Demon's Home

A Story by Armada Volya

Kathy buys a house and finds herself sharing it with a demon. Scared to death but unwilling to give up her new home she tries to find a way to communicate with the supernatural inhabitant.

A large assortment of boxes and bags of every type and size as well as an ugly old linoleum floor made the house look atrocious, but Kathy didn't mind it one bid; it was hers. For the first time in her life she could look at the place she was living in and say that it was hers, bought with cash and in need of much repair, but cheap for all that.

The house belonged to her and her alone. At least that's what she thought as she looked at the door frames that were in a desperate need of paint.

Of course a poor state of the house was not the only reason it was so cheap. The second reason had never been disclosed though, mainly because the agent who sold it didn't believe in ghosts. Kathy on the other hand was opened to the possibility, but thus far she had only been inside during daylight, never at night, not until this night when she was officially moved in and ready to start a new life as a home owner.

Buckets of paint were standing in a corner, waiting to be used. There was not enough time in a day, not when Kathy had to work so many extra shifts to support the house fixing endeavor she had gotten herself into. But when the time in the day ran out there was night and this night was time to paint.

She was fixing one room at a time: bathroom was finished, kitchen... well... usable at least, bedroom... had a bed in it, and a computer that was already hooked up to the Internet and a built in closet with a few pants, shirts and an old sweatshirt, that was about all. The sooner she could fix the second bedroom, the sooner she could move into a more pleasant room. After that, she would start on the rest of the house.

The ladder seemed sturdy enough. A gallon of paint, birch forest color, opened easily enough and poured into a tray without spilling all over the floor. Brushes... where did she put the brushes... oh yes, in the temporary tool room.

Kathy walked confidently to the side of the house where boxes stood tall and proud and turned on the light in the small bedroom where she was storing all of her tools. The brushes were there, just where she had left them.

As she walked out of the tool room Kathy felt the hair on her back prickle; she was being watched, but by whom? There was no one in the house and all the windows had blinds on them. It was the living room - she was being watching by someone who was in the living room. She knew no one was there, she knew it.

Quickly the young woman walked back into the well-lit side of the house and shook of the feeling. It was silly, there was no one there. No one. She was just getting spooked that was all. All alone at night in an old house where she hadn't spent a night before, it was bound to rack her nerves.

Damn it, she forgot to take the roller.

Back to the tool room, this time turning the lights on in every room she had passed, every room except the living room. She didn't pass through it after all, just next to it. Good excuse for not walking into a room from which she could feel someone watching her.

What silliness, she had to stop it. She had to prove to herself that there was no one there. But what if there was someone there? A flooring knife, that was a good self-defense weapon. Oh, yes, and a paint roller. No reason to walk through this spooky area again.

Light switch flipped easily under Kathy's finger. Nothing happened, no light. Maybe there was... the light flickered. Of course, she just forgot that the halogen bulb in this room was a bit funky and took a few seconds to light up. There it was now - a fully lit room with no one in it. There was no one to watch her from here, not one soul, she just proved it to herself.

Yet... as she turned off the light and turned her back to the room the sensation returned.

She had to stay reasonable, not freak out over nothing. Remember, just spooked over a new surrounding. She would get used to it soon enough.

Just go back to painting, there is no one in the living room. No one is watching.

Paint tray, brush, roller, everything was set up on the ladder, ready to be used. The paint was laying on nicely, bringing more life to the room with every covered inch. A pleasant pale green with just a touch of blue would look great on these walls, especially after the door and window frames were painted a darker green.

One hand on the wall, another on the roller, Kathy was admiring the color, noticing the unevenness in the way it covered the darker blue underneath. She would have to give it another coat.

Suddenly the ladder tilted, almost throwing Kathy down. Both hands on the metal step, she steadied herself. Placing a roller back in the tray she decided to come down and make sure the ladder was steady.

It seemed perfectly stable. There wasn't anything under the legs that would make it wobble and when Kathy tried to shake the ladder it didn't move.

Leaning down once more Kathy made sure the plastic underneath wasn't making the ladder slide. As she was raising back up, the ladder moved of its own accord sending the pain roller flying to Kathy's feet.

Aware of the sudden coldness in the room, the young woman picked up the roller and returned it into the tray. The eerie feeling that someone was watching her has returned and the knowledge that there was no kindness in that look with it. Every nerve in Kathy's body screamed of danger. There was something there, someone " someone who wished her ill. But she couldn't see him.

