Devil's Soul

Chapter 4 (now that you've had some time to think)

***Hey guys! Thanks for taking the time to read my story! I hope you are liking it so far! I am dedicating this chapter to FrozenCreek for being the first person to comment on my story. People like you are what make writing worth it! :)***

Neither my mom nor I were quite the same after that day. We'd both had our souls ripped from us, and I think that sort of thing can be a traumatizing experience. Of course, my mom didn't know about the soul ripping part. The doctor at the hospital had informed her that she'd been dead for several minutes. Some sort of miracle had brought her back, and another miracle had left her without any evident brain damage. That was the doctor's version of the story, anyway. I knew better. This was the work of the Devil.

Have you ever wondered how many miracles in this world are actually the work of the Devil? It's a question that's been bothering me ever since that night.

Back to the point, though, I was a little too preoccupied with my own...changes to immediately notice the post-traumatic stress that my mom was experiencing.

The first change is one that you have already been introduced to, but it took me a bit of time to completely understand. I will explain why.

Imagine you are riding the bus to go to class, clutching your coffee like a lifeline and casually observing the other commuters, many of which you see on a daily basis but have never bothered to speak a word to. Everything's good and normal and you're groggy as hell, but all of the sudden that's not true anymore. Well the groggy part still is, but the good and normal part isn't. Everyone starts glowing, except you seem to be the only one that notices.

The man across from you continues reading his worn copy of Tarnsman of Gor, as he sways with the jolts of the bus. The gray-haired woman next to you continues to cast skeptical glances at your cup of coffee, as if it might be spiked with Kahlua and she wouldn't mind having a taste. The unfamiliar man at the front of the bus continues to cock his head intently, in a vain attempt to decipher the mysterious language of Bus Intercom.

You are confused, until you remember the Devil telling you last night that you can now see people's souls (or lack of them), so you relax and try to ignore the fact that this new vision seems to come and go as it pleases. Then the woman next to you looks up from your cup of coffee and happens to make brief eye contact with you, causing her to erupt into screams.

Not a pleasant situation, right? I hope you can see why this little change took some time to get used to.  

Well, after the woman began her escapade of shrieking, the other people on the bus began to take notice. They glanced up from their idle thoughts to see what the commotion was about. First, they gave a good long stare at the crazy screaming lady, but eventually they noticed the source of her anguish, which was apparently me, and gave my eyes an apprehensive assessment. The guy with the Tarl Cabot novel stared at me for a good half minute before he resumed his reading.

Eventually, a passenger on the other side of the screaming lady grabbed her elbow. "Calm down lady, they're just contacts," he said with his thick Boston accent. 

She stopped screaming, but apparently it was only so she could spit the words "Devil child" at me, which was totally unfair. I mean, I was twenty-one years old, for crying out loud! How old did I have to be before I stopped being a child?!

Luckily, the bus made it to my stop before the situation could escalate beyond that. Once off the bus, I pulled out my cell phone and flipped the camera view so I could see myself. My eyes were red-orange, like fire.

I should probably clarify that my eyes are not normally red. Or orange, for that matter. They are normally a good old fashioned muddy brown color. Nothing special or significant about them. But now they were red. And they really weren't passable as a pair of contacts, either. The red and orange flecks seemed to be swirling around with the old brown color, like they were flames burning the brown away. The effect was almost hypnotic. I felt myself leaning toward my phone, as if I could just tumble into the image of my fiery eyes.