A Demon's Tale

Chapter Fifteen

-       The Dark Room -
- Part III -

My eyes were locked into the fire as my fingers were clinging to the strings of my guitar holding out the last chord for as long as they could still vibrate. My mind went blank for a second as if the flames of the fire temporarily blinded my thoughts trying to make sense of something beyond here and now. Then my gaze fell down to the ground in front of me as if to bring me back to the present.

"Oh my... Wow!" | "That was really nice!" Lisa and Connor said at the same time.

"Yeah, that took a nice turn!" Lucas added.

I snapped back to awareness from my strange little blank. I looked up at them for a quick glance. I then spotted Sara's reaction in my periphery. She was covering her mouth with the sleeves of her shirt that were pulled up over her hands. Her eyebrows raised and eyes a bit squinted.

"That was so good, Eric!" Sara said in a high key struggling to actually vocalize it, as it mostly sounded like air coming out of her.

"Heh... Thanks..." I said blushing.

"Yeah, you're really talented. And you have a great singing voice." Lisa said.

"What's the name of that song?" Lucas asked.

"Uhm... I don't know... I haven't named it yet." I responded.

Their expressions changed into some rather subtle confused looks and there was a short break as they, at first didn't seem to fully understand my answer.

"Whu...?!" | "Wait... Wha!?" Lisa and Lucas stuttered.

"'You' wrote that thing!?" Connor said with surprise.

"Well... yeah?" I said struggling with dealing with all the praise and love bombing complements.

It wasn't that I didn't like it, but I had always had a hard time dealing with feedback, whether it was negative or positive.

"Dude, that's incredible!" Lucas said.

"Yeah man, seriously, you should become an artist," Connor said.

"Okay, stop it now... Now it's just excessive." I said to try and spare myself from having to fight back my ego.

I wanted to be acknowledged for my good qualities but I didn't want to have to deal with reevaluating my fragile self-image, or have to live up to certain higher expectations.

"Oh, fuck you, Eric! You don't get to be humble about this. Own it!" Lisa said.

"Can I try the guitar?" Lucas asked.

"Yeah, sure!" I said, very thankful that the attention could now be shifted away from me.

I leaned forward to hand over the guitar to Lucas sitting next to Colin. Colin had to lean back to make way for the guitar so that I didn't have to pass the guitar over the fire. I stood up in a half squat to pass over the guitar. Colin looked at the guitar as it moved past him. I looked at him to try and read his expression. It seemed something was wrong, but I couldn't tell if it was 'I' who thought something was wrong, or him.

But as I looked away from Lucas, thinking that he had already gotten a good grip of the guitar, I let go of the guitar a bit too early causing it to almost fall down into the fireplace. I instantly noticed my mistake. Adrenaline shot out through my body and it seemed like time began moving slower...

My left hand dived down towards the guitar and my hoodie came in contact with the flames and embers. Suddenly, it seemed like the night became darker and the light around somehow stopped reflecting from the surroundings even though at the same time it seemed the fire started burning stronger. And then, it seemed the sleeve of my hoodie caught on fire...