Daemonophobia; The Fear of Demons

I skip lunch, and go straight for the science wing of the school. The bright room greets me, and the smokey Daemon also acknowledges my entrance.

"Hello, Ms. Willow." The teacher looks up at me from her desk, where test papers are scattered about.

"Hello, Ms. Coal." I reply.

She asks me how I am, and what she can help me with. I reply and pull a chair up to the desk.The Dragon hisses at me. Ms. Coal regards it with a sort of cautious indifference.

"I want to get rid of that. Today. Now." I say, nodding with my head towards it.

Red eyes glare at me, and the air prickles. Shivers erupt down my spine and I have to fight the urge to flee.

"But. . What are you talking about?" She asks.

This confuses me, so much so that I turn away from staring at the Dragon and look at her. I can see myself reflected in her eyes, just as she herself must be reflected in mine.

"What do you mean, what am I talking about?"

She looks between me and then to the Daemon. Her hand floats out, fingers reaching for it. My eyes go wide as it respond s to her, stalking over to her and gently bumping its black smoke head against her out stretched palm. With...Affection.

I'm struck speechless.

I feel my thoughts stick to the walls of my brain. Then...

Explode.

"What Have You Done!?!" I scream, throwing myself back, away from her, it, them.

"It's just... I don't know, comforting." She says, shame heavy in her voice.

My eyes, which are full of confusion, dart to the Dragon. It sneers at me, red tongue lulling out the side of its sharp black mouth like a content puppy dog.

"No. NO! You can't. It'll hurt you. It'll hurt others." I state this in a frenzy, "It has hurt me."

The Daemon shivers, smoke quivering. It tries to lean back into Ms. Coal, but this she shrugs it away.

"Talk to me, please." I say to her.

"It's what I know. It's what I understand. How can I turn away from what I am familiar with?"

Her voice shakes a little. I realize that she's not talking about the Dragon, but I can't think of what would be familiar to her.

"What are you talking about?" I ask softly, hoping to encourage her to speak.

"This feeling, the beaten, broken feeling." She whispers. "I'd been ... I'd been abused as a girl, so.. I've never really had any other feeling. Now, it's become a part of me. If I don't have what I know, what is there?"

I listen to her and marvel at not only her courage, but at her thinking as while. She is so frightened by the though of not knowing, that she chooses to remain with what she knows. Even if what she knows is pain and emptiness.

"Charlotte, don't be afraid to let go of a bad thing." I say softly.

Her eyes open. Not physically, but they open, as if she suddenly understands. Then, they close and the windows to her soul draw closed. Shame clouds her irises.

"How can I be so foolish?!' Her voice quivers under it's weight.

The Daemon is horrified. I watch it cling to its shape. In my mind, I go over what is fueling it and keeping it as a parasite to its host. Abuse, fear, anger, resentment, more fear, and now it grips to shame. It is strong because it has many holds.

"I was so...blind!" Charlotte adds a condemning tone to her voice.

"Stop blaming yourself. It is not your fault." My voice cracks, fighting hard against the heavy air. "Do not feel shame, for shame is not yours."

Then, the air splits and a soft lightness fills it. There is no shame.

The Demon panics. It leaps for her, but it is tosses away. Black smoke shatters off it, but it holds shape. Then it hits me, that Charlotte is no longer its host. It's a free Demon. I panic, not knowing what affects it could have. Why doesn't it fade?

The red eyes flare, wrath and hatred flashes turn to me. My body recoils, indescribable amounts of terror surging through me. It will try to kill me.

"Charlotte...Let go of it." I tell her, as my brain tries to conjure words.

"I let go of it." Her voice sound distant.

Black smoke takes over the room, scratching at the edges of my vision and flooding my mind. The deep murderous red eyes spark, the smoke rears up and----

"GET OUT!!" I scream at the top of my lungs.

There is the sound of wind, howling, snarling, and it blows over me. Deafening me to all other noise. My eyes see light eating away smoke. The noise is like metal on metal shrieking together.

Then it stops. Silence crashes in on me so violently that my ears start to ring. I stumble back and crash against a table and sliding quietly to the floor. Gone. It's gone. Done, finished.

I turn my eyes up to Ms. Charlotte Coal. Her eyes are so wide and open that I have to smile. Even as she looks at me a little worried, her eyes shine clear. Slowly, a smile tugs at her lips.

"Gry...I...Thank you..." She says softly, her voice light and airy.

The bell--

RRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIINNNNGGGG!

--brings me back to the room and back to the present. I barely manage to pull myself up from the floor when the first student comes in. Danny darts to my side. He'd probably been waiting for the bell.

In a blur of events, twenty minutes later I'm in the car with Hrs. Hale, getting a ride home because I've been excused from school for the day. I fall asleep before we get back.