Page 3 of Demonic Division

And then hescreams.

I’ve never heard a rabbit make this sound, and I don’t ever want to again. It’s haunting and high-pitched—more childlike than animal—and I’m so alarmed that I nearly drop the box.

“Gods, are you okay?” I reach back into the box, intending to pull the rabbit out to check on him, but as soon as I touch him, the wailing ceases, and he nuzzles up to my hand just as he had done before. My brows pull together the longer I stare at the strange sight until I eventually decide not to think about it and go inside.

Keeping one hand on the bunny, I walk past the grayingOut of Order sign taped to the elevator and head straight for the stairs, making sure I skip the broken thirteenth step on the second flight to avoid another tumble. On the third floor, the fluorescent lights flicker with each step down the long hallway, illuminating the cobwebs and grime that have settled in the crevices. Shadows lengthen the farther I walk until the feel of clawed hands reaching out becomes too much to bear, and I end up sprinting the rest of the way to my door.

My hand trembles as I insert the key into the lock, but when I throw open the door, and bright light spills out into the hallway, I breathe a sigh of relief. I turn the lock, triple-check it, then make my way into the bedroom to set up a spot for the rabbit.

I place the box next to my bed with a little trough of water and some lettuce for him to munch on. I even add one of my ratty T-shirts inside to give him something to cuddle up in. Once he’s set, I check my phone for any messages, only for my chest to sink at the sight of my blank screen.

Usually, it wouldn’t affect me this way, but it’s my birthday, and some small part of me mourns the fact I’m alone. But that same piece also realizes it’s due to my own making, and that there’s no point in wallowing in it. Sighing, I throw my phone onto the mattress and head into the bathroom, hoping a nice hot shower will wash away some of the sadness weighing on my shoulders.

As I step under the steaming stream of water, I can’t help but think of all the previous birthdays I’ve lived through. Out of my twenty-one years, only half of them contain memories of love and happiness. The rest—the ones following the day my mother took her own life—have been filled with nothing but hardshipand misery.

I close my eyes as images of that day swarm my mind. My mother hanging limp from the branch of an oak tree in the forest behind our house. Her bloated face and swollen lips cracked and oozing blood. The horrible blue-black veins spreading across her cold gray skin. My scream rattling the inside of my skull. The heat spreading from my chest and pooling at the tips of my fingers and toes. The power that transferred from my palms to the ground, splitting a cavernous pit into the ice that branches in each direction for hundreds of feet.

Or at least, that's the way it happens in my nightmares.

The water turns cold, startling me out of my dark thoughts, and I reach to turn the faucet off as I blink away the last of my haze.

But when I return to the bedroom in my pajamas, the bunny isn’t in his box.

I’m about to freak out for the second time today when my eyes catch a tiny yellow puff ball snuggled in the center of one of my pillows. It takes everything in me not to squeal at the cuteness, but I hold it in, not wanting to wake him when he seems so peaceful.

I debate sharing the bed with the cute little guy but quickly decide against it. I can already see how that story ends; I roll on top of him or smack him during one of my night terrors, and boom. Dead rabbit.

My heart clenches as I reach toward the creature, carefully scooping him into my palms so as not to wake him and walking him back to his box. I place him neatly in his T-shirt blanket, breathing a sigh of relief when he refuses to stir. And then I let go.

Immediately, the rabbit's eyes pop open, and he startsscreaming. But it’s not even like it was before—it’s louder, more insistent, and full of anguish. Truly, it sounds like he’sdying. I place my hands back into the box, and the screeching stops. But instead of nuzzling against my hand like I expect, the rabbit turns his beady black eyes on me, seeming to stare through me to my very soul. And then he pulls back his lips and bites me.

“Ow!” I yank my hand back, acutely aware of the sharp, stinging pain in my fingertip. But just as quickly as that pain begins, so does the burning at the base of my stomach. Like someone stuck a branding iron against my skin, the pain is just as strong. I hold back a cry as it intensifies, burning its way down to my bone.

Out of my mind with the sensation, I run to the mirror in the bathroom, sure I’ll find some kind of wound on my abdomen.But there’s nothing.My fingers prod the space beneath my belly button as I stare wide-eyed into the mirror, trying to discover the source of the burning. And then, just as quickly as it started, it stops.

I run my finger pad over the skin, alarmed by the lack of sensation. But I don’t have time to think about it because the bunny starts shrieking again. I run back into the bedroom to find the bunny back on my bed, his front feet raised high into the air as he screeches for me. Instinctively, I move toward him, placing my hand on top of its head, like something inside meknowsthat's what he needs.

He ceases that awful noise as soon as I make contact, letting his paws fall to the mattress as he leans into my touch. For one split second, the area below my belly button heats, but then it’s gone. Like it never happened in the first place.

“What the fuck is happening?” I whisper, staring wide-eyed at the little yellow creature. No answer comes.

With my free hand, I reach for the hem of my shirt but stop, shaking my head and forcing my arm back to my sidewhile the other continues stroking the bunny.I probably just imagined it. I’m so stressed about this rabbit and my job and everything… I’m sure it wasn’t real.Pushing my fears to the back of my mind, I scoop the bunny off the bed and attempt to put him back into his box. I’m not sure why, but this time, he lets me, snuggling deep into my ratty T-shirt and closes his eyes in contentment. He doesn’t so much as twitch when I walk into the bathroom and shut the door.

Maybe I’m being paranoid, but something about that rabbit is starting to freak me out. And after that… encounter in the woods, there’s no way I’ll be able to sleep with it by my bed. Maybe that makes me a horrible person, but when I crawl under the covers, knowing there’s a wall between me and it, I’m a little less afraid.

For the next hour, I drift in and out of sleep, waking to the faint sounds of knocking on my bathroom door. Each time, I pretend they don’t exist, and each time, they grow more insistent. But just before midnight, something happens that I can’t ignore. A pressure dips the end of my mattress. Like someone—or something—has taken a seat.

I keep my lids shut tight, trying and failing to convince myself this isn’t happening. That it’s just my imagination. That no one is there. That this isn’t real. But when I finally open my eyes andlook,I realize how wrong I was.

Because sitting at the foot of my bed is the thing from my nightmares.

The horror from the forest.

The yellow-eyed demon.

2

Kaebl

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