My obsession with the supernatural began when I was just a child. When I was around 9 or 10, my father bought me an encyclopedia on cryptids and monstrous folklore that he’d stumbled upon at a tucked away bookstore while traveling for work. By that time, I was already collecting monster toys and begging my mother for scary stories of gnawing teeth at night. Receiving that book, however, turned my piqued interest in supernatural creatures into an intense fascination.
I loved that book and held it amongst my most prized possessions for nearly a decade. It was thick and filled to the brim with bold text and glossy art that I liked to ghost my curious fingers over. I read through it every day, and when I’d memorized every creature in it, I began to add to it. First, just little details and thoughts of my own in the white empty spaces, then I started a companion book of sorts. It was just a composition book that my parents had definitely bought for more educational purposes than what I actually used it for. Instead of schoolwork, I filled it with more monsters and creatures I’d learned about that weren’t included, like Banshees and Douens.
When I was a teenager, my parents divorced. At first, they’d hid their unhappiness well from me because it was a terrible shock when they sat me down and curtly revealed they were moving on with their lives apart from each other. After they told me the news, however, it became obvious just how much they’d resented each other. The snide remarks and cutting glares were no longer curbed for my benefit. Before things were even finalized between them, my father – finally free – moved in with another woman, and my mother – finally happy – packed me up with her things and moved us from that quiet, large property in the Midwest back to New York where she had grown up and always wanted to return to. My parents were overjoyed to start a new chapter, but I felt as if my life had been torn apart. My sadness increased daily, and I longed for what used to be. My mother’s small apartment felt stifling, while every attempt I made to try to fit in with my new classmates just left me feeling further isolated.
I buried myself more into my hobby, and the progression into being fascinated with demons came naturally after being obsessed with mythological creatures for years. There came a point where if I wasn’t in my room reading about various demons in all the religions that offered them, I was at the library researching them on the internet. Even when I went off to college, my attraction to the mysterious and evil that lurked somewhere out there continued to build.
-–
I was in my last year of college when I met Xiomara.
I was on campus, at the library as usual. I didn’t notice her at first because I was 10 pages deep into and already enraptured by ‘Expelling the Unwanted’, but when she cleared her throat and caught my eyes as I looked up, I was taken.
In all senses of the word.
She’d wanted the book I was reading. I remember vividly not understanding what she was saying at first because I was awestruck by the way her red lips moved around seemingly soundless words. I felt silly and dazed as if I was 12 and faced with my first crush. She wasn’t annoyed by my stupor as I stared at her dumbly. Her red, full lips twisted up into a smirk and then spread out into a bright, friendly smile before she tried to speak to me again.
“Hello?” She waved a hand and then snapped her fingers in front of my face. Her nails were long and black like a dragon’s claws and they clacked together in a way that would have annoyed me if it had been anyone else but her. “Are you gonna be finished with that soon, or what?”
She pointed a long, delicate finger to the book on the desk in front of me and I looked down at it. Now that I think back on it with a clear head, I believe that looking away from her everything is what allowed me to think again.
My first act of free will was to immediately offer her the book, which she didn’t hesitate to accept. I watched as she tucked the book into the crook of her elbow as she stared at me. I felt hot all over. Prickly.
She tilted her head and regarded me. Her long, black hair fell to the side and covered the book in her arm that neither of us seemed to really care about anymore. After a while, she spoke up again.
“I’m Mara.”
And I was, unfortunately, hers.
-–
Mara had a certain smokey darkness that followed her everywhere she went like the lingering scent of incense. I was drawn to it. Her dark hair and eyes, and her bright red lips frequently flashed and captivated me in my dreams. Sometimes when I closed my eyes, all I saw was her face, her smile. I heard her hauntingly beautiful laugh in the back of my mind…
I wasn’t sure if my feelings were unnatural or if I was truly falling in love for the first time with someone remarkable. A true enigma, she was unlike anyone I had ever met before. I’d never met anyone with the same dark fascinations as me. I’d also never met anyone that knew more about demons than me. She started to teach me things that I could never learn in a textbook, and she encouraged my growing hunger for more. I thought she was expanding my mind, but instead my mental state began to deteriorate. I struggled to focus on anything except for Mara, my grades slipping and my personality darkening as I became reclusive and irritable. Yet despite all the warning signs, I chose to stay in her grasp. Unable and willing to free myself from her captivating charm and our shared obsession.
I didn’t realize what was happening to me until it was too late.
One day, Mara came to me with a bright smile on her red lips and an almost sinister glint in her dark eyes. My heart immediately sped up, as it usually did at the sight of her. She was excited when she told me that she’d been talking to some anonymous online friends in a private forum. I didn’t think to ask her about the forum itself or why she hadn’t mentioned it before; after all, she deserved her privacy and a life outside of our friendship. At the time, I didn’t think it was strange that I knew nothing about what her life was when we weren’t together.
The “anonymous friends” on the forum discovered and clued Mara in on a spot, one of a few that were scattered all over the world, where the veil between our realm and the underworld’s were at it’s thinnest. It was charged with supernatural power and she wanted us to finally try to contact a demon there. Most of the books I read about demons and spirits warned me against summoning them. I’m still not sure why I enthusiastically agreed. Was it my curiosity, which never seemed to be sated? Was it Xiomara’s hypnotic influence? Or was it some kind of arrogance? Did I assume what the authors warned me about in the Demonology books I coveted wouldn’t happen to me?