Him? Yes, somehow she was sure it was a man, or at least male.

"Are you a ghost?" she whispered, knowing perfectly well that she didn't want to hear the answer.

The answer never came, but the conviction that this someone was as supernatural as they get was as strong as iron.

She just needed to calm down and think logically, as logically as possible under the circumstances at least. Her intuition had proved to be right in the past and she considered it an advisor to be trusted. She would trust it now too.

So this something was supernatural, ghost or not. It was responsible for the ladder moving therefore it was trying to harm her. Alright, that was easy enough to establish, but why didn't it hurt her then and why was it even trying?

Kathy felt a shiver run down her spine, partly from the fear and partly from the cold.

No, she mustn't fear. Fear was only going to get in the way. Think logically. Why did it try to hurt her?

It's protecting its territory? Its privacy? The house had been abandoned for two years, so perhaps it liked being alone. Perhaps it doesn't like people in general.

Why wouldn't it like people?

To be living in a house and to consider it its own just to have someone move in might be a good reason. Perhaps it also didn't like the people who had lived in this house before? Who were they? Kathy didn't know much except what she could learn from the neighbors and from the condition the house was left in. Rooms with locks on the outside and dog's claw marks on the inside gave some idea.

Maybe this something... no, she needed to think of him as he; it might not be as scary then. So he probably had seen too many people who might have been too loud and too mean, too disrespectful of his privacy or perhaps even his existence.

She would have to think about it some more, perhaps sleep on it if sleep would come in a haunted house with an aggressive ghost. For now however, she needed to finish painting this room.

With a beating heart Kathy climbed back up the ladder and got back to work. She might fall at any moment, she knew that much, but there was no other choice. Or was there?

"Ah... whoever you are, I am sorry I'm invading on your territory, but you see, I have no choice. I bought this house. If I knew it was yours I might've decided on something else to give you your space, but I didn't know and now I'm stuck here, with you. Please, don't be too angry with me: I'll try to be respectful."

No answer. Perhaps he did answer, but she couldn't hear him. Well, if the ladder was going to start shaking again it would be the answer in itself.

The ladder didn't shake though, not once, but the sensation of being watched by someone who didn't wish her anything good remained. It was an improvement nonetheless. Maybe if she keeps on talking to him he would mellow out and be nicer.

With the room painted, Kathy decided it was enough for one night and retreated into the one and only bedroom that was in good enough shape to sleep in. The bed had been made up already and even looked inviting. The idea of sleeping with a hostile spirit in the house, however, was far from comforting. Every time Kathy closed her eyes, she could imagine a silhouette peeking through the door, watching her.

As minutes passed into oblivion the sleep forced its way through the fear and troubled dreams begun. The humanesque shadow formed and slowly gained clarity. Only this creature didn't look anything like a human. It had two legs on which it stood, two arms and a head, yes, but it was... well... devilish. The pink skin looked like Kathy's own did whenever she would neglect to use sunscreen before going to the beach. The two small horns on each side of the head made the creature look even less human and more demonic. The big muscular body was always in an aggressive stance, ready to attack at any moment.

After only three hours of troubled sleep Kathy woke up to her alarm-clock and went to work.

Sleepiness hadn't left Kathy all day; sleeping in a haunted house didn't help her sleep. Perhaps it wasn't haunted after all. Perhaps she was just imagining it. It must be just a new place and a lousy looking one at that. It really looked more like a construction site and less like a livable house.

Despite all the desperate attempts to rationalize the fear she had felt the night before, as soon as she got out of work Kathy took out her cell phone and opened a web browser. With a casual movement of one finger she typed in "Ouija board" then hit "shopping." An assortment of boards came up, but all of them were from online stores. Limiting the search to physical stores in the area produced four results: two movies about haunting, a fortune-telling book and a glow in the dark Ouija board.

No, that was silly. She was just spooking herself with this. There was no way in hell she was going to try to talk to some nonexistent ghost via a glow-in-the-dark Ouija board. No, she just needed a good sleep and with a clear head she would be able to see that this is just a stupid superstition.

Easy said and easy done. Kathy drove back to the house via a semi-familiar road that she had taken only a handful of times thus far. It took longer than her ride home used to take when she had lived in her old apartment, but a few extra minutes of traveling were a small matter when she could finally go to her very own house.

The key turned in the back door with difficulty as it always had and the house looked as ordinary inside as it did the day she had purchased it. No sign of a ghost anywhere.

