Our Demons

Prologue: Elizabeth

Edison Cormac sat in his bathroom shaking profusely with anxiety on the night of September 5th, blade in hand with the temptation to listen to his tattoo and "swipe down to unlock." In fact, the only reason his blood wasn't being tainted by the minute from the rust on his equipped Stanley was that he was took jumpy to cut anything. He would know, he had tried. He looked up at the mirror hanging before him through his sweat-drenched fringe and said aloud,
"No... NO! I can't fucking do this, I can't live my life like this! 23 years on this planet and at least half of that has been Hell on Earth. I just need to slow down. Slow. Down. And just breathe... fucking BREATHE!" But he stopped what was meant to be a monologue to himself when he realised his hand had successfully been cut by the now-cracked mirror. But instead of satisfaction, as anticipated, he felt guilt. A guilt sharp enough to pierce through his body and leave him cold and empty. He'd damaged himself again. Small or not, just a little more. A little closer to that fatal breakdown. And he'd broken his fucking sister's Christmas present... fucking idiot, he thought. Despite the cracks, he could just about see himself in the mirror, his fringe almost bar-like. It was symbolic of his own trapped soul. That was when it happened. An epiphany so strong he physically felt it. He almost fell to the floor as he realised something: there was more. There were options for where his uninterrupted attention could go other than into his arm. He could find something like...
"A religion. I need a religion..." it was calm, so calm; he didn't even lift his eyes from the ground.
"From here on out... I will... practice..." He pretended to himself he was weighing them all up. He wasn't, he'd known suddenly from the moment he hit the floor:
"Satanist. I will practice as a Satanist." Without second thought, he rose to his feet and approached his front door, grabbing his jacket, blood dripping on his charcoal carpet. He didn't care. Before he could change his mind, he was going to the library and hunting down a Satanic Bible.
- – — • — – -
Entering the library, his brain carried out natural protocol; he pulled his sleeves down and clutched his soaked wrist in a polite-looking manor and scanned around. Nobody intimidating. He wandered over to the religion section. As he got there, his eyes noticed something. Time stopped. Flawless, he thought, she is flawless. His left hand dropped from his right and he no longer cared about his idle bleeding; blood which was calmly dripping to the floor. Steadily. Rhythmically. Soothingly... soothingly... before he realised it, his legs were carrying him the woman who, unbeknownst to him, was about to trigger what was undoubtedly his biggest panic attack in months. Brown-blonde hair. Tanned, smooth skin. Bright green eyes. Per... fect. Did Satanism believe in love at first sight? He hoped so. He tried to stop himself, but it felt like destiny for the following conversation to unfold:
"Hello. Wondering where I could find religious texts, happen to know? I've looked in the history section, but apparently religion hasn't had much of an impact on... you know, all of humanity?" Edison found himself shocked at his wit. Wouldn't be nice if it visited more often? The woman before him was giggling, something his conscious speech could never dream of achieving. Still laughing, the woman looked dubious, but in a playful way.
"Nice try, but I highly doubt you managed to miss the huge sign literally directly above you..." She said, eyes drawn above Edison. Her gesture to such an obvious plot hole made Edison feel highly inept. "...What's your game?"
'Shit. Shit, shit, panic, shit. Fuck. She knows. Oh fuck.' was Edison's rough thought pattern. His witty persona disagreed.
"What, can't a guy be inobservant and social?" The woman's giggle turned to laugher; he was clearly doing something here right.
After she finished laughing, she extended a hand and Edison took it, maybe a bit too enthusiastically, with his non-bloody hand. However, he quickly flinched and pulled away. As Edison put it,
"Your hands are freezing! Maybe you need some warm coffee in them to change that?" She giggled a little more, then said,
"Cold body, warm heart as my friends say. I'm Elizabeth. And by the way, your religious texts? They would be right here. Any specifics?" She said, making an uncalculated gesture to the entiry of the bookshelf before her.
"Edison. You can call my Ed, if you'd like? And, um, no... just curious, is all," He replied politely, purposely not picking up the Satanic Bible he'd noticed behind Elizabeth; she may have been part of the majority of society in on the stigmatism that Satanism is purely evil.
"Hmm. Well, everything's here. Since last week. Oh, and Eliza, if you wanna go like that," Her line of sight drifted back to the books; she seemed to searching for a very, very specific book.
"Let's see... while we're doing cliché introductions, c-come here often?" Ed said, growing anxious; his alter ego seemed to have peaced out.
"Weekly, at least. Haven't seen you before,"
"Well, no, just had a moment of adventure, y'know?"
"Ah..." There was an awkward silence. Ed was about to back away, when Eliza chimed back in: "You... mentioned coffee? I'm not busy today, if you were serious?" Ed's heart dropping several thousand feet, but he agreed. Initially, he put his hands in his pockets and looked away, but then, feeling awkward, he instead took them out to fidget, making sure to wipe his right hand on his inner pocket. He nodded timidly "Cool," Eliza said absently. She took a pair of reading glasses from her bag and went to the other side of the bookshelf. She popped back out and said, "Meet me at Connor's Corner Coffee in two hours, you know it?"
"Yeah, yeah. I live a couple blocks down." Eliza smiled.
"Nice. See you soon?" And she disappeared.
What... the... fuck... just – Ed thought. Avoiding sighting, he grabbed a random Satanic Bible and rented it, then dashed home to get ready. Why there was actually a Satanist item in a public library beat him, but he had never been so grateful for timing.
- – — • — – -
Ed, anxiety ridden, sat rigid in Connor's Corner Coffee, pins and needles having heavily set in something like twenty minutes ago. He was growing increasingly dubious of Elizabeth's appearance. By thirty-five minutes late, Ed decided that she probably wasn't coming and, teary-eyed, stood and turned to leave. However, he was met with the sight of Elizabeth, looking guilty as hell, her brown-blonde hair in a cute, loose, messy bun, still wearing her gold-rimmed glasses.
"I am so sorry, I-I had so much to do already and then my sister called and told me my mom's sick, and I was anxious I