Fallen Identity

I sat up quickly, breathing heavily. What's with all these strange dreams? I thought. And why do they always have to be scary. Dreams can be weird but not scary.

I went into the bathroom and splashed water on my face, trying to clear away the slight dizziness I was feeling. I looked up into the mirror at my pitiful face and noticed something odd. My eyes. One eye was fully red in the iris and the other was only half gold. What did that mean?

I blinked a couple times to make sure I was seeing clearly. Apparantly I was.

I exited the bathroom, my thought dwelling over what the significance of my eye colors could mean. Did it mean that I was more demon than angel? I then remembered something. I was only partly alive. None of it made sense. Nothing ever seemed to make sense and that's the scary part.

***

Zach asked me the one question that I didn't want to answer to at this moment, "Do you want to tell everyone the truth now?"

A part of me did and a part of me did. But that's the thing.. which part wanted me to do what? My demon side or my angel side?

I think you know the answer, whispered that voice in my head.

Go away!

You can't deny me for long. Soon enough, you'll be craving for my acception.

What're you talking about?

I think you know exactly what I'm talking about. That pull you're feeling to do certain things. That's been me all along. It's getting stronger isn't it?

No, I admitted lamely even though I knew it wasn't the truth. I remembered Zach's question and asked the voice, What's your name?
Deumos. Then the voice vanished.

Deumos. Deumos. Gotta remember that. Knowing me, I'd probably forget it. Oh wait, I'mtalking to Zachnow, aren't I?

"Carter?" Zach looked at me worriedly.

"Deumos!" I blurted out. Zach gaveme a puzzled look like he thought I was crazy.

"The,uh, voice came back and it's name is Deumos," I explainedmore calmly.

"I've never heard that name before," Zach said after a moment of thinking itover inhis head. Zach got up and went over to look for something in his bag. He pulled a couple things out until he was satisfied with what was in his hands. A book.

He walked back over and pretty much slammed the book down on the table, making me jump slightly. I couldn't blame him for doing that though. The book, which looked old and worn and some of the pages had burnt edges, was larger then the dictionary. I hadn't gotten a good look at the cover but it appeared blank from when I did see it. Zach flipped to the back of the book. So they had indexes way back when?

I saw Zach trace his finger down the page until he stopped in the middle of the page. I saw his eyes flicker over the words and without looking up he said, "Remember the number 758."

758, 758, 758, I chanted over and over in my head. Zach flipped to a page that was near the front of the book that was clearly nowhere near the page 758.

I'm guessing he was looking up the name Deumos and she or he or whatever it was, was located on more than one page.

Zach scanned the page again until he stopped and his eyes widened.

"What is it?" I asked cautiously.

Zach started to recite the paragraph from the book:

Deumos is I,
I love to kill,
And watch others die,
As their voices turn shrill.
Deumos is she,
She is only partly alive,
And will one day be mine,
As she struggles to thrive.
Deumos is here,
Ready to attack,
And relish others' fear,
As they fall on their back.

I was suddenly very terrified. The second stanza just basically described what was going on inside me. So, is that it? Am I really going to be taken over by Deumos?

Zach's voice brought me back to reality. He sounded just as confused and scared as I, "What was the other page number?"

"Oh, um, 758," I replied and watched as he flipped to the other page, lightning quick.

As he read over the page this time, he looked more confused. As if knowing what I was about to ask, he started reading from that passage:

Deumos is gone. She's disappeared and we are finally free of her dictatorship. We don't know where she's gone to but were content for the time being. Dimoni isn't too happy with her departure though. Everyone knew that he fancied her but only because of how dependent she was and commanding. Now Jezebeth is Dimoni's new apprentice, but I heard something else, that Dimoni is just using Jezebeth to get to his real goal. A girl who is said to be half angel and half demon. We all know how much Dimoni loves new experiements.

So, Jezebeth was just a pawn in Dimoni's game of chess. I couldn't help the small amount of sympathy for her. Even though she did kidnap me and threaten my life on a number of occasions, she never really harmed me in any way. She let me escape for crying out loud and that was when I was pretending to be a boy.

Unless she knew that I was only pretending and Dimoni ordered her to do what she did. So this whole time, Dimoni might've had his eye on me. Watching my every move. I got a sudden chill which voluntarily ran up my spine.

Great. This is exactly what I needed. The demon lord becoming my stalker. As if I wasn't dealing with enough as it is.

I felt something warm grab hold of my hand and looked up unto Zach's violet-gold eyes. "It's going to be ok."

I suddenly felt warm all over from Zach's word of comfort. I might sound repetitive, but Zach always made me feel safe and warm. I gave him a small smile and replied with, "I sure hope so."

Looking into Zach's eyes, I was reminded of all the other guys and Zach's original question. Did I finally want to tell the truth to everyone?

I know now that the reason I never wanted to tell them was because of Deumos' pull on me. But now that I knew what was going on, did I really want to let it all out. On one hand, they could all hate me forever for lieing to them and never speak to me again or, there might be the slight chance that they'll forgive me and help me.

I knew one thing was for sure; I was going to need help and lots of it.

"Yes," I asnwered out loud.

"Yes?" Zach asked me.

"Yes, I want to tell them the truth now," I said more confidently this time.
"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely," I smiled, trying to mask my nervousness.

"Ok, we'll leave for Chicago tonight," Zach proclaimed. Zach then excused himself and pulled out a small cell phone. Huh. I never knew he had a cell phone, or maybe I just don't pay attention that much.

Zach told me our flight was at 7:15 pm which gave us plenty of time to explore New York a little more before we had to go.

I asked Zach what that book was and he told me it was a book that many have written in. Like a book full of people's comments and shout-outs. Once someone had written in it, they would be automatically recorded in the index. I asked if any of the guys or him had written in it and he said no.

I was a little disappointed and asked if I could sign it. He warned me about what I would write because it would show up in three other copies of the book as well.

"How'd you get ahold of a book like this anyway?" I asked.

"I have my sources," he smiled mischieviously.

"Mysterious much?" I replied sarcastically, rolling my eyes. I then asked, "Does the book have a secret name?"

"Vecrin. That is the book's common name," Zach replied. "And I'm not being mysterious, I'm just simply not telling you what you want to know."

"Meanie," I pouted and stuck my tongue out.

"You might want to be careful," Zach warned me. He put on a serious face but I could see a hint of teasing in the back of his eyes.

"Careful? Why?" I asked, making myself looked worried.

"Because when you stick your tongue out like that, you're bound to attract bugs and frankly, I don't think they taste very appealing," Zach said. I gave him a grossed-out look which he laughed at.

I was about to stick my tongue out at him again on instinct,but I saw a fly and my eyes widened and I shut my mouth quickly. Zach was laughing even harder now and I couldn't help but join in. Laughing is very contagious.