Of course there was no sign of a ghost; there was no ghost. She was simply too tired the night before and her exhausted mind decided to play tricks on her.

After a quick snack to curb the appetite, Kathy walked on tired legs into her temporary bedroom and without undressing curled up in the bed. Sleep during daylight was deep and peaceful, but as soon as the sun hid behind the horizon, the pink demon had reappeared in Kathy's dreams.

At first the dream looked rather innocent, just a sweet, relaxing walk through a bright green birch forest. Within seconds, however, the forest grew darker and more sinister. Leafs fell off the branches as they bent and twisted in every direction turning the birches into gnarled, evil trees that sought to capture Kathy as she rushed passed them in search of a way out of the haunted forest.

Running for her dear life the young woman saw light and before she got a chance to think, she was running towards it. The light that was sneaking into the darkness between the branches grew brighter and brighter until Kathy found her way into the field surrounded by the woods.

A giant, bright red fire was burning in the center of the field and a demon with pink skin and two small horns stood next to the fire, waiting for the woman to approach.

With a ferocity of a lion whose den was threatened, the demon rushed at Kathy, arms spread, ready to catch her.

Protect, she must protect herself. Key-chain, there was a small knife on a key-chain. She fumbled in her pocket, trying to grab the keys and just as she managed to pull them out, the demon's arm wrapped around her and lifted her off the ground.

The heat was beginning to suffocate her as the demon carried her closer and closer to the fire. The knife, she had to open it and stab him. The fingers felt as cold as ice and did little to open the knife, but eventually she was able to take the small blade out and plunged it into the shoulder on which she was being carried.

Kathy woke up from a scream, not her scream. Something or someone in the house had screamed. Or was the scream just a part of the dream?

God, it was cold in the room. It was supposed to be a warm night, but it was freezing cold in the house. Kathy climbed out of the bed and walked to the closet. There was an old faded sweatshirt that was warm enough to keep her nice and toasty even in this cold room. Just as Kathy's hand touched the familiar fabric, the closet door closed, lightly hitting the arm. A scream came next. The young woman heard it in her mind.

No, no, no, it can't be real! But it was - she knew it was.

"Please, stop trying to hurt me," said Kathy in a tiny whisper. "Oh god, I should've gotten the stupid Ouija board. Would you talk to me through a Ouija board if I had one?"

Another scream pulsated through Kathy's brain.

"Wait, wait. I'll draw it right now. Let me just put something warm on."

She opened the closet door again and this time held it with one hand while she took out the sweatshirt with the other. Without stopping to put it on, she ran downstairs and threw it over her shoulders on her way down. In one of the boxes she found a stack of printing paper and decided that it would be good enough.

On the way to the kitchen table Kathy picked up a pencil and once she was seated began to write out an alphabet, numbers and two words, yes and no. All she needed now was something to move on the board. She quickly looked around the room and not finding anything that looked like it would work, took off her ring and placed it on the paper.

"Ah, ghost?"

The ring started moving before she got a chance to even touch it. "Hate you."

"Why?" Kathy was beginning to shiver again. The cold managed to get through the sweatshirt and the fear was oozing in even deeper.

"It hurts," spelled the ring.

"What hurts?" her voice was growing fainter and fainter as the fear was growing louder and louder.

"Shoulder you stabbed."

"But it was a dream."

"Can hurt me in dream."

"I can? I... I'm sorry, I didn't know. I was scared."

"Thats the point."

"But... well... if you wouldnt'v scared me, I wouldnt'v stabbed you."

The demon screamed again, leaving Kathy even more scared than she had already been.

"Ah... ghost?" whispered she after a few seconds went by.

The ring mover slowly and stopped with a word "no" inside it.

"No? What do you mean?" asked Kathy.

"No ghost."

"Who are you then?"

"Rezu."

"Alright, Rezu." It was beginning to get warmer in the room. "What sort of a creature are you?"

"Demon."

"Demon?" Kathy realized she wasn't as scared anymore. Not as much as she was a few minutes ago at least. Odd, considering she had just found out she was talking to a demon, but at least her mind was beginning to work a bit better. "Are you evil?"

"Angry."

"At me? For stabbing you?"

"Yes."

"Were you angry at me before I stabbed you?"

"Yes."

"What for?"

"My house," answered Rezu.

