Lost To The Devil

Chapter 2: Nightmares

It had only been two months since we had moved to this house, and already I was beginning to hate it already.

Whenever Mum was working, which was pretty much all the time, the doorbell would ring on its own, not once, not twice, but over and over, sharp and sudden, echoing through the house.

The stereo would crackle to life without warning, music blaring at full volume, only to cut out mid-song before I got there. The TV flickered on and off, casting shifting light across the walls like something breathing in the dark.

Now there was a tapping in the walls; at first it had been faint, easy to ignore, but it didn’t stay that way. It followed me. If I was in bed, the tapping would be in the wall beside my head. In the bathroom it would be there, echoing hollowly through the tiles. In the kitchen, it tapped faintly behind the cupboards. In the living room, it seemed to travel along the walls, like something crawling just out of sight. No matter where I went, it was there.

I told myself it must be the pipes in the house, old house, bad plumbing, something logical. For weeks I begged Mum to get it checked. I nagged, complained, and snapped until she finally caved in and got a plumber out.

He spent nearly two hours inspecting everything while I hovered over his shoulder. When he left, he smiled politely and said, “there’s nothing wrong; everything’s in working order.”

I should have felt relieved, but I didn’t; my stomach dropped, because if it wasn’t the pipes, then what was it?

Next the nightmares came. I would go to bed and dream of horrific things. The first one, fire. Endless fire stretching as far as I could see, the heat suffocating, thick with the stench of burning flesh. Thousands of people were burning in the fire, writhing and screaming in agonising torment, sounding raw, desperate, and inhuman. Their skin peeled, yet they didn’t die; they just kept burning.

Then it would change to people in chains, cold rusted metal biting into flesh. People stood in endless lines, shackled together, their faces hollow with terror. One by one they were dragged forward, toward things I couldn’t fully see, only glimpses of claws, teeth, shadows that moved wrong. The screams were worse here, wet, gurgling, flesh tearing. Blood pooling thick and dark across the ground, then they would reknit and become whole again, forced to wait their turn again.

The last dream was of myself lying on my bed. I could see my room, the faint outline of my furniture and the curtains shifting lightly in a breeze I couldn’t feel. I tried to scream out in terror but only doing so silently. My whole body was paralysed, like something heavy was pressing down on me. My chest tightened; I could feel my panic rising fast and suffocating. The more I tried to free myself, the more stuck I became, like invisible hands were holding me down. Watching. Waiting.

I would wake up crying and shaking so badly I could barely sit up, feeling so deeply disturbed by what I had witnessed in my dreams. I never got back to sleep after that, and because I would dream the same things every night without fail, I became increasingly tired during the days until the exhaustion started to bleed into everything.

It was a Friday when something inside of me snapped. I spent all day working hard to finish my art project, a sculpture of the statue David, focusing on every curve, every detail. I poured myself into it and I was immensely proud of my work. Until I wasn’t.

I suddenly felt an overwhelming hatred for this stupid project; the weight of it in my hands suddenly felt unbearable as I picked it up to take home like everyone else.

I left the building, and stopping next to the bin outside, I smashed the project against it, until it fell to pieces, scattering across the ground, I slammed the rest into the bin in absolute disgust with it.

Rage burned through me like fire under my skin all the way home, but when I finally got through the front door, I collapsed onto the sofa, the fabric soft beneath my fingers as I clung to it, and cried for an hour over my much loved project. Why the hell had I done that? There had been no reason for the anger, no buildup; it had just come over me. I reasoned it was just the tiredness and put on the TV.

But things didn’t get better; they got worse. I was becoming more and more moody and withdrawn every day. Just yesterday I had started a huge row with my Mum for always being at work; she was shocked by my anger, as I had never complained about it before. Looking tired from her night shift, she took a few seconds before trying to reason that we needed the money. “That’s how we managed to afford this place, honey,” she answered, exasperated.

“f**k the money and f**k this stupid place,” I snapped, before storming off to my bedroom, where I spent the rest of the day and night sleeping.

It had been the first time I had ever sworn or even yelled at my mother, and it scared me a little. When I wasn't at college, I was in my room, alone. The money Mum left me for dinner was spent on clothes, and not my usual style.

I bought things like high heeled shoes, short skirts, even shorter shorts, belly showing tops, and makeup.

Mum had always said I was lucky enough not to have to bother with makeup with my natural beauty, olive skin, dark blue eyes, long locks of black hair that ran down my back, and flawless skin. I had never bothered with makeup anyway; that was until now.

The next few weeks I wore my new revealing clothes and makeup to college. Mascara, eyeliner, and so on, finished off with red lipstick. I felt really good when the boys started to notice me. I flirted outrageously with them. I was no longer alone at lunch, but I didn't feel like myself either; it felt as though I were watching through a hazy dream world.

At home in bed, the dreams started to fade, only bothering me one to two times a week now, but the rest of the time I was now woken by whispering in my room. It would start off softly at first, barely there, then louder and louder, right beside my ear, until I woke up in fear, and then it would stop, only to start up again when I fell back to sleep.

Monday morning came, and Mum and I were good again; she’d forgiven me. I kissed her goodbye and left for college.

Mum tried to persuade me back into my old clothes but gave up after four weeks of me ignoring her opinion and dressing my new way. I had a huge crush on a guy called Tommy at college; he had dark hair and an easy smile. “Want to go somewhere quieter?” I asked, my voice soft and suggestive.

knowing what I meant, he grinned and took me down an alleyway next to the college where we started making out. It was narrow, the air stale, and the walls damp with grime- not very romantic. At first it felt normal. I planned on unzipping his trousers, but something shifted. A sudden, violent tension snapped through my body. My hand shot up and grabbed his throat tightly, fingers digging in, squeezing with a strength I knew I didn't possess.

His eyes widened in shock, and his hands flew up to pull mine away. I tried pulling my hand away myself, but I couldn’t let go; it was like I was paralysed in that arm, like I was disconnected from it and it had a life of its own.

Before I could rationalise what was happening, a sudden wave of rage and hatred took me over, and I heard my voice, low and inhuman. “She is mine!” I growled before dropping a terrified Tommy. He stumbled back, gasping with wide, terrified eyes, while I casually walked off to go home.

I never went back to college after that; try as I might, my body just would not cooperate with me. Something inside me resisted, pulling me back and locking me in place. Eventually I gave up and spent all my time at home now. The strangest part was the loud tapping in the walls; I’d gotten so used to it that I never realised that it stopped.