The demons first appeared on the day everyone said the world would end. Maybe someone meant that to be ironic. Perhaps.
I never found out.
* * *
“Hey, Ash, you know there’s supposed to be a zombie apocalypse today?” My best friend Cara gestured towards a clove of garlic she’d pinned to her jacket, hoping it would fend off potential supernatural threats. I decided not to mention it would only help with vampires, not zombies. Besides, I doubted a single clove of garlic would be much help in surviving the End of Days.
I had my own demons to contend with.
As people sloped into the assembly hall for the annual Careers Talk, I skimmed through my notes yet again, hoping in vain something would stick. For me, Doomsday was a more fitting title for the following day, the day of my interview at my top-choice university. Hell would be a better fate.
“Come on, Cara,” I said. “How many times is the world supposed to have ended now?”
“I’m not taking any chances,” said Cara, pointing at her headband that was threaded with garlic and perched on top of her purple-highlighted hair.
“You’ll have a nightmare getting the smell out,” I told her. “Aren’t you supposed to be going out tonight?”
“Some guys like the smell of garlic,” said Cara, although she looked doubtful. “Hmm. Maybe it’s a bit much.”
“Well, it better not be Armageddon, seeing as it’s my interview tomorrow,” I said. “Not to mention we’re in a careers assembly.”
Cara laughed. “I don’t know why I bothered coming, anyway. I’ve heard all this before.” She leaned back in her seat, hands clasped behind her head.
“Yeah,” I said. “Besides, if we’re going to die, I’d rather not be in this hellhole when it happens.”
“You know, Ash,” said Cara, squinting at me—the fluorescent lights in the hall gleamed far too bright for a Monday morning—“you look like a walking zombie. When did you last get a decent night’s sleep?”
“Define ‘decent?’” I said, a touch too flippantly.
“More than an hour. And not in the middle of school.”
Guilty.
Her dark eyes—outlined in purple, in blatant defiance of the school’s no-makeup rule—saw past my carefully constructed mask.
I blinked at her concerned face. “Um… a couple of days ago? I can’t sleep, or I forget everything I know about Milton.”
“Jesus, girl.” Cara shook her head. “Who gives a crap about Milton, really? You’re going way over the top about this.”
“Hello?” I said, indicating the garlic-headband.
Cara swatted at me with a rolled-up brochure for Edinburgh University, her top university of choice—which had offered her a place that very morning.
“Very funny,” she said. “Seriously, though. Sleep is more important. You don’t want to be passing out in the interview.”
Naturally, now she’d suggested it, I imagined doing exactly that. Groaning, I buried my head in my notes. “Not listening,” I muttered.
Definitely mature enough to get a place at Oxford. Yep.
“Ash, you’ll be fine. You’re a genius.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not.”
I felt more like an imposter. I might be able to memorise past papers, but that didn’t make me an intellectual. I’d rather play Mario Kart than read Wordsworth. Not exactly something I wanted to bring up at the interview—but if scores of disastrous interviews for part-time jobs had proven anything, it was that I’d be lucky to remember my own name. But this time, I couldn’t afford to screw up. This has to be worth it. Somehow.
Most of the time, I felt helpless, as if I teetered on the edge of a cliff and couldn’t do a damn thing to stop myself from falling.
Mr. Darton, our ever-clueless head of sixth form, began his customary mutter into the microphone. Always the same speech: We had only one chance. This would affect the rest of our lives. Like any of us needed to hear that right now.
I tucked an errant dark brown curl behind my ear and tried to focus on the passage from Paradise Lost I wanted to memorise. It’ll serve them right if I drop out and run away to Australia. And not for the first time, I imagined doing it. I felt like a cage surrounded me on all sides—a glass case no one could see but me.
Focus, for God’s sake, snapped a voice in my head, jolting me back to reality.
The words jumped around the page, like they possessed a will of their own. How would I ever remember any of this when staring down at a table of distinguished literary professors? In the mock interview with my personal tutor, I’d lost my head and babbled about a book I’d never even read for a good ten minutes. Panic obliterated all intelligent thought.
At that moment, the lights in the hall went out, as did the projector, plunging us into dusty darkness.
Cara let out a shriek. “It’s happening!” she wailed, clutching at her garlic clove, which, not being securely fastened to her jacket, fell to the floor. With another shriek, she dove underneath her seat to retrieve it.
“Calm down! It’s just a power cut.” I furrowed my brow, trying to read my notes. Everyone talked amongst themselves as Mr. Darton struggled to turn on the projector. I couldn’t see any lights outside in the corridor, either. A whole school power-cut. Great. And why did I feel so cold?
