WHEN WE WORE HIS SKIN

Warning: This story contains scenes of sexual violence, substance abuse, physical violence, gore, abuse and suicide/self harm.

We hate the Abyss. The perpetual darkness and heat that torments us for all of eternity–thanks to Him. He that banished us from Paradise, He that cast us down to live below that which was made in His likeness. That putrid creation which He so admired and cherished. But he was wrong. For while He is Holy, His creation was anything but. His creation was imperfect, gullible and could be manipulated oh so easily. His gift of free will was in fact a curse to be born by His creation and all of their descendants until the end of days. He believes to know the outcome of the story. He believes to know all–but His plan will fail. We shall be victorious. Our influence has been felt since the very beginning, since that fateful day when it took a bite of the apple from the one thing He had commanded his creations to leave alone. But eat they did–at our masters' behest–and ever since the free will of the creations has been malleable to our influence, to our suggestions, to our ways of living. We will win the final battle and along the way we will destroy that which He holds in so much glory. His greatest creation, his greatest accomplishment–ultimately, will become his greatest failure.

All we need is an opening, an invitation for our corruption to spread like a cancerous disease. It all comes so easily. The apple fell far from the tree when it came to them. Imperfect beings in a tarnished shell of perfection. Their souls forever fouled by a world our master rules over. Their destruction is our desire. Their downfall is our victory.

***

We heard his pleading words come across the void. The sorrow in those words was magnificent and pulled at our attention like a magnet. The man had lost his wife recently to a very tragic and random murder–the glorious byproduct of our influence–and he was not dealing with the loss very well. Excellent, grief is a negative energy which is what fuels our power.

We could sense the man kneeling before the headstone of his dead wife, crying like the weak sack of flesh that the creations are. The more he cried, the easier it was to see him. The void was a barrier between the realms of the demonic and the living, but it was translucent and penetrable. The more negative the emotions, the more transparent and weak the void becomes, giving us the opportunity to cross over into the realm of the living and infest the creations with our foulness.

The man was beside himself, speaking to the headstone as if it would actually respond. Little did the man know that his attempts were in vain, for his wife was in a state of sleep, her soul in stasis, waiting patiently for the day the wretched Son returns and the dead would arise from their graves to join the Son in his rapture of souls at the End of Days.

We could feel the sadistic pleasure coursing through our state of being, coalescing into something more tangible.

We whisper across the void to the man, who can hear our haunting words inside of his head–but they are not in the voice of Legion–they are in the voice of his deceased wife.

“How I miss you, my love,” we coo inside of his mind. The mere utterance of the word love is enough to make us wretch, but we press on nonetheless.

We can see through the void that the man stirred upon hearing the voice. The seed had been successfully planted. Now, it would just take patience and tending to sprout.

“Sarah?” the man whispered. He looked around as if expecting to find something, but nothing was there. “Sarah, is that you?”

Part of our unholy power is knowledge. We know many things, and that which we do not know, we can elicit psychically from the minds of our targets.

“John,” we say softly. “John, it’s me–Sarah.”

The man smiled and continued to look around, searching for some sort of physical sign. “Sarah. My God Sarah, is it really you?”

We shuddered at the mention of His name and a moment of disgust washed over us.

“Yes, my love. It is me.”

Tears streamed down the man’s face and he placed his head onto the tombstone, embracing it tightly as if it were his precious Sarah.

“I wish I could see you again,” the man cried. He stared up to the sky, as if calling out to Heaven (curse the place).

“You can, my love,” we tease. “I have not crossed over yet. My soul remains tied to the Earth. I am not ready to leave you and Mia yet.”

The man brightened at the mention of their young daughter’s name. “Oh Sarah, she misses you so, so much.”

“I miss her too, John. I was taken away before my time. It is not fair.”

“Please, Sarah. Let me see you. I need to see you,” the man pleaded.

“I try,” we say. “But it is too difficult, I don’t have enough energy to appear without some sort of medium that can compound my energy.”

“What do you mean, medium?” John appealed. “Tell me what you mean, I will find a way, I promise.”

“Bring a mirror the next time you come to visit my grave. A mirror and a personal item of mine so that the mirror can tune itself to my energy and focus it into the mirror.”

“I can do that Sarah. Will it really work?”

“You must try. I want to be with you again John. I need to be with you again. My soul is uneasy.”

“What about Mia? She would love to see you as well.”

“In time my love,” we reply. “The more you connect with me via the mirror, the stronger I will become. At first I may not be able to materialize for long. But with time, I may be able to.”

