Demon Breathing Down My Neck

Chapter Four: Part of the Family

The eyes vanish. Were you watching me the whole time?! I shift to the first spiritual dimension, blazing out my energy armor from my skin, and explode my wings out of my back. I'm coming down there and you're not going to like me! I crouch down, then spring up and dive into the moist earth. It rapidly becomes hard, compacted, and dry. I flap my wings and surge back upwards. I hurtle up through a thick layer of concrete and into the pitch black basement.

The rainbow light from my armor and wings dances and swirls all over the brick walls and reflective pipes. I solidify my body and land on the floor, legs slightly bent and claws extended. No demon in sight. Coward.

I run over to the light switch on the far wall and flick it on. The bricks have a coat of what once was spotless white paint over them. Now, they are covered in a partially melted scratch marks. I look up at the ceiling. There are long stretches of crisscross scratch marks all over the plaster, but the many silver pipes don't have a mark on them. This demon isn't wild. It's very smart.

The basement floor is a bare concrete slab. I sniff the air. A very faint coppery stench. At each corner of the room is a white plastic lawn chair. Around and on each chair are many drippings of bloodstains. While continuing to gaze all around me, I trudge over to the chairs. The blood splatters are dried and dark red. I was hoping I wouldn't find anything like this. What has been going on down here?! I stare at the blood, the pulse pounding in my head. I'm pretty sure this isn't demon generated blood. This probably came from the Smiths! I'm going to have to be very careful how I approach them about this room.

I slowly circle around and around. "I know you're watching me!"

The only sound is the rhythmic dripping of a small pipe in the corner.

"What have you been doing to this family down here?!"

The pipe continues dripping.

"Well, I guess I'm just wasting my breath trying to talk to you, then! Probably not worth talking to a psycho anyways!"

At the edge of my vision, one of the chairs grinds along the concrete, then stops as soon as it began. I focus my gaze on the chair. It moved that chair pretty stealthily! I didn't catch which layer it was in. Clever. If it wants to do much more than make scary noises, it will have to come out of hiding! Then, I'll get it!

I continue watching the chair for a while longer. When nothing else happens, I start strolling around the basement. Maybe I can tick it off! I grab one of the bloody chairs. Nothing happens. I lift it an inch off the ground and pause. Silence. I take the chair into the middle of the basement and set it down. Faint, heavy breathing. Like it's huffing at me.

"Do you like me messing up your sick little set up?!"

I take the chair and turn it upside down. The breathing gets a little louder. I unshield my head briefly to try to pinpoint the source of the panting. It almost sounds like... I crane my head this way and that. Like it's coming from two directions. The quiet huffs stop, but one huffing continues slightly longer than the other. There's more than one demon in this house. Confirmed.

I kick the lawn chair over and it clatters across the floor. "Does that irritate you?!"

A black blur that towers all the way to the ceiling swoops the chair up, places it back in the corner, and vanishes in less than a second. Oh, wow. That thing was big and fast! So fast I still couldn't pinpoint its layer! It had to be pretty deep to be that blurry. And also pretty powerful to reach through that many layers at once. I grit my teeth. This is going to be one of the a pain in the butt ones.

I stand still and move my head from side to side, scanning the quiet, seemingly empty basement. I move towards the chair. I sing-song, "You want me to mess with your precious chair again?"