Dance With the Demon.
by Lestat.
Oh my dear God, please, I beg of You, helps me! The demon is rising again. No longer can I bear its terribly tremendous torment. My stomach tightens. The devil squeezes me until I am within a Gasp of Death’s door, perhaps he will pity me and invite me in for tea. But no, the demon restrains me, allowing me neither to live nor die.
My Lord, my Lord, why have you forsaken me? Have I not paid in full for my mistakes, to many to recount? My mind wobbles, looping in and out of the spirals of reality and my world of fear. I fear that I’ve lost my mind. I search for it in a dimensionless void, but the pain hinders me.
I have lost everything, my family, my sense of purpose…my life, all snuffed out without the slightest hint of remorse. All dissolved by the drugs that course through my blackened veins, the lust, the anger the despair. The melancholy mechanics of my mind ever more destructive than any physical reaction. Still the demon isn’t satisfied.
But for now the pain jerks me back to the present. I feel the creature inside me, eating away at my soul. As I lie on the hardwood floor, the intricate woodwork on the incredulously contorted ceiling seems to weave a net, threatening to fall, and trap me in an abyss of agony. The humidity is high, the air still, and an unidentifiable stench pervades every item. It could be dawn, it could be dusk. Time has no more significance to me. The shades are drawn still slivers of sunlight peep through them, displaying delighted dust particles dancing in suspension.
I am alone, yet I am surrounded. Enveloped in the twisted symphony of silence. It is so loud, resounding throughout the room, and pressing in on my eardrums, peaking just before their breaking point. A deafening ringing, I try to cry out in futile attempts to break the monotonous sound lest it snaps the fragile string by which my last shred of sanity so delicately hangs. I try to clasp my ears, but my limbs refuse to obey my already maddening mind.
Then a cold sensation overcomes me. My aberration has ended and my mind moves onto panic. The air from inside me is sucked out without warning, and my solar plexus is transformed into a vacuum squeezing the epicentre of my life. Beads of sweat roll across my body, my reddened eyes darting frantically in their limited scope. I try to move again, but my efforts are in vain. Then, as if by some strange sorcery, the figure appears above me, clad in a brown tattered coat, with a hood drawn over its head. The garment simply hangs as if on a rack. I long to see its face, yet there is none. Alas, it is the Reaper.
I am lost on a stratum of thoughts. As I look up, the reaper man hovers over me with his blade in his skeleton hand. He appears to pierce my solar plexus; I feel the air enter my chest once again, blasting me back to my torture. It is the only thing I possess now, the only thing I know and accept as my own. Acquired by my own labour. Back to pay for my mistakes some more.
The demon lies dormant for now. I lie; I wait for the time when he shall rise again, bringing with him the wailing harpies and scorching flames of hell. I can do nothing but wait.