Either way, I said yes, as I always did, and after just a few hours, we were on our way. Xiomara drove and she didn’t tell me where were we going, but the last time I had service and could check the map on my phone, we were in New Jersey. The drive to our destination was oddly quiet; Mara seemed almost nervous, something I had never seen before in her. I could feel the anticipation begin to roll off of her in waves.
When we reached the location given to us, I was initially confused. We stopped on a dirt road in front of an old house. Nothing was special about it. It didn’t look particularly creepy or magical, just abandoned. It sat at the end of a very long dirt walkway. It was grey with peeling paint and some of its window shutters were hanging off their hinges. The lawn was overgrown with tall blades of grass and weeds, and there was an old tree right in front of the house with gnarled branches stretching up to the sky like bony hands.
Despite my initial doubts, when I exited the car, I felt an uneasiness. I could tell that Mara felt it too; her hands were trembling as she stepped out and came around to stand next to me. We both knew that we were in the right place but we both seemed to have different feelings about that.
She took the first steps onto the property and I followed her down the pathway, past the tall tree, and up to a heavy wooden door. I watched as she opened it and stepped into the darkness inside. For the brief second that I was alone outside, I realized that I was terrified. I wanted to turn away and run, but as if I was on a leash, I instead followed her in.
The inside of the house was dark and cold. I shivered as I stepped in and looked around, taking in my surroundings. The walls were covered with strange, frantic markings and symbols, some of which I recognized from books I had read about Demonology. Before I could study them, Mara took my hand and guided me to the center of the room. She sat me on the dusty floor, her eyes never leaving mine for a single moment. She then took out a bundle of herbs from her pocket and started burning it in a bowl she had placed in front of me. A thick layer of smoke spread through the room, filling it with an odd smell that made me dizzy and disoriented.
Mara started muttering something under her breath as she walked in circles around me. I didn’t recognize the language she spoke but it sounded twisted and evil coming from her voice. The room grew colder and darker and candles that I didn’t know were around the room suddenly flickered on. After a while, her quiet chanting turned into yelling. She was calling out for someone - or something - with tears forming in her eyes and desperation in her voice. Eventually she stopped everything and dropped to her knees hard in front of me. She stared at me with reverence and an odd contentment as she pulled out a knife from behind her. Just like when I was hovering outside the door, I had a brief moment of sanity. I scrambled to my feet and backed away from her. I was sure she was going to murder me, but instead she plunged the blade into her own stomach.
She doubled over and I reached for her and tried to cry out, but everything began to weigh down on me. My hands, arms, legs, tongue, the room itself- it all seemed to be too heavy for me to bare and I felt myself drop to the floor like a puppet that got it’s strings suddenly and cruelly cut. The candles in the room flickered off. No light came through the windows - even the moonlight stayed out. I was swallowed by a thick, inky darkness.
“Don’t be afraid,” I heard Xiomara’s voice, tired and strained from somewhere in the darkness. “Let him in, and we will be together forever.”
I felt a wet caress on my cheek and I could smell blood thick in the air.
“Isn’t that what you wanted?” It was.
“It is,” I said.
And I let him in.
The pain started from my heart and spread outwards like a wildfire. It burned through my veins and set my whole body and mind ablaze. I screamed in agony as I clawed at my skin and my hair and fought against the searing pain for what felt like hours - days. But then, suddenly, everything stopped. The pain ebbed away and I slowly opened my eyes. I looked around the room, which was now lit by an evening sunset through the windows. I turned around and was faced with Xiomara’s lifeless body next to mine. Her last act after her sacrifice was to manipulate me one last time. As I stared at her I began to feel like I’d known her forever. I had memories of her being born, being raised by zealots, and groomed all her life to be the one that would bring me here. I felt a sense of pride in her as I removed the ceremonial blade that was still lodged in her stomach and put it in my pocket.
I watched in utter fascination and terror, mesmerized by the strange sense of control and the lack of it that I felt as I slowly turned away from Xiomara and made my way out of the abandoned house. As I stepped outside, I glanced around as though the world was new to me. I could now hear the tortured voices of souls and demons howling and pleading, trapped behind the thin veil. I could feel their desperation and their hunger for life again or endless sleep. Their despair mattered very little to me. Unlike them, we were free.
I trudged back up the winding path with a new heavy darkness residing in me. My every step was accompanied by a menacing echo - a second set of footsteps in perfect unison with mine. A burning sensation on my neck intensified as an invisible presence breathed down on me. Fingers grasped mine and laced them together. I felt the two sides of my soul and their dual perspectives on the world. I felt like I’d never be alone again. I’d always wanted to devour every bit of knowledge about demons, now I was a host to one. Now I knew everything I’d ever wanted to know.
As I approached Xiomara’s car, I felt the demon settle fully into my bones. I slid into the car and I could feel the demon’s hunger, clawing at my insides, tearing at my flesh. It wanted more. It needed more. And, just like with Xiomara, I was ready to give it everything.
Deep down, I knew that I had never been able to resist dark temptation, and this was no different. I let the demon take over, felt it surge through me like a tidal wave. I felt a twisted, wicked smile stretch my lips as I revved the engine and left the house behind.