I thought I had made peace with my demons. Oh, no, not the mental ones that plagued me every night before I went to bed. I mean the real ones that lurked over my shoulder whenever I stepped out into the dark, or left the safety of my bed. I thought they and I had reached a balance. One night, as I sat at my desk weaving words into stories that would never be read, I felt the irresistible tug of the outdoors. I wasn't quite certain why. There was nothing out there but darkness and isolation, not that I was any less isolated in the quiet of my room. Nevertheless, I walked slowly to the door and peered out. I saw nothing, as expected, so I returned to my writings. Upon glancing at my papers, however, I found words I hadn't written, tortured phrases I could not recall putting to paper, although they had always lurked in the back of my mind. Unsettled, I retreated to the wide-open space of my library, hoping that when I returned the words would be gone. "But why would those words appear now?" I wondered aloud. No answer reached my ears but the echo of my own voice, bouncing endlessly off the cold stone walls. Then, I heard a whisper, quiet like a whisper should be, from behind the chair where I rested. "Because it's time," the voice said. I was startled by the voice (the demons don't usually speak), so I turned as quickly as I could, but I only saw its silhouette as it faded before my eyes. "It's time for you to see." Its cold hands grabbed at my shoulders and arms, pulling me from my chair towards the still-open door of my room. Far too many hands for one creature holding me as I was dragged slowly, mercilessly towards that door. "Why are you doing this?" I cried in desperation, hoping only to distract it for long enough that maybe I could escape. It never faltered, and in response only whispered "It is time," once more. Ignoring my desperate struggles, it carried me down the hall and through the door to my room. My journal still lay open on the desk, but now instead of words it just held a dark abyss. The creature carried me closer and closer, never allowing me so much as an inch of movement. When we reached the desk, it placed me in my chair, exactly as I had been before this madness began. I heard it take a step back and for a moment, I thought it meant to leave. Then all of a sudden I was falling into that hole in the pages, down and down through years of dreams and, more dominantly, nightmares. The last thing I heard before I hit the bottom was the voice of the demon, speaking from an impossibly far distance, saying "It is done."
I thought I had made peace with my demons. I was wrong.
