The Devouring

by Eliza Rose Winters

A slightly scary story that's kind of related to the movie The Ward. This story is about Lillian who finds herself unjustly put in an insane asylum but later turns out crazy...but not for reasons you would think.

The Devouring

by Kensey McCuller and Destinee Owens

Be sober, be watchful: your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour,

1 Peter 5:8

I can taste the fresh air in my lungs now, feel the rays of sun hit my skin. In just two days, and three hours, freedom will be mine. I just wish I could bring Elise with me, she deserves a chance outside of this place, deserves to see her beautiful babies. They are toddlers by now, in need of a mother. Having the others stay here would be understandable, they need the stability and somebody to take care of them. My hopes are that the cruelty put before them ends, that the suffering we have all gone through comes to a stop.

Even the most sane person could be turned insane here at Deserot's Home for Feeble Minded Young Ladies. They say that what they do to us is for own good. They promised it would help, but all it has ever done was cause more problems. It was only by pure grace that I held onto my own sanity, with my friends needing someone to guide them, I had no other choice but to cling to it for dear life. I didn't belong here like the others in the first place. I was brought in because of the sins my father committed. The belief of bad blood had spread throughout America and because of this I had been put under suspicion of having the same urges to do the crimes my father had done. They even believed I would pass on my bad blood to future children, so they took care of things. They insured my genetics would come to an end. All it took to do so was a rusty pair of scissors and shoe-tying skills.

The infection afterwards almost killed me. I was only thirteen when they went about with the procedure. It took three years after my arrival before they believed it was safe enough to perform, but I was still just a child. I still had years before I finished maturing, but that didn't stop them from their harsh ways. Here I am now, breathing and alive, with my crazy little friends that pretty much belong to me. I bet you're wondering about my companions. Let me take you on a journey today, inside the home we grew up in.

It started in 1921, a year after my father had left us. While he was out on his mad adventure he managed to murder two-hundred and three innocents along with burning down eight churches. That was how it came to be assumed that I possessed the bad blood of one of the most vicious murderers of our time. My father's crimes have been too awful to risk letting me out in public, so I was sent here. The true Dante's inferno. With the nurses being paid off to keep me locked up, I had no hope that my mother would come to rescue me. She believes the same thing as everyone else, that I was just as sadistic as my father, that I inherited his blood, and that she could not risk her reputation as one of the most elegant women in the state of New York. Within the first hour at Deserot's home, I met a girl called Selena. Selena was twelve when we first were introduced. We were in the same group of children to be brought into Deserot's home in the particular year of 1921. Selena McCathy was gaunt. She had a stringy mess of ebony hair, untamed eyes, and skin so emaciated it was almost yellowing in the light. There was no doubt in my mind that I wasn't meant for the place I am at. I was Lillian Abrams. I had curled blonde hair and wore scented perfume. My clothes weren't creased or wrinkled. They weren't even old or tattered. My blue eyes sparkled with life. Selena and I shared a room on the second floor. On that first night we swapped stories.

"Why are you here?" We had both asked each other. My answer was a simple I don't know. Selena however, was easily classified as certifiably insane.

"They brought me here because I gave Tessa new eyes to see in the dark with." Selena had told me.

"Who's Tessa?" I asked Selena.

"Tessa is my dolly. Mommy gave her to me for my birthday last year, but her button eyes fell off a month ago. I'll show you her. She's in here somewhere," Selena told me before she opened the one bag she was allowed to bring from home. She rummaged through the worn out duffel bag and was somehow able to cover our whole floor with clutter before she found the doll. Selena pulled out a very tattered looking doll with ravens hair and a scrap of old cloth for a dress. The most repulsive part of the doll were the eyes Selena had sewn on. They bulged at the seams of the old doll. They sagged and drooped down, and left liquid tears stained on the doll's face. The squishy eyes were clouded over, the golden rays had fallen away, like the sun being overshadowed by a dark cloud, leaving them staring off into nothing.

"What is that!" I had exclaimed

"Oh those were Sophia's eyes. She was my kitty. Sofia scratched me so I decided she didn't need her eyes anymore. Tessa needed them so much more, plus it would be so nice for Tessa to be able to see better in the dark. Then she could save me from the man in the shadows."

"What happened to Sophia?" I asked her, wondering whether I should be curious or disturbed.

"She died" Selena said bluntly.

"What did your mom do?"

"She was really upset for some reason. Mommy told me to go outside and stay put while she made a phone call. Then a nice plump lady came and asked me questions. I told her how I took Sophia outside and buried her. The lady said she was going to help me, but I don't know why. That's why she brought me here." I realized I shouldn't be frightened of Selena, she was just confused and needed some help.