“I cannot wait to see you again, Sarah. I wasn’t ready for you to leave me forever.”

“We can be together again, John. Bring the mirror and something that belonged to me.”

“I will, Sarah. I love you so much.”

The words made us cringe. “Love you too, John.”

We pulled ourselves away from John’s mind and he could feel something change, like he had snapped out of an especially intense dream. He placed his hand on the tombstone, bent down and kissed it gently.

“See you tomorrow, my love,” he whispered.

***

“Sarah, Sarah can you hear me?” the man’s words trickled through the void.

We can sense him placing the mirror he brought against his wife’s tombstone and then he laid a pink sweater that had belonged to her on the ground in front of it.

Yes, that’s it you pitiful sack of putridness.

We can feel the energy changing, the vibration lowering ever closer to infrasound, which is the vibration of the Abyss and its fallen angels.

“Sarah, Sarah if you can hear me, please show yourself. I need to see you,” the man sobbed.

The veil became more transparent and the man’s sounds were clearer, louder, less distorted. It was nearly our time.

“John, I’m here my love.”

We can see the man’s eyes grow wide with astonishment. A single tear trickled down the right side of his face.

“Thank God,” the man praised, looking up to the skies.

We writhed in disgust at the mention of Him.

The man stared deeply into the mirror, focusing on a single fixed point in the middle. He reached down and took a piece of the sweater into his hand and began kneading it without diverting his focus from the mirror.

Yes, that’s it. Focus on that slut you called a wife. Picture her in your mind's eye, give us what we need to pierce the void.

The man continued to concentrate. He could feel the small hairs on his arms and the back of his neck start to prickle and there was a feeling of static electricity in the atmosphere as the wind suddenly chilled.

Yes. The man was doing exactly what we needed him to do. The void became clearer, thinner.

The man was remembering his wife now. The happy times that they had shared. Their wedding, the birth of their child.

The void opened and slowly, the semi-transparent image of Sarah formed inside the mirror and the man began to cry.

“I can’t believe it’s you. I can’t believe it’s really you,” the man pleaded. “I never thought that I would see you again.”

“Is Mia okay?” we feign. “Is she holding up?”

“She misses you so much,” John cried, snot ran down from his nose. “She misses her mommy so much.”

“I miss her too, John. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Neither of you need to be without me any longer.”

John’s crying paused and he looked surprised. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I can be with you always, John. My body may be dead, but my spirit can be with you forever. Just like I am now…if you want me to be.”

“Of course I want you to be, Sarah. Why would you ever doubt that?”

“I don’t doubt it. I know you do. I just need you to want it so bad that you can will it into being, John. I need you to believe it so much that you make it real…just like you did tonight.”

John nodded in agreement. He picked up the sweater and brought it close to his face, inhaling the remnants of the scent of Sarah’s perfume deep into his lungs, then he clutched the sweater tight to his heart and closed his eyes.

“Let me in,” we whisper.

“Please, I beg of you Sarah, whatever is needed for you to come back into our lives, I open myself to you.”

The void shattered and John’s body began to spasm, his eyes rolled back into his head. Slowly, the eyes opened and…

We could see.

Not through the glassiness of the void, but through the creation’s eyes. We could smell the damp mustiness of the cemetery and feel the mist in the air on the exposed skin of the man’s arms. The cold chill of the air was a pleasant change from the sweltering heat of the abyss.

Now, our game will begin.

***

Inflicting pain on the creations is our pleasure. Normally we need to make do with doing it psychically through the void, but sometimes we have the chance to inflict real suffering and make Him watch as we defile his greatest pride.

The question is, where do we start? With the body or the mind?

The mind is usually the safer way to start. Sometimes when you start with the body there is the risk that we might get too carried away and do a little too much damage and kill the body. That isn’t good enough for us. Not at all.

John’s eyes rolled back in his head again, his neck craned back so that his white soulless eyes stared up towards his Maker.

Let’s see how Sarah died, shall we?

A flash of bright white light and John was able to see in his mind’s eye what we projected.

He could see through Sarah’s eyes. He could see her walking alone on that cold, dark night. Walking to her car in an empty parking lot after a long shift at work. He could feel her anxiety as the already dimly lit parking lot lights flickered. Her car was in reach, only maybe ten feet away. She reached into her purse and dug out her keys. She clicked the unlock button on her key fob and her car beeped in response as the door locks clicked open. She was almost there, when suddenly…

She was pushed violently to the ground. Her forehead smashed off the cracked, wet pavement and the world began to spin. Before she could turn herself around, she felt the excruciating pain of a steel toed boot kicking her in the ribs. She moaned in pain and could taste blood in the back of her mouth and then another blow came, this time to the side of her head. She toppled over onto her back.

