Page 71 of Devil Inside

My body slips. Gravity grabs hold and tugs, until I slide down a few inches before halting. Maybe I don’t want to let go. Maybe it’s better if I—

I start to slip again, slower now, dragged down. All the blood is greasing me up. The chains are losing their hold on me. My skin. I’m slipping, plunging further down, until—

I’m free.

I slip out from the metal web, the dozen or so bike chains that held me now rebounding upward, chrome chiming in the slightest vibrations, as I take the plunge.

I’m falling. No end in sight. My arms swipe through the air but there’s nothing to grab. Nothing to hold on to. I kick and scream but there’s nothing, nothing at all as I keep falling.

Falling—

—until I bolt upright in my bed, entwined in the bedsheet. The covers are soaked in sweat.

The weight of my body recalibrates. Dream logic is gone and I’m crashing back to reality. Physicality. Corporeality. I feel like I’m full of cement, my body nothing but brick.

“Jesus fucking Christ...” The vertigo dissipates. Slowly. I just lie there, catching my breath. Let the dream wash away from the rest of me.

I’m alive.I’m alive.

But not alone.

Lilith doesn’t do her disappearing act this time, ditching me while I sleep. As a matter of fact, she’s still out like a light.

Well, that’s a first...

Funny, to wake up before she does and find her—this body, at least. Her host, whoever she is, rests just next to me. Her breath purls over in her throat, the softest riptide of oxygen, like waves gently crashing against my shoulder before washing back out into her lungs.

Who is she? Her host?

There are cracks in the plaster that I swear weren’t there before last night. Fresh fissures within the wall branch out across the bedroom, spreading out from where we lie.

How in the hell did those get all the way up there?

I run my finger along the crack, gypsum dust crumbling across my skin. I press my hand against the Sheetrock, and it sinks further in, cratering above our heads.

Christ... did we dothat? I bet I’ll have the bruises to prove it, my body all mottled in black and blue. Rational thought went right out the window last night. This is worse than a bender. Reality distorted and I’m waking up with the strangest aches and pains.

It’s always the morning after, in the light of day, when the flood of questions and second-guessing kicks in. Here it comes...

Lilith says she’s a demon. Possessed by one, at least... and I slept with her.Twice.Maybe it’s my mental well-being I should be worried about. I need to get my head checked.

I don’t believe her... do I? There’s no way, absolutely no possible fucking way that she could actually be ademon. Demons don’texist. Demons aren’treal.

Because if they are real, then what does that say about me? Who falls for a—

“Bad dream?”

Lilith’s eyes are open. They’ve found me, locked onto mine.

“Yeah... You could say that.”

“We get those, too.”

“Oh?”What do demons dream about?“What about?”

“An old flame.” She winks, then burrows into me. The tip of her nose brushes against my bare shoulder. “Don’t worry, he’s long gone. History by now.”

“How long did it last?”