A few months later I witnessed the beginnings of what my life would be like from then on. They started distributing an assortment of colored pills to us all. One tiny cup before bed and one more when we woke up. Lights out was strictly at ten, unless you wanted to deal with a frightening punishment. Usually girls our age, even us crazy ones, wanted to stay up later, but it was impossible with Miss Deserot in her lengthy black dress walking down the halls, making sure we behaved and did what was expected of us. Miss Deserot was one of the most vicious women you could ever meet, and it was no wonder she came up with a torture house like The Home as my friends and I later referred to it as.

The first punishment I ever had recieved was solitary confinement. I got thrown into a compact room with pitch black walls that had no furniture inside of it. I rested my head against the cold concrete floor for three entire days, which as a little girl, felt like an eternity. The punishment seemed entirely unfair, for I was only tucking Selena into her bed with her dolly two minutes after bedtime, but to Miss Deserot, even being up two seconds after bedtime was enough for punishment.

The punishment I received was less severe than what some of the others had. For instance, a girl who once came had been an artist, but of the unconventional sort. She painted demons and murder, but a week after she arrived they took her into a back room, and what had once been keen eyes for detail were no more than dead pupils staring into a dark abyss. When asked what had happened she said she wasn't exactly sure, all she really remembered was being strapped down to a bed with a doctor standing over her, two needles in his hands.

As a Catholic home, we often received visits from the priests, had to listen to them condemn us for the sins we committed that had put us in the Home, and in some cases, see the exorcisms performed on those believed to have demons stored up inside of them. If found that the demons were still there inside of them, then those girls would also be taken to the back rooms. As a young girl I didn't know how exactly they got the demons out in that mysterious back room, but I know the answer now. Lobotomy. It's quite a disturbing procedure, severing connections inside of a person's brain, trying to fix them. Sometimes it would work, and you would see a person be cured of whatever was haunting them. Then other times you would see a girl come out to be a complete vegetable, like this one girl, she came out unable to speak, just staring off into the distance, lost in whatever the procedure left inside of her brain. In the worst cases you would never see the girl who went back again.

A year after Selena and I started off our lives here, when I was eleven and she was thirteen, I lost her, and was left on my own. The day she left for the back room was one of the worst days of my life, it left me completely alone and desolated, void of comfort.

Selena's doll had completely rotten eyes, smelly and shriveled, a completely repulsive sight. The nurses had demanded she hand it over, to be thrown into the garbage, but she refused, and clinged to the doll for dear life. No matter how hard the nurses pulled at the doll, Selena would not let go of her doll. Miss Deserot decided that this called for extensive measures. She was sentenced to a session of electroshock therapy, so that they could zap the disobedient bug right out of her. I guess that the bug was buried deep inside, because the amount of zapping that proceeded ended up killing her, and she, like other girls, never came back from the back room. On that day, I decided to rid myself of personality, I would force myself into obedience in every situation, vowing never to be forced into that back room.

I went without a real friend for four years, went alone with my own thoughts until Elise showed up. She moved into Selena's bed that was right next to mine, and just like that first night I arrived, we swapped stories of our pasts, what led us to where we were at that moment.

"My father was never really around you know, he was always working, trying to make a living for me and my momma. I understand why he was never home, but understanding didn't fill that hole deep in my stomach. I craved his attention, but he was unable to provide it. I had to find other ways to get attention, and those ways mainly included other guys. When I was thirteen finding that attention meant finding out that I was pregnant, I had my first son by the end of that year, his name is Landon Tanner, he took my maiden name. My parents were mortified, naturally, but they decided not to do anything, I got to keep him too. When things got hard with taking care of him, I went searching for the same attention. My second boy, Michael provided my parents a reason to send me here, while they raise my two sons. On my paperwork they claimed that I have been overtaken by Asmodeus, the demon of lust. But I think they are just full of it, and didn't have enough money to afford three children."

We spent all of our time together, both of us were normal, depending on your definition of the word. Elise made some of the darkness in the place light up, and I suddenly gained a best friend. We had each other's backs, and as we watched every other crazy girl slip away from reality, we held a firm grip on it. Elise had therapy of the talking sort three times a week, but thankfully, she avoided the back room with me for the longest time, until she made the mistake of honesty. They say that the truth sets you free, but that didn't apply to Elise's situation. She had opened up to her therapist, admitted to still having the urges for affection. At that point, they decided to go further than just talking. From then on, at every session, Elise had been forced to the ground, while a man would do whatever they pleased to her, forcing her into anything they had wanted. At the end of the session, the man would dress himself, pay the therapist and be on his way. This left Elise distressed and horrified, and every night she would come to me, crying about the torture she had to be put through. Her therapist assured her this would bring her to despise ever wanting affection, but Elise said he was just selling her off to get extra cash. For the first time since the death of Selena, I had felt emotion stir up within me. A boiling rage had forced it's way into my veins, and I had wanted revenge, with no way to get it without being sent to the back room.

