In Between Worlds

Chapter 7........... Expressing Myself

Getting to school today, I couldn't stop replaying last night.

My legs carried me through the rusted gates of St. Ignatius like I was on autopilot, but my brain was still back in my bedroom. Back to the exact second Akuma's shadow peeled off the wall like someone spilled a bottle of ink and it decided to stand up. Back to the sound his claws made when he dragged them across my floorboards. Not a scratch. A _promise_. Slow. Deliberate. _I can touch your world whenever I want, Little Vessel._

The fear still clung to me like a second skin. Not the kind you get from watching a horror movie with the lights off and the volume too loud. This was prey-fear. The kind a rabbit feels when the field goes dead quiet and every instinct in its tiny body screams _something with teeth is looking at you_. The kind that lives in your bones.

If I wasn't his host… what would Akuma have done to me?

The question looped in my skull all through homeroom. Mr. Adeyemi was at the board, his chalk squeaking through quadratic equations, but all I could see was Akuma's grin. Too wide. Too many teeth. Too hungry. Would he have torn me apart the way he tore that spirit-dog in my dreams last week? Ribs first, then the screaming? Would he have peeled my skin off and worn it to school, answering to "Alex" while I rotted in the dark?

My hands shook around my pen until the ink blotched across my notebook. Big, ugly blue spiders. Chioma noticed from two desks over. She always notices. It's annoying and it's the reason I picked her.

"You okay?" she mouthed when Mr. Adeyemi turned to yell at Tunde in the back.

I wasn't. I hadn't been okay since my twelfth birthday. Since the spiral burned itself into my chest like a brand and a voice that wasn't mine whispered _"Mine"_ against the inside of my skull at 3 AM.

But I did what I always do. I nodded. Lied with my face. Lied with my whole life, actually, for the last year.

By first period, my head was splitting. The kind of headache that starts behind your eyes and sinks into your teeth. They say a problem shared is a problem halved. I didn't need half. I needed someone to carry this with me, even if it was just for five minutes. Even if they looked at me like I was crazy afterward.

Crazy felt better than _alone_. Alone was a room with no doors and Akuma humming in the walls.

So during break, my thumbs moved before my brain could stop them. I texted Chioma.

_Can we talk? Back of the library. It's important. Please._

Three dots. Then: _On my way. U good?_

No. I wasn't good. I hadn't been good in 374 days. But I didn't say that.

She was there in three minutes, holding two bottles of Coke like a peace offering. Her school uniform was crisp, her new braids were tied back with a blue ribbon, and her eyes were the same warm, steady brown they'd been since primary school. Safe eyes. Eyes that had never looked at me like I was a monster. Yet.

"Did you get in trouble again?" she asked, cracking open a Coke. The hiss was sharp, too loud. For a second it sounded like Akuma exhaling. _Shhhhhk._

"No," I said. Then, because I was tired of lying, "Yes. But not the kind you think. Not the kind detention fixes."

The back of the library smelled like old paper, floor polish, and dust. No one came here except kids skipping class and kids like me, hiding from things with teeth. I sat on the cold tile and pulled my knees to my chest. My uniform shirt rode up an inch. Panic shot through me — did she see the spiral? No. My undershirt covered it. Still there. Still warm. Still pulsing faintly, like a second heartbeat that wasn't mine.

"Alex, you're scaring me," Chioma said softly. She sat cross-legged in front of me, mirroring me the way she used to when we were kids building blanket forts. "Talk to me. Whatever it is."

Whatever it is. Like I could just say _hey, there's a demon living in my ribs and he eats nightmares_ and she'd go _oh okay, cool_.

But I was drowning. And drowning people don't get to be picky about who throws the rope.

So I talked. And once I started, I couldn't stop.

I started with the night it began. My twelfth birthday. No cake. No candles. Just Mom crying quietly in the kitchen because Dad didn't call, and me going to bed wishing I could disappear, just stop existing for a while. Be careful what you wish for.

I _did_ disappear. When I woke up, the wooden floor around my bed was cracked like something heavy had slammed into it. And there was a symbol on my chest that hadn't been there before. A spiral, black and deep crimson, carved into my skin but with no blood. It pulsed. Like it was breathing. Like it was _listening_.

I told her about the voice. How it was quiet at first. A whisper when I got angry at the kids who called me "orphan boy" even though my dad was just… gone. _Break his nose. He deserves it. Show them._ I thought I was going insane. I _prayed_ I was going insane. Insane can be treated. Insane has pills.

