taming the demon in me

14

I wake up to Joe closing his door, and he comes over to open mine. I yawn while stretching, not even realizing that I had fallen asleep. Joe opens up my door motioning for me to get out of the car. I get out of the car, wincing at the sharp stab to my eyes from brightness of where it was now daytime.

"How long was I asleep?" I ask looking up to what I assume to be his house.

"Not that long it's only like ten." Joe says walking up to the door.

The house doesn't look too big. Two stories, with the second mostly being one way tinted windows. It has a flat roof, with what looked to be something moving around up there. The outside of the house was dark wood flat siding, that made it blend in with the surrounding forest.

"How far away are we anyways?" I ask following him up to the dark double doors with intricate gold designs of grape vines made into the red tinted wood.

"Quite far, but don't worry about it too much. Zeke can get here quickly if he needs to." Joe states while looking back to give me a wink.

He opens the doors, and I notice that they're really thick, and heavy. I'm surprised at how open the house looks to be in comparison to how small and closed it looked from the outside. The house opens up to a spacious living room with a thick soft white carpet. In the center of the room there was a long,  sleek, black couch in front of a large TV that had various gaming consoles hooked up to it. Behind the couch was a sliding glass door, with cuts in it to reflect the light from the sun, and cast rainbows around the living room. Out back a small field with a few long sticks left poking out of the ground. There was two doors off to the right of the living room, and one of which had a pad lock on it. Finally back towards the sliding door, was a black staircase with the steps just sticking out of the wall.

I follow Joe into the house, and off to the left into the kitchen. It had black marble counter top that wraps around the whole room, and the same kind of dark wood out side the house for the walling. The floor in here was a sparkly dark turquoise with green in it too. There was a large hanging light above an island in the middle of the room. The light had purple stained glass around it, casting a purple hue onto the room. Off to the left was three stove tops, opposite side of the room had two deep sinks, and on the wall furthest from me was two double doors with apples branded into them.

"Quite the kitchen you have in here, really...decorated compared to the living room." I comment sitting down at the island.

"Yeah, this is the room all of us spend the most time in. There is more to the house though, we just keep the living room humble so that visitors who are...unlike us, don't question anything when they first walk in." Joe casually states walking over to the double doors. "What you want to eat?"

"Have any pizza?" I ask, and watch Joe pull out a pizza box, pulling three slices out.

"Want it reheated or nah?" He asks putting the box away.

"Nah, just like that is fine." I say reaching out for a slice. 

We sit in silence eating for a bit until Joe breaks the silence, "So even though you're here sooner than planned I'll tell you the rules now, there is no leaving without telling someone where you're going, always lock outside doors, and most of all there is no bringing anyone here." He states throwing out his crust walking back to the door. "come on I'ma show you your room for while you're here."

I follow him out of the room, and over to the staircase to upstairs. At the top of the steps is a long hallway with a number of doors with padlocks on them. Joe keeps walking down the hall, all the way to the door that's second to last. He puts in the pass code, opening's up the door.

"This is Zeke's room, but you can take it for now till he gets here. Besides he would probably make you stay in his room anyways, he's not too fond of some of the people living here." Joe says stepping into the room.

"Will I have to meet these said people while I'm staying here?" I ask feeling uneasy remembering the maid girl.

"Maybe, never too sure with them. You will have to meet two of the people staying here though, but don't fret their friends of Zeke's too." Joe replies.

The room was well in size. The far wall was the window I saw in the front of the house when we first got here. Off to the right was his bed, a queen size with dark grey sheets on it with black lace floral prints. The floor was a white fluffy carpet just like the the living room, but other than that the room was basically empty, and bland. I walk over to the bed, and sit  down on it feeling tired. I lay down on it closing my eyes enjoying the way the bed was way softer than it looked. It sunk down a bit, and the blanket curled around me feeling softer than cotton candy. 

"I'll let you sleep you're probably exhausted from today. I'll come wake you for food, and to show you the rest of the house." Joe says leaving the room, and closing the door behind him softly.

I look out the window and see that it was dark out, but the view was still amazing. The forest around the house was covered with a soft blanket of moonlight making everything look as if it had a soft glow of blue to it. As I watched I realized all of the fire flies just floating around outside looking so relaxed, almost as if they where moving in slow motion unaware to all mess of reality around them. My eyes grew heavy as I watched them, it was so calming and serene that I almost didn't realize the ominous crow watching from a far distance.