Her vision was blurred, but she could make out the fuzzy image of a dishevelled man with a long grey beard standing over her, peering down.

She could smell the rancid stench of stale alcohol, piss and shit off of the man. She stared up in paralyzed terror into the man’s eyes, which were giddy and alive. The man had spittle forming at the corners of his mouth and was laughing maniacally, his tongue darting across his cold sore scabbed lips. A strand of drool dripped down from his mouth and landed onto Sarah’s face. She clenched her eyes in automatic revulsion.

His fist came down hard, striking her across the face and snapping the bridge of her nose into a contorted horror of pain. He followed with another strike, and then another, laughing like a lunatic the entire time.

Sarah’s eyes went cold, distant. She could still see the man, but her body had shut down. Unfortunately, her mind had not.

The man leaned down and licked Sarah’s lips. How horrible his breath stank. She could see the black rotten teeth behind his crusted lips. Old food stuck in the scraggly grey hairs of the man’s unkempt beard.

The man got onto his knees and he reached down and began to fumble to undo his pants.

She could smell it as soon as he pulled it out. Like his lips, his penis was covered in sores and dirt. She had never smelled anything so repulsive in her life.

The man lifted Sarah’s skirt above her waist and ripped her panties off savagely. He reached down and held her arms down and she could see the track marks on his skin. She knew what was coming and she wished she was dead as the man entered her. She could feel herself leaving her body as the man plunged himself in and out several times before finally ending with the final insult of depositing his poisoned seed inside of her.

The man breathed heavily for a few moments and then the smile vanished and his face became so cold. He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a knife. A moment passed as he stared down at Sarah’s limp used up body, and then he plunged the knife down into her neck, severing her jugular. He licked the blood off the blade of the knife as he watched Sarah bleed out.

***

“Nooooooo!” John screamed. Tears streamed from the corners of his eyes.

We took control once more.

The negative emotions hit us like an injection of cocaine. So much energy and power in an instant. It was intoxicating.

We make the creation rise to his feet and proceed to his car. His mind–his memories–now belong to us. We open the door to his car, get in and start the engine. Time to go home.

***

About fifteen minutes later we arrive at the creation’s home, park the vehicle in the driveway and enter through the front door.

Inside is dark, quiet. Its offspring must not be home. Pity.

We proceed across the living room and enter into the kitchen. Our eyes immediately fixate on a block holding a set of knives. We reach out with its hand, grasp one of the larger knives and slowly slide it out of the block.

We looked lovingly at the knife for a moment, admiring how the light coming through the kitchen glinted off the blade and then pressed the sharp end of the blade against an outstretched arm and dug in. Blood rose from between the blade and the skin it had pierced. The pain was marvelous. Keeping pressure on the handle of the knife we slid the blade across the forearm. Blood poured onto the floor from the large slit.

We raised the blade toward the creation’s head, opened its mouth and drove the knife blade into its tongue, splitting it in two. The agony was orgasmic.

We then proceeded down the hall and into the creation’s bedroom. On the far side of the room was a double door closet, which we opened. Inside, in the far corner hidden behind some hanging jackets was a shotgun.

We picked the shotgun up and then reached up to the top shelf of the closet, where a box of shotgun shells was hidden behind hats. We removed one of the shells, loaded it into the magazine tube of the shotgun and pumped the forestock.

***

Its offspring and her babysitter arrived home thirty minutes later. We could hear the jingle of keys and the lock on the front door slid open. Mia and her babysitter walked into the darkened front entry and Mia stopped immediately when she saw the creation sitting on the couch in the living room.

“Daddy!” she cried happily and ran towards us with her arms outstretched. We couldn’t help but grin as we rose from the couch and lifted the shotgun.

Mia ground to a halt, the happiness in her eyes was replaced by a mix of terror and confusion.

“Daddy, what are you doing?”

We walked toward her without saying a word, shotgun tight in our hands. Mia began to step back while the babysitter stood paralyzed in fear.

“Daddy, you’re scaring me,” Mia cried.

We stop about five feet away from her and take in the terrified energy radiating from her small little body.

With a sadistic smile on our face and without saying a word we pointed the barrel of the shotgun at our face.

BANG.