It's Your Life: The Sleeping Demon

A Rocky Start, But We'll Pick it Up

Blake ignored Light's cries for help as he shut the basement door on her and the sleeping demon. As he exited the laundry room, he noticed the whole house was calm and still. They all must've gone up to bed, He thought as he entered the narrow hallway and tiptoed up the blue carpet stairs. She was really going to leave me in there all night? His train of thoughts raced back to when he abandoned his new friend down there. Despite the surfacing regrets he felt, he continued up to his bedroom. He approached the birch wood door that was defaced with swirly blue crayon that read Blake's room! Keep out! and pushed it open.

Blake really loved his room. It had midnight blue curtains that swished like a vampire's cape when you open and close them, a crisp white ceiling with a brown carpet floor and cream walls which were hardly noticeable at times because of everything else contained in the room. His twin-sized bed was at the far left corner of the room, right up against the walls. His duvet was a striped blue and red with a matching red pillow on top of darker blue sheets. In the far left corner stood a massive toy chest full of old hand-me-down stuffed bears and dolls from his older sister. Plus, some really old action figures from when his father was a kid. The carpet floor was decorated with broken or worn out markers and crumbled up paper with weird faces scribbled on them. Then at last, the toddler's favorite place to go in the room. Between the bookshelf with old, obviously never returned library books and his beige wood dressing table, a burgundy colored blanket draped across the two and acted as the roof of Blake's pillow fort, or as he called it: Harretland.

But the kid was tired, and didn't feel like visiting. Instead he plopped his head on his pillow, patiently waiting for his brain to turn off and drift to sleep. That's when he heard a voice nagging from his right shoulder. "That wasn't very nice, what you did."

Blake jumped right out his bed and landed on one of green crayons. Sadly one of the few that was still intact. Emphasis on WAS.

The little lady paid no mind to Blake's startled face and continued. "I would've been in there all night because of you."

Now, Blake hated saying sorry. He really did. But something about seeing Light's face, how she wasn't angry, or disappointed like his parents. She was just sad, and her tone of voice let out that she was scared of being stuck there, too. Blake knew the feeling, but why did he still do that? And also this:

"I don't care."

"I thought we were friends, Blake."

"My mum says to never make friends with a stranger."

"Then how would you make friends at all?"

"Well, I guess I just....don't."

"Don't make any friends?"

"Nope. I don't need them. I got the tinman."

"A tinman?"

"Yep."

Blake soon began getting as bored with the conversation as the author was writing it. He picked up Light using his index finger and thumb and set her on the window ledge between the bed and the toy chest. "If you want a sorry, you're not getting a sorry. Now goodnight." And with that he aggressively shut the curtains, letting the fabric swoosh dramatically like a cape. When the curtains relaxed, something red hit it and tumbled to the floor. Blake crouched to get a closer look. Auburn hair, red suit, it was the sleeping demon again. The child carelessly scooped it up and opened the curtains a small bit. On the window ledge, Light gazed out at the violet sky, The clouds shaped like a frozen tidal wave, drifting slowly and aimlessly across the sky. The angel spoke without tearing her eyes away from the glass. "It's pretty isn't it?"

"Here's your friend." Blake tossed The demon beside Light, who glanced over in fear and disgust.

"Thank you, Blake."

"You're not welcome, BAD-night."

Epic burn, Blake thought as he shut the curtains for the last time and went to bed. The last thing he thought of, for some reason, was Light's fear-stricken face when she asked him why he left her in the spooky room.

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The next morning was the weekend. Blake knew the second his eyelids struck open that he wasn't supposed to be here. He quickly hopped out of bed and started toward his door. That's when the voice spoke up again. "Don't leave without me!"

Blake spun round to Light on the floor bounding toward him. "Could I get some assistance, please?"

"No, go away." Blake's mouth was on auto-pilot.

The angel looked hurt. "Pretty please?"

Blake reluctantly plucked Light off the floor and placed him on his left shoulder. Light quickly scurried to right and said. "Thank you, young man."

