I was born into a cult, granted, I had no idea it was a cult at the time. And looking back, I can definitely see a lot of things that were problematic, but in all honestly, my own life wasn’t all that bad when I was there.
I never thought of it as anything out of the ordinary as it was all I had ever known. Granted, if I had told you half of the things that went on there, you would probably be shocked but I’m not here to talk about my life. As it is those details are meaningless and I don’t feel like wasting your time with writing paragraphs about inconsequential details.
Strange, as it may sound even though I managed to run away, I still miss my parents, despite everything that happened there. I do believe that they loved me. Or at least they loved me in their own way.
And in the end, after all, they were as much victims of the cult as I was,
Up until I was twelve I really didn’t have that many responsibilities. Us children were basically allowed to play completely carefree at that point. The only education I had received was how to read and write along with very basic mathematics.
That was it, no geography, history, or science. Of course, most of our ‘learning’ revolved around learning religious doctrine.
We called our God ‘The One Above All’- I was told he did have another name, though I wasn’t ready to hear it yet.
I had very little to complain about at the time because again, I had known nothing different than the cult’s way of living my whole life. There was one thing that bothered me- that was whenever my father went away, because I liked having both of my parents at home. I was an only child and I tended to get lonely when it was just my mother and me. Every few months, my father would go away with some other men for a ‘hunting trip.’ Though I now notice he never did show me what he had ‘hunted’ it never occurred to me to ask when I was little.
When I was 12, I was finally considered to be someone who was old enough to understand our teachings.
And, so, one night far past my mandated bedtime my father woke me up.
I groggily opened my eyes. He had a serious expression about him- one that I had never seen before. But he told me it was time and he needed to show me something.
We got out of the house. My mother was awake, but she didn’t protest us leaving. This was clearly something that had been expected.
We usually weren’t allowed out of our homes this late- and I brought that up, but my father reassured me that it was alright.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To meet The One Above All,” he answered.
He began telling me a story. A story that I had heard multiple times before in our church. About how The One Above All had come to Earth. How the One Above All had been injured by ‘It’ (we always called it ‘It’ or ‘The Enemy’).
I don’t even remember how we got where we did, it was so long ago. But I do remember going down a series of caves.
A series of caves after which we saw it in a giant hollow cavern- there was what I could only describe as a monster lying on the floor.
It looked like a misshapen goat with two heads- each head had three pairs of eyes which were a bright crimson. Its fur was as black as the darkest night, and it had four limbs. It had a long tail which ended in a stinger. It must have had wings at one point but those had been reduced to small stubs on its back.
Most noticeably it was wounded on its side- I could see a gaping hole on the right side of its chest where there was a wound and blood slowly oozed out of it. From its cries and it’s ragged breathing it was clear that this creature was in severe agony. It almost made me feel sorry for it.
Almost.
That was until I looked into its eyes and I felt it- I felt its anger burning like the fire of a thousand suns. It was a creature that wanted to bring Hell to Earth and it was only its wounds that stopped it from doing so. If given the chance, it would not even spare me.
My father reassured me that it would never harm us who worshipped Him above all, but I greatly doubted him.
I then learned that my father was not hunting animals.
No. He was hunting sinners. Murderers. Thieves. Traitors. Those who deserved no better than death. He told me this as I watched a man being brought in, dressed weirdly (or at least, weird by our standards, I would learn later that these were ‘normal’ clothes).
I watched as his throat was slit, and blood gushed onto the floor, eagerly lapped up by the monster.
My father told me how this man had murdered his own brother. That hit me hard because I had always wanted a sibling and I had promised myself that I would be a good elder brother if I ever had one- the thought of killing someone related to me made me more nauseous than the sight I was seeing before me.
My father then led me back to my house. And needless to say, I never slept that night.
In my mind, I was afraid- if I fell asleep, it might find its way into my dreams, and when I eventually did fall asleep, it did. I saw it, wounds somewhat better after the meal it had just had, though they would soon reopen.
I was nearly sick for the next two weeks. I barely spoke. I ate half of as much as I usually did. And it was clear why. Because I was having trouble adjusting to seeing that thing. But my parents believed that it was just a phase and I would get over it.
And in a way I did and in a few month’s time, I began to slowly forget about what I had seen. Though I would always be reminded of it whenever it reached out to me in its dreams- still craving the blood of the wicked.
Two more years of that before I decided to escape one night. I knew my parents were wrong- that thing was evil, and so I bided my time. When another ‘hunting trip’ was over, I went back to those caves and found one of the men they had captured. “Take me with you,” I asked him, and he agreed.
I got introduced to the rest of the world. I hadn’t seen a computer before then or even something like a mobile phone. I’ve had a lot of trouble adjusting, and to this day I still feel like I can’t fit in with the rest of society. Twice I’ve even thought about going back just so that I could be with my family- though common sense always won me over.
Because I will never forget the feeling of fear that overcame me when that thing looked me in the eyes.
Now, I probably owe you an explanation- this is something I only managed to piece together after I escaped. The One Above All was the child of the Devil, who came to Earth just as Jesus Christ (what we called ‘It’ or ‘The Enemy’) did.
Christ rose from the dead after being crucified but before ascending to heaven, he injured The One Above All.
That cult has been taking care of him, feeding him blood hoping that one day he would become strong enough to overthrow heaven itself and to overthrow the ‘False God’ as they call him.
I did end up converting to Christianity if nothing more than a pragmatic reason as I figured ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’
Unfortunately, the dreams never stopped. And whenever I dreamed of that thing it looked at me. As if it could see me through the dream, as if despite the hundreds of miles between us he knew where I was.
And unfortunately. I have bad news. It looks like it’s finally been getting stronger.
The wound has stopped oozing blood since the last year. Now, when I see it in my dreams, it finally has the strength to stand on its own. Its wings have begun to repair themselves. And I can feel it glaring at me and it knows that I betrayed it. And I’ve no doubt that when it eventually comes for all of us. I’ll be one of the first it will target.
Every time I see it in my sleep, I wake up completely drenched in sweat, paralyzed, and overcome with fear. No prayers ever help me.
I figured perhaps there was someone else out there. Perhaps there was someone else who had left that cult and had found a way to deal with these dreams- for that reason, I wanted some help.
And I guess, of course, there is a second reason why I’m telling you this story. To let you know that he’s getting stronger. And he is coming.