As a mental health professional I do not believe in demons, or in evil, for that matter. There is no Satan or Hell, it is safe to say that. We don't need "The Devil made me do it." because people do it all the time without the help of monsters.

After I had lost a number of my patients to suicide I went on a kind of break. I went up to my family's cabin, built on Regiel by my great grandfather, and spent the first night getting drunk and yelling at myself. It worked so well on my nerves that I did it again each night for about a week before I had exhausted the two handles of whiskey in the cabin. I'm not much of a drinker and after the nasty hangover weekend I was done.

I had brought the files of all my patients that had done it. Each of them the same way, by overdosing on clear alcohol and a sleep aid. They had each taken just enough to die, no more, no less. The symmetry of one doing it each week was not lost on me. I sat there questioning my own sanity.

I had not tried to fathom how such coincidence was possible without supernatural origin. It occurred to me that I was going to be held responsible. Who wouldn't blame me for what had happened?

The wooded hill was a beautiful autumn forest. It was too quiet, with no birds or airplanes. I was supposed to be alone and I needed the solitude.

I wasn't alone on Regiel. I went down to the creek every day in the following weeks and let my feet into the cold water. One day I could smell blood and I looked up to behold that I could see death from where I sat.

The corpse was hanging by ropes from a tree and dripped blood to the ground below. A swarm of flies were buzzing lazily around it and I could hear their humming. I just stared at the animal carcass and listened to the song of the flies. That is why I thought I wasn't alone, because someone had hunted and gutted the horned animal.

I waded across the creek and got closer to the camp. I saw that there was a small fire that was extinguished. There was no other sign of anyone. I turned around and went back to the creek. The smell of blood was making me feel anxious.

I noticed that my hands were covered in it. I was startled and worried as I stared at my bloody hands. I hadn't even gotten close to the animal. I washed the blood off in the creek with effort. Blood is very sticky and difficult to clean off of hands in cold water without soap. I grabbed leaves and dirt and rubbed them on my hands to try to scrub the red off.

Then I sat back, panting from the excited effort. I had frantically cleaned until only a stain on my skin remained. Then I thought I heard something behind me in the dry leaves of the forest floor. I turned around, expecting to meet the hunter. Nobody was there. I got up and walked slowly around, looking one direction and the other.

The sun had gone behind the mountains and it began to grow very dark, even though sunset wasn't for four more hours. I started to head back to the cabin. As I went I felt like I was being watched, felt like I was being followed. Fear crept up in me as I was unable to dispel the feeling.

I barricaded the cabin door and got into my sleeping bag. Whatever had followed me was not outside. Somehow I had let it in and locked myself in with it. I knew it was with me, knew its presence. It was physically manifesting as I concentrated on whatever it was.

I could hear it in the darkness as it made soft clicking and bubbling noises. The slightest sound of its claws as they held the wood and it traversed the wall to the ceiling above me. I could see its outline in the darkness, its limbs bent unnaturally and its movements that seemed both lightning quick and deliberately slow and stealthy. Then it rotated the animal like head and opened its festering yellow eyes. Somehow I could see its eyes in the night's veil.

I could not tell myself that it wasn't real. I could not deny the sensation of paralyzed panic as I stared at the creature above me. It whispered to me and I knew not the words it was saying. A coldness washed over my body; the chill of hearing its ancient language as it promised me something dire.

I was so terrified that I couldn't move. I just stared at it until I was crying and trembling. I cannot explain how I lost consciousness. I woke up to find that my barricaded door was open. A large squirrel was sitting on my porch staring at me with its beady little eyes. I looked around the cabin for my oppressor and saw nothing. In the early morning light it had become invisible. I could still feel its presence. It wanted me to think it had left me, but I knew it was still with me. The fear told me it was still in the cabin.

I went out to the cabin's bathroom area. The original outhouse had fallen down and I had to settle for a makeshift bathroom outside. My toilet paper was hanging from a branch as I sat on a hollowed log and used it. I looked up and the squirrel from my front porch was sitting some distance away and watching me.

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It was then that I decided to end my vacation early. I was too afraid to spend another night out there alone. What I had seen was burning inside my mind and I could still see it whenever I closed my eyes. My efforts not to imagine it only made it stronger, as though it was feeding off of my fear. I was glimpsing it in every shadow and behind a tree it was hiding in the shade.

