An Odd Demon

A moon with the color of blood

Adam was sitting down on a giant rock in the middle of the forest. He had his eyes closed and was breathing slowly.
'Just fucking calm down!' He muttered to himself. It wasn't helping. Eventually he got up and took the piece a charcoal he brought. On the rock he drew a big circle. Inside the circle he drew a weird shape that kinda looked like a star, but also not really. He was almost done when his piece of charcoal broke in half.
'OH COME ON!' He screamed as he threw one of the two halves away as hard as he could.
'Calm down... if you want this to work, just calm down.'
He'd been saying it to himself the entire day, but by now, he knew it didn't help. He finished up his charcoal drawing and threw the piece away. He then took out some red paint and a paintbrush. He used it to draw a second circle around the first one. This circle however wasn't made by a line, but by a series of various weird symbols all next to each other.
Adam turned to look at the sky, that was turning orange. The moon would soon rise. The red moon. A chilly breeze came up, making the dark haired boy shiver slightly. But it didn't stop him. He took out a compass and put it down in the middle of the circle. He used it to know where north, east, south and west was so he could place a candle on each of these points on the edge of the circle. Because of the wind, it was hard to light the candles, but with a little bit of his own demon power, he managed to do it. For some reason, demons had a weird effect on fire. Just their presence seemed to fuel it. Adam sat down in the middle of the circle. The moment came that he had feared. The moment he would need all of his focus to make sure he didn't mess up. He took one last look at his spell book before throwing it out of the circle. His hand dissapeared in the pocket of his hoodie and came back out with a small, silver knife. He placed the blade against the palm of his hands and slashed it down. He'd always wondered why this was necessary for almost every big spell there was. But he'd done it so many times by now, he was used to it. If demons didn't have healing abilities, he'd probably have a scar there from the amount of times he cut open his own hand. He let a couple drops of his own blood fall into each of the candles while he muttered some weird words in Latin. He went to sit back down in the middle of his circle and started muttering even more Latin words. He tried to focus on the spell he was casting as much as he could, but the burning emotions inside were very distracting. When he opened his eyes again, the sun had set completely, but the moon hadn't risen yet. He looked at the circle around him and took a nervous breath. He held out his hand and passed it over the space above the edge of the circle. Or at least he tried to. To his relieve, some weird, invisible barrier was holding him back, effectively preventing him from leaving the circle. As seconds passed he felt his anger and frustration burn more and more as bloodlust seemed to rise up as well. He knew it'd only be a couple seconds before he'd lose control completely. But in this spell, he was safe. Or to be more accurate, others were safe from him.

Adam growled like a wild animal as he threw his body against the magical barrier that kept him in the circle. He knew it wouldn't work, but he was not able to think while under the influence of the red moon. Demons could shapeshift. Most of the time, they stayed in their human form, but Adam ditched his weaker shape and morphed into his true demon form. His horns and tail appeared, he grew taller and stronger, his giant, black, batlike wings appeared and his long and sharp teeth and claws glistened in the red moonlight. His eyes turned pitch black aside from a glowing red light as pupil.
The demon threw himself at the barrier again to try and break through, but he couldn't. He screamed and growled like a madman as he started slicing at the barrier with his claws. The world around him looked as if some vague, red filter was placed over it and his brain didn't seem to work as he was only acting on instinct and his emotions. He charged at the barrier again and slammed against it hard. This time however, it shattered. Adam fell to the ground next to his rock. He immediately crawled back up and grinned. Now he could let out his fury. Now he could use his bloodlust. He spread his wings and flew out of the forest. He landed on a rooftop of an appartment and looked around. All of his senses were sharp, trying to find any person. Any prey. He jumped from roof to roof and the distances that were to long to jump, he flew. Suddenly he stopped when he heard something. He followed the sound until he saw two boys walking through the street.
'Mom is gonna be so pissed it she finds out we only got back this late!' The tallest of the two said.
'She won't if we don't tell her. She's probably asleep already. We just need to be quiet.' The shorter one said.
Adam grinned. A smile from predator to pray. He started drooling at the mere thought of their blood in his mouth. He licked his lips and then charged at them.

