The Devil's Daughter

Chapter 1

Everyone has their own image of hell. 

Yours is different to mine. 

Mine is different to the way it used to be. 

I know things now that I didn’t then. 

And some things I wish to not know or forget. To store in an infinite space where everything horrible and bad stays forgotten. 

But my story is one to hear. And when I learnt it I didn’t want to hear because it was happening to me. 

So it’s that bad. 

He’s deaf. 

She’s colourblind. 

By she I mean my best friend Lia. 

By he I mean my best friend Harry.

Me, Charlie hell. 

Yea that’s my actual name.

Me, I’m different. 

People thought I was different, I knew I was different. But I couldn’t tell why. Why people were scared of me. Why I had a strange connection to bad things happening. It felt like hell, like I was drowning in fire. Knowing that I'm different but not knowing why, it felt like trying to escape a tunnel flooding rapidly with a scorching water. I was being treated like I could snap any minute, second or word that might possibly set me off like a bomb. 

Lia Morningstar, Harry m******e and Charlie Hell. 

So you can tell they get bullied. I just get ignored. Not even made fun of, I get petrified. Harry gets tripped up, Lia gets thrown anything red at her. Me, I get a look of “please don’t kill me.”

I’ll tell you how I got to know the meaning of my name. 

So where was I. 

Oh yeah. 

It all starts on a Monday. Like most days. 

On a horrible, horrible day. 

It’s July, Harry’s birthday. 

It was coming close to the end of school before the summer holiday with only two weeks left and we had a supply for our final test of the year. So we all sat down and quietly talked between us until they got here. Lia was in a different set so it was just me, Harry and the kid next to me.

He’s the only one apart from Harry who agreed to sit next to me. And the only words he says are the answers to a question every once in a while.

We sit in a creamy white room with barely any decoration, no pieces of work hanging from the walls or anything. Rows of desks and plain grey fold-up chairs at them. Even the teachers desk is basically n***d with one or two pieces of paper on it and a fold-up chair for the teacher as well. It’s a boring room with boring students. Some miss behave.Some don’t. I don’t. Harry doesn’t. 

One student throws rubbers at his friend from the other end of the class, still staying seated while doing so. Some chat amongst themselves while me and Harry (and the kid next to me) stay quiet, I daren’t even breathe. I have an unusual anxiety when it comes to supplies. All of them give me cautious looks throughout the lesson even if there is chaos around me and I am one of the few who actually do as asked. They don’t talk to me and they say my name with putrid disgust  as they read my name during the register. 

My stomach ached with fear and nervousness. I watched the door  and the corridor for any signs of life coming to the classroom. Next door read silently while the people opposite argue about doing “nothing wrong.”

Then the supply walks in. She looked about 50 maybe 60 with old fashioned clothes such as a one-buttoned cardigan and a floral dress. She was a short woman with those glasses that aren’t very tall and are flat at the top. She was thin, deep wrinkles in her forehead shone with sweat and I presumed it was because of our class reputation. Basically, the miss behaved shone as bright as the sun during a warm summer's day. 

“Morning class please settle down now, settle dow-“

She looked at me before she could finish the word ‘down’. 

And then she went pale. And I mean so pale, the door looked dirtier than her and it was repainted just last week. 

She began to shake. 

About three minutes went by before I said 

“Miss-?” 

As soon as I said that, she began to fumble around in her pockets while with a shaking breathe saying, 

“No, no, no, they didn’t say he would have come. No, no, no, not him, he can’t have.” 

“Miss, I’m a girl.”

In an instant, she shot her head to look in my direction. I immediately shut my mouth and I didn’t even breathe. 

“You child where is he?”

I blinked. 

She seemed to have found what she was looking for. The supply pulled out a large cross with a small man shaped carving in only white cloth wrapped around his- you know. She stepped into the corner she was closest to and extended her arm straight with the cross tightly clasped in her quivering right hand at me and started muttering something no one could understand. 

Harry slowly stood up and asked if she was quite alright. 

She began to shake her head vigorously and if I was younger, I would have thought it was about to pop clean off. 

She began to murmur, gradually raising her voice as she did so. 

“No, no, no, no, go away child, I am not alright you hear me? I am not alright now leave devil child LEAVE!” 

She pointed with a long, bony finger at me. 

I got to my feet tentatively and gently walked out the door and stood outside waiting for her. 

Suddenly, she shoved her face to the window in the door and stared at me with scarlet, fiery eyes whilst screaming, showing me the cross all the while. 