I became a mother after those meetings began, more so than Elise ever was to her own children. I comforted the poor girl every night, gave her a sense of purpose to not give up. This set the motion forward for when I would become a mother-like figure to more patients than just Elise here at the Home. To two girls that came this year, just eight months before my scheduled release date that had been determined at the end of the previous year.

Esther and Cora Annalise had belonged to the Home, had authentic reason for being placed with us. But no matter how sad and messed up they were, they didn't deserve the forms of torture that Miss Deserot's had brought them. I tried to help them, but I was just a young girl myself, and I'm still a young girl. I hate to leave them soon, but I deserve this freedom, I have been waiting for it since I arrived here when I was ten years old.

Rumors had it that Esther Parker drowned her brother in the bathtub. She claimed it was just an accident, but police reports and her own parents told a different story. Esther created mysteries inside of her mind, dark and deep. She would kill a bug or a small mouse, and make her brother become a detective to figure out why and how she had done it. People say she must've gotten bored with such a small game, so she decided to move it to a bigger scale, with a human and real detectives. When she arrived she sat in a chair in the corner of the main living room, humming and scheming to herself. Nobody could stop the slow hums that she had breathed out ever since the death of her brother. It took me a week to finally approach her, and once I did all it took was a simple "hello" to get a stream of jagged sobs to flow out from her body. From that time on Esther became attached to my hip. While the humming never had ceased, she had become more and more talkative to me within each day, and I found myself to be her comfort, especially when they took her into the back room for her drilling. The demons were believed to be stored up inside of her, and this was how they planned to let them escape. The little holes became a way to the outside, and the only damage was a little blood leakage, and of course you could argue appearance, but who did she need to impress locked inside a girls mental institution?

Cora Annalise was in a way, like me. She had been born into an upper class family who hadn't been willing to give their daughter the attention that was needed. From what she told me when I found her crying in an old storage closet, her father had been the most important person in her life, and had been taken away two years ago. She never fully recovered. The night he died she was thrown into a depression. What started out with tears turned to little cuts, and later became the need to be with her father once again. Thats what brought her here. She cut either a little too deep or just made one too many lines on her beautifully crafted porcelain skin, and was caught. The disgrace got her kicked out of her real family, and got her placed with my little family of friends. We aren't connected with blood, but with loyalty and love.

We sat together on the night of Valentine's Day, comforting each other about our pasts and the traumatizing new way of life that we now faced. Elise had been angry.

"Maybe we should just change our names. You know? I'm not Elise anymore. This place changed that girl a long time ago. From now on call me Ellie, it's the current me, the me that belongs here, not because I came here crazy, but because this place made me crazy. You all should get new names too."

Cora Annalise decided to shorten her name to just Cora. Esther had trouble choosing for herself, so Ellie decided that she should be titled Ezzie. As for me the name came in an obvious union.

"Lily! It's perfect!"

Fate must have heard our conversation that night, because the next morning the new found Cora was sent to the back to release her old nightmares. Her father had died in an awful sea accident. While he went out fishing with his buddies, he leaned over the yacht just a little too far, cascading him into the Atlantic, and before any of the men with him had risked their expensive clothing articles to go save him, the current rushed him under, out of sight. In all his life he never found the importance of learning how to swim. I bet he wanted to rethink that decision as he took his last lungfuls of that bitter salty water.

Anyways, after she had heard the news of her father's drowning, Cora became immensely afraid of anything relating to water. Her mother couldn't even bring her to wash herself off for a month. The fear has lessened, but even to this day she still shivers at the thought of it, and the therapies only made it worse. It started with something simple, locking her inside of a freezer for a couple of hours, letting her get a feel for solid water, and also a case of hypothermia. Next came the waterboarding. Waterboarding was where our kind therapists would lay a thin piece of cloth over a girl's face, strap her down, and then pour water onto the cloth. This caused the sensation of drowning. They would do this for hours until Cora was too numb to do anything more than a few muffled moans and pitiful tears. We thought the worst of it was over but the Home managed to prove us wrong once again. After Cora became unaffected by the treatment, the therapists decided that her therapy needed to be upped into the next level. Now they used entirely filled bathtubs of water, sometimes so freezing it left Cora shaking for hours, other times so hot that the burns could stay on her skin for weeks. Not only were the temperatures bad but they would now submerge her underneath the water until she was actually drowning. This did nothing to save her from her fear of water, and if anything it increased it. She told me it was so terrible that she wished she had the utilities to finish herself off so that she wouldn't have to continue with this torture. Once she became so desperate to where she stole a butter knife and tried to sneak it into her room. Miss Deserot found out in the end though. Her therapist then decided it was best to use a new form of electroshock to cure her. After what happened to Selena I could hardly stand to bear it, but I knew I couldn't protest. I thought how we were only teenagers. I, myself, had just turned nineteen, and yet here were my friends, Ellie only eighteen, Cora being fifteen, and sweet sweet Ezzie as a blossoming thirteen year old who were going through things that shouldn't even being considered punishment, let alone treatment. It was an abomination. I couldn't bear to watch as they took Cora away to be cured. She, surprisingly unlike Selena, came back. She was shaky and afraid when she walked into the dining room three days later, but she did come back. She told me how they still plunged her into extreme water temperatures in the bathtub, but now when she went under they would put electrodes in the water. Every part of her body that went into the water would be zapped, even places such as inside her ears and under her fingernails.