A stream of faint winter sunlight shone through gaps in the blinds that covered the windows, lighting the myriad dust motes in the air. I sighed and tilted my head back, rubbing my temples to keep my eyes from closing. I could feel a headache building.
A pair of eyes appeared amongst the rafters and stared right into mine. They gleamed violet, with vertically slit pupils like a cat’s. They blinked, looking down at the confusion below. Then they locked back onto me.
Once, when I’d cut my finger on a kitchen knife, I’d gone into shock and nearly passed out. My vision turned blue around the edges, and everything acquired an odd, blurred quality. Right now, looking into those sinister, alien eyes, I felt exactly the same.
I’m going mad. It’s not real. Cara’s superstitions have made me start seeing things. That, or the lack of sleep.
I’d stopped breathing. Sweat beaded on my forehead, but, at the same time, I felt cold all over, cold as the frigid December air outside. As if fresh snow covered me, slowly seeping into my skin through my hoodie and jeans. Like the kind of paralysing chill I associated with that moment in horror stories when someone saw a ghost.
Was it a ghost? I’d always thought ghosts would look… human. If I believed in them—which, up until now, I thought I didn’t.
All around me, the other students chatted and laughed. No one screamed, cried, or ran for the doors. It was as though my own private bubble of horror enclosed me like the cage I’d envisioned earlier. Trapped.
I heard a faint whisper, almost like a breath: “Ash.”
I would have screamed if I’d been capable of making a sound. I knew beyond doubt that those eyes and that voice belonged to something that wasn’t human.
The eyes blinked again, becoming part of the shadow once more as the hall lights came back on. For a moment, a swathe of blackness remained in the rafters, like a single patch of mist left behind after a fog has lifted. Not a single speck of dust disturbed the area around it.
Then it vanished.
I still couldn’t breathe. Those cold eyes remained imprinted on the insides of my eyelids—light purple, glowing, and staring.
Staring at me.
My vision blurred. The world went hazy. When I came to, Mr. Darton’s low mutter into the microphone had started up again—not that anyone listened. Whispers filled the air, ordinary conversations. People talked about their plans for the weekend, not about monsters with violet eyes or piercing, unnatural coldness. The more studious skimmed through revision notes. I looked down and saw mine scattered all over the floor. I didn’t remember dropping them. I didn’t remember anything but those awful eyes.
I’ve cracked. Did staring violet eyes fall under the category of stress-induced hallucinations?
Cara tried to laugh off her moment of panic.
“I didn’t really think it was the end of the world,” she insisted. “God, how lame.”
The end of the world. Maybe that was what I’d seen. A sign.
Ridiculous.
The rest of the day passed in a blur. My parents tiptoed around me like I was a bomb about to go off, thinking I wanted to do my final interview preparations alone. Like I could concentrate.
My nerves over the interview seemed laughable by comparison to the lingering nausea in my stomach. This fear went bone-deep, like I’d tapped into some kind of primitive instinct against an unseen danger. The fear of a child lost in the woods, seeing monsters in every shadow. Fear of the unknown, not of muggers or rapists or murderers. Unlike Cara, I didn’t have the slightest belief in the supernatural. At least, not until now.
I spent the evening pacing my room, trying to control my rising panic as little by little, it sank in. I’m not asleep. I’m not going to wake up from this. Whatever happened back there, it was conscious. Either I’m mad, or I can see things that aren’t there. I didn’t know which would be worse. And that voice… How did it know my name?
Eventually, my mum came up to my room and insisted I go to bed. “Ash, you’re up at six tomorrow. I know you’re nervous, but try to get some rest.”
Sleep? Not likely. Macbeth shall sleep no more. Wait, that’s the wrong book. I buried my head in my hands, resting on my desk. Shit, I really have lost the plot. I can’t even blame caffeine. I usually picked Red Bull as my beverage of choice when attempting to get in a few extra hours of revision before dawn. But I’d been too out of it to buy any on the way home. I’d have to pick up a few cans before the interview otherwise they’d get to meet Zombie Ash.
Normal thoughts. That’s what I needed. But it felt totally out of place to even be thinking about the interview in light of my crazy hallucinations. Who knew, maybe they were some kind of precursor. Like, I was seeing dreams in reality. The monster signified… stress?
I pressed a hand to my mouth, stifling a giggle. “Oh, God,” I said. “I’ve officially lost it.”
Goose bumps prickled my arms, even though I’d turned the heating to its highest setting, and though I’d locked my window, I felt a cold draft against my skin. The light-headed feverishness persisted.
Focus! I skimmed through my notes for the thousandth time as the clock ticked away the remaining hours until morning. Every time my eyes flickered shut, the scene in the assembly hall replayed like a video clip. I knew I could never rest until I found out what the hell happened.