"I told you yesterday that I don't have any other place to go, I spent all of my money on this house." Kathy was beginning to feel a little more confident. It was going to be alright. The demon was talking to her and as any relationship expert can testify, communication was a key to a good, productive coexistence between a human and a demon.

"Don't care. Mine."

"I live here too now. Let's try to make it work. I'll do what I can to make it easier for you and you will try not to scare me so much. So, what can I do for you?"

"Ring."

"Ring?" frowned Kathy.

"Too heavy."

"What would you rather use?"

"Paper."

"Alright, ah..." She looked around in search of any small piece of paper and found a bag of flour. A small piece of the paper packaging should work. Carefully Kathy tore off a corner and placed it on the board.

"Is this better?"

"Yes," moved the paper.

"Anything else I can do?"

"Clear my corner."

"Which one is your corner?"

"By living room window."

"Alright," rose Kathy and walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. The only two windows in the room were on opposite sides of one wall, but only one of them was near a corner that was proudly displaying an ironing board. The corner by the other window was perfectly empty. Kathy took the ironing board and put it into a walk-in closet in one of the bedrooms that was yet to be fixed.

"Was that the right corner?" asked Kathy when she returned into the kitchen.

"Yes."

"Is there anything else I can do?"

"Paint is toxic."

"Ah... I'll see what I can do about that. I do have to repaint the walls, they look terrible, but if there is a better paint I'll use it."

"Good."

"Anything else?"

"Don't stab."

"I won't as long as you don't scare me."

"Good."

"Anything else?"

"No."

Well, that wasn't too bad. Feeling much too warm for comfort, Kathy took off her sweatshirt and hung it over the back of the chair. She was planning on giving a second coat of paint to the room she had painted the day before, but that wasn't an option now, not until she could figure out if there is a better paint.

With a much lighter heart Kathy walked back to her bedroom and turned on the computer. Internet browser opened and after a few seconds of hesitation Kathy typed in "Eco-friendly paint" and hit the search button. Quickly scanning the pages she found a title "10 Eco-friendly paints" and clicked on the link.

Not spending too much time on reading, Kathy scrolled down and looked at the images, then read the descriptions and prices of each paint.

Pricey... pricey... pricey... powder? Image showed two paper bags with powder and the description underneath spoke of high quality, organic paint made of milk protein.

Milk protein? Really? Kathy's mind brought up an image of painting walls with milk and smelling the rotting paint for years to come. The logical mind told her that the paint should be perfectly fine, it was made not to rot, but the idea of putting milk on the walls just didn't seem to be a good one.

The next image was a regular, aluminum jar of paint, but the description said that it was clay paint. Now that was interesting. Going back to the browser, Kathy typed "clay paint," and looked at the results. One of the pages she found was a blog post written by someone who had tried such a paint and was speaking very highly of its color and texture.

Using a link provided in the description, Kathy landed on a page where she found large, fifty-pound bags of clay plaster and a pigment to mix into it. All in all, it wasn't too expensive, considering the size of the bag. And they were offering a free sample too.

Well, what did she have to lose? She could get the free sample and show it to Rezu; if he approved then she'd buy the bag.

Kathy's eyes moved to the top right corner of the monitor where small numbers read 12:17 AM. Midnight. It was hard to think about sleep, but the truth was, she had not slept enough ever since she had purchased the house, so catching up wouldn't hurt, especially after the previous night.

After lying in bed for a couple of hours, Kathy was able to drift into sleep and see the haunted forest yet again. It didn't seem as scary this time even though the branches were just as gnarled and just as bare of leaves. The trees didn't seem to be trying to reach out and grab her and aside from simply looking creepy, there wasn't anything evil about them.

The light from the fire was easy to see though the bare branches and Kathy walked towards it until she saw the pink, horned demon sitting by the fire, watching her.

"Rezu?" asked Kathy.

The demon nodded his reply and with a gesture invited her to come closer.

"So, this is how you really look like?"

Another nod from the demon was the answer.

"What is this place?" asked she again.

"This is my mind," answered Rezu in a low, deep voice with the hoarseness of stones ground by ages.

"Your mind? How can I be in your mind?"

"Things happen in dreams. You can go into minds of demons and demons can go into your mind. Some demons can at least."

"Can you?"

"Only if you show me the way."

Kathy looked down at the ground, then back at Rezu. "I don't know how. I mean, I don't know the way myself."

"You just have to think about it. Make it up and it will appear."

