"How it started? I have no idea," Damon muttered as he was beating his former body to a pulp.
He was hunched over himself—his younger self—driving his fists into the face below him over and over again. With each strike, blood sprayed across the white rugband splattered onto his own face. But he couldn't stop. There was no other way. He couldn't lose them again and be helpless.
The thought alone—of everything he had already gone to wrong in this moment, of the chance that he'd still lose them—was enough to drive him mad. Enough to justify murder. Enough to make him do anything. It was either him… or, well—him.
Esther, his demon watcher, sat on the bed, watching the carnage unfold with a blank expression. She shifted slightly, just enough to avoid the blood creeping toward her feet.
Still lost in his frenzy, Damon didn't notice his own hands had been torn open—shredded by the shifting teeth of the face he was demolishing. Blood, his own and the other's, soaked his knuckles, his sleeves, everything.
Eventually, something pulled him back—like a hook catching his breath. He staggered off the body and collapsed against the wall, chest heaving, soaked in sweat.
He ran a shaking hand through his hair.
Only then did it register: from his flannel to his skin, from his fingers to his scalp, he was drenched in blood. His stomach twisted, something vile crawling up his throat. He tried to fight it down… but failed.
He vomited—right onto the already mangled corpse.
Esther watched. For a moment, it seemed the sight might bother her. Her horns slowly pushed through the skin of her skull, her eyes glowing a deep red. Dark, lucid scales spread around her temples. Claws glinted in the low light. Then, suddenly, she grinned and rolled on the bed with a giddy thrill.
Esther rolled onto her back, kicking her legs in the air like a schoolgirl. "Ooooh, you've finally decided to grow balls today! Is it because you watched them die right in front of you or because you did it yourself this time. A rat has no choice but to scheme. She traced a finger along the edge of his parents' desk, leaving a thin trail of dirt and dust. What's the plan now?
She jumped to her feet and began bouncing on the mattress like a child, laughing softly to herself.
After all, she was still a demon at heart, pure demented evil.
Damon, slumped against the wall, stared blankly at the horror before him. His eyes refused to blink, fixed on the ceiling fan spinning over and over. Only one thought echoed in his mind:
"How did it get this bad?"
And then—he remembered.
It all started when he decided to go to school again.
Damon woke up late, as always. He'd played online games all night and had no idea what he was going to do that day. He had school, but he was a senior with no plans for college. What was the point?
At eighteen, he lived with his neighbor, Mrs. Davis—an old lady who'd taken him in after his parents died in a car crash. They'd been only children, and so was he, so there was no one else to take him in.
He rolled out of his cramped bed which sat above the washing machine and always threatened to dump him onto the floor and shuffled toward the kitchen to make breakfast for Mrs. Davis. But just before he got there, his phone rang.
He pulled it from his pocket. Caleb.
The moment Damon held the phone to his ear, Caleb screamed at him to get to school "now!". Damon knew Caleb wouldn't call over something trivial.
He rushed into the bathroom, showered, brushed his teeth, and bolted out so fast he forgot to dry his hair or even comb it. Grabbing his bike from the driveway, he pedaled furiously toward the school.
***
Just as he spotted Caleb outside the gates, a car came out of nowhere and slammed into him. Damon skidded across the windshield, rolled off, and hit the pavement.
The driver and passenger jumped out to check on him.
And that was the first time he saw "her".
Isabella.
The one everything was for.
As she and her friend Lucy helped him up, their hands fluttered over his injuries—the scratches raking his arms, the blood seeping from his scalp, hidden beneath sopping hair. Damon barely noticed. He couldn't stop staring at Isabella.
She frowned at the blood trail dripping down his forehead. "Are you okay?" With an urgent sense of worry in her voice
The words slipped past him like wind. Maybe he was concussed. Maybe he was already gone. Or maybe it was the fact that he could already picture turning old with her.
"Are you hurt anywhere else?" Lucy pressed.
Nothing.
It was Caleb's arrival that finally snapped him back—his friend shaking him hard enough to rattle teeth. "Damon! What the fuck?"
Damon blinked. His first words: "I'm so sorry. I didn't see you there."
A beat of silence. The girls exchanged glances. The victim was apologizing?
Isabella bit her lip. "We should take you to the hospital—"
"No." Damon wiped blood from his brow with a shaky and psychotic grin. "I'm fine."
And Isabella tried to press on but they weren't budging
They left him on the sidewalk, Lucy steering a hesitant Isabella into the car. Caleb's glare burned into their retreating taillights.
Who knew she would be dated to die in two years eight months six days and nine hours, will that would depend on Damon.
"What's wrong with you?" Caleb whirled on him. "You just got hit by a fucking car! You're bleeding! And all you can do is—"
Damon watched the car vanish around the corner. "She's going to be my wife someday." He turned, bloody and beat to hell, and grinned. "Mark my words."
What the hell was wrong with him?
Caleb dragged Damon toward the nurse's office, his friend's words rattling in his skull. That delusional "she's going to be my wife" bullshit had nothing to do with the accident—just Damon's cracked-brain fantasy leaking out. Again.
The nurse's office was always overcrowded. A scribbled note from her meant freedom from class, so the desperate ones clustered outside like flies on shit. Seniors fell into three camps:
1. The Theres – Dragged themselves to school praying college would save them.
2. The Whatevers – Stoners, bullies, future gas station attendants who stopped giving a shit sophomore year.
3. The Jobbers – Like Damon. Kids who clocked out mentally the day they realized the mall would always be there, waiting with open arms and a shitty hourly wage.
The nurse took one look at Damon's bleeding scalp and cleared the room with a single glare, she lived for an actual serious injury.
Damon barely noticing anything, his head still in the clouds.
Isabella's face burned behind his eyelids—the way her brown hair caught the sunlight, those stupid chubby cheeks that made her look perpetually on the verge of laughing, the storm-gray eyes that saw right through him.
Caleb watched his friend's dazed grin and wanted to shake him. Or maybe slam his head into the wall again.
The nurse finished stitching his scalp and pressed a lollipop into his palm like he was still a child. Damon barely registered it - his mind still replaying the way Isabella's hands had felt on his shoulders when she helped him up.
They were halfway down the hallway before Damon snapped out of his daze. "Wait. Why the hell did you drag me here again?"
"Math test," Caleb said, not breaking stride.
Damon grabbed his arm. "You called me here - while I was literally bleeding from my skull - for a fucking test?"
Caleb finally turned, his eyes hard. "Because you're my friend. You might be content being a jobber your whole life, but I'm not. And if I have to drag your ass through senior year, I will."
The bell rang. Damon wanted to argue, but the stubborn set of Caleb's jaw told him it was pointless. Fine. He'd take the damn test and fail gloriously - the least he could do for his best friend.
As usual, Damon shuffled into class last. As usual, Caleb had saved him the seat beside his. What other friend would put up with his shit?
Mr. Adams did a theatrical double-take when Damon entered. "Well well, do we have a new student today?"
"Missed you too, Adams," Damon shot back without missing a beat. Their mutual hatred was the most honest relationship he had with any teacher.
Just before passing out the tests, Adams smirked. "Class, we have a special treat today. A new student joining us." He opened the door.
Isabella stepped in.
Damon's heart slammed against his ribs so hard he was sure the whole class could hear it.