You are a fragment of me. A minority of me. A part of me I wanted to destroy a long time ago, but where I go you go and there is no escape through space nor time. You are the minority of me, but you are my superior. I hate you and I don’t need you now, but I needed you once and you grew like a tumour and you never left since. I wish I never needed you at all.

I hate you, but you are me, so I hate me. I’m stuck with you. How can I be at peace with myself if I have you? How can we be so different, but the same person?

Where did I go so wrong that I became you?

______

Your tridents struck in my back and my arms held behind me. Dying is an interesting experience when you know you aren’t going to die. Scarier, I believe. There’s something worrying about an empty eternity, but isn’t that death?

In that case, no matter.

Your leader calls as she vanishes above the clouds. Your tridents pull away and you let go of my arms. I sink, thinking I’ve drowned already, but that unstoppable child in me wakes me up from my morbid sleep. I shoot through the hole in the ice and to the sky.

Angels have an easy trail to follow. Easier to follow when there’s a crying baby. My wings beat and I fly towards them. Your attempts are pathetic. How often must your kind die before I am left alone? I sink beneath the clouds and see the three angels. The leader has the child.

You will not interfere. Not after what happened.

After all I’ve been through.

______

It’s beautiful to see, but horrible to know why it’s happening.

Sunrise

Sunset

The day hasn’t even happened. Not for me. All the people watch you take your time to cross the sky, living their lives. I sit here and watch the experience of you slip by.

Wouldn’t it be nice to feel your warmth for longer than this… and I can. I very easily can. Should I? All I need to do is leave my chair, stop staring at the horizon, end my idle state. Come down to join the land and let you embrace me.

But this is more than an idle state. I’m not doing nothing. I’m restraining.

But I’m so very tired of restraining. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it. I can’t sleep without slaughter… but why stay awake to keep them alive? Didn’t they do this?

I suppose. But if I take that out on them, I’m no better than them. They never understood. I do. And I’ll be a monster if I choose slaughter.

______

Safety. No more pain. No more hiding. No more fear. Power and revenge.

You promise me this?

Then by all means, lead me.

A thrill. A red thrill. A bloodbath. It feels wrong, but taboo is sometimes the fun part. I love the faces. They mirror my own. I love seeing my pain in them. Some of these faces are familiar. Some of them find me familiar.

They stare at me with horror. Either because I’m a monster to them, or because they watched me die.

I love seeing my pain in them. The pain done on me was the pain done onto themselves.

You

Did

This

______

I open my eyes. Waking up is confusing. A rollercoaster of emotions into the bleakness of an ending nightmare. Some emotions… Some emotions just aren’t allowed in the waking world. Some emotions only exist in dreams.

“Damien,” my father says, patting my shoulder, “You okay?”

I sit up and look around. I’m not in the sky, or in a mountain, or in a village. I’m at home in the comfort of my bed. “I don’t feel well,” I say.

He nods and says, “I’ll email the school and let them know.” He walks out of my room and closes the door. I put the back of my hand to my forehead. I really am sick, but it doesn’t feel like something a doctor could help with. It stems from something deeper. It’s like my demonic wellbeing is bad and now so is my health.

I fall back into bed and pull the blanket up to my chin. The dreams, or memories, became a norm. I don’t bother thinking about them anymore. Picking them apart means nothing now. All I can gain from them is, “You’re a mass murderer, Damien”.

Not a hero, nor a saviour, nor a chosen one. It’s something special, but it’s nothing good. A mass murderer. Murderer alone isn’t bad enough.

I feel the black bruises on my arms and stomach. I trace my fingers along cuts on my forearm. They healed quickly, quicker than they should have for a human. Gaping lacerations are now thin, scabbed lines. Black lumps are soft and tender skin. I remember being burnt multiple times, but there are no signs of that.

I wonder if everybody is reincarnated, or if it’s just me.

It’s just you.

And if it is just me, why do I deserve to be reborn? Surely there are better people who deserve more life.

Hell doesn’t want you.

Something that Aubrey said raised some questions. The medieval home in the forest is in a pocket dimension that only I can open. If I could open it for three years, I was a demon for three years.

