Inner Demons

Chapter 1: The Cursed Lineage. Part 2

I woke up on the floor, sitting next to an open closet. It wasn't like I had a history of sleepwalking, but what had just happened was definitely not normal. At my feet was a wooden box - one of the few things I had brought from my father's house in Japan. More importantly, it was not the box itself, but its contents - a rock the size of a child's fist. It looked incredible: as if a swirl of black smoke had been trapped inside the glass forever - occasionally, mysterious blue glimmers would appear inside, even when there was no sunlight to explain the effect. The stone was always cold, and now, after the nightmare, it felt burning and icy. I pressed it wearily to my forehead like a cold compress. I was feverish again.

For the first time in a month, I heard the voice of that something, and it frightened me. That's putting it mildly - it panicked me. It seemed that if I had spent any more time in that dream, I would have surely lost my mind, if not died of fright.

"Dad..." I whispered, curling up on the floor and sobbing convulsively. "I'm scared, Dad..."

I didn't expect anyone to answer me, especially not my father - he's been dead for thirteen years. All I had left of him was that cursed stone. I remember Dad taking it out of the closet, unwrapping the silk cloth, and placing the stone on the coffee table. The black core absorbed every bit of light that touched it, making it seem as if there was a true abyss inside. Terrifying and mesmerizing at the same time.

"This is the Demon Lord," Dad explained almost casually when he noticed my confusion. I didn't believe him at first, and he just smiled. "I understand that it looks like a simple stone, but it's actually the sealed essence of a demon. Five hundred years ago, our ancestor triumphed and imprisoned the Demon Lord in this prison. If you knew how much effort and blood it took... The demon was very powerful, as monsters tend to be, but our ancestor managed to do it."

Since I was born, I had heard countless stories about these creatures, but my father had never hunted them in my lifetime. Even at night, when I had nightmares, I could always find him in his bedroom. It is said that after the Demon King was sealed, his relatives became more cautious and behaved much less conspicuously. Some of Papa's friends in the Order believed that they had stopped visiting our world altogether, leaving only the weakest and most foolish of their kind. The hunter's trade began to wither from obsolescence, and the planet's population skyrocketed, making the demons' deeds seem trivial compared to the wars and plagues caused by humans themselves. But I always felt that the demons had just become more cunning: if humans were such delicious prey, why would a powerful creature pass up dessert? Supermarket shoplifters get caught regularly, but that doesn't make them any less common. My father shared this view.

Ever since Dad showed me the stone, I thought I would never part with it. I didn't care who was in it, demon or angel; I loved the stone itself, like a magpie loves shiny things, and I couldn't go a day without it. Surprisingly, Dad didn't mind my obsession and even let me play with the demon's prison, but on one condition: no one was ever to touch the stone with metal. This was a condition that I had flawlessly followed for years, which is why I never wore rings or other metal jewelry.

The stone became my companion and silent listener for my personal stories and childhood complaints. I shared with it my thoughts, ideas and just news about what was happening in the world. The stone, of course, listened to everything. My father taught me from a young age not to tell everyone about myself and my family, and the stone was still just a stone, so I tormented it mercilessly with my whining and grumbling, often falling asleep with it in my hands.

"You're the only one who listens without lecturing," I sighed, hugging the stone to my chest. "You must be tired of my whining, right?"

The stone remained silent. The perfect companion.