Page 24 of Demonic Cage
Something is not right.
I open my eyes and catch sight of a dark-skinned woman above the tub. Red hair cascades down into the water. I push myself up, but the woman presses me back, sinking her sharp claws into my chest.
I run out of breath, panic floods me, and I desperately thrash around. My lungs fill with water. The woman leans down so her lips touch the surface.
“Think it over until we meet again,” she says, then lets go of me. I burst out of the water, coughing, and I fall out of the tub, arriving on all fours. I clutch my throat, retching, and search for the woman, but she’s gone.
Did I imagine her? No. I can’t keep telling myself that. I know I’m not imagining things anymore.
That woman was here, and she either wanted to kill me or warn me about something.What do you want? To remember or to forget?Who wouldn’t want to forget that they ruined their family? Who wouldn’t want to forget that their brother died? Or that demons, they had assumed were imaginary, kidnapped them?
I pull myself up and reach for my clothes, but they’re nowhere to be found. I spot a white, silky fabric on the bed. The room is mercilessly large, as if running from one end of an auditorium to the other. The dress on the bed is white. It drapes over me like a sleeveless waterfall when I put it on. The sandals underneath are light brown and simple, but feel sturdy enough to run in. I decide not to take them off, even in my dreams, in case I need to flee from something.
The eyes open now that I have the dress on. I shudder as the color of light chillingly changes to brown.
In the corner of the room, I spot a bookshelf. Are things like the monsters growing out of the ground here?
I’m not sure what I want. I can’t run away from here, and if I did, where would I go? Back to the psychiatric hospital? In the last few days that I have spent in this bed, I have decided that there is only one thing I can do: I have to get knowledge. As much as possible, to know what is happening around me. With that thought, I walk over to the mahogany-brown furniture.
The books are dusty and old. I run my finger over them, until I feel a tingle in my palm. It was a for a moment and likely I had just imagined it, but still, I take the sunshine-yellow volume. The letters are foreign, yet beautiful. It’s evident that every well-thought-out word was handwritten. The illustrations are breathtaking. I run my index finger along the rough page, hesitantly, as if the letters may wear off from my touch. I comeacross various drawings of monsters, depicted with such detail it is as if someone had encountered them. Most of them appear to be mythical beasts, with some taking on a human form, like Darya.
The black box drawn on the last page of the book captures my attention. The same tingling sensation as before runs under my finger, but it fades away so quickly I continue to think I might have imagined it. Held by a woman, gray smoke rises from the box. Various creatures take shape from the smoke, their forms hard to discern. Human-shaped beings with wings. The ink may have blurred over the years.
Initials align next to the drawing, and my heart skips a beat when I can make out a word:demon. Then another:box.
I stare with my mouth agape, feverishly trying to find the words.
If I can understand some of them, it means the effect of the medication is wearing off, and soon…
I hear a thud and drop the book from my hand. It lands on my foot with a loud bang. I hiss in pain. The wide iron door suddenly swings open, and I no longer struggle with the pain. Blinking more in disbelief than fear, I’m otherwise frozen.
I thought Darya was coming for me. Instead, the black-haired woman whom I saw in my dream, turns her porcelain face toward me.
It wasn’t a dream. It was real.
A light blue snake crawls on the woman’s head. It reveals the red eye on the hairband, and all of a sudden, my breath is cut off.
The room blurs, and the light from the eye blinds, as if an imaginary axe were splitting my consciousness. I open my mouth to scream, but I can’t. My brother comes to mind. I am angry with him. They believed him, not me. I hate my father. He never could handle the situation. I hate my mother. She wasnever there for me. I hate my sister. Better at everything than me. If only I could hit her, if only I could grab a knife and…
My breathing becomes jagged at the thought, and guilt lashes me like a whip. Trembling, I raise my palm to my eyes. Under my pale skin, veins become dark purple. I slowly turn my palm and witness my nail beds change into a blueberry hue. My legs don’t move. I stiffen like a statue.
The woman just stares and smiles. She lowers her head as if assessing her victim, her pupils dilating. In her red eye, I notice black veins, and her scent resembles the humid air of a reptile house. Maybe that’s why it’s hard for me to breathe near her.
The blue snake in her hair hisses, also directing its yellow gaze at me. This color… the lamps in the room are like this too. The woman turns her head left and then right while her lips part and she hisses in a deep voice. Instead of stepping, she slithers towards me. I can’t see what’s happening under her long black skirt. She might be floating above the ground. Slowly, deliberately, she approaches, as if guiding.
“Sylla!” a man’s voice thunders between me and the woman. The blue snake moves on her head, obscuring the view of the red eye.
I can breathe again. I turn my head. The orange-haired figure, who had stood in front of Nathan in the café, is in front of me.
“Leave our guest alive!” the man says, and the woman elongates her neck unnaturally. My eyes dart between the two figures as I massage my neck.
The man with orange hair waits, his eyes confidently resting on Sylla. She turns around and silently departs, her black dress trailing silver sparkles.
As she leaves the room, the man runs his eyes over me. He wears a black, tight-fitting outfit, with yellow spots here and there, like a circus ringmaster. A green cloak is fastened by abutton under his left shoulder. He looks hardly older than me. With his narrowed eyes, purple lips, and orange hair, he is dreadfully handsome.
Suddenly, I regret not having my dark purple lipstick on.
“It seems we can go now,” he announces, opening the iron door wider.