Make it up? Sounded easy enough, but she wasn't sure how to make it up and most importantly, she wasn't sure what was in her mind. Of course there was also the question of whether or not she should invite a demon who had tried to scare and perhaps even hurt her just a few hours ago. Could she trust him?

"I don't know how to make it up," said Kathy, "I don't even know what my mind looks like."

"The first time you came here, what was there first?"

"That haunted forest right there," pointed Kathy towards the gnarled trees.

"Yes, I know; they are a part of my mind. It's like rooms in a house, you have to walk through one before you get into another. The forest is the entrance into the mind. There must've been something before this forest."

"There was another one," said Kathy and looked at the black ground covered in small fragments of coals and fallen leaves.

The two sat together in silence: Kathy studying the leaves, Rezu studying Kathy. "Are you still afraid of me?" asked the demon.

"I... ah... well... yes. A little."

"Smart," Rezu's smile looked both amused and sinister.

Kathy looked into the pitch-black eyes of the demon and tried to find something to say, something to change the subject to a less aggressive one. "I think I found a better paint. It's made of clay."

"Clay? That's what they used to use. Under all the layers of that toxic junk there is still some pale-blue clay paint. The house felt better when it was painted with clay. The air felt better and it smelled fresher."

"I should use it then?"

"Yes, but remove the paint that is on the walls now, otherwise it wouldn't feel the same."

"Alright," Kathy smiled ever so slightly.

Rezu lifted his wide, six-fingered hand to the young woman's face and turned her head to look into her eyes. "You aren't too bad for a human."

Kathy laughed nervously, letting some of the tension out with the sound. "You aren't too bad for a demon."

"If I do decide to kill you in your sleep, I'll try to do it painlessly." The smile on Rezu's face looked a little more amused and a little less sinister this time.

"I'll try not to stab you too hard next time." Kathy reached her hand out to touch the small wound on the shoulder.

"Don't," caught Rezu her hand.

"I'm sorry I hurt you."

"It'll heal. We demons are hard to kill, especially with such tiny knives. Next time a demon tries to kill you in your sleep, think up a better weapon."

"Think up a weapon? I can do that?"

"Of course. You can think up just about anything in your own or in someone else's mind." Rezu extended his arm, opened his hand and a cane made of twisted branches appeared in it. The tips of the branches moved and formed a human head, then the branches fused into each other and begun to shift until Kathy's image became visible on the staff. A globe of fire appeared around the wooden head as the features distorted in a silent scream.

"Why are you trying to scare me? You don't seem that evil."

Rezu let go of the staff and it disappeared along with the flame that was consuming it. With thoughtful eyes he looked at the woman, trying himself to figure out why he was doing it.

"So you know not to trust us. You humans are afraid of demons for a reason. Most of us aren't evil, or if we are, we can't really harm you. But there are some who can and will. There are demons who feed on human fear and pain and would do everything they can to get their fill of it. There are a few who can materialize in your world and harm you. Of course if they materialize, they can be harmed as well, but they are usually very strong and vicious. People rarely get a chance to fight back. Never trust a demon, not me, not any other." Rezu's strong hand was holding Kathy's face, forcing her to look into his eyes, to see and to understand the nature of a demon.

Kathy saw the nature of a demon, a very specific demon, a demon who could be reasoned with and who can agree to work with a human. She understood the meaning of the words she heard, the true meaning, the warning of a friend.

And then the hand was gone and she was sitting in the birch forest without a sign of the fire, the demon or the gnarled trees. She was back in her mind now, the birch woods part of it at least. Kathy had an idea that her mind was a bit larger than a section of a forest and so she rose and walked down a foot-beaten path. After a short walk she ran into raspberry bushes.

Changing the course to walk through the raspberries, she found herself walking out into the backyard of the house she had grown up in. Turning back, she looked at the bushes and realized that they were a door between two rooms and that if she ever wanted to go back to the forest, she could do it through the bushes.

A small black dog ran towards her. It looked like the good old Button who had died when Kathy was away on vacation, but it didn't feel like the same dog. It didn't feel like anything real at all, not the way Rezu felt. Rezu was real. Button was more of a prop to make a memory of the house more complete.

Stepping around the dog, Kathy walked up the two steps and into the house where everything looked old and dusty. It was good to return to this old, forgotten place. No one lived there now, not since grandpa died. There just wasn't any reason to stay there anymore, so everyone had left and found a new home in the city.