Water ruined her life, no doubt. First it had killed her father, and now it had killed her. She was still breathing, sure, but her soul had been washed down the drain, and was now making it's way through the gutter. When people first arrive at Miss Deserot's they may be insane, yes, but they are insane with a soul. To me, that's so much better than being normal with no feeling. However, my opinion has never mattered to Miss Deserot or the therapists, because I'm just a crazy girl myself according to them, or at least I was.

You have now heard the story of my life in the Home, and now as I'm almost touching my newfound freedom, you will get to experience life on the outside with me. Come along with me readers, we are bound to have a mystically haunted time.

The group hug was choking me up, as my girls and I hugged each other tight for the last time. I could no longer be there to support them, and that thought alone was enough to make me want to stay, but I needed this chance to have a life. Call me a selfish brat, but until you've walked in these hospital shoes, you couldn't even begin to understand.

"Lily, I wish you didn't have to go! I- I will miss you so so soooo much!" Ezzie whimpered.

"You will always be my best friend, even if I don't get to see you for another ten years, but you will visit before then, right?" Ellie said.

"Absolutely, I will visit by Christmas, I promise. Maybe they'll even let me bring you guys presents." I replied.

"I haven't gotten a present in so long, I bet it will almost feel like I am back home looking through my stocking." Cora imagined.

With one last squeeze, I picked up my bag and went toward the door. Shaking hands with Miss Deserot, who offered me an eerie awkward smile, I opened the door and took my first breath of crisp October air in ten years. The exhilaration that coursed through my body was enough to send me back into the Home. I started to skip down the sidewalk to get to the gate that had held me into this place. With one single push I was finally free of the Home. The feeling was amazing. I laughed into the wind. The red, orange, and brown colored leaves no longer represented death but a beautiful picture as I walked towards my future. For just a split second I felt like a little girl again, walking to my car on a calm autumn day. I was older now though and this time my mother wasn't waiting for me in the car. When I opened the door I saw Edward, Our maid's son who had only been a few years older than I and had been my childhood playmate.

"Eddie?" I questioned.

"Hey Lil, how was it?"

"How was what?"

"Oh you know, just being insane and all," I pretended to be wounded. Eddie was the only person who ever believed I was normal so I knew he was just messing around with me. Eddie laughed.

"Come on Lil, we have to take you back to your home. It was supposed to be a surprise, but I think your mother has a party planned, even invited some of Manhattan's finest bachelors, she's pretty eager on starting you in with normal life again, and I guess that includes a fiance."

"Leave it to my mother to do that. She can't give me twenty-four hours to settle in, but already wants to pawn me off to some spoiled boy. Hey you know what would be funny?"

"What fabulous idea do you have now Lillian, man have I missed those since you've been gone."

"Actually, it's just Lily now, I kinda went through a name change in the Home, but anyways, we should walk in hand in hand, and I will kiss you right in front of her! Just imagine the look on her face now! It'll be great Eddie!"

"That place really has screwed with your noggin hasn't it 'Lily.' You are looking to give your mother a heart attack. If she saw you with me, she'd put you right back where you just left. I am the son of a maid Lil, not of a lawyer or doctor. Besides, I haven't even had my first kiss yet, I don't want to waste it on some practical joke."

"Eddie she can't put me back, that's the beauty of it! I am over eighteen, an adult, free to make my own choices, and Eddie, you think my virgin lips have kissed anything in that place? I can tell by the way you blushed when I mentioned it that you are dying to kiss me, and trust me, I've been wanting to kiss you since I was a little girl, when we used to play together."

"So does that mean you've always had a crush on me?"

"Nah Eddie, it just means that I always wanted my first kiss to be with somebody I trusted and cared about, instead of some jerk. Please Eddie! Do it for me?" I begged flashing my adorable puppy dog eyes, and then topped it off with the pout lip, who could say no to that?

"Fine Lil, but you're taking the lead on this one, I am not catching the blame from your mother."