But my dreams reach back further than that. I remember waking up in the middle of the night at age six from strange nightmares that I will never know. My mother told me how as a baby I would wake up from a deep sleep and scare the world with my screams. No crying. Just screaming. I would hit everybody away when they tried to comfort him and try to shuffle my small body as far from them as I could.

For 17 years, grains of my past life had been piling up beside me, showing themselves as nightmares that would slip between the fingers of memory. Now the rocks were falling down, knocking over who I am and making way for the old life to replace me.

I’ve been part demon all my life and this is just the climax.

What does that mean for me? Am I going to fade away as slowly as the grains fell, until my body is left to the two rivals that shared a body in my previous life? Am I going to accept and embrace my past life and follow the path as a merciless slaughterer?

My phone vibrates. I pick it up. It’s a message from Aubrey… What does it mean for my friends? That night when Aubrey and Victor tried to help me, the way I perceived Aubrey as a threat was scary. It wasn’t only for her, it was for everything. An overwhelming hate that couldn’t be tamed took me over. I wanted to tear everybody apart and I felt like they wanted to do the same to me. I ran away because I didn’t want to hurt them, but I know that when this transformation reaches its end, my sympathy will be worthless.

I open the message.

Aubrey: WHERE ARE YOU??

… How can you hate people like this?

You: At home. Sick.

I put the phone down and get out of bed. I don’t want to become irrational because of a morning-mind. Having breakfast and waking myself up might make the situation seem easier, because a tired mind blows everything out of proportion.

My slippers scrape the floor as I walk down the passage.

You’re not alone.

... What?

I ignore the voice and continue to the kitchen. On my way back with a bowl of cereal and a cup of tea, as I pass my mother’s room...

You’re not alone.

Shut up…

I sit down on my bed, leaving the cup on my bedside table. I try to focus on the taste of the cereal as I eat. Chocolate… I can’t ignore the elephant in my mind.

Or the whale.

Or the dinosaur.

Or the demon.

I’m feeling all of the emotions from a past life at once. They’re few emotions. Anger. Hate. Sadness.

Each of it feels unique. Each feels like its own specialised emotion. Anger towards the world. Hate towards myself. Sadness for… everything.

I hear the memory of a voice. It isn’t my voice, but I can feel it in my throat as if it is.

I want to end it all,

the voice says,

I want to end this.

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I don’t struggle to understand why.

The people I’d killed. The things I’d done. The faces…

Sometimes I hear their voices.

It felt good, but only when it was happening.

Why did I do it?

I look back on it, and all I feel is guilt. All I feel is shame. I wanted it to happen but I never realised what it would do… I hurt people. I ended lives. Some person, some child, with family, with life left to live, with air still to breathe and flowers still to smell, would die. Because of me. Some person, who mattered dearly to someone else, would die. Because of me. People would suffer. People would be terrified. People would cry in fear, anger and pain…

Because

Of

Me.

But I comprehended that too late.

So those people died and suffered and felt the deepest fear imaginable. And I hated myself for that. I hated myself to the point that I wanted to end myself. I wanted to take myself out of the picture. I was a monster and I knew that I was a monster. I didn’t know any way to end the monster without ending myself.

I was a monster.

We killed them.

I hated myself.

You and I.

… I am a monster.

YOU

… And I hate myself.

And I.

I can feel it in me, like a parasite in my soul. It’s there. And it’s never going to leave. It’s going to do it again.

WE are going to do it again.

I raise my head to look at my desk at the foot of the bed. My knife lays there. A voice from somewhere between me and far away screams,

This has to end

And without question, I agree. I have to end my life. No questions asked, like this is a normal thing to think. It’s an idea, then a thought, then an intention. When it becomes an intention, when I’m about to get out of bed and go for the knife, my heart starts to beat faster. My hands go cold and my head starts to ache as my ears scream at me.

I look away from the knife and just like that, it’s gone.

Not like this

He won’t let it happen. I remember now. The dream. The man tried to throw himself off a cliff, but the demon stopped him from dying.

Suicide isn’t an option. I need some other way. I need to—

This isn’t my fight.

This is not my fight.

