The Demon Trap
by joshua kaplan, 2018
This one had been easy. The soft bag of vile fluids and persistent organic putrefaction, named Steven by the foul wellspring of it's creators, had been such a simple array of envy and pride and spite that the process of seeding and manipulation occurred as simply as rain finding a puddle.
"We won't end this one too soon." the entity thought, as it whispered it's soft coercions and corrosions into the thing named Steven's flaccid soul. "We can have the feeding on the misery it sows and nurtures, and make many more of us before the final feeding. Only then, when the Steven thing is too old and too rotting to be of any importance to others of it's kind, when no one will listen to the Steven thing's invocations of dark and selfish intent, will we consume its essence finally."
And It left the thing called Steven, as easily and seamlessly as it had entered, leaving the seeds and grafts of it's being woven throughout the landscape of the human's mind and soul. These pieces would grow and spread and replicate as does a viral parasite, to spread to other humans. So went It, on to it's next host, to spread toxic tendrils to pollute, torment and consume living souls.
The entity, which can only be described in human terms as 'demon', though the term itself and it's associations had little bearing on it's true nature, was by any standards very old. It had been one of the early manifestations of it's kind, which had no real name, as names had no relevance in it's world. Names are language, and language is human, and this creature was not human under any scrutiny. Were it to have a name, it might be called 'depression' or 'psychosis' or 'rage' or any of hundreds of the conditions, named and not yet named, it shaped within it's target host.
It was unchallenged in it's 'life' except for the rare instances of combinations of complexities that might occur in some humans. These it called 'Specials', those few whose pride and vanity had been scorched away by torrents of loss and failure and shame, yet persisted in holding on to the belief in love and kindness.
These few were fun. They offered moral and intellectual mazes to ponder and investigate, and some had taken decades to decipher and successfully navigate to finality. these rare cases could not be implanted, the entity had learned after millennia of trying. They simply refused to touch others with harm. They were poor hosts for feeding as they could only be coerced to suicide, but oh, the glory of that final feeding was always worth the time and effort. No amount of petty souls could match the taste of one of the Specials.
Upon leaving the thing Steven, the demon floated on the currents of the ether looking out over the landscape below for new prey. It spread it's site far in all directions looking for the pockets of dark emotional density that signified the best feeding. Violent and angry specks of blood red appeared to it across the haze of it's survey; all food, all waiting.
Choosing a particularly dense collection of scarlet blotches, probably a riot or a sporting event, it thought aimlessly, it descended without urgency. This was easy feeding. Large groups of already emotionally volatile humans presented the opportunity to quick seed host to host. no complexity or emotional contour to contend with, just naked anger to grease the tracks. Boring to a one as old as it was, but food was food.
Moving slowly downward the entity's attention was caught by a distantly familiar and elusive aroma. There was no mistaking it. This was not the simple visual prompt of discontent and disarray. This was the smell of something... Special.
The Demon followed the heady scent, that of loneliness and detachment, to a small courtyard rimmed by decaying fence and various constructs at various stages of weathering and ferrous decay; some for eating, some for sitting, others that such a being would not understand to qualify.
There the demon saw his target sitting in a blue chair, smoking a cigarette.
The demon cheerfully noted that this one was male. Males were much easier than their counterparts, it thought. Far easier to manipulate at every level.
The entity could inhabit any space, could choose any perspective, and was not visible to the human ocular mechanism, so it didn't at first notice that the human male was looking in it's direction. It only recognized it's own need for a conduit to enter the Special, and the courtyard was surrounded by green; chaotic vines of jasmine and ivy, overhanging heavy oak trees, wild violets and milkweed, and others. This was not a good place. Without emotional discord, such as elevated anger or sadness, which made entry a rote and thoughtless task, the conduit required a geometry of flat planes and hard angles, of which gardens provided few.
I will wait, it thought. The human will go inside and I will have it.
It was then that the demon changed it's perspective, moving to another section of the courtyard, and as it settled, so too did the gaze of the human, resting squarely on the demon's new location.
Impossible, the entity thought, noticing now that the human thing was again looking in it's direction; and though it knew there had not been, in all it's millennia of existence, a precedent of being visually assimilated, it decided to test the Special by moving again.
This time, the man's face didn't follow. He just sat quietly, drew long on the cigarette, and flicked the burning stub away with thumb and middle finger as he rose from the chair to go inside.
Had the demon been corporeal, and had it the equivalent of a human forehead, the discarded cigarette would have struck it squarely thus. But it was not a physical being, without fore, or any other portion of head, and had never been struck with any object, and so it failed to notice. It was simply relieved of the weight of discovering an unknown mechanic existing between the human world, and the demon's.
The entity, having already discarded it's moment of doubt, flowed behind it's fragrant target, unimpeded by the trivialities of material barriers, into the small home. There, the occupant of the cluttered hovel made his way up a small flight of stairs and sat on the edge of a low platform, piled high of laundry, papers, books, and other objects it had no inkling of. It seemed that it might also be used for sleeping.
The demon looked wider at it's surroundings for any array of planes and angles that might provide a way into the human target but could not find a single path. The room was 3 feet deep in material clutter, with not a single section of floor visible. Every wall was covered with mountings, shelving, pictures and musical things; every corner occupied by vertical standing dowels, lamps, and mechanical devices of various implementation.