Walking through the doors to my old home offered me a memory that I would treasure forever. The stereotypical beginning of a first kiss was a stomach full of butterflies and awkwardly finding a place to where your lips belonged. My stomach wasn't filled with anything but longing, a longing that should have been fulfilled years ago. The awkward aspect never came into existence. I was waiting for it, but as soon as the first person started to walk up to me, I took on to his shoulders with force, and things just fell into place. I figured the desire that was pitted into my stomach would have dissipated once our lips parted, but it just grew to a whole different level.

Eddie's prediction was correct however, in the middle of our long-lasting glory, my mother let out an exasperated gasp, making sure that she showed a strict disapproval to all in attendance.

"Lillian Abrams just what do you think you are doing? You just got back dear, I threw a huge ball for you and you repay me with this embarrassment? Forget the fact that a lady doesn't display that type of affection in public, but a lady of your class certainly doesn't display affection of any sorts to his type! I knew when you were little I shouldn't have let you play with him. He's a dirty little servant's boy, but I convinced myself we had taught you better. Obviously sending you to that place made you lose all sense of morals."

"Mother do you even hear yourself speaking right now? I always knew you were a snobby prude but you have no reason to say anything like that. You never even taught me morals, you just taught me how to be a self-centered brat, to have no feeling for anybody unless it benefited you! Mother I hope you are proud of yourself. You awful piece of shit! I am so glad you abandoned me to that place, because even though I lived a nightmare there, I escaped the torture of living with a monster like you."

I hadn't meant to be so cruel. most definitely hadn't wanted to lose my other parent on the day of my arrival home. But sometimes fate works things out in ways you can't possibly understand. Sometimes emotions push things further than the way they were supposed to go, and that is exactly what happened.

At the end of my rant, my mother faltered to the floor. Panic rushed about the room, unsure of what had happened. But of course, you know what happened, Eddie predicted it earlier. A heart attack of course. Of all things it was a heart attack that took her. She passed on the way to the hospital, unwilling to make any fight. Ladies don't fight battles of any sort, that's to strictly be left up to the men. Mother fought for her beliefs of etiquette until she took her last breath.

With her gone I was left in the house on my own. Mother's housewife friends offered me a place to stay, offered up their personal hired caretakers to provide for me, but I denied all offers. I waited for years to come back, and I wasn't about to let the opportunity to sleep in my old bed slip from my hands.

"Eddie, I have been home for four nights now and still can't get more than half an hour of sleep each night, even with taking a double dosage of sleeping pills, I am still up counting sheep at 5 a.m. I need your help, I can't keep going on like this, my body feels absolutely dead, but my mind feels so alive. It's the weirdest thing really, I never even had trouble sleeping back at the Home."

"Maybe you're just shocked that you lost your mom, Lily, I'm sure it's nothing. Or maybe you are just freaked out being all by yourself, I mean after years of being watched, being alone must have you pretty weirded out, I'm sure you'll get used to it though."

"But I cannot handle this until I get used to it. Eddie, can you come over and keep me company? Maybe all I really need is some human contact to help me sleep a little."

"Ya I can do that Lil, I mean, what are friends for?"

Eddie came within twenty minutes, hot chocolate in one hand and a teddy bear in the other. He had his mother's key to my house, so he met me right in my bedroom.

"I figured these might help you with your insomnia. Where are your extra pillows and blankets? I can make myself a bed on the floor, that way I'll be right by your bed when you have trouble sleeping."

"Oh Eddie, there's no reason in getting back pains sleeping on the ground! We're best friends, I don't mind if you sleep on the other side of my bed. Besides, it's a queen size, there is plenty of room."

"Lil, I love you, you know that, but I can't put you in that position. Maybe if things were different and I knew I could provide for you like you deserve we'd have a chance, but things aren't like that and you deserve better than me. I'll be in the other room." Before I could stop Eddie he walked out without even grabbing a single pillow or blanket.

I climbed into bed thinking about what had just happened. Why was I acting like this? I had no qualms just like the girls at the Home. I was being reckless and disgraceful yet I couldn't stop. It killed me thinking about Eddie. Why couldn't we be an accepted match? God knows I love him, I think maybe I always have. Acting like these things I tried to trick him into doing didn't mean anything was wrong of me. I'd just have to pull back. For the first time since I got home I finally fell asleep.

I walked down the hall that led into the kitchen. Fresh bacon and eggs wafted through the air. Eddie turned around.

"Hey Lil, I made us all breakfast."