“Leave devil child leave! I am protected by Christ himself and God is watching over me to guide me through life! You have no soul you spawn of Satan! You fiendish offspring of the devil! God will not allow you to wreak havoc on this earth now leave! LEAVE!” 

I whipped round and began to sprint down the corridor all the while glancing behind me. She wasn’t following me. The door barged open and the supply began to slice a shallow cut in her arm with a strange looking dagger and dipped a paintbrush into her fresh wound and paint the door with the words never shall the devil let his child wander this world freely. Thee shall be found and thou shall lay for the devils sin. Thou hast been warned. 

I ran as fast as my legs could carry me down the corridor, which was the same colour and lack of decoration as the class, out of the building and straight to reception where I hope I could get out of school or call the police without getting my phone confiscated or tell them to fire the supply or something. 

When I got there they were just finishing a call. The receptionist raised one finger smiling to ask me to wait a moment all the while I was gathering my breath trying not to collapse on to the nearest chair and coil into a ball from fear. 

She finished the call and saw me panting heavily. Her face turned to a look of concern and her tone of voice was sympathetic. I knew it wasn’t going to last long.

“Oh, oh my goodness, are you alright, or was it a long way here?”

The second part seemed to reassure her and she assumed her usually friendly smile.  

I started to feel dizzy. I held myself together and began to tell her about the supply, growing increasingly cautious that she wouldn’t believe me and my tone changed through my story. I started sounding so fearful I actually shivered as I told her. However, towards the end istatted to feel infuriated and my tone changed accordingly.

“Well I, I was in class, and - oh sorry no I’m not alright, I - I was in class, and she - she came in and - and she started to - she started to yell and -“

The receptionist looked at me with a look of annoyance. 

This is when I began to talk with a sense of bitterness.

“What?”

She frowned. 

“Did you come all the way here because you got detention for doing something you shouldn’t, just to come complain about it to me?” 

“What? No!” I began to tell her how I was yelled at, got told to leave and she cut herself with a voice fed up and irritated. She began to nod and towards the end she slowly dialled a number on the phone. 

“So there. What should I do?” I asked, frustrated that she wasn’t helpful at all when I had asked her questions throughout. 

“What’s your name?” 

I started to go red with fury. 

“So, you’re telling me that I tell you all about this crazy supply who yelled at me in a creepy way, came running to you scared and wanted something done about it, and all you gathered was that you hadn’t asked for my name?”

She suddenly seemed frightful of me. There it was. Took longer than expected, but it came all the same. She crouched in her chair and pointed to a grey fold up chair at the other end of the room. 

“Sit please. Someone will be here in a moment to help you.”

I threw my arms in the air before moaning in a murmur and sitting down. Three seats away a boy around my age sat watching me with inquisitivity. I glance at him then continued tapping my boot on the floor eying the clock eagerly. When I looked at him again, he was only two chairs away and getting into a comfortable position. I didn’t really seem to care, after all there were more pressing matters to deal with. I looked at him again. One seat apart. I  turned round with an anger to ask what he wanted, but when I did he was on the chair next to me and his nose was practically on mine. I shook with horror and he threw his head back laughing, hugging his chest with a shirt two sizes too big. His blazer was two sizes too small and his trousers weren’t much better as he wore an old belt with holes newly made to fit round his waist. The legs were so baggy, I considered whether I would be able to fit my head in it as well as both his legs. 

“Hi. What’ you here for?” 

I narrowed my eyes at him, confused. I sighed heavily putting my leg up and my hand resting on it. 

He seemed so interested in what I had to say. It was weird. No one ever seemed interested, except Lia and Harry. 

“I had a crazy teacher. You.” 

It was more of a response than a question, though he still answered it as though it were a question. 

“Well my teacher heard this supply getting annoyed with someone and that someone ran away. He watched them leave the building and appointed me to make sure they got her and ‘she’ went with ‘them’.”

Paranoid I immediately asked who they were. 

“I asked that too. He said I needn’t worry.” 

“Damn it.”

He looked at me puzzled. 

“I just wanted to know who they were. Nice story.”

He beamed. His emerald eyes seemed to sparkle with the delight of the conversation. To me it was just a strange greeting, however I continued to please him with more conversation. It was a good time killer. His pale brown hair lay flat in his head and curved to his right at the tip on his forehead. He was around my height and as skinny as me, which was worryingly and predictably for-our-age skinny to be exact. 

“Oh I forgot. What’s your name?”

I rolled my eyes expecting him to be horrified when I answered. 

