23. After being seduced by a demon, an empath ate a baby.
It was a strange time. That wasn’t an excuse. It just was what it was.
A strange time.
He’d picked up the demon at an estate sale. The candlesticks had immediately appealed to him. The sight made him think of the little hallway alcove that had been built into the house for some reason. That empty space called out to him, demanding to be filled.
He’d bought the candlesticks and brought them home. They’d fit in the alcove perfectly. Added class to the place.
Everything was great for a time. Work was going well. His house was finally feeling like a home. He was healthy and felt fitter than ever before in his life.
Of course it couldn’t last.
The dreams came first, then the sleepwalking started. The sleep emissions. The zoning out. The realization that something was really wrong.
By then it had likely already been too late.
The demon got in his head and built a home to stay. And in that time when he was lost, they’d done terrible things together.
The demon had twined itself throughout him until he didn’t know where it began and he ended.
Because he’d been so wrapped up in the feeling of things that he’d lost touch with the reality of things.
None of it had seemed real, even as it happened, and it was only afterward with the nightmares and prison cells that he’d come to realize what he’d done.
Because while they’d done it together, the demon was a demon and realized no wrong. It took a human soul to suffer for human sins.
And he’d committed a grave sin for letting it happen. For enjoying it in the moment, because whatever the strength of the demon there were some things he never should have allowed.
The sex. The scarification. The gorging themselves on any food they could reach.
It could all be forgiven.
The eating of a human baby?
Unforgivable.
x_x x_x x_x
Being known as "the baby eater" in prison wasn’t exactly the highest point of his prison sentence, but it wasn’t the worst either.
A spiritual trace had highlighted the signs of demonic possession in his aura. He was still sentenced to prison, but it was a lesser term than he would have gotten without the evidence of a demonic presence.
He took whatever blessings he could find. So that reduction of what otherwise would’ve been a life sentence was gratefully accepted.
He didn’t really think it was fair, considering what he’d done, but he raised no objection to being released just two years after he was sentenced.
A small apartment. A from-home job. And six months later he could almost pretend that his life wasn’t a completely ruined thing.
Almost.
/END
At first I read the title as “After being seduced by a demon, an empath and a baby,” and was like dayum…