when I was younger. Now, they seldom changed, today holding their color like every other. I sighed, pulling on long, striped socks and boots before reaching under my bed and pulling out the black book that was my diary.

It was leather, and had a buckle that might have came from a belt on it. I had found it when I was five, absently wandering around the building. It had just been lying there for me, in the middle of the hall. Nothing had been written in it, and the pages were brand new. It even had my name engraved in the leather, right underneath 'Little Black Bible.' I had never laid eyes on a Bible until I arrived at the orphanage, and, according to my experience, they were all black. So, I had taken it to my room and it had been my diary ever since, never running out of pages, no matter how much I wrote in it.

Today, I was recording my dream, rereading it over and over again until something clicked in my mind. It only took five times through, then the panic and reality of the dream set in on me. I was going to die.

I was going to die in a month, probably less. A seven year-old girl was going to die in a single month! I knew the demons had planned this all along, this was just their fun before the torture, it seemed. I wondered how they'd kill me, my mind drifting to the obscene room, the ropes, the bloodstained walls, the dead children. But, that little something told me that the demons were going to kill me in a much more public manner, having outlasted the oldest of the bodies in the room by at least two years. I just hoped I could pass as five.

And about me being the devil's spawn? That send a cold feeling of dread through me, making me feel helpless. My father wasn't the devil. My mother couldn't've been, the devil was a man, after all. I shivered, noting Elmo's eyeless head looking at me. I pushed it under the covers and returning to my black book, noticing a drawing. Then, it had me absorbed.

A five pointed star with a circle around it. The common pentagram, correct? But, something about it just sent that dread through me again. It was evil, I did not draw it. It was possible that the drawing was just as real as my dreams and would just dissolve into my paper. The more I stared, though, the more I noticed the black spreading across the page, the more I tried to scratch it out until it yanked the pencil from my hand, sucking it into the blackness.

/It is unwise,/ A demon said to me. I recognized this as Isis, one of the worst demons in my head. /To keep portals open./ She always left clues like this, leaving me so confused that I closed up the book and reopened it to the same page, seeing nothing there. That hardly surprised me, even though it had to have been real, too many things like that had happened and destroyed my surprise. The demons giggled and laughed. I sighed, holding my head in my hands until they stopped. Closing my diary, I fastened the buckle and slid it under the bed, being sure that it was behind whatever was under there, knowing it would be safe.

I stood up from the small desk that we shared and walked through the wood door, closing it softly behind me. The hallway was very dark compared to the almost overly bright beige color of the girls' rooms. In fact, it was darker than usual. I looked at the big, rectangular windows on each end of the hall, seeing dark stormclouds. I assumed it hadn't started to rain yet, I didn't hear any sounds of the rain on the roof or see any leaks in the hall.

As I started down the long hall, turning left to take the longer way, I started to hear something beside my own footsteps. I assumed it was rain, but I didn't see any water on the windows. I assumed that I was just too far away from either window to really make out anything small like rain splatters on the windowpanes.

/Zebras, not horses./ Odin, one of the friendlier demons, said. I heard giggles in the background, assuming it was coming from something behind me in the hallway, I turned around. I was shocked into not moving at what I saw.

A large, black dog stared at me, wagging its shaggy tail. The ears were pointed, and looked almost sewed to the dog's skull. Its fur was falling off in places and the paws were large and boney. Bones, connected to muscle tissue, could be seen from tears in the dog's skin. Although the muscle was white, dying and slowly turning to dust. I made the mistake of looking at its face, noting the tail was no longer wagging. The perfect white teeth shone against shaggy, black fur, teeth bared in a snarl, making a growling noise like I made not long ago.

"Another is seen!" It said, voice was deep. Its eyes rose to mine and I could have fainted, but I was still frozen in place, one hand to my chest in hopes to breathe. Its eyes were like the demon's: pupiless. But, the color had changed from maroon to scarlet, glowing.

"My child," The dog said, suddenly turning hostile, calm stand turning to an attack stance. "You must die for what you've done!" It jumped at me, and I ran, sprinted down the hallway to the stairs, falling over the first one and sure I was dead, holding my hands over my head. I was gasping for breath from the short run, about to pass out, vision saturating the colors to extreme brights, then dimming off into comforting blackness, but only for a moment.

"You alright?" It was a girl's voice. I looked up into the blue eyes of Sina, the mean girl. I nodded, and she smiled. "I must have scared you pretty bad," She stood up straight, looking at her nails and speaking in a tone of a snotty, stuck-up kid. "You ran like a chicken with it's head cut off. Right down that hall, then fell like one too." I grimaced at her, biting my tongue so I couldn't say anything stupid. Sina just laughed cruelly and made her way back up the flight of stairs I had fell down.

Ignoring the insults that floated down the hallway from Sina talking to her friends, I walked down the stairs, head searing painfully at every step I took, all the way to the cafeteria. Then it seemed to go away, making me assume the medication was kicking in already, which hardly seemed probable. I grabbed a plate of pancakes and a cup of purple-violet looking juice before sitting down.