Then came the night I saw him in my mirror. Not my reflection. _Him_. Seven feet tall, skin like dried tar, horns that curled like twisted tree roots. Eyes like someone trapped a furnace behind his face. He pressed one clawed hand to the glass from his side and called me "Little Vessel". He laughed when I screamed. The sound made my nose bleed.

I told her about last night. The big one. About losing time. About blinking in my room and opening my eyes in the backyard at 3:13 AM, barefoot, grass between my toes, blood under my fingernails and the taste of copper thick on my tongue. About the shredded pigeon on the ground that _I_ didn't remember killing. About the way Akuma moves when I'm not looking — a flicker in the corner of my eye, a shadow stretching too long, too fast. About the terror that one day I'll blink and _he'll_ be the one opening my eyes. And I won't come back.

I'm thirteen. Thirteen-year-olds aren't supposed to have stories like this. We're supposed to worry about football trials and whether our crush likes our new haircut and if we studied enough for Basic Tech. Not whether the monster in our chest will get hungry and use our hands to feed itself.

When I finally stopped talking, my throat was scraped raw and the Coke in my hand was warm, forgotten. Chioma hadn't moved the whole time. Her eyes were wet. Pity flickered there, soft and sad, the way you look at a stray dog with a broken leg and you know you can't fix it, but you wish you could.

But underneath the pity… doubt.

I could feel it. Like reading a book where the cover says "fairy tale" but the first page is a crime scene. She was nodding. She was whispering "Alex, God, I'm so sorry, that's… that's so much," but her thumb was rubbing her wrist — her tell. Chioma always rubs her wrist when her brain and her heart are fighting. Right now, her heart wanted to believe me. Her brain was screaming _bullshit_.

And honestly? I don't blame her.

Four years ago, if some kid came up to me after school and said "hey, there's an ancient demon using my body like an apartment," I would've laughed. Then I would've told Uncle David that kid needed help. Then I would've avoided him at lunch because crazy is contagious, right?

This is the kind of story that gets you locked in a white room. Or worse. Dissected. I've seen movies. I know what governments do to "anomalies."

But I couldn't stop talking. Because if I stopped, the silence would come back. And in the silence, Akuma is loudest. And I was so, so tired of drowning alone.

"My turn to ask you something," I said, my voice hoarse from talking, from not crying. "Do you believe me?"

Chioma opened her mouth. Closed it. Her thumb went _rub, rub, rub_ against her wrist. She looked at me — really looked. At the dark circles under my eyes. At the way my hands wouldn't stay still. At the way I flinched at nothing every few seconds.

"I…" She swallowed. "I believe that _you_ believe it. And I believe you're terrified. And that's enough for me to listen. That's enough for me to be here."

It wasn't a yes. But it wasn't a no, and it wasn't _you're lying_. It was a life raft in the middle of the ocean. It was someone saying _I don't see the shark, but I see you're bleeding, so get in the boat_. I'd take it. God, I'd take it.

"Thank you," I whispered. The words felt too small. Too stupid. But they were all I had.

The silence after was thick. I could hear the big library clock ticking, each _tick_ like a hammer. I could hear kids laughing outside, shrieking, alive. Normal sounds. Sounds for normal people with normal problems. I was about to stand up, to pretend I was fine and go back to class and algebra, when the words slipped out before I could catch them. Like they'd been waiting.

"There's more."

Chioma's eyebrows went up. "More than a demon?"

I dug my nails into my palm until the crescent-moons stung. Pain keeps me here. Pain keeps _him_ quiet. Most of the time. "It's about Jessica."

Her best friend. The girl with the vanilla hand lotion and the laugh that made even Monday mornings bearable. The girl I'd been in love with since I was nine years old and dumb and she shared her biscuit with me when I forgot my lunch.

Chioma went very, very still. "Jess? What about her?"

And just like that, the dam broke again.

I told her everything. Four years of stolen glances across classrooms, trying to be invisible but hoping she'd see me. Four years of memorizing the way Jessica tucks her hair behind her ear when she's nervous about a test. Four years of learning the exact pitch of her laugh when she's trying not to cry, because her dad drinks and yells and her mom pretends the walls aren't thin.

Four years of knowing, with a certainty that sat in my chest next to Akuma, that if she ever looked at me — _really_ looked at me — the way she looks at the sky during sunset, like it hung the stars just for her, I'd combust. Ash. Gone. Happy.

"I love her," I said. The first time I'd said it out loud to another human being. It sounded stupid and huge and terrifying at the same time. "I've loved her since primary five. Since she gave me half her biscuit and didn't make me feel pathetic about being hungry."

