Human Spines

Amistifer's Rock-I

Emmeline

Eight years ago

        I'm not allowed to go into the street alone. But Maddy's gone inside and I've dropped my ball and it's rolling, rolling, rolling. It's in the middle of the road, but there's a Demon coming from the other side of the street. It looks human. Like a thirty-year-old male human. Thick, floppy black hair, pasty white skin, tight dark blue jeans, and a dark blue jacket. Everything he's wearing is the same shade of midnight blue, even the buttons. He's walking directly to me. His pupils are glowing white with a sharp angular nose between them. I don't fight as he possess me, whispering his name in my head. Amistifer.

****

        I'm back. It's been a few minutes. I'm splayed on the ground at the end of our driveway, Amistifer standing over me. Angry. Very angry. I... I think he's... no, he can't do that... oh my, yes he can. I scramble backward, lip trembling, but he's cramming words and pictures into my head. I can see and hear only what he wants me to. I can see—

        —myself, standing at the edge of the driveway, my face red and my breathing uneven. Except it's not me. It's Amistifer possessing me.

        "WHY MUST YOU HAVE SUCH VEXATIOUS RULES BRANDED INTO YOU?!" Amistifer is yelling into my mind. "It makes your body MALFUNCTION!"

        The scene I see changes. My knees are on the gravel as I stare at the street, my muscles trembling. I'm crying, hyperventilating, sweating. How I get when I break a rule.

        "You had no right!" I flinch at the sharpness of Amistifer's voice in my head. "Ingraining thoughts into your being is forbidden! Then to go as far as to deposit an alarm in it is just disreputable! I feel that it is not only the Opaque that have committed malfeasance here, but you also, Emmeline. I felt the treasonous thoughts leaking through you. The susurrations and the emotions you propose to hide. POISON! Emmeline, poison is what it is," Amistifer bellows and spits on the ground beside my face, allowing me to see him from my own eyes again. Maybe he isn't as human as I thought. I don't understand.

        "I attempted to guide you. To be kind to your ignorant self. To retrieve something you misplaced. But no. Your vessel is so CONTAMINATED with VENOMOUS TOXINS that it could not even follow the facile instruction I gave it. 'Cross the street, Emmeline...' 'CROSS THE GODFORSAKEN STREET, EMMELINE!'" Amistifer is screeching into every crevice of my being. Tears find their way to the ground as I cry, shaking, shivering, folding in on myself, so overwhelmed with fear of this Demon. It's kneeling down beside me, lowering its face an inch from mine, placing an arm on either side, and injecting more of its thoughts into my head.

        "I will rid you of those petty rules you've condemned into your body in your pitiful endeavor to be a good little girl. You know just as well as I how many times you've lied. How much you cheat. How cheaply you exist. Weak is what you are," his voice echoes through me. "So broken is what I shall make you. One. Rule. At. A. Time."

        The Demon stands, casts its eyes to the sky, and shouts, not through its thoughts, but its mouth, speaking to the sky. "Hear me, self righteous Opaque. I have identified your flaw. The faulty being you have fabricated... It's inadequate. Defective. Intolerable. Similar to you. So I shall reform it. Fashion it suitably for my genus. And I intend to let them all know. How inattentive, how lackadaisical you are when it comes to equity. And I will make you suffer for it!" He's screamed at the sky. Now, looking me in the eyes, he is perfectly still as he continues, quietly threatening.

        "Starting with this pathetic excuse of a girl. You better be ready. Both of you. Because you have thoroughly disrespected me." Even quieter he hisses, "You have thoroughly disrespected the Sir Amistifer, child of It, Itself. And now," he speaks only to me, "you will pay for the respect you kept from me. Beginning with the warmth of life from a human male, the sound of a twelve-year-old boy's ribs snapping, and the despairing thoughts of his aunt as she loses all ability to run in the race she has spent the last six years training for."

        I don't understand what he means. How will he—

        I'm watching him place one of the large rocks from our yard into the middle of our street. I can see the cars coming. They'll crash into each other if I don't move the rock. They'll have no choice.

        But I do. He's backed me into a corner but he's also given me a choice by telling me what will happen if I don't break the rule. So I have a choice. Break the rule or injure, handicap, and murder.

        The correct choice is obvious.

        So, so, obvious.

        But there's a problem. I can't move. I'm laying on the ground, watching the cars get closer. But Amistifer has put so many thoughts into my mind. I can't control myself. There're too many thoughts in the way. Why does he look human? Who is "It, Itself"? What does he mean by respect? What's Opaque? What do half of those words he used mean? What exactly just happened?

        The cars are closer now.

        I'm afraid. Scared out of my mind. So frightened, I truly cannot move. Fear of Amistifer. Fear of what I can't do. Fear of the fate of the cars in front of me. My entire body throbs with the beat of my heart. It feels like I'm shrink-wrapped. Like I'm swaddled in shrinking plastic and Amistifer has heated me with my own fear so I can't move or blink or breathe as it closes in on me. Suffocating. Squeezing. Freezing me with heat. I've been sealed shut in my own body, by my own body. He didn't even have to possess me to control me.

        The rickety truck starts to swerve out of the way of the rock. The tires squeal—

Present day

        I was possessed in the middle of telling my story. Now I'm making a bed, straightening the comforter. Did I sleep in this bed? Was I alone? My stomach's heavy, so I've eaten already. It's 8:32 a.m. but I'm still wearing pajamas. Blue shorts, a white tank top, and some fluffy slippers. How did I get these? It hasn't been just a day. It's been nearly a week. I run my hand through my hair. It's wet, I must've showered. But where am I?

        I search for clues and find myself in a mirror that takes up half the wall. I don't look too different. Good. Across the room is another slept-in bed. Farther is a familiar door. A hotel door.

        There's a click and it's opening.

        "This is a hotel. Why are you making your bed again?" Dumaine shuffles in and flops onto the messy bed.

        "I guess you aren't a fairy-alien-vampire. You have a reflection." I point toward the mirror.

        He bolts off the bed, surprise livening his face. "Emmeline?!"

        I laugh at his excitement. No one's been excited to see me since I was seven.

Thanks for reading! A new piece is shared every Wednesday! Don't forget to vote and comment!