A trapdoor to the cellar caught Kathy's eye and she opened it and climbed down the wooden steps only to find herself under the bed in her apartment. She giggled as she crawled on her belly between jars of jam she had kept under the bed. These doors were quite something. Where was the next door? Or was it a window this time?

With a happy smile she walked to a window that had been broken once by her ex-boyfriend when he was trying to wake her up by throwing pebbles at the window. She opened it and stuck her head out only to see Rezu on the other side.

"Rezu," called she to the demon who turned to the sound of her voice.

"Seems you have found another door to my mind. What do I have to do to keep you out?"

"Sorry, I didn't realize it was a door to your mind; it's a kitchen of my house too after all."

The demon looked around and nodded. "Seems we have a common mind room. And I am afraid I now know how to get into your mind."

"Want a grand tour? I was just looking through it myself and it's a rather nice one," smiled she.

"You aren't afraid to let me in anymore?"

He didn't like it. He preferred to keep people at a distance, but if they were to live in one house, it was best to at least know who he was dealing with. Looking through someone's mind was the easiest and the fastest way to learn about them. And she was inviting him in.

Rezu walked to the window and opened it wider with one hand, then imagined it growing larger. When it was the size of a small door, he walked into the small apartment and looked around. Bookshelves were stocked to the top with a combination of books and movies of every size a genre. A few paintings hung above the couch that he recognized from the house. One of the paintings specifically caught his attention.

An abstract, twisted, female form was bent backwards with arms stretching out past the head and a small stream of blood running down the chest and the neck of the woman. The work was done with incredible skill and emotions. Pain seemed to be running through the painting with the blood and with every red speck on the otherwise black and white canvas.

The demon looked at Kathy and moved on. There was more to see and more to learn.

One bedroom apartment turned out to be a rather small mind-room and so the two quickly moved on to the bed under which a door to the next part of the mind existed.

"Come, I want to show you someone," said Kathy and lead the demon out of the house before he could take a good look around.

Outside the two were greeted by the small form of a dog who ran around barking as if it was a real animal. Rezu smiled at Kathy with one corner of his mouth, then picked up the dog and in one giant bite bit of its head.
"That was my dog," stared Kathy in astonishment.

"Doesn't taste like dog, tastes like cardboard. I don't think it was real."

"But... it was a part of my mind."

"Don't worry, it'll be back the next time you are here. Unless of course you decide to change your mind and turn it into a headless dog." Opening his mouth even wider then before, Rezu shoved the rest of the dog into it and swallowed it without chewing.

"Well, as long as it can be back I suppose it's alright. Just don't try to eat me, alright?"

"I might try," smiled he without a trace of menace.

"Want to look at the house I grew up in?" smiled Kathy back.

The two walked in and after a quick inspection of the entrance room walked into the large living room area where a couch, two tables, an old TV and two antique china hutches with mirrors for back walls stood.

Rezu walked to one of the hutches and found a photograph of an old woman on one of the shelves. There was sadness around the picture. The image itself didn't look sad by any stretch, but the emotions that Kathy was used to filling when she thought about it had imprinted on the image.

"It's my grandma," said Kathy seeing what caught Rezu's attention. "She died of cancer. Refused to see the doctor even when she couldn't get up from the bed. My grandpa killed himself not long after she died."

Rezu looked at the woman and nodded, then walked on to the second hutch.

"Check this out," said Kathy opening one of the glass doors. She took out a wineglass with bright red wine inside and flipped it over. Not a drop spilled. "It has double walls. The colored water is between them."

With a corner of his mouth smiling, Rezu took the glass from Kathy's hand and tossed it into his mouth.

"Do you always eat everything you can get your hands on?" laughed the woman.

"I didn't eat you yet, though that might change."

"Kathy laughed and gestured for Rezu to follow her through the door between the two hutches. The door to her old bedroom swung open and without looking she stepped into the room of twisted mirrors.

With horror Kathy looked around, realizing that she ended up in a place where she didn't want to go. She was in this room only once before, when she went to the city with her grandparents. On that day this room seemed funny. In one mirror she had seen herself fat, in another skinny, in the third she had a huge head and in yet another one she had legs so thick they looked like tree-trunks.

This time the room seemed evil.

"We shouldn't be here," said Kathy to both Rezu and herself.

"Why?"

"He might try to hurt us," pointed the woman at a goblin-like figure in the corner of the room.

"Only if you make him. He isn't real, not any more real than the dog or the glass. Want me to eat him for you?"

"No. I think we need to leave this room."