I got out of bed, took up my usual place in my swivel chair, and logged onto my laptop. The bright background image—a screenshot from Final Fantasy—was jarring against the images in my head. I launched the browser, tapping my fingers on the keyboard.
I realised pretty soon that I could spend hours on the Internet, trawling through hundreds of obscure websites, and get absolutely nowhere. Googling “ghost” brought up a thousand fake photographs and videos of hauntings, ranging from floating orbs in old English pubs to transparent figures in family pictures. On the more sinister side, I found images of exorcisms and Ouija boards. Bad idea. In the dead of night, every creak of our old house made my nerves jangle. Okay, I’d seen The Exorcist before, during an ill-advised horror movie marathon with Cara. Why should this be any different?
Because it might be real.
Browsing occult websites only made my terror more acute. People in forums debated the existence of demons, ghosts, and spirits. Some claimed to have been possessed. Others claimed to be in cahoots with Satan.
What am I even looking for?
I typed the word demon. Seemed as good a place to start as any. If in doubt, trust Wikipedia. But I found no mention anywhere of violet eyes or living shadows. Maybe I should do a medical search for hallucinations instead. Or see an actual doctor.
What, and get locked away? I’m not mad!
Institutionalisation wouldn’t do my academic career any favours.
A lot of professors are mad.
Oh, be quiet.
Talking to yourself, now, are we?
I groaned. Enough Internet for me.
I caught sight of the pale spectre of my reflection in the window behind my desk. Cara has a point. I do look like a zombie. Or a ghost, watching through shadowed eyes…
* * *
It started out as yet another exam dream. I sat in the school hall, looking at an unfamiliar paper as all the other students wrote with frantic enthusiasm, pens racing down the page.
I didn’t revise this at all. Panic rose within me. I twisted in my seat, glancing from side to side. Everyone else scribbled away. The clock ticked, seconds passing. Minutes. Shit.
I felt a familiar surge of dizziness, the same chill as during the assembly. My breath stuck in my throat, and my heart pounded. I stared at the back of the seat in front of me, which wavered and shimmered before my eyes, turning to blackness.
From out of the darkness, a face grinned at me. Sharp teeth formed a malevolent smile. Violet eyes stared at me, unblinking. I could see nothing but the smoke, which obscured everything before my eyes.
My chair tipped of its own accord. In slow motion, it leaned back and teetered for a moment. The demon grinned as I sat there, powerless to move. The panic inside my chest spilled over, and I tried to cry out. But I couldn’t move my jaw, couldn’t open my mouth. I was frozen to the seat as it hit the floor with a soundless thud.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t feel anything.
And I couldn’t speak, couldn’t scream.
I lay on my back, and, around me, people continued to write, like robots programmed to scribble endless pages. No one spared a glance for me. I was trapped on the floor, and no one even knew.
The eyes blinked then vanished.
My heart restarted with a jolt, hammering in my ears. I fought to escape the trap. My eyes felt as though something heavy weighed them shut, but I managed to force my eyelids apart. The sight of my digital alarm clock greeted me, sideways. I’d fallen asleep at my desk, my head resting on my laptop, the cold edge digging into my face.
I tried to lift my head, but I couldn’t. I tried to open my mouth, but my jaw remained locked.
Impossible. I’m awake.
Not a muscle in my body responded to my pleas. I couldn’t feel my hands, but I knew my right one rested under my chin, where I’d used it as a pillow. I couldn’t feel my face, either. I’d lost all feeling in my entire body, as if an invisible presence lay on top of me, pinning me down.
I tried to cry out, but not a sound escaped.
Move! I thought, the weight continuing to press on me. One of those web sites I’d browsed had mentioned poltergeists that sat on people in the middle of the night, leaving them unable to move. Terror washed over me, cold and merciless.
Every short breath hurt my chest. Let me go. Please. Please! I’ll do anything. Just let me move.
“Anything, Ashlyn?”
That voice. There’s no one there, logic screamed at me, but it went against all the evidence of my senses. A thousand invisible hands gripped me all over, numbing all sensation. At the edges of my vision, I thought I saw dark shapes, but there were no eyes, no mouth to match the voice.
What do you want from me?
It didn’t respond.
Are you a demon?
“Yes, Ashlyn.”
Finally, the messages between my brain and nerves seemed to hit home, and I managed to raise my head, to lift my arm an inch. Slowly, I regained feeling in my limbs. I shifted, twitched my hands, my feet.
There was nothing in the room. No demons, no staring eyes.
But even then, I knew they watched me.
That day, the fear began.