“Charlie. You.”

“Dylan Smith. What’s your surname”

“My full name is Charlie Lucifer Hell.”

He blinked. 

“Why Lucifer?”

“It’s my dad's name.”

“Oh so you are a boy.”

“No I’m a girl.”

“Oh, ok then.” 

He was about to ask another question when two men in white blazers, shirt and trousers entered. One was black with no hair, while the other was Asian with black spiky hair. They had loose clothing, it almost looked like robes except that you could tell there was a cut down the middle to create the trouser leg. The first man came crouching in-front of me while the other stood at the door,  almost as though no one was to leave. 

“Hey there kiddo. You mind coming with us to talk about your problem ?”

The man in front of me smelled of coffee and wine. Not beer, something that could have tasted nicer with coffee, but extremely fruity wine. Which is weird, because you have to have a lot of wine for it to be as strong as it was, he seemed so formal. I looked around as he went on about how we were gonna go to this place and talk to some people. But then I saw his ring. It was a simple circular silver ring, however it had a flat circle on the top with the same engraved picture as the cross the supply had - a cross with a man in a white cloth wrapped around his area. I started to stare. Then he mentioned a name. 

“We’re going to see someone name Vanessa Mitchell’s” 

It’s a perfectly normal name, however something about it made me suddenly imagine a dimly lit room with me in the center, tied to the chair and my back in a ball and chain. Nine people surrounding me in monk’s robes. The one directly in front of me holds a bowl to my lips and pores the acid liquid down my throat. I scream and try to rip the rope, shaking, crying out in pain. Then I start to melt away. The next minute I’m gone. 

I get sucked back to reality. 

He was waiting for a response. 

The man at the door had the exact same ring. 

I started to breathe heavily. 

The man in front of me seemed confused as I started to go pale with the fear of death. Of course, he had no idea what I had seen. All he knew was that I was scared of something. I tried my hardest to make it look like I was scared of something else by looking around the room. You might be thinking, why are you not trying to look unafraid? Surely that is the best option? Well, I’ll explain. Have you ever been absolutely scared of something? Not just afraid, like when you are a young child going to go down a big slide for the first time. That isn’t the kind of horror I felt. Now you might think that it was just a thought, or a daydream. No. It was like a vision. My mind just acted like a white screen with the thing I saw acting as a projector reflecting onto it. I was so petrified that I couldn’t stop thinking of it. My body felt rigid, my breaths were rapid and I started to sweat. This wasn’t something that should usually scare me, it was just that I felt it happen. I felt tied to a chair. I felt the hot lava-like substance slowly, painfully slipping down my throat.

So for the situation that I was in, I think I responded quite well. 

I gulped. The man crouched in front of me began to feel impatient. The one at the door eyed me suspiciously. I nodded slowly. 

“Ok can you follow me please.”

His friendly, welcoming yet creepy (if you listened close enough) tone was no longer. His voice sounded horse and agitated. He sounded as though talking all about seeing this woman had completely broken his voice and the thought of going to see her terrified as much as it did me. 

He stood up and marched to the door. I began to panic. I didn’t want to see what horror awaited me. Even if the vision wasn’t real, The asian one looked as though he had a g*n. And the black man’s voice seemed creepy and friendly and then immediately changed to a panicky yet deep voice. 

What was I to do? Well, I thought about all the possible ways of getting out and all of their possible consequences. I had many ideas and many failed. One was to wait until I was outside whatever building I was going to, biting their hands and running while screaming until I got help, but you can see multiple flaws in this plan. What if I wasn’t in a public place? What if I was put in a sac? What if they were going to kill me as soon as I was off school grounds? I knew that this plan was awful and I was about to be escorted out of the automatic doors.

So I improvised. 

I was standing in a horizontal line in between the two.

Perfect.

I swung my right leg high in the air to my left where the Asian was and kicked him in the chest. Once I had managed to knock him down, I continued my leg to the floor and charged for the black one. I slid down onto my knees at the last second, slid through his legs and stood up before he could realise and retaliate. I then punched his back hard twice and when he spun around in fury, I threw my fist at his nose. 

“Dylan, right?”

“Yeah but what did you-”

“No time Dylan we have to move MOVE!”

I clutched his wrist and dragged out of the double doors. As we pelted down the school car park I could hear the receptionist crying out for help on the phone, screaming,

“She has gone we need to contain her!”

Her voice sounded shrill and her sentence was rushed. I didn’t look back once until I got off the car park, past the gates and round the corner down a pathway surrounded by bushes.