When I awoke it was dark. My eyes sprang open and immediately I was sitting, head turning from left to right as I scanned the room.
All was quiet.
I spotted a plate of food on my bedside table, a gift from my mother as I slept.
Everything seemed to be in order, but for some reason my body was tense and mind insisted I should be cautious and anticipate danger. There was a buzzing sensation in my head, a tiny vibration directly between my ears, and I guessed this to be part of my new found Spirit. The buzzing intensified as my inward expectation of danger escalated.
The room was only dimly visible, illuminated by light entering through my half open door, but no signs of obvious danger seemed present. Still, my instincts insisted that something was wrong; the buzzing continued.
Around me, real or imagined, it was as if the air were starting to gather weight, like a growing, invisible pressure.
Keeping my body very still I let my gaze inspect the environment; brow creased with concentration. Nothing…
My gaze fixed on the chair at the foot of my bed. “I really should put those clothes in the cupboard,” I thought absently.
Then, the shirt hanging over the chair’s backrest seemed to take on the shape of a human torso. And the cupboard behind it, didn’t the doorknob appear to fit the picture precisely, making a nose? Even the chair’s left leg fit the picture now, creating the outline of a human leg…
All at once the blue-faced demon was in my bedroom, dressed in his neat little tuxedo. Silence. Every molecule of my body began to scream in terror, which was odd because my mouth remained clamped shut, teeth grinding in involuntary spasms. Was I awake? Was this a dream?
It had somehow always been there, standing at the foot of my bed staring at me; just a change of perspective and I could finally see it.
It was coming towards me, climbing onto my bed and crawling up next to my body, its pupil-less eyes fixed on my face. I could feel the weight on my bed, sense its presence, as if it carried an aura of cold air in a bubble around its body.
Absolute, complete terror gripped me and suffocated my heart. The buzzing in my head became so fierce I thought my teeth might start rattling.
It crawled slowly closer, the expressionless face drawing nearer to my own. It wanted to feed on me. I knew without a shadow of a doubt, it wanted to feed on me.
Again the air around my body began to pop and crackle with unseen energy, powered by nothing but extreme fear. The intensity increased rapidly; in a second I felt a buzzing on my arms, face, shoulders and chest, similar to receiving an electrical shock from a plug socket, minus the negative effects.
My instincts took over. The energy needed a release and my mouth supplied the means.
I screamed; one short guttural shriek; and, as before, the energy took flight from a place directly in front of my eyes. The shimmering orb collided with the demon and catapulted it backwards, sending it smashing head first into my cupboard. A sound reverberated through the house like the boom of an enormous drum, then the cupboard was shattering as the energy ploughed through wood to meet the wall.
A spray of splinters and debris showered my face as my head plopped back onto the pillow, allowing fatigue to once again envelop me. Distantly, I heard footsteps running towards my room and a voice that seemed to be coming from another planet.