/Don't eat./ A demon, it was hard to tell which one, said as I came to the conclusion that the juice was berry. I choked on the drink at the sudden sound of the voice, coughing until I could breathe right again. I hadn't eaten in a day, the demons refusing me food since yesterday, no matter how hungry I had been. Admittedly, my appetite was scarce, but I knew it would come back soon.

I examined the room. No one but a small girl on the other side of the room was here. The others were still asleep or doing something more important than eating breakfast. The cafeteria was dimly lit, and the tiles on the floor resembled those of my dream, making food even less appetizing, especially pancakes, since I had always gotten nausea over just looking at them.

/Don't eat./ The demon repeated, this time obviously Waelcyrge. I rolled my eyes, driven by supposed hunger, and picked up my spork. Oddly enough, just then, I realized I was left-handed. Even being abnormally smart, I always got my directions confused. I honestly had believed I was right-handed up until then. I had never, oddly enough, been corrected on my mistake. It made me slightly angry at my teachers, but I gave them mercy, considering nobody really /cares/ what hand you write with.

I chuckled at my revelation of my handedness, looking down at the pancakes. Honestly, they made me extremely ill to just look at them. I hated pancakes, but I was under the illusion that I was starving. While under that illusion, I would have probably ate a dead rat that had been lying on the side of the road for three months. I just told myself this, knowing it wasn't really true, and was about to cut into the food when the demons intervened.

/Don't do it./ All the demons said together, probably looking through my eyes to watch. I shook my head, feeling their confused vibes in my head. When the spork stabbed into the sliver of pancake it cut, I noticed that it looked blueberry. It was blue-ish, but more purple. When I was getting ready to have the first, horrible bite of pancake, I looked down and gagged, dropping the spork. Bugs, mainly roaches and beetles, crawled all over my utensil, my hand, and my plate. Bees, live, stinging bees, were in the syrup, buzzing loudly. Ladybugs crawled all up my arm, over my dress. Flies buzzed over the drink, a dead wasp lying in the middle of the purple liquid.

When I looked up from the horrific scene to see if the janitor had seen it, or if I was daydreaming, but all I found was a giant praying mantis, purple accenting the green. And it was coming at me. The girl that had been sitting across the room smiled at me. I saw her eyes were yellow, but I was unable to get a better look because I quickly stood up and walked away before the cafeteria changed into a spider's web or something.

I walked swiftly up the stairs, out of breath by the first flight. I made it half way up the second at a slug's pace and sat down, just to breathe. After I had enough breath to make it to the top of the stairs, I stood up and walked up to the second flight's landing and four more steps to the second floor. I sat down by the wall, exhausted from the trip up the stairs. This was not normal. It had to be the demons, who else would make me suffer like this?

My breathing should have got better, but it was just getting worse. I clutched at my chest, eyes closed shut, trying to breathe evenly. Soon, it turned to panic and I grabbed at my throat, as if someone was suffocating me. After that, my mind was oxygen starved and making me tired.

/Please,/ I thought to the demons, as if drugged. /Please stop./ I heard them conversing when I fell into a state of unconsciousness. It couldn't have been long when I was awaken by the sound of someone calling my name.

"Dalila!" They said, shaking me. I assumed it was a woman by the sound of her voice. "What is /wrong/ with you? Get up!" The last words were violent, but the shaking stopped as I opened my eyes. I had expected to see the ceiling of my room and was surprised to find myself where I had been when I fell into the black, dreamless void. It took a moment to realize I had not been dreaming. The woman who had woke me up was beside me and I should have thanked her.

I tried to stand up, just to help my waker up, but falling down once getting to my knees. I looked over in the direction the woman should have been in, but there was nothing there. The spot wasn't even warm and no one was around. I shook my head, now confused, and hoisted myself up by the silver rail that ran down the side of the hall for whatever reason. I made it to my room without falling and instantly collapsed on my bed, seeing my roommates were already gone.

I noticed it was darker in the room after the initial disorientation and went to go look outside, careful not to run or walk very fast. I opened the door, which usually screamed whenever you opened it, and looked out at the window. It was raining now, lightning lighting up the cloud. I found it odd that there were no rain pattering sounds or the sounds of thunder. I shut the door behind me, not hearing it close. I looked back, seeing it closed. I always heard the door close.

What was /wrong/ with me today?

/Devil's spawn./ Isis cooed in the back of my head, the voice echoing around my mind like the sound of screams echoing through a valley.

/Death is deaf!/ Waelcyrge snarled, making me jump and nearly fall into the bed I was almost to. The demons never used harsh tones with me. I supposed that /that/ was going to be changing quickly.

/Children never obey,/ Odin said softly as I sat down on my bed, pulling off my boots. /So the punishment for doing so becomes worse each time./ I nearly toppled off my bed, nearly snapped my neck, but I clung to the bedpost and lived another second, kicking my boots under the bed. The voices were being very evasive. Why?

Then, finally, it dawned on me: I was deaf, and "why" was the question to answer. It couldn't have been my simple disobedience in the cafeteria, they had taken care of that, after all. This was something deeper, more personal. The same gut instinct told me that finding out why I was deaf would expel another demon from my mind. I was far from hopeful, however. I only had a month, and time was not a kind maiden, ticking down by the weeks, not seconds.



(i personally don't think the second chapter really fit in. your opinions?)