Dancing With the Devil

Chapter 8

 So, I really didn't know where I was going with this chapter, so let me know how it is. Sorry if it kinda skips around.

Anyways, vote, comment, and fan if you're cool! (Haha, oldest trick in the book...)

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When I was five, my dad forced me to watch the scariest movie I’d ever seen. It was about an old man that would stalk people endlessly if they turned him down when he asked them for help, and then kill them in the most grotesque ways. He told me that even adults had been shaking in fear when he’d gone to see it at the movies, but he’d just laughed at their jumpiness. After it came out on DVD, he rented it and showed it to me. I was already apprehensive from his foreshadowing when I sat down on our second-hand couch, barely big enough for me to squeeze between my mom and dad when we watched game shows at night before I went to bed. Now, my dad had tracked me down when my mom was out of the house and sat me down on what suddenly seemed a space too big for my petite body.

I curled into the corner and screamed my lungs out, my dad chuckling on the other end of the brown sofa. When I tried to snuggle close to him, he would push me away, saying that I had to face my fears like a big girl. Aiming to please the most important man in my life, I would inch back to my corner again and again every time he denied my shaking form.

I had nightmares almost every night for almost an entire month. Paranoia swallowed my like quicksand and panic refused to leave me just as willingly as the dirt under my fingernails: not at all. Every dark shadow made me screech with terror, pleading with the empty darkness that I would help. I jumped to attention whenever somebody mentioned me lending them a hand, and don’t even get me started on how my dad took advantage of my swift generosity. Of course, he got an earful from my mother every night when I would sneak whimpering to their bed, begging to lay between them in the protective cocoon their bodies made around me.

It took me over a year to agree to see another scary movie, this time with Violet. She’d snatched one out of her dad’s movie collection, and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. To my surprise, I wasn’t scared at all. Violet was the one clinging to me, while I just watched the screen almost blankly and smirked at the characters’ stupidity in their decisions. Yes, because when you hear a noise it makes sense to yell out, “Hello?” to announce your exact location, as if the murderer/rapist is going to call back, “Yeah, I’m in the kitchen! Want a sandwich?”

The point is, ever since I’d faced my fears at such a young age, I wasn’t scared anymore. I always offered up the movies that had blood and pitchforks on the covers when Violet and I went to rent some for our sleepovers. The watchful eyes and missing teeth of the actors didn’t faze me in the slightest. Of course, when I’d experienced being stalked in real life, that was a different story, but at least Xavier hadn’t followed the typical stereotype of an old man and greasy hair like I’d been expecting.

Now, the reason I’m bringing up my pride in conquering scary movies is because, on the other hand, there are a few things that I am absolutely terrified of.

“I can understand the drowning part,” Xavier said to me when I’d confessed my two phobias. “Thunder, though? Aren’t you supposed to get over that when you’re under ten?”

“I can’t help it!” I defended. “It’s so loud and sudden, and I just don’t like it! I jump every single time!”

He smiled, looking at me like I was a cute little kitten. “Aww, is my little Princess afraid of storms?” he cooed.

“Not storms,” I grumbled, yanking myself out of his grasp when he tried to put his arms around me. “Just thunder. Rain and lightening are fine.”