In Between Worlds

Chapter 4............. Medicine

That morning I didn’t know what to think.

I didn’t know how to feel. Or what to _feel like_.

Through me, more than a hundred souls just died.

Gone. Ceased. Because of one word from a voice that wasn’t mine.

At such a young age.

Why me?

The question looped in my head like a broken record. Why not someone older? Someone stronger? Someone who’d at least gotten to ride a bicycle without training wheels before becoming the host to the king of the underworld?

I stared at the ceiling. The lightning c***k looked different this morning. Angrier.

My pajamas still smelled like grass and dew and something metallic. Like blood, but older.

I touched my chest. The spiral mark was warm under my fingers. It pulsed once, slow, like it was _satisfied_.

I yanked my hand away.

But it was another day to go to school.

Normal kids worried about homework. About forgetting their lunch. About David the bully taking their pencil case.

I was worried I’d accidentally command the whole class to die if I sneezed wrong.

Mum knocked. “Alex! Breakfast! You’ll be late!”

Her voice was normal. Safe. It made the house feel like a house again, not a haunted place where demons used children as megaphones.

I got up. My legs shook. Not from fear. From _memory_. They remembered walking on their own last night. Remembered the cold grass. Remembered kneeling while souls bowed to me.

In the bathroom, I avoided the mirror.

I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t face my eyes and wonder if they’d still be ocean blue. Or if they’d be crimson. Cold. His.

Who knows, I thought, buttoning my uniform with fingers that didn’t feel like mine. Maybe I’d feel better after seeing Jessica today.

Jessica.

Her name was a prayer. A lifeline.

If anything in this world was still good, still clean, it was the way she said “Hi, Alex” with that small, shy smile.

Maybe for ten minutes I could pretend I wasn’t Akuma’s vessel.

Maybe for ten minutes I could just be a boy who liked a girl.

Upon getting to school, I met with her.

She was by the gate, talking to her friend Chioma. White ribbons in her twists. Pink backpack. The morning sun caught her hair and made it look like it was glowing.

She saw me. Waved. “Alex!”

And just like that, the world _shifted_.

The weight on my chest got lighter. The spiral mark went quiet. The voice in my head — Akuma’s voice — pulled back like it was hiding from her light.

I couldn’t even think I was the same person I was last night.

No.

I felt I was someone different.

A normal human. Not a demon-possessed freak. Not a ten-year-old who killed hundreds with a whisper.

Just Alex. Who was bad at fractions. Who liked football. Who thought a girl was pretty.

For three whole seconds, I was free.

Then deep in my imaginations, in my fantasies, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.

I was thinking about what I’d say to Jessica. _Did you do the math homework? Do you like rice or yam? Can I sit next to you today?_

And then, mistakenly, I hit the class bully.

Kelvin.

Big for ten. Mean for fun. He’d been making my life hell since Primary 3. Stealing my lunch. Pushing me down stairs. Calling me “ghost boy” because I was quiet.

My shoulder bumped his arm. Hard. His exercise book fell. Papers scattered.

He went still.

The whole corridor went quiet.

And then it started.

He started.

“YOU BLIND OR STUPID, AKUMA BOY?”

My blood ran cold.

He didn’t know what that word meant. Couldn’t know. But he said it. _Akuma_. Like the shadows had last night. Like a curse.

He shoved me. “PICK IT UP!”

Kids gathered. A circle. Just like the woods. Just like the shadows.

I bent to pick up his book. Hands shaking. Not from fear. From _effort_.

Because something else was rising.

I have lived in fear over the years. Of Kelvin. Of his fists. Of his laugh.

But not today.

Something felt different.

The spiral mark didn’t pulse. It _roared_.

The moment he hit me — open palm, across the face, hard enough to snap my head sideways — I felt it.

It was the demon coming to life.

As if he was rising inside.

Not a metaphor. Not a feeling.

_Real_.

My skin went cold. Then hot. Then cold again. My heart didn’t just beat. It _drummed_, like war drums, like the world was marching to its end.

Probably others couldn’t see it.

But I could.

I could see thick black smoke, like aura, emitting from my body.

It poured off my shoulders. Off my arms. Off my chest where the mark was. It was blacker than black. It drank the light from the corridor. The fluorescent bulbs above us flickered.

Kelvin stepped back. His eyes went wide. “What the—”

He could see it. They all could.

The circle of kids gasped. Someone screamed.

And there was only one thought in my head.

“KILL.”

It wasn’t mine.

It was his. Akuma’s.

It filled my skull. Drowned out everything else. Mum. Dad. School. Math. Jessica.

Only “KILL.”

My hands curled into fists. The black smoke got thicker. It had claws now. It had teeth. It reached for Kelvin, hungry.

That was when I realized he has taken over.

And he wouldn’t stop until Kelvin the class bully was dead.

I could see it happening. Kelvin clutching his throat. Eyes bulging. Falling. The smoke pouring into his mouth, his nose, _unmaking_ him from the inside.