James woke up with a gasp. He rubbed his eyes and looked at the red glow in his room. He fel asleep while drawing a comic and he hadn't closed the curtains. He hadn't forgotten about the red moon. How could he with Adam as a roommate. James had found the dark haired boy sitting on the couch in the middle of the night a couple times during the past week. Often playing video games. He claimed he tried to distract himself from the stress of the red moon. James had seen the signs of stress on his best friend build up, so he wasn't very confused about the boys weird behaviour that day.
"Maybe I should check up on him." James thought. He looked at his alarm clock and saw that it was just past 3 am. Yet James still left his bedroom to go check on his best friend. The blonde was surprised to find the place empty.
"Maybe he's to nervous to leave his room." James thought. He walked over to Adam's door and was about to knock when he realized something.
"It's the middle of the night, he's probably just asleep."
Nevertheless he didn't leave from the door. Something just didn't feel right. The blonde's mind was in conflict. Some part of him was screaming to check, just in case. Just if Adam would need him. But another part didn't want to bother him. If he was finally asleep, James didn't wanna wake him up for Adam to possibly not be able to fall back asleep from stress.
"Maybe if I'm just really quiet." James thought.
He carefully opened the door. The room was bathing in the red moonlight, but the bed was empty.
'What the...?' James said confused.
'Adam!' He called out through their dorm. But there was no reply. James ran back to his own room to check his phone. He tried calling Adam, but no one answered. James tried again, with the same result. Where could he be? He quickly sent a message in their squads group chat to see if he'd gone to any of them, but everyone was asleep and couldn't reply.
'Maybe I should go look for him.' James said out loud. He knew that Adam was old enough to take care of himself, but it didn't stop the blonde from feeling worried. He quickly put on a jacket, took his keys and left to see if he could find his best friend somewhere.

James was shivering as he was walking through the streets. Partially because of the cold, but also because he just had a really bad feeling about this. In the red moonlight everything around him looked menacingly. The light also seemed to be less bright then usual so everything around him was very dark. It even seemed as if the streetlamps weren't shining as much as they're supposed to. And even without all of that, Adam had specifically told him to not go outside.
'ADAM!' James called out. The sound echoed through the empty streets, making the blonde feel lonely and small.
'ADAM!' He called out again. There was no reply.
Suddenly the silence was disrupted by a terrified scream in the distance that made the blonde jump. His heart immediately started racing as he began to feel scared. It had sounded as if someone was tortured or killed.
'You're just spooking yourself. Maybe someone just saw a scary spider or something. The city is the same as during the day. Just a little darker.' James muttered to himself.
'ADAM! WHERE ARE YOU!' He called out again.
'ADAM!'
He nervously looked around as the most unsettling feeling he'd ever felt crept in. He nervously continued, calling out Adam's name, feeling more uncomfortable every second.
'This is stupid. I should just go back.' James muttered to himself after a couple more seconds. He felt very scared and uncomfortable and he knew that he most likely wasn't going to find his roommate like this.
He was just about to turn around when he saw something moving in the corner of his vision. Something was there, hiding in the dark. At that moment the streetlights turned black, leaving the creature to hide in even more darkness.
'Adam?' James asked hesitantly. His voice was shaking. The thing in the shadows growled and opened his glowing red eyes. James backed away a couple steps, but his body didn't seem to be completely functioning. He wanted to run from whatever that thing was, but he couldn't. He was paralyzed with fear. The thing in the shadows grinned at the blonde boy, showing his long and sharp teeth. It scared the blonde even more. The creature let out a screech before charging at the boy. James's legs finally seemed to work again as he started running for his life. Tears were streaming down his face from fear. He'd never been this terrified in his life. He could hear the creature catching up. It came closer and closer and closer and closer until it jumped onto the blonde's back, making him crash into the ground. He managed to turn around. The creature was hovering over him and held him down with unnatural strength. James closed his eyes and started struggling, but to no avail. He opened his eyes again and stopped moving, paralyzed in fear again from what he saw. A monster with horns and a tail. With giant batlike wings and claws and teeth that could probably slice through anything. A combination of blood and drool dripped down it's chin, but the most terrifying thing, were the eyes. Pitch black with a glowing red light. James felt like they were piercing right through his soul as he knew this creature had no mercy. Only bloodlust. He couldn't even let out a scream as he truly thought he was staring into the eyes of death itself.