This is my life. My own life.

Yes

No

I will not be replaced.

I will not be controlled.

No

For a moment, I feel the feeling of being pulled away from my own body to be replaced, and then it leaves. I’m free. Only temporarily, but I’m free. I can do what needs to be done, whatever that is, without the monster interfering.

I can hear it. It’s screaming somewhere far away in my mind, like it’s being held back. It’s contained, but not harmed, and not forever.

What is it that needs to be done? Where is it that I can go? What can I do?

… What is that I’m trying to do?

To end it. Not my life. The monster. The monster is what I need to end. How? I don’t know. Who could I go to that would know?

My logic asks, my instincts answer, and the answer is far from what I was expecting it to be.

___

The energy that I hold, this thing that lets everybody know that I’m here and gives me my powers, is an object. Or entity. Whatever word. It’s something I can wield. It’s something I can control. Part of that control is my ability to choke it. To snuff it out. To hide it as if it weren’t there or to reduce it.

I don’t want people to know where I am. Where I’m going, I don’t want people to know that I exist. I want to blend in. I want there to be just enough power to be considered demon, but so little that I go unnoticed.

I’d seen enough of this place for a good while, but I didn’t know where else to go. I want to go to Victor, but he doesn’t know what to do. If he did, he’d have told me by now.

The leaves crunch under me. I can feel the presence of other demons ahead. The monster screams from far away in my mind, still trying to break free from whatever’s holding it back. A part of me feels anxious that he might break free, but there’s a mature side of me that reassures me. It lets me know this isn’t permanent, but I have time.

The leaf litter changes to arid, dry, orange rocky ground. There’s a light stink of alcohol nearby. Torches are stuck into the ground around this village. The buildings are made of mud. I feel like I’ve been here. The woman must have brought me through here. I swear I’ve caught a glimpse of this place before.

Two demons leaning against the wall beside an archway, sharing a cigarette, look at me. I hope the hoodie of my jacket is enough to hide my face. I continue through the village.

I can sense her. She’s hiding. She’s cloaking her energy the same way that I do, but I can still sense her. I suppose it’s part of my tools and adaptations as a killer to find the things that hide from me.

I pass the hole that Aubrey helped me out of. It actually makes me scared, though just for a second. The thought of what she did to me, and the start of my surge of memories. The monster screams.

The woman elevates herself into the canopy. Thin black tentacles suspend her like tree roots. Her skin is pale. Her dress isn’t a dress. It’s just the essence of her power clothing her body. She just drifts there among the leaves, bathing in sunshine, completely unaware of me.

“… I need your help,” I say and wish I had a better word.

Her head leans back and her eyes open. At first she smirks, then she sees who I am. The tentacles shrink rapidly and her body twirls as she comes down and touches her feet to the ground.

I know fear across its entire spectrum. She’s scared, but she’s confident that she can get out of this alive.

I wait for her to say something, then I realise that she’s waiting for me.

“Do you know my situation?”

She looks cautious. “You’re a reincarnation and something’s possessing you.”

“That’s right.” Despite what she did to me, I’m not scared of her. That monster still screams at me over my shoulder. “My mind is being torn apart by two people from another life… I want to know how to stop it.”

“What makes you think I know how?”

“Your age.”

She tilts her head slowly.

“It’s like a smell. There’s energy inside of you that hasn’t left you for so long. It’s just been resting there. Ageing. If you’re as old as I think you are, then you must have some great wisdom. Something that can help me.”

“Help you what?”

“Help me get rid of them. Help me stop them from taking my body. Save myself and everybody else.”

She walks slowly to my left, like she’s starting to circle me. She touches a tree and slides a hand down the trunk. She’s trying to re-establish herself. She’s trying to get more comfortable.

“… You have to die,” she says. The monster’s screaming is persistent. It hasn’t silenced since I left home.

“Not happening,” I say.

“You asked me for my great wisdom. There it is. For some reason, your soul wasn’t taken in by what lay beyond life. And now you’re being reincarnated.” She continues to walk around me. I don’t bother turning my head to follow her. Once she leaves my line of sight, I look straight ahead.

