His skin was a literal field of goosebumps. The creatures seemed to have already delivered and still wasn’t done yet. While he heard the otherworldly voices above everyone else’s, it wasn’t the demonic voices that drew his attention but the emotions that flooded the whole house.
Confusion was the overwhelming feeling that he got but that was just the surface. Underneath was denial, disgust, and fear. It flared off in varying degrees on all the humans present. And he was harvesting it all.
Despite the large number of anchors he had, the ring which glowed in many different colors, now felt cooler in his finger. He chuckled to himself, forgetting the real threat that the hulking creature, or the ones who sought his help, posed.
True to their agreement, he let go of the young child. There was not much to her anyway. She was afraid, and disoriented, but not in levels that the adults were giving off.
The one he labeled as a priest of some kind had been trying to get up but could only manage to get to his knees before falling again. He could feel the pain the man was enduring and could not help but be impressed at his will to fight on. He detected a kind of defiance, a kind of hoping and chalked it off to the man’s religious nature. He was neither an asset nor a threat, so he lay off the man too.
The parents were the prime targets. While the fighting, invisible to them, raged on around them, the man and the woman gave off almost the same emotional signatures. Sometimes one would flare up higher than another but overall, the strength of the emotions they were feeling was almost palpable.
Good fucking job, demons! He thought as he smiled at the emotions he was leeching off of them.
Unseen to everyone but him through his Vein Sight, the dark abomination was gaining over the wiry creatures. There was less and less of them as the seconds ticked by. He felt it rage as it got hit by a shower of debris that the lanky creatures used to pelt it. It also hit the people in the house which made their emotions spike. Except for the child. The child seemed to be unaffected.
He felt the father’s emotions strengthen to a high degree and immediately set more of his anchors to latch on him. He fed it. Whatever the father felt, he fed it, doubled it, and then doubled it again. All he needed to do was feed the underlying emotions that fed to the ones his target was giving off, in a way, creating a loop that imprisoned the thoughts, causing a target to feel more and more of the same thing it was strongly giving off.
Curiously, the mother’s emotional signature was starting to peak as well, while it was revulsion that was strong just moments ago, there was a mounting anger, an anger that bordered on intense hatred. He fed that too.
Suddenly, the hulking creature filled the entire area with a feeling of despair. He felt it spread from the creature and instantly, the mood seemed to shift. The father’s confusion turned into a boiling, inner turmoil. He heard him scream. Without warning, he lost all of his hold on the man.
“The hell…?”
~0~
Cain, for the first time in a long time, considered giving up. The lower left side of his waist seemed to be broken. So was his right shoulder. Whenever he attempted to get up, one of the other would flare up in blinding pain.
The family, the parents especially, had lost to the lies of the demons. Instead of ignoring them, they entertained what lies it spewed, and now they were compromised.
“The child is OURS! WE PROTECT THE CHILD!”
He heard the demons declare again. There was no more mockery or taunts in its tone. The demons spewed their words with hate now. And it bothered Cain. It bothered him because he felt it. Their declaration matched their intent. The demons were not lying.
“NO! NO! NOOOO!” Cain heard Matt scream in denial.
As his pain grew, his vision blurred. But as his vision blurred, his passive sight engaged. And he saw it. He saw Matt’s energy turn a dark, muddy brown. At the same time, Emmy’s was turning a vicious kind of black.
“PRAY! DO NOT… LISTEN!” Cain managed to scream despite his pain.
“Do you remember now, daddy?” The demons spoke again.
Cain had been taken aback by the almost sinister way the demons pronounced the word. As it continued to mock, and taunt, as it continued to pelt the parents with physical and psychological attacks, Cain started to understand why, but he could not reconcile it with the image he had of the person who sought his help.
The feel of the area suddenly changed. An encroaching helplessness filled the air. Far from being confused. He now understood. He had been working under the wrong assumption.
“IT COMES! IT COMES! IT MUST NOT TAKE FORM! END ITS FORM!”
The voices of a legion of angry demons erupted in a deafening scream. Cain felt their call, the urgency in the words, like they were asking for help. He badly wished to see them but knew they can only be seen if they wanted, or if they were unaware. There was another coming. And the many demons that inhabited the child, Gina, were afraid of it.
Lord have mercy!
~0~
It’s not true. It cant be true. I drank but I wasn’t drunk. I knew what I was doing. I was in control. I was aware. It can’t be true. It’s all lies. I went up. It was Emmy. It was my wife! And I came down and drank some more! It’s all lies!
Matt felt himself sinking deeper and deeper into his own thoughts. He felt cold and lighter by the moment. Everything around him disappeared into the background as he stared at the nodding face of his possessed daughter.
Tears streamed down his face as he fought the insidious, repulsive thoughts. He held on, he denied for as long as he could until his thoughts settled on the morning his wife woke him up from his slumber in the sofa. Until his thoughts settled on that one, curious detail as he showered that morning.
“NO! NO! NOOOO!” He screamed.
Faced with horror, Matt’s mind shut itself off.
~0~
He heard the call. The house almost shook from the strength. It came within a fraction of a second when he lost all his anchors on the father. He knew what he needed to do.
There was a reason people used the phrase. He knew it more than anyone. The woman, the mother, needed very little prodding, but he pumped her full of the needed emotions anyway. The subtexts that fed her growing outrage, her hate, her intent to kill.
Come on, come on! Snap already!
The ring on his finger heated up as he focused all of his effort into making the woman boil over. Either that or they were all going to suffer for it.
Come on, or we’re all fucked!
The action around the hulking figure and the lanky demons took a backseat now. He set all his existing anchors to swarm the mother and, in all sense of the phrase, made her vision grow dim.