I went back inside and began to pack my things. It was then that I stopped my movements and realized the extent of the intrusion. All of the patient files I had brought were arranged on the floor and someone had written on them in blood.

I stared at the message, knowing what it said and refusing to comprehend it. The letters were in my handwriting, finger painted in drying blood. I blankly and numbly noted that my hands had blood on them again.

The message read: "Made me do it."

I felt sick. I felt like I was going to vomit something out of myself, something that found it amusing. Something in me was laughing and I wanted to puke it out. My head felt heavy and full of the sound of its hysterics.

I looked at the antique rifle over the stone fireplace. I wanted to use it to put a hole in my head to empty out my skull. Fortunately the barrel was too long and there was no ammunition. I was bewildered that I had tried.

"See? You want to die." I heard its voice again and it whispered in English instead of its primordial language.

I was crying and asked my oppressor: "What is this? Why?"

To my inquiry it only found hilarity. Its laughter was not a sound, it was a feeling inside of me. It felt anemic and formicating under my skin. The most awful sensation, worse than pain. I felt like it was chewing on something deep within me, some part of me more vital than my organs and more permanent than my bones.

I realized that something was haunting me, feeding off of me. Something I had brought with me. It was not a part of me, but it resided within me. I could not escape the creature I had met because it was somehow in my body.

I became overwhelmed by despair and fear. There was no escape, no hope. And worse, it began to let me remember what it had done while wearing my face and using my voice.

Days went by, blurring into the darkness of night. The cabin sat alone in a silent gloom and the images of memories played out for me. I knew how my patients had died. They had trusted me, allowed me to mesmerize them and to convince them to kill themselves and how. I had even told them the exact recipe to use to do it; that is how they were each so precise with their dosage of death. I had killed them all.

My screams woke me up and my crying made me sleep. The sky swung round and round as I starved and writhed. I was its prisoner, unable to make myself leave. Isolated and guilty, I was at its mercy. It had no mercy for I was its prey and its host.

I was only able to leave after I had fallen apart. I was in bad shape and in my own feverish way I made a plan to escape. Every morning it would change form. It would terrify me and chase me at night, but in the morning it seemed to avoid the light and it would hide.

In my torment I held fast to the idea that I could somehow escape it. As it retreated into the dark corners I limped weakly out to my car, my hair and clothes a mess. I began to drive back to town and along the way I stopped.

There, in the middle of the road was its squirrel. The animal sat there defiantly, waiting for me to run it over. Instead I got out and began to slowly approach it.

"I am not afraid of you. I am going home." I said with weakness in my voice. Instead of running from me it charged right up to me.

I wanted to scream and try to get away. Terror gripped me where I stood because I knew it was not an animal. As it neared me I felt my dreadful flight leave me. I couldn't escape the fast moving animal as it ran closer to me. I felt a flood of defensive violence overtake me. My reflex caught it under my foot.

Chittering angrily, with its little claws flailing and its demon eyes boring into my soul, it was trapped. I held it there under my foot and looked down on it. I knew it was my chance to defy it, to accuse it of its lies:

"I do not belong to you. I dedicated my life to helping others. You thing of Regiel, this is where I brought you. You killed those people, but never again. I am not for you, I have good work to do and you cannot stop me!" I was saying. The creature's strength increased as it struggled under my foot. I had made the effort to break free from it and I had stood up to it.

"You cannot escape me." The squirrel said in my mind's ears.

"Then die." I shrieked and reached for it. When I had the squirrel in my hands, stretched out, I brought it to my face. I wanted to bite its face off and I did, breaking its skull with my teeth. Its blood poured out of my mouth onto the road and I spit the remains of its head out from my lips. Then I dropped its wet fur with a plop and turned to get back into my car.

As I neared town I felt relieved. I knew it was gone and that I had driven it from me. I was stopped by the police and I told them I had an accident up in my family's cabin on Regiel. When the police were done with me I went and cleaned myself up. Then found the local priest and confessed that I had feared a demon had taken hold of me.

I left my moment in the church behind with the reassurance that it was gone. The priest had prayed over me and I believed I was free, that my days and nights would be without its presence. I returned home and began to piece my life back together.

The extent of the damage will take the rest of my life to repair. I cannot blame my own mind for what happened because I was the one who set myself free from it. And I've kept the promises I have made since that day.

I do no belong to fear and despair; for I have good work still to do.