“Your old life is being sourced into this body. This is something beyond us. Unless you’re a god, you have no influence over this way of the world.”

She finishes her first circle around and comes back into my sight. She’s not scared anymore. She’s cautious, but comfortable.

“If you wish to stop a reincarnation… If you wish to stop an old life from coming to a new life, the only way is to end the new life.”

She stops in front of me, just out of grabbing distance. The monster’s scream sounds like it’s echoing through the forest behind me. I wait for her to attack me, and she sees it in my clenching fists and my unintentional grimace.

“Oh, no, dear. I know better,” she says and continues walking. “I know how strong you are. I can see it in you. It’s not at the forefront of your mind but it’s there. Buried deep down in you.”

She takes quick step towards me and I flinch and the screams make my ears ring. She laughs and continues walking. “It makes you nervous, doesn’t it? When I come close? You feel that possession rise up in you. You feel your mind fall away as it loses control.”

My fist clenches so hard that my knuckles hurt. I don’t turn to face her, but as she walks around my back I do turn my head.

“You seem to misunderstand reincarnation. You seem to think there’s two minds fighting over your mind. No… Child, one is you and one is an inherited possession.”

It angers me. I don’t know why. It hurts me to think of it. I want to scream. Anger feels like fire in my lungs.

The thought of it… I believed that my life was my own. That it was my own individual experience. I lived and I grew in my own world.

But I am a reincarnation. This life that I think is my own and the person that I am is predetermined.

As she enters my view again, I turn around and walk back the way that I came. She asks nothing of it.

There’s nothing I can do, according to her. I just have to sit tight and be taken for the ride. My fate is that I either die alone, or I take the world with me. I won’t settle for those two options but what do I know about fighting possessions and disrupting the flow of reincarnation? All these memories and instincts and knowledge I never asked for and I know nothing about how to deal with my only problem. All this power, and I can’t use it…

because my greatest enemy is myself.

… because my greatest enemy

is me…

I take a moment to observe the monster. It’s free. There is nothing holding it back. There is nothing to stop it from taking me right now and yet… it does nothing.

Why?

Passing through the village, I see those two strangers again. I avoid eye contact, but I can feel their eyes on me. I walk on.

And now… Now it starts. He starts to make his noises again. He starts to scream at me from the back of my mind.

“Jy.”

I stop and turn only my head. The monster’s presence is like an annoying itch in my bones where my skull meets my spine.

“My friend and I don’t have money for beers at the pub,” one of the strangers ask, “Can you give us some?”

My eyes blink slowly and they look at me funny. I feel some kind of pull towards them. It’s like I’m leaning to them and there’s a non-existent hand reaching out to grab.

“No,” I say. I continue, but he grabs my arm and I crank my head down and to the side as the monster’s roars pierce my ears.

“Please,” he feigns politeness.

I know what I can do to them. I can feel their power. They are nothing. I know what I can do them.

I will burn them. I will break them. I will start with his hand. The shards of bone will show through his skin when I’m done. I will show them true power and they will learn how small they are. I will make them suffer. I will make them die slowly and painfully. Their lives will end and their existence will be forgotten even by the people they love.

… He whispers in my ear.

The monster.

He holds my hand, and he guides it.

He makes promises.

He makes the promise that I will never be hurt again. He makes the promise that I will forget fear.

And that’s how he got to me. And that’s how he was born. And that’s how all those people died.

I look at the stranger’s hand… All of the things that I could do to you… And I won’t do any of it… Because this has to end.

I turn my pockets out and show them that I have nothing. The first one shakes his head. The other one pats his hand on my jacket pockets to make sure I’m not hiding anything. The first one throws my hand down and they both walk away.

… Is that it?

Is that the end?

Was that… Was that all I needed to do?

I feel free. I feel like the monster is gone. I feel like I can move on. Like this is over. Like I am here now and I am alive and there’s nothing threatening that.

I feel refreshed.

When I get home, I kick off my shoes and take off my clothes and lie in bed. This… Is it. I am my own. It’s over. It started, it lived briefly, and now it stopped.

I take my phone from my bedside table.

Aubrey: We want to go out on Saturday. How busy will you be?