Page 9 of Devil Inside

I wish to be an angel.

Let’s be honest with ourselves: The darkness below offers so little. The monotony of agony. The cold depths. Who wants to live there? When your world has so much to offer...

So I’ll find the fissures. Slip through the cracks from our world to yours. It’s simply a matter of sensing the vessels that tether us together, flesh and blissful blood, open doorways into the world above, your world, your bodies mere portals, all ripe and ready.

You voids burn so bright. Offering yourselves up. Begging for it.

For this. For me.

That’s how we met, yes? You and I? I heard your call, and I answered. I poured forth. A flood from inside out. Your loneliness was beckoning, practically begging, for me.

Now you don’t have to worry. Don’t fret about the future. Let’s have a little fun. All you have to do is simply...

Let me in...

It’s that easy. Once I have my hold, tightening my grip, I winnow my way in. Abandon my world and slither into yours. Into you.

I become we.

Tonight, I have found this suitable flesh. You are absolutely perfect. Not forever flesh. Just flesh fornow, now, now...

Look at you. Such a sensitive vessel. There is life within you, yes, and yet, the door cracks. All these fissures. Such a wounded soul. So young, so handsome. Green eyes that hide their pain, swirling like tidal pools teeming with sea life. Spines and pincers and kelp.

You called out and I answered.

Sean.

What a quiet life. A simple existence. A freshly uncorked chianti, you’ve barely had a chance to breathe. What are you hiding, Sean? There’s bound to be something down here.

We are capable of entering your thoughts. Inhabiting theshadows of your deepest, darkest secrets. We learn all there is to know about our hosts, if we choose. It helps us contextualize our choices. How we wish to play.

You are twenty-two. A grad student attending the local university. You came from a home that valued morality to a fault. Your parents preferred prayer over acceptance. So strict. You left and never returned, coming to this city of glass. You wanted to be among those who might accept you. Find a new family assembled from friends and like-minded souls, all wounded. You wish to be seen for who you truly are. Who you wish to be.

I’ll grant you that wish. Tonight, I will let you be exactly what you want.

This is my gift.I accept you, Sean, I whisper.Just let me in...

Let me be.

I slither through the crevasse, seeping inside. There is no pain. Merely pressure. An adjustment, a muscle flexing. That slight burn. A fresh tendon fighting its own limits, then pushing further.Further.A gasp of cold air filling the lungs.

Inside now. I am inside.

We are home.

A warm flush of blood swirls throughout our veins as we let our tendrils stretch. Sprawl. We press ourselves into every corner, inhabit every last cell, and we call it home.

We breathe now. See now.

We bear witness to this world and all it offers once more through a fresh set of eyes. I taste Sean’s hope. His fears. I feed off the doubt and darkness that he’s tried so hard to hide, shellacking his soul like calcium deposits. I can wipe it all away. A simple lick.

We can be him. The him he’s always wanted to be but is too afraid to try. And sometimes, Sean, sweet innocent Sean, wants to be very,verybad.

It takes a moment to move. Flexing every muscle, tender at first. Bodies are simple to maneuver. Puppets of flesh and bone. When I am done and ready to abandon their body, they’ll wake,blissfully ignorant to the passing of time, like waking from a dream.

Whatever happens within these shadows, whatever the consequences of our time together, when we are inside, they are not our concern. Perhaps they miss work.

Perhaps they even do something a little...naughty. Who’s to say? We simply listen to their darkest desires. Offer a chance to fulfill that wish. The choice is theirs. Always theirs.