"He wouldn't hurt you, me maybe, but not you. I think you should stay here a little longer. I can step out if you'd like."

"I don't want to be here," she protested.

"I think you should. He is here for a reason. You need to find out why."

"I know why, he is protecting that box." Kathy pointed at a large blood-red chest next to the goblin.

"What's in it?" asked Rezu.

"I don't know."

"Look into it."

"He wouldn't let me."

"He is you, a part of you. You just imagined him. He might try to scare you away from the chest, but he can't hurt you. Go on, open it. I'll wait for you outside."

"No, wait..." but it was too late, the door shut behind Rezu leaving Kathy alone in the room of twisted mirrors with a goblin and a chest. She tried to open the door, but it wouldn't budge. Was Rezu holding it shut? What was the matter with him? How could he leave her here with this goblin? She never should have trusted him.

The young woman turned away from the door and glanced at the goblin. It was scared, as scared as she was. Maybe Rezu was right, maybe the goblin was her. If it was, there was nothing to fear.

Slowly Kathy walked to the box, her eyes not leaving the cowering creature of her own making. Carefully she started lifting the ornate lid of the chest.

Blood, shotgun, grandfather, graves, people, grandmother, more blood, more blood, more blood and pain, such pain...

Kathy screamed as the lid fell back and shut the memories away. She screamed and cried and couldn't stop the flow of pain that captured her mind.

"Are you alright?" asked Rezu as he walked into the room. "What's wrong?"

A strange feeling came over the demon as he approached the crying woman: he wanted to help her, to comfort her, to make her stop hurting... hurting... hurting...

Rezu could feel the pain flowing through Kathy's form, collecting in her throat, growing there, ripening, glowing...

Gently the demon wrapped his arms around the woman and brushed her hair with his large six-fingered hand. The smell of pain was overwhelming and Rezu couldn't help, but follow it. His lips touched the side of her neck, then moved towards the center. Tongue touched the skin as it tasted the pain, delicious pain.

"What is wrong with you?" Kathy pushed herself away and stared in disbelief at the demon.

What was the matter with him? He never consumed pain before and now, pain was all he wanted: her pain, her sweet, delicious pain.

"I TOLD YOU," screamed the demon, "STAY AWAY FROM US."

The next moment he was gone and she was awake.

"Rezu? Are you here?" Kathy looked around her bedroom, trying to see the now familiar shape. Was it all just a dream? But what about the makeshift Ouija board and the ring moving to answer her questions?

Breathing deeply, Rezu watched the woman and tried his best not to jump on her and eat up all the pain that still surrounded the slender shape. He wasn't supposed to do this, wasn't supposed to like it. He wasn't an evil demon. He wasn't supposed to like it. She... she awakened the thirst in him. She made him want pain. He never wanted to have the thirst. Damn her.

He had to keep away from her. From now on he couldn't let her into his mind and he couldn't go into hers. He would have to avoid her in the house - stay somewhere she didn't usually go.

The demon did stay away. For the next few weeks he didn't show himself in any way and tried his best not to see Kathy. It wasn't easy; she kept on trying to see him. He shut her out, yelled at her, threatened her, but she just wouldn't listen. Eventually she did though. It took a few weeks, but she stopped trying to go into his forest to talk to him.

No one ever tried to talk to him before and no one ever invited him into the mind. No one was ever able to make him crave pain. No one but her.

Even after all these weeks have passed, he could still taste it in his mouth, still wished for more. The thirst did subside, but it didn't go away completely.

None of it would have been so bad if he didn't like her. It didn't happen all too often for a demon to like a human, and she just had to go ahead and mess it up by awakening his thirst. Maybe someday the thirst would go away, maybe not. He had no control over it. The only thing he could control was how often he saw her, so he did his damnest not to see her at all.

She was sleeping now, it would have been so easy to just slip into her dream and drink of her pain, but he couldn't allow himself to do that. Rezu walked past Kathy's bedroom, down the stairs and into the kitchen where he made himself comfortable in one of the corners.

Why? Why now? Why hadn't he ever felt it before? Why her? He had asked himself these questions hundreds of times already and could never find a good answer. He was trying to keep his side of the bargain, trying not to hurt her and she just kept on showing up with all her pain like a poison siphoning into his mind.

Rezu rose to his feet and began walking through the kitchen, looking at all the changes that had happened to it since Kathy had moved in. She was keeping her side of the bargain as well: walls painted with clay paint, only natural cleaning supplies used, real ceramic tiles on the floor. It would have been easier to deal with it if she wasn't trying to do her best to keep him happy, but she was.