The more it looked, the more maddening it became. Chaos itself created patterns to follow, decaying into order and again to chaos, but this was like nothing it had ever seen. To the human eye it might seem the disarray and lethargy of depression and the sickness of hoarding, but to the entity it was a house or mirrors; reflections refracting, buffering, and spiraling into an entropic fractal nightmare. If it wasn't careful, the demon might get lost in the surrounding madness should it try to channel into the human now, like a newsprint boat in a whirlpool.
The demon waited and focused on the disgusting human only, mesmerizing itself on the growing bouquet of sadness and loneliness wafting from the sitting form. All it needed was a single opening, a moment of rage or weakness, and it could transfer itself into the human male's consciousness and begin the ever long process of helping end this beast's sick existence at it's own hand. Then the demon could feast as it has not done in centuries.
The Demon didn't have to wait very long.
The human ape had used his hands on a thing and then a picture of a female human appeared, which preceded the room becoming awash with the thick perfume of loneliness and sweet sadness. The entity knew that it's chance would arrive at any moment now, and it was right.
The man's head drooped forward, his eyes squinting tightly shut, and then came that glorious, glistening first tear, saturated with the salt of melancholy. and It was in.
The Demon had dived headlong into the conduit of despair created by the man's weeping and had arrived cleanly and as ever, into this human soul, shedding any vestiges of doubt created by the odd visual anomaly in the courtyard, and the craziness of the human's nest.
This was It's favorite part, even better than the feeding; the first glimpse into a soul in despair. The demon could now see everything about this human, all the things that shaped this hopeless wretch. It saw the childhood abuses and torture, and rejoiced. It felt the vacuum of abandonment, the cold impaling of deceit, and it glorified. It tasted the tears and blood that flowed from the violent beatings, and it sang.
"And now I whisper to you human, let us dance..."
And The Demon started it's quiet song.
The Demon had many songs it had mastered; Songs of rage and hate to the angry, songs of envy and spite to the weak, songs of deceit and greed to the selfish, songs of fear and doubt to the timid; but a true Special could not be swayed with these. They might only be manipulated to hurt themselves, never others, and so the Demon sang it's Special song.
This was it's most artful and subtle music, of self-loathing and hopelessness, of despair and shame and defeat, that it had used all too sparingly over thousands of human lifetimes. This song of the Special, so beautiful, and terrible, and softly horrific, echoed loudly across the expanse of the man's spirit...
...and then it changed. The Demon hadn't stopped singing, or even altered it's voice, but the sound that returned to it was entirely different.
The entity removed it's focus from it's song to view the landscape again and saw that it didn't appear to be inside the human's mind anymore, or at least, no portion it had come to expect or recognize in it's memory.
The Demon was now, for the first time in it's long existence, standing, and was next to a small round table where sat four individuals, all apparently human, and all holding what the demon now recognized, using it's hosts own cognition, as Uno cards.
"What madness is this?" The Demon blurted out roughly to no one in particular, confused at using language for the first time and staring at his own human hands.
"Welcome to crazy town." One of the seated murmured, though which one was not evident.
"Over here." a deep voice rumbled.
The Demon turned to see a large man across the spacious room waving in it's direction. He was overflowing the periphery of a large, avocado green recliner, his bare, dirty feet draped across the elevated foot rest.
Moving across the room in the unpracticed manner of the newly motile, The Demon made his way over to the ponderously obese individual.
"New guy, huh?" The seated man said, peering intently at him with his deep set, hollow gray eyes. "I'm Bug. Kinda the welcoming committee here."
"I know you." The Demon replied, not knowing how it knew, but knowing anyway.
"Yeah, I'm an old one. Older than you, even. I was eating soul when you were just a hurtling collection of quarks." The fat man named Bug said, laughing like coarse gravel shaking in a canvas sack.
"What is this place?"
"This is what you might call a honey pot." Bug replied. "Look around. Maybe you'll recognize some other residents here at Chez Whacko."
"Honey pot? I don't understand..." The Demon hesitated, then saw within his host's mind what the fat man meant.
"A trap?" The entity exclaimed incredulously. "He drew us in intentionally? Is there no way out?"
"Yes, No, No." The large, ancient demon, now man named Bug, replied casually, rising easily from the recliner's embrace in complete opposition to the physical demands of his bulk.
"What do you mean?"
"Yes it's a trap, but no, dude didn't set it intentionally. It's just how he's wired, I guess. And no, there's no way out. I, and every other of our folk here have tried every trick and coercion, every delusion and hallucination imaginable and he doesn't budge. Not an inch."
Bug waddled spryly to the round table where still sat the four occupants, still playing Uno, with the demon following, shaking it's head in disbelief.
"Hey look..." Bug said, pulling two chairs from an adjacent table to sit on. "The food here is great. All the sad and mad and lonely you can eat, and there's cable TV, and ping pong, and even a basketball court. Got Nintendo too. Might as well get used to it."
"This is madness." The demon restated angrily.
"Nah, this is Uno. An' trust me, you're gonna get really, really good at this game."
end
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