Page 1 of Possession

There are real reasons to be afraid. I learned that at a young age. I learned that no matter how hard you pray, or beg God to save you, the Devil sends demons. They whispered in my ear, they formed in my heart, and they walked this Earth as spirits—ghosts. You’d never know it if you saw one. They changed, they shifted, they burned right through you until you were ruined, until you were no longer the man you thought you once were. They scratched, and left you shaking. I’d seen it first-hand as a child, and I’d felt their presence, but it wasn’t until her that these impressions took form, becoming more than just the voices in my head.

My devil… my curse… had pale blonde hair and a pair of blue eyes that captured my soul with one look. Her one kiss, I’d thought it would last a lifetime…

It wasn’t until her that I really knew fear, loss, and a fathomless darkness that swallowed me whole. It wasn’t until she possessed me, sank her claws into my flesh, showing me how worthless I could feel, that I found out what it felt like to be truly alone.

The sun had just set, and the heat was slowly evaporating from the steel of the street lamps, hovering over the surface of the concrete. Summer in the city, it was fucking exhausting. The tattoo shop’s neon sign, Avenues Ink, blinked before it finally blacked out. My older brother, Liam, was still inside cleaning, counting the cash of the day, and working—always working. The bar down the street was already spilling people from its front door. It was only eleven-thirty, but the night owls and the intoxicated jocks had begun to stumble onto the streets. Drunk on easy women and smiling with vodka-tainted lips. It wasn’t my scene, but the bass of Bellows always called to me. The hard thump… thump… thump… quieted the voices, if only for the evening.

A tall, thin girl in an electric-blue dress giggled as she passed me, and her eyes skimmed the muscles under my shirt. To them I seemed attractive. My blond hair and light eyes, the hours at the gym evident under the sinew, the swirl of ink on my arms, hiding away under the soft cover of cotton. I was a spectacle, and their eyes poured over me like I was a goddamn Rembrandt; unaware of the poison that brewed deep inside the decay of my heart. The dangerous whispers that rotted my brain, and the lost soul that muddied the water blue of my eyes. Ever since her, since Paige, I’d never been the same.

She isn’t coming.

The whispers inside my temples had grown louder each day. My mother called Father Hollard last week, and I’d lied to him and said I was fine. He still marked my forehead with oil and murmured some shit under his breath. I’d been forced to do several rosaries that night. It wasn’t until my dad staggered in drunk, smelling of whiskey and stale tobacco that my mother gave me leave. My knees had become sore from kneeling for so long. The memory almost made me rub the now phantom pain from my knees, but I thought better of it.

The charcoal stained my fingers as I painted my last nightmare across the paper. Dark black eyes met mine from the stiff, white parchment. The building behind the specter crumbled, and one word floated in gray swirls of ink above the brick that I had drawn.

Paige.

She isn’t for you.

Over and over the voice advised me.

I closed my eyes and listened to the kids mumble outside in the courtyard. I tried to discern words, and separate what was real from the hell that was leaking through my brain.

My class had about fifteen minutes left of the lunch period. I’d hoped that once I started high school I’d have learned how to hide it better, but the older I got the worse it became. I’d heard voices since I was thirteen, seen things, in life and in dreams, I was sure other kids couldn’t. I’d paint them, bleed them onto paper. It was the only way the toxic thoughts were purged. My mother had said I was possessed, trapped between worlds. My older brother, Liam, said I was just fucking crazy, my father… wasn’t sober enough to care. No one really paid me any mind until my younger brother, Kieran, found me with a noose around my neck. It had taken a failed attempt at death to get their attention.

Depression with psychotic features was the diagnosis.

I was psychotic.

I was rare.

I was a freak.

The warning bell sounded and I raised my eyes from the drawing on my lap. Had it really rang? Some of the kids stood and emptied their trays, but the rest still continued to eat—shoving their faces with gossip and idle bullshit. It was then the light of the sun glittered in the way it always did when it caught a glimpse of her. The facets of light shone and drew me, pulled me from my dark world of black inks and sad murals. She painted the world in color, and her pale skin was almost translucent in the mid-day sun.

She isn’t real.

But she was, of that I was sure. She was lonely like me. The girls around her smiled and laughed and she’d nod her head in agreement. Her eyes gave her away, they were blank, void of real emotion, but every day, she’d gift me a glance, just one, and I’d watch the emptiness of her clear glass eyes fill with a brilliant shade of blue. She’d come alive and today was no different. The voices in my head raged, screamed, and pounded my pulse faster. They told me I wasn’t good enough, told me she was a figment of my imagination, told me I’d never get the chance. They tried to force my eyes shut so I couldn’t see the masterpiece in front of me. I wouldn’t blink. I couldn’t miss out on the moment. The moment when her lips would finally separate into a small, timid smile, and those alabaster cheeks would turn a slight hue of pink.

She dropped her gaze and the girls around her giggled, never really seeing her, never really understanding how lucky they were to be near her. I kept my eyes on her as I pushed the earbuds deeper into my ears, and pressed play on my hand-me-down mp3 player. The deep bass of the beat drowned out all the voices as I flipped the paper to a blank sheet and began to draw her. I’d buy some colored pencils today, try to make the likeness of her more real. My head was down, and I was sketching her eyes—always her eyes. I hadn’t been prepared.

A dark silhouette cast on the ground before me and I lifted my head. My voice caught in my throat as she smiled down on me. Her friends were walking toward the building and she pointed to her watch. I removed the earbuds.

“You’ll be late,” she said and the color in her eyes moved and liquefied under the rays of the sun.

I nodded.

“Don’t you speak?” She laughed, it was easy, soft—perfect. “It’s Declan, right?”

Was she really standing in front of me, or was this my crazy finally raising to a whole new level of fucked. I glanced behind her, and the rest of the students dumped their trays, grabbed their packs, just like every other day, but instead of watching her small frame retreat into the glass building, she stood before me.

“Come on, Paige.” One of her friends lingered, waiting, looking at me with a frown.

Her eyes flicked to the paper of my art book and back at me. I’d just barely begun to outline the unearthly pair of eyes and now, seeing the real thing up close, I realized I’d never recreate them, never do them justice. I swallowed and found the courage to look at her, really look at her, each pore—each detail. The hair on the back of my neck stood as she drew her gaze from the paper and her lips tipped down.

“Those eyes look sad.”

“They are.” My voice was scratchy from lack of use, and her lips opened with a small smile.

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