The Demons In The Window

Short story inspired by looking out the window of my parents' house today...

Looking out the window, there are trees.

There are trees... but behind the trees, peeking out from the sides, there are demons.

Demons that whisper to me, whisper in their low growling whispers, tell me to do things... evil, demonic things.

"Jump. Jump. Run, faster! Jump now, jump now!" they growl, taunting and teasing me. "Grab, grab, grab! Tear her hair, slice his skin!"

Another car passes... another breeze shakes the tiny trees beside the road... another demon grabs at my hair, pulling me back, twisting me and tearing at my skin.

I scratch, trying to keep my skin, scratch it out of his hands, but he is too strong. And so I walk on, blood running down my shoulders. The demons have taken a part of me.

A rain drop falls from the sky, then another, then another, until the sky opens up and pours from the heavens. I walk on as the demons hiss and twist and curl away from the rain that steams when it hits their fiery skins. They scream like they make me scream, loud and wild and afraid. They minimise my fear, tearing it apart, making it no more than a primal instinct; making it meaningless.

The wind picks up, blowing stronger and stronger, shaking the trees and shaking the demons out of them. They fall, fall hard and hit the ground and scream and growl and twist and turn. It's like a fearful scream brought straight back from Hell as they scream until they're hoarse. They hurt...the demons, that hurt me...they hurt. I think, desperately, wanting to help them, wanting to help them die.

The lightning flashes; the thunder claps to the rhythm of my steps. I don't cringe as the demons swirl around me, so close together I cannot see. Their Master is angry, I sense, watching their crazed movement, listening to their painful cries. One never thinks a demon can cry until you see a scene like this. It's wild. t's crazy. 

It's everything every human being tries for their whole life to avoid seeing, and yet I question my ability to live without it. The demons' pain blocks out the storm surrounding them so that all I see is their pain: not my own: I am numb to the pouring rain, the swirling wind, the flashes of light and the booming thunder.

The rain slows to a slow drip, barely shaking out of the trees at the winds' soft touch. The demons swirl around the trees, calmly, methodically. It seems they know their place and know where they are again. But they have taken a part of me: the skin I wear, that they cover me with, they have torn it away.

"Jump. Jump. Look--run! Get them! Get them, before they get you!" they hiss, over and over, in their never-ending song.