The demon seemed pretty ecstatic to go, too. As Blake shut the door, the snoring imp seemed to practically fly toward Blake's free shoulder. Somehow eyes still shut tight.

"Can he sleep through anything?" Blake asked the angel.

"I don't know," She responded, "It seems that way."

The three snuck back into the basement and waited at the top of the stairs for someone to let him free. Blake decided he wanted more answers than he got last time. "So, Light isn't it?"

"It is."

"Why are you and the tiny man here?"

"I'm glad you asked Blake," Light's smile brighter than her name, "I have been assigned to be YOUR shoulder angel for the next twenty years!"

"Next twenty WHAT?"

"It's not a bad thing. I help you shape your moral compass from a young age until you're old enough to understand the basics and the nuances of good and bad. For my progress and our co-operation, you will live a life of prosperity and will get my angel wings!"

Light said the whole thing like it was no big deal, even something worth celebrating. But the child was astray. She will be on his shoulder, telling him what to do, FOR TWENTY YEARS? NUH-UH.

"Isn't that exciting!" The angel bounced up and down on the toddlers shoulder. "All my years of research on human behavior and ethics will finally be put to the test!"

"NO!" Blake blurted it out without even meaning to. Well, he meant to, not just so loudly. Light's face dropped to sadness. "Why no?"

"My mum already tells me what to do! My dad and sister's already tell me what to do! My teachers, my schoolmates, EVERYONE already bosses me around and yells at me for screwing up. I do not need another one!"

"But Blake, you clearly do if you're in here all the time-"

"NO! I don't wanna hear it. You're weird and unsettling and I want you to leave me alone!"

"But my research-"

Blake interrupted Light's pleading and grabbed her fiercely from his shoulder, squeezing her tiny body in his huge toddler hands. "I don't care, GO AWAY!" He readied his hand, tried his best to ignore Light's pleads of mercy and volleyed the little angel down the stone stairs to the bottom of the spooky room. Blake could hear a small c***k but decided it was the stone the woman hit. Not the woman herself.

"Blake, OH GOOD YOU'RE OKAY!" His father Roger had just opened the door for his son and was now cradling him against his wishes. "Dad, let go!" he demanded.

"I'm so sorry, buddy. I tried telling your mother that putting you here wasn't a good idea, especially all night! I mean you're only four! I promise that won't happen again."

Blake was feeling weird. A pang of shame impaled a layer of his thick heart. He usually didn't believe his dad cared but seeing him like this...and what's worse he didn't actually spend the whole night like he was ordered to. He met a really nice lady that helped him escape and he just locked her in this hole, presumably all night. And even when she tried making friends he just-

What is happening? Why was feeling guilty? Ew, why did he want to say sorry? He definitely didn't a part of him believed. But here was crying into his dad's shoulder repeating the word over and over again. "Sorry dad.." He whispered one last time.

"Buddy, why are YOU sorry?"

"I bit Jason, I snuck out of my punishment, I was mean to my new friend-"

"New friend? What new friend?"

Oh no, Light! I threw her down the stairs!

Blake tore away from his father and sprinted down the stairs shouting the angel's name. "Light? Light, where are you?"

Roger followed, wondering what kind of friends his son could've made during time-out. Maybe a rat? He thought. Why would he be mean to a rat? Then again who'd be nice and hospitable?

Roger laughed at his inner joke as Blake scrambled across the floor looking for his friend. "Where is she?"

"Maybe she went away to her family."

"No, she doesn't have one, I don't think."

"Aw, that's sad."

"No, not really."

"Why's that, son?"

"If she had a family, she wouldn't have time to sit on my shoulder for twenty years."

Confused would be an understatement. Roger was lost at sea with Blake's statement. "Sit on your shoulder?"

"Yeah, like this guy." Blake took the conked out imp in his hand and brought him up to his father's face. Roger's eyes squinted, as if trying to focus on the demon. "Blake there's nothing there."

"There is too! He's right in front of you, can't you see him sleeping??"

Roger picked Blake up in his arms.

"I think you inhaled too much of the dust down here, son. Let's go get some breakfast."