With one hand he touched the paint on the windowsill, noticing how it didn't leave a toxic residue on his skin, how it didn't burn him. This paint wasn't made of clay, but it wasn't the stuff all other people had used on this house.

She even cleaned the glass with... Rezu stopped, looked through the window again to make sure he didn't make a mistake. No, there really were two dark figures climbing over the fence.

Without another moment of hesitation he rushed to their side, trying to figure out what the two men were doing on the property.

"Remember," whispered the first man, "this is a quick job. We are just going in, grabbing the money and getting out."

"I know, I know. Nothing but money. You told me that hundreds of times already."

House, they were going into the house, his house. And Kathy... she was inside, asleep, helpless.

Rezu slipped into his mind and started looking for any hint of Kathy's whereabouts. Luckily, she was in the house where they were both able to come and go without having to ask permission.

"KATHY, WAKE UP."

"Rezu? I was..."

"WAKE UP AND GET OUT."

"But I thought we agreed that it's..."

"GET OUT BEFORE YOU GET HURT."

"But..."

"WAKE UP."

She did and as soon as she did she heard some noise downstairs, a door opening.

"Rezu? Is it you?"

No answer. Of course there was no answer, there never was. She was almost beginning to think that he didn't exist and the paper with the alphabet and a small piece of flour packaging was just a figment of her imagination.

The demon watched her every move, begging her to hurry up and leave the house, but she couldn't hear him, not when she was awake. At last she rose to her feet, walked out of her room and down the stairs. Rezu followed her every step, looking ahead for any sign of the intruders.

The thieves were there, walking on the first floor of the house, looking for the right room.

"WAIT," screamed Rezu as he saw that the thieves were almost next to the stairs, but the young woman didn't hear him and continued to walk. "Hide, please hide. It's too late now, you can't get out in time."

She kept on walking, slowly, cautiously, on and on, one step after another. Just as she stepped into the hallway, the first man appeared from a door-frame to her left. Both stopped, looked at each other for a second, then the man regained his wits and punched her in the head. Kathy fell to the floor with a crash and when she opened her eyes, saw the two men running for the back door in the kitchen.

Picking herself off the floor she tried to reach the phone that hung on the wall by the staircase. The second man turned around just in time to see her hand reaching for the phone.

"NO," screamed he and pointed a gun at her. Without realizing what he was doing he pressed the trigger and the woman fell back to the floor with a small hole in her chest and a stream of blood pulsing out of it.

He stared in disbelief at the woman, the blood, the gun. Through a thick fog of confused emotions and thought the second robber heard the voice of another man.

"What the hell did you do?" the first robber screamed at his partner and then he ran out of the house, jumped over the fence and disappeared into the alleyway. The second rubber followed his example, leaving the dying woman behind.

Rezu felt numb. She was there, under his feet, full of pain and death, and he was numb. At first all thoughts left him completely, then somewhere from the depth of his mind a realization that she was going to die right there, in-front of him and that he could do absolutely nothing to prevent it started to form.

"Rezu? I'm sleeping again, aren't I?" she was rising to her feet, only she wasn't whole. A part of her, a physical part, was still on the floor, dead.

"No," whispered the demon.

"But I can see you. I only see you in my dreams."

"You are dead."

"Dead?" she laughed, then looked down and saw herself in a small pool of blood. "No, this is a dream. I can't be dead. I can't be. I don't want to be."

Kathy's eyes were pleading him to tell her that none of it was real, that she was alive, that it was all just a bad dream. He answered her plea by wrapping his arms around her. She was dead, but to him she felt more alive than ever before. She was in his world now, not half here half there.

They stood together seemingly for ages, comforting each other, sharing each other's pain. Pain. The taste of pain was gone.

Rezu could no longer smell it on her, how wonderful... No, no it wasn't. It was because she was no longer human. He couldn't smell ghost's pain. He would have given up his existence for the ability to smell her pain just one more time, to know that she was alive.

"What am I going to do now?" whispered Kathy into Rezu's shoulder.

"You can stay here."

"Here? With you?"

"Yes."

"You wouldn't mind?"

They looked into each other's eyes and both could see hope in the eyes of the other.

"Of course not. You bought this house, it's yours too." Rezu kissed her forehead and hugged her tighter as if afraid that if he were to let her go she would disappear forever.