Chioma's expression did something complicated. The doubt faded. This, she understood. This was human. This was boy-meets-girl. This was _real_, even if the demon wasn't. "Alex… why didn't you ever tell her? Jess likes you. As a friend, at least. She's always asking if you're okay when you're quiet."

I let out a laugh, but it came out broken, jagged. "Look at me, Chi. Really look." I gestured to myself — skinny, uniform too big, eyes bloodshot from not sleeping. "I'm the weird kid who talks to himself. Who blacks out and wakes up in the yard with dirt on his feet. Who's got a…" I jabbed a finger at my chest, right over the spiral. "...a _thing_ in him. She deserves someone whole. Someone safe. Someone who won't accidentally let a demon use his hands to—" I cut myself off. Couldn't say it.

"Hey." Chioma grabbed my hand. Her fingers were warm. Solid. Real. Anchoring. "You _are_ safe. To me. To Jess. You hear me? You're not that thing."

For one second, one stupid, beautiful second, I almost believed her.

Then Akuma stirred.

A lazy, amused roll inside my ribs, like a cat stretching after a nap. _She lies, Little Vessel,_ he purred, his voice like oil sliding down my spine. _None of them are safe from us. Especially not the pretty one with the vanilla smell. I wonder what her fear tastes like._

I flinched so hard my teeth clicked. Chioma's eyes widened. "What? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I lied. Again. Always. "Just… headache. It's nothing."

It was everything.

"Just… promise me something, okay?" My grip on her hand tightened. I was probably hurting her, but I couldn't make my fingers let go. I needed the anchor. "Promise me you won't tell anyone. Not Jess. Not your mom. Not your diary. Not a soul." My voice cracked. "If the wrong person finds out… Chioma, scientists dissect frogs in Basic Science, right? They cut them open to see how they work while they're still alive. What do you think they'd do to a kid with a demon in his blood? I'm not going to be some lab rat in a government basement. I'm not going to be a weapon they point at other countries. I'm not—" My breathing went fast, shallow. Panic. "I'm just me. I want to stay me."

"Breathe, Alex. Breathe with me." She used her free hand to pry my fingers off hers, gently, like she was handling a scared animal. "In. Out. Good. Again."

I did. In. Out. In. Out. The black spots faded from my vision.

"I promise," she said, and she looked me dead in the eye. "I swear on my grandma's grave, and you know I don't play about Grandma. Your secret's safe with me. Both of them."

Both. The demon. And the girl.

I believed her. I had to. Because the alternative was going back to carrying this alone, and I wasn't strong enough for that anymore. I'd c***k. And if I cracked, Akuma would pour out.

"I must not lie," I said, and a shaky, wet laugh escaped me. It sounded hysterical. Maybe I was. "I feel… lighter. Like I was carrying a dead body on my back for a year and you just helped me set it down for a second. God, that's morbid. Sorry."

Chioma made a face, but she was smiling a little. "That's gross, Alex. Seriously. But… I get it." She bumped my shoulder with hers. "Dead body. Got it. Weirdo."

"Yeah." I smiled for real then. First time in days. It felt foreign on my face. "But it's true."

The bell rang. Loud, screaming through the library, shattering the moment. Lunch was over. Reality was back, asking for its hall pass.

Chioma stood, dusting off her skirt. "Come on. If we're late to Basic Science, Mrs. Eze will give us both detention. And I am _not_ spending my afternoon in detention with you if you're gonna be all broody and poetic about corpses."

I stood too. My legs felt weird. Less heavy. Like I'd been walking with ankle weights for a year and someone finally took them off. I could almost stand up straight.

We walked back to class side by side. And for three whole minutes, three stolen minutes, I felt thirteen. Just a boy. Just a boy with a crush and a best friend and homework he didn't do and a test he was probably gonna fail. Normal. Human.

Then we passed the big window by the science block.

And in the glass, for a split second, my reflection didn't move when I did.

It stayed still. And it smiled.

With teeth I didn't have. Too many. Too sharp.

_Little Vessel thinks he's free,_ Akuma purred in my head, his voice a satisfied rumble that vibrated my bones. _How cute. How human. How wrong._

The weight came slamming back onto my shoulders, ten times heavier than before. Like the dead body had climbed back on.

I didn't flinch this time. Chioma was watching. She was looking for cracks. I couldn't give her any.

So I just kept walking. Kept my face blank. Kept pretending.

Because now someone knew.