Inside All of Us Is a Demon

It’s dark. Why can’t I see anything? Have I gone blind? Is there anybody else out there?! Is there a concrete answer to that or is it left up to me to figure out?

I can feel my emotions being ripped out of my shell. I have nothing to hold on to; nothing to look forward to. It scares me.

My thoughts wander. Emotions rush by in a stream. It’s my only source of water. I feel exceedingly dehydrated whenever I come across it. As if the sun is beating down on my back and I’ve been running from you for miles. I can feel you slowly sucking the water from my body, but I dare not drink from the stream. It’s toxic. It’s a poison that slowly sets in, painfully seeping into every aspect of my being, destroying everything that it touches until there’s nothing left. I can feel the insanity creeping through my skin, the goose bumps crawling up my limbs like hundreds of tiny little spiders. I am becoming their prey.

I surrender to the agony. I let my body and mind be filled by the vicious attacks, as I wait for the last of the torturous jolts to rack through my body. It leaves me breathless and shaking as your touch once had. I am withering up on the ground. It is your face I see last. Your smirk as I lay screaming from the pain.

I awaken to an abyss where strange things roam.

Where the sky is constantly shifting between colours of deep purples and greys.

Where the ground is unable to create life.

Where the dirt is hardened and damp. It smells of decaying life; of hundreds of carcasses slowly rotting with maggots. Insects preying off the land; right beneath the soles of your feet.

I am in the world that is rarely visited. The sight sends chills down my spine. Any monster that I have ever imagined, one that had been my childhood nightmare, one that had once hidden under my bed at night, with atrocious teeth, thick, matted fur, beaten and broken, resides here. Bringing back every horrific memory of self-loathing and doubt, making me question my entire existence. They surround me and feed off my terrifying sobs.

They make me want to vomit up every last morsel in my stomach. Until poisonous acid devours away at my organs and all that is left inside of me.

I’m not sure why I’ve come here; why I’ve chosen to let myself go. I no longer care what happens. I can no longer feel the pain and agony it had once brought to me.

I can hear him calling my name. He is what is on the inside of everyone’s mind when they get spooked. He is always watching, waiting for someone to slip up and allow him access inside their brains.

He is the reason for all of this.

He is the reason this land lives on.

He is the reason these creatures strive off of this plain. He keeps them here to prepare whoever has been trapped by him.

I must find him to figure out why I think like this. These images haunt my mind. I am living in a nightmare and being forced into the darkness; I must escape. I must feel the sunlight caress my skin once again.

I can see something. I know it’s him. He’s waiting for me, but his face is hidden in the shadows.

“Can it be you?” I call out, “Are you the reason why I’m here?” He keeps whispering my name over and over.

“Answer me!” I scream into the dark.

Slowly I inch towards him. I try to find a way for the obscuring shadows to leave. He looks human, but most monsters do when confiding in the darkness. I feel my breathing become rigid as he creeps closer into the light; and I can see him. My heart stops beating. I can feel the blood in my veins seize. My brain shuts down. My lungs collapse.

He is not a monster.

I now understand why no one dares to come here on their own consent.

Because he is not a "he" at all—

As my brain tries to process my last thought, I take my final breath and drop to the ground.

He is me.