I _wanted_ it.

God help me, a part of me _wanted_ it.

Ten years of fear. Ten years of bruises. Ten years of being small.

And now I was the monster.

But at this point, my eyes met with that of Jessica.

She’d pushed through the circle. She wasn’t scared. Or maybe she was, but she didn’t run.

Her big brown eyes found mine.

And the world stopped.

The “KILL” didn’t vanish. But it _paused_. Like a record scratched.

Just like a medicine, I regained my consciousness.

Her.

Jessica.

The black smoke recoiled like it’d been slapped. The roaring in my ears dulled. The mark on my chest went from inferno to ember.

I didn’t want her to see me like that.

No.

I didn’t want to be seen as a demon.

Not by her. Never by her.

The smoke thinned. My fists unclenched. My breath came back in a ragged gasp.

Kelvin was on the floor. Not dead. Alive. Terrified. Staring at me like I’d grown horns.

“Y-you... your eyes...” he stammered.

I didn’t wait to hear more.

And when I was finally getting calm, I rushed to the school restroom.

I slammed the door. Locked it. Stumbled to the sink.

I didn’t want to look. But I had to.

I checked myself in the mirror.

And I saw it.

Crimson red eyes.

Glowing. Cold. Ancient.

His eyes.

Akuma’s eyes.

In my face.

Wait — that was my face. My eyes.

But they weren’t blue. They weren’t mine.

They were the same eyes from the woods. The eyes that saw through me. The eyes that commanded death.

I gripped the sink so hard the porcelain cracked. “No,” I whispered. “No, no, no—”

And then, almost immediately, it was back to the ocean blue they always were.

Like a light switching off.

Like he’d stepped back inside and closed the door.

I sagged against the sink, gasping. My reflection was me again. Pale. Scared. Ten. Human.

But for three seconds, I wasn’t.

And everyone saw.

Kelvin saw. The class saw.

_Jessica_ saw.

I splashed water on my face. Over and over. Like I could wash him off. Like I could drown him.

It didn’t work. The mark was still there. Warm. Waiting.

But even if she didn’t know... Jessica saved me from committing murder.

She didn’t say a spell. Didn’t pray. Didn’t fight.

She just _looked_ at me.

And Akuma hated it.

He _recoiled_ from her.

She was my medicine.

My own cure.

I stayed in that restroom until the bell rang. Until my hands stopped shaking. Until I could breathe without tasting smoke.

When I came out, the corridor was empty. But they were all looking. From classrooms. From corners. Whispering.

Kelvin was gone. Maybe in the nurse’s office. Maybe home.

Mrs. Adeyemi pulled me aside. Her face was pale. “Alex... are you alright? Your eyes... you looked...”

“I’m fine,” I lied. The word tasted like ash. “I just... I have a headache.”

She didn’t believe me. But she let me go to class.

Jessica was at her desk. Three rows ahead.

She didn’t look at me when I walked in.

My heart sank.

Did she think I was a freak? A demon? Did she see the smoke? The eyes?

I sat down. Math. Fractions. The numbers didn’t swim this time.

They were sharp. Clear. Because all I could think was: _She knows. She saw. And now she’ll never talk to me again._

Ten minutes before break, a folded note landed on my desk.

I didn’t see who threw it.

I opened it with hands that still smelled like smoke.

Four words. In neat, careful letters.

_Are you okay? - J_

J. Jessica.

The mark pulsed. Once.

Warm.

Not cold. Not hungry. Not Akuma.

_Warm_.

Like it was saying thank you.

I looked up. She was turned in her seat, just a little. Not looking at me. But her ear was red.

She was embarrassed. Worried. _For me_.

After what she saw.

The voice in my head was silent.

For the first time since my birthday, it had nothing to say.

Because Jessica — my cure, my medicine — was stronger than it.

I picked up my pencil. My hand was steady.

I wrote back.

_Yes. Thank you._

I folded the note. Waited until Mrs. Adeyemi turned to the board. Tossed it.

It landed on her desk.

She opened it. Read it.

And then, slowly, she smiled. Small. Shy. The same smile from the car.

And Akuma _screamed_ inside me.

Not in words. In _rage_.

Like he’d been burned.

The mark went ice cold for one second. Then normal.

I understood.

He couldn’t stand her. Couldn’t touch her. Couldn’t stand what she did to me.

Jessica wasn’t just a girl I liked.

She was a weapon.

The only thing that could pull me back when he took over.

Which meant...

Which meant she was in danger.

Because if Akuma hated her...

He’d want her gone.

The bell rang for break.

I didn’t go play ball.

I sat at my desk, watching Jessica laugh with Chioma.

And I made a promise. To myself. To her. To the human part of me that was still fighting.

I wouldn’t let him hurt her.

Even if it killed me.

Even if saving her meant feeling death itself.

Because she saved me first.

Outside the window, a bird sang.

Not wrong. Not old.

Just a bird.

For now.