Good For Gone

In a Mask

We both collapsed onto the ground.

Peter was unconscious, but his burn scar, which was now just a little bit bigger, had cooled down to a normal color.

After untangling my legs I peaked under his eyelids to find only normal human eyes darting around beneath them.

My heart was still pounding in my ears, but I couldn't help bit feel guilty about the headache Peter was going to wake up to.

He began to stir almost instantly, but in a grumbling human way, so I left him there and went downstairs to the kitchen to get some ice.

Even though I could tell he was back to normal I still felt jumpy, like the monster was going to come back. I told myself it was silly, but I still glanced behind my back a few times as I got some ice cubes from the fridge.

It had made a lot of threats, but for some reason, I doubted it really planned on killing me. Maybe that was stupid to believe, but on the other hand, it had gotten countless opportunities.

I ignored thinking about the thing, Peter was who mattered out of the two.

Getting back to my room all I found was Peter rubbing his head.

"What happened?"

"You knocked your head a bit and, changed, you know."

He groaned, "I'm sorry. It's getting worse, I can't stop it."

He looked so pitiful, leaning against my night stand with a welt growing on his temple, it made it even harder to imagine the monster living inside him, "I know, it's not your fault."

"What happened?" He asked as I pressed the washcloth wrapped baggie of ice against his head.

"Not too much," I said, lifting his hand up and placing it over the ice pack, "He just said some stuff to try and scare me and I clocked him over the head with my alarm clock."

I wasn't going to say that he had definitely terrified me because now I knew he could hear me. Which made me nervous, like I'd been constantly spied on by some kind of creature.

He pressed the icepack to his face harder, "He didn't tell you his name did he?"

"No, why?"

"If you say its name it gives it more power over you."

"Say what's name?"

"The demon."

My stomach dropped. It made a lot of sense, in fact, I don't know why it's surprising me. But to hear him say it like it was a fact made my blood chill.

"You know it's a demon?"

"Yeah, I had it explained to me." He sighed, "Before I left the master told me about it. How he used the boys to feed on their blood, because demon blood makes you very powerful, even more powerful than he was when he originally sold his soul. I'm the most developed though, he said he'd never seen someone live in such harmony with it." He used his free hand to put air quotes around the last part.

"But I saw him change on command too."

"He didn't change, not in the same way at least, there's no more human left inside him, only a demon in a mask."