"How sweet," I replied. I walked towards him and kissed him like I always wanted to. It was fast and rough and I slipped my hands into his sandy golden hair. I tugged at his hair as he took the lead and kissed me with just as much force. The breakfast was burned and forgotten. I looked into his eyes and saw my passion reciprocated back. He pushed me against the wall and I moaned as he moved his lips to my my ear and slowly began to nibble at it. Then he moved down to my neck and I swear my heart could've given out at that exact moment. A strange sensation vibrated throughout my body and I knew that this is what it was like to love someone so much that you would rather die than live without them.

"I love you," I told Eddie.

"I lo-,"

"What in the world are you doing Lillian?!" My mother shouted. I practically leapt out of my skin before I managed to untangle myself from Eddie

"M-Mom?" I stuttered. "No you're dead! You're not real!"

"Oh Sweetie," she replied,

"Do you honestly believe this thing you have with Eddie is real? You will never and I mean never have him. Loving you will cause his death just like it has mine." I stood there too filled with disbelief to even consider forming words. I Finally managed to make my thoughts form sentences.

"No Mom you are wrong! He doesn't have to be how you want him to be for us to be together," I half screamed half begged. She looked at me with a stonewalled expression.

"Look how Daddy turned out, I guess you don't know what qualities make a good man to begin with," I pointed out nastily.

"Oh Lillian." She whispered. And then she started to cry tears of scarlet. They dripped down onto the kitchen tiles and stained her clothes. The blood trickled from her nose and ears. I screamed. What was happening?

I woke up screaming, drenched in sweat. Eddie ran in, busting the door back.

"What's wrong Lil?" He asked looking around the room as if some stranger was lurking in the shadows.

"It was awful!" I sobbed. "There was blood everywhere and m-m-my mom w-was alive, but then sh-she just-," The rest was overtaken by my sobs.

"Shhh," Eddie held me in his arms. "Everything will be okay, okay Lil?" I nodded into his chest trying to be okay like he said everything would be.

It was December now, close to the New Year, and the nightmares had continued for nearly two months and were almost always along the same theme. They always started out with me confessing my love to Eddie in some form and then just before he would say he loved me back someone like my father or mother would interrupt and tear us apart or one of us would suffer a peculiar death. It had gotten so bad that Eddie didn't even leave me alone for a second, much to my pleasure, though I wouldn't admit that to him.

Christmas had gone and went by and I had completely forgotten about my friends in the home. My life was completely consumed by Eddie. It helped that he was finally accepting that I wouldn't settle for anyone else but him. We danced, went out, and spent hours talking just like any other ordinary couple, it was magical, although we hadn't kissed since the day I arrived back home. For christmas Eddie took me out on a ride through Central Park and then we had dinner by candle light in a little faux French cafe.

I never could've imagined that life out of the Home would be like this. Now it left a bitter taste in my mouth when I thought about what I had missed out on those nine years I had spent locked up. Until now I had always believed being in the Home was some sort of crazy blessing, that the girls in there had needed me, but now all I saw was nine years of wasted time and torture. The love I had felt for those girls had even began to fade into disgust. I looked at Eddie across the room as we waited for it to strike midnight. It was two minutes until the new year and I was ecstatic. This time our kiss wouldn't be something to get underneath my mother's skin, this time it would be real. Well, at least that's what I was hoping. Eddie walked over to where I was standing by the old grandfather clock.

"Ten, nine, eight, seven," He moved closer to me and I felt the butterflies flutter in response to the pure joy. "six, five, four," He put his hand on the wall behind me and leaned in closer. "three, two,-"

"One" I smiled up at him, an unspoken challenge. He looked me over and took in the situation. Then he did something completely unexpected, he turned and walked away. I looked at him, the shock and disappointment evident in my face. He laughed and in one quick move he was back and had pushed his lips against mine as we began to kiss, for real this time. My breath caught. This wasn't the boy I had had food fights with, this was a grown man that I loved with all my heart. I pulled back and smiled at him.

"Eddie, I'm parched. Could you get me a glass of water?"

"How about wine? It seems silly to waste the new bottle we just bought."

"Okay, but don't be too long." I kissed Eddie softly once more before he left the room.

I sat down and thought about how perfect things were. The future I wanted flashed through my mind. Too soon I was interrupted.

"I've got you a drink" My father's voice said through my day dream. I looked up startled, thinking I was hearing things, but there he stood holding a glass of bubbly red wine.

"This is utterly impossible," I pinched my arm thinking this had just been another nightmare but nothing happened. "You're dead." He started to laugh at me.

"Please Lil I haven't been away for that long."

"Don't you dare call me Lil! You are a monster, and I will never be your little girl again!" I screamed at him, my heart racing.

"Lil- er- Lillian, what on earth are you talking about?" My father asked

"I'm not a monster Lillian, I love you." He said as he slowly walked closer to where I was standing.

"No you don't!" I screeched. "If you loved me you would never have done those awful things, you wouldn't have hurt those people! Just looking at you makes me sick."

