Demons // l.t. ✔️

1

Darkness. Hatred.

Those are the only emotions I've ever felt my entire life. I've never felt sadness, I've never felt happiness, I've never felt love.

Maybe I've felt annoyance, once or twice.

I twirl my pencil between my fingers in boredom as the teacher at the front of the class drones on and on.

No, I've never bothered to learn his name. Why should I? It's not like one of the questions in a job interview when I get a job is going to be "What was your math teacher's name in eleventh grade?"

"Mr. Tomlinson."

I look up, and the bald man is standing over me, his potbelly nearly touching my face. If he was a woman, I would've mistaken him for pregnant. I raise my eyebrows to show that I'm listening, but really, all I'm looking at is the light reflecting off his bare head. His scalp is brighter than my future. It smells good, too, a bit like roasted chicken. Maybe if I just rip it off and quickly eat it... the demon would be satisfied enough for a few days.

"Can you tell me the answer to this equation on the board?" Mr. Baldie sounds like he smokes twenty packs a day. That explains the potbelly, I guess. He points to the blackboard, which reads; 1/5(3.5) + 1/t(3.5) = 1; t=?

11.67. The demon whispers inside me.

"T is 11.67, sir," I answer, my voice unsurprisingly and unforcefully cold on the word "sir". Mr. Baldie looks confused for a second, then he limps back to his desk, scratching his shiny head and mumbling something about child prodigies. Ha. Humans are just stupid. He was the one who asked the question, why's he surprised that I managed to answer it correctly?

The entire class is muttering again, probably talking about me. I mean, I couldn't care less. Our stupid generation hates kids that are smarter than them, I guess. But I'm not the smart one. The demon is.

I continue twirling my pencil around in my fingers. School is a waste of time. We learned about Quantum Physics last week. The demon taught me about Quantum Physics when I was eight years old. I'm only here to fit in, no other reason.

I don't have parents, and I've never had parents, so the demon is kind of like my parent. Controlling, trying to steer me in the direction it wants me to go, teaching me things that I don't need to know until much later. And of course, punishing me if I do something wrong.

Surely you must be thinking, "Louis, but everyone has parents biologically. You had to be born somehow."

Not me. The demon built me from fire. Not spiritual fire. Pure fire from Hell. I have fire for a heart. I bet, if it was even possible to damage my skin, instead of blood leaking out, like normal humans, it'd be fire. If anyone touched the pencil I'm twirling in my fingers right now within the span of thirty minutes, they'd get a second degree burn, at least. I built the pencil out of metal. And graphite, of course.

It was really easy to make the pencil. I just ripped a big piece of metal off the bottom of a nearby bridge and bent the metal around the lead. Doesn't even need a sharpener. I heard the bridge crumbled down later, though.

They blamed it after bad engineering. It was almost laughable.

The fire is useful for torturing people before I kill them. All I have to do is hold a metal bar for five seconds and press it to their neck until they beg for me to kill them... and then kill them.

It's a wonder the chair underneath me doesn't just melt right now.

Seriously, it's surprising. I am genuinely, seriously surprised.

Maybe it's made of indestructible plastic, or something.

Louis, someone's staring at you from across the class. The demon hisses. Also, stop thinking about killing people, it gives off a negative vibe.

I couldn't care less. I think back. And you, out of all peop-- creatures, shouldn't be trying lecture me about negativity. Or killing people.

The demon gets noticeably aggravated by my remark. She's going to try to talk to you after class.

Again, I couldn't care less. I grumble in my head. So, shut up about it.

He hisses, but he shuts up. I finally look up from my pencil and I look around the classroom. Sure enough, there is a girl just staring at me. I make eye contact with her, and she keeps staring at me, her gaze unbothered by mine. I look away and roll my eyes. Stupid teenage girls.

With a flick of my hand, I cause her pencilcase to fall to the ground, pencils scattering everywhere. I smirk in satisfication as she scrambles to her feet to pick up all the pencils. One good thing that comes with being partly possessed by a demon: Telekinesis.

The girl looks at me accusingly, as if she knows that I was the cause of her pencilcase falling. How could she, though? She's only human.

I decide to look at the band of black on my skin encircling my pinky finger. The demon told me that I have it because I was built from fire, and that's the only human part of my body. It was burnt by the fire. He said it's kind of like Achilles' heel, when he was dipped in the River Styx. It's the only part of my body that I can be harmed by. The rest is impenetrable. I've tried to cover up my black band with concealer before, but the fire burnt it off. Oh well.

Class ends. I'm putting my books back in my bag when I accidentally drop my pencil- I may be supernatural, but I'm still clumsy. I bend over to pick up my pencil, but another hand beats me to it. I look up, and sure enough, it's that girl. She doesn't smell human... maybe she uses really bad perfume, or something.

"What do you want?" I mutter, but really, inside my head, I'm screaming, How in the hell did you not burn yourself?

The girl smirks, her dark black eyes narrowing. "I know who you are."

"Yeah, I'm Louis Tomlinson. I think most of the class knows who I am," I answer, my voice full of sarcasm. "I'm that supposed child prodigy that everyone hates."

"No, sorry," she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. She has a few streaks of red dyed into her hair. The red doesn't match her eyes. "Let me rephrase that. I know what you are."

"What do you mean?" I glare, and then I glance around the room to try to see if I can make a run for it. Mr. Baldie is looking at me, and his face is alarmed. I can't tell if he's worried about me or worried about the girl.

"You're not making a run for it. You're not going anywhere until I'm done talking to you."

I glance at her, a little shocked. It could be a coincidence that she replied to my thought. She could just be able to read body language well...

Is it possible that she's a demon? No. That's impossible. I thought I was the only demon existing... well, besides someone I used to know.

"I'm human. Most people are here, if you haven't noticed."

The girl laughs, her voice empty of humor. "No, Louis, you're not. You're not human. Don't even try to lie. Well, maybe that is--" she points to my black ring, imprinted into my skin forever, and my eyes narrow. "--but the rest of you isn't."

"Oh yeah? Then what am I, a vampire?" I snort, trying to cover up my amazement. There's no way she's a demon. I thought I was the only living demon in the universe. I change my voice to impersonate two different people. "How long have you been seventeen? A while." I laugh humourlessly, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

"No," she leans closer, her nose almost touching mine. "You're a demon."

"How..." I'm actually surprised, for the first time in my seventeen years of what I call life. "How do you know?"

The girl sticks out her own pinky, a band of black encircling it.

"I'm one as well."