"Come on now, you don't mean that, I don't think you're feeling well." By then I had trapped myself up against the wall and had no where to go. He set the glass on the piano beside me. "Let me prove my love to you," He whispered as my father leaned down to kiss me.

"You sick bastard!" I called for Eddie and ducked out to my left.

"Lillian you're not thinking straight!" My dad said from right behind me. He tackled me to the ground and while trying to loosen myself from his grip, I clawed at his face with my nails, and he yelled and did exactly what I needed him to so that I could reach the letter opener on the table. I grabbed it and before he could react I stabbed him in the with it. I did it over and over again until his limp body stayed unmoving on the floor. Let the dead stay dead, I had to find Eddie. My father could've found him and done something awful to him. I started to get up when I heard the slightest whisper.

"Lil," I looked at what had just been my father and saw Eddie's beautiful face covered in his own copper blood instead. He had five gushing wounds on his chest and looked ready to take his last breath. What just happened was all I could think as I stared into Eddie's shining, fading blue eyes.

"No. No! Oh Eddie no no no. Please, please be okay. I-I-I couldn't tell it was you. Oh please Eddie don't leave me. I love you too much to see you go so soon." The tears were steadily flowing by now as I held on to my one true love.

"Oh Eddie what have I done?" I took my jacket and pressured it onto his wounds praying that it would somehow help.

"I'm just like them aren't I? Just as sick, and cruel, and twisted." I desperately wished it wasn't true and even as he was dying by my own hand, Eddie couldn't see me for what I had become.

"Don't worry, not like them, love you." Eddie told me trying to smile but instead coughed blood onto me. The lights in his eyes glimmered and then went out. My tears matched my screams as I sat there clinging onto Eddie's body for dear life. Ironic considering what I had just taken from him. I looked around for something, anything really but what caught my eye couldn't fix this, what caught my eye was an engagement ring inside of a glass of wine on top of the piano.

"What have I done?" I repeated once again.

A few minutes later I got up and went over to the piano where my glass of wine sat. I dipped my finger into the sparkling liquid and took out the ring. Engraved in the solid set gold were the words "Forever and Always, Lil & Eddie." I had just killed my forever with a letter opener, and brought myself back to the state of misery I thought I had left behind at the Home.

"Eddie will you come back please?" I silently begged as I went back over to where he was lying.

"I can't live without you. I have nobody left! You were my rock Eddie, without you, I don't know how to survive here on this earth."

Still sobbing, I realized he was gone, and after hours of crying, drenched in my lover's blood, I realized there was nothing left to do but go back into my room and grab my coat. I had a priest to consult.

There was something wrong with me, I could distinctly feel it now, as I walked the icy winter streets of New York. As if there was something that didn't belong within me, almost as if something was grabbing and tugging on my soul. I knew that the only one who could help me now was the priest. I needed an exorcism. Sure, maybe all those years in the Home had caused this, but if there was one thing I learned in there, it was that demons caused our sufferings and I needed to have them removed. I walked up to the Saint Paul's church on Liberty Street, just a block away from my house, and tried to open the door. It was locked. I banged on the door, needing the Priest to be there, needing to rid myself of the sin hanging across my neck.

The bamgng never made the door open, and I slunk to the grounding, letting my frostbitten face kiss the snow.

"Why is this all happening? Why can't I make it all stop? My brain, my thoughts, my movements! I can't control anything! Help, somebody, please fix me!"

Light flooded down on me from the inside of the church. I saw a priest dressed in gold looking down at me.

"Father will you please get these demons out? Father I can't handle this! I just killed Eddie. Will you please help me? Fix me father!" I clung to the priest's ankles, begging him to kill whatever was inside of me.

"Girl, come in here, I want you to explain what has happened, and how you know you're possessed. We can clean you up and perform the exorcism if necessary, dear."

"Oh Father, thank you for saving me!"

For the next hour I sat across from the priest, taking in his grave expression as I explained what had been occurring. Concern flooded his expression, and once I had finished talking he jumped out of his chair, searching and grabbing things around the room.

"What are you doing?"

"Well, I'm preparing young girl."

"Preparing for what exactly?"
"For your exorcism, it is to be done immediately tonight, before the demons come to harm anybody else through you."

"Father, should I be afraid of this?"

"Well, girl. I'm not sure what we're up against, but they will either surrender immediately or they will fight back, and fight hard."

The priest prepared me by letting me dress in a long flowing white robe with a silver sash around my waist. I was tied down with golden ropes, onto an old wooden chair. The priest sat down a rugged wooden cross, a glass flask of holy water, and an ancient Bible on the table close to my chair. The man hummed hymns out loud as he stilled prepared to perform my exorcism.

I closed my eyes and listened to the hymns.

"Glory, Glory Hallelujah, please dear God give my daughter a brain, to make decisions fit for a lady and not that of a trashy slut." My mother said, coming towards me with the flask of holy water in one hand and the Bible in the other. She started flicking splashes of holy water onto my face. Where the water hit I heard a strange sizzling sound and felt the sting.

"Oh God just take out whatever demon is possessing my baby girl, she used to be so innocent and well-mannered, and now, I can't even stand to admit that the mongrel is my daughter, I mean God, you see everything, I'm sure you saw the piece of trash she dreamed of being with. I bet you saw her stab him to death too, man did that bring a smile to my lips. Daughter, maybe you can go out with my friend Hudson's son, he's on the fast track to medical school. He is fit to take care of you, can provide for you better than that boy!"

"Mother SHUT UP! I loved that boy, I loved him! More than you have ever loved me! He cared about me! Eddie has a name you know! Why can't you just leave me be and go back to your grave! You're supposed to be dead!"

Anger and panic flooded throughout my body, I didn't want to see that woman anymore. I fought to free myself from the rope binding me to the chair. I broke the arms of the chair loose, and found use with my hands. I grabbed the wooden cross that lied flat against the table, and pounced on her, banging the wood against her head.

"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! You have ruined my life! I hope you rot and burn you old hag!"

I now had a mixture of two people's blood splattered against my body tonight. My lover's, and now my mothers. Or wait, this wasn't my mother's blood, I looked down at my feet and saw the old man lying against the pew, mouth open and head bashed in.

I ran throughout the building, finding my way blindly to the door, my vision impaired from a mixture of blood and tears. I needed to get back to my house. I could find safety there, I could lay my head against Eddie's chest, and even though his heart was no longer beating, he could still keep me warm, couldn't he?

I ran through the streets, bewildered as faces passed me in the shadows. They taunted me, made me trip over my steps, and choke on my fears.

"Lil we were going to have a forever an always love, why'd you have to ruin it huh? I trusted you. I thought you loved me."

"Lillian Abrams close your legs, no daughter of mine is going to be a whore."

"Lillian I'm sorry, my beautiful daughter. I would never hurt you, the demons just got ahold of me, you know, just like they have you now."

"Young girl, I can help you, God can help you."

"Lily! I miss my dolly, can you go find her for me, I can't sleep without her."

I ran as fast as I could away from the dead. I couldn't handle seeing their faces or hearing their words any longer. God I was so scared. Scared of myself. I was going insane. The sobs racked my body as I fought to breath. I was just outside my door when I had to stop. I sat there on the corner of my steps and felt as the panic rose. What had I become? Why was this happening to me? At that moment I just wanted to die to make the fear go away. I finally was able to breath again and I wiped away my tears as I found the courage to go inside. My lungs burnt as I unlocked the door to my house. Eddie still was lying on the floor, in a puddle of blood that was drying up.

"Eddie, why can't you talk to me just one last time? Give me just one more hour? We never experienced anything together, never even went farther than kissing. Oh Eddie I want you to have all of me, that is my wish." I could still fulfill that wish, we could have all of each other. I could experience what it felt like to have all of him, even though he couldn't feel it.

"Eddie, I will be back soon! Just give me an hour to get ready, I want to be beautiful for you."

Excitement flashed in my head. Something happy was finally going to happen on this torturous day. I needed to bathe, with the bath soap that smelled like warm honey and ginger, Eddie's favorite. I got the bathwater ready and started to undress, but I locked the door first, not wanting Eddie to see me. I was ready to relax in the warm scented bath. I dipped myself in and leaned back against the wall, closing my eyes and taking in the peaceful silence, something I hadn't had in a long time. I started to daydream about what was going to take place in the near future, something that would bring me the purest joy known to man.

When I heard scratching against the wall I opened my eyes. It was Selena who stood there, eyes blackened, her skin greenish, like the rot you saw in an uncleaned pond. Her teeth had rotted and fallen out, her hair was uncombed and a greasy knotted mess in front of her face. She had her doll in hand, but the eyes were no longer the rotted cat eyes, but eyes much more beautiful. Eyes that shined brighter than the sun, they were Eddie's eyes.

"Selena what have you done? Why did you take his eyes? Didn't you know I loved him? I even told you about him when we were in the Home together! Don't you remember Selena? Please tell me you remember!"

"Oh ya I do remember Lillian, or Lily, that's what I heard the other girls got to call you. But you see, my dolly's eyes were old and were so small you could barely even see them, and Eddie's eyes were just so beautiful that I thought my dolly deserved them. Besides, Eddie didn't need his eyes, all he did was use them to look at you and your body, my mommy calls that type of man a pervert, and perverts should get punished, so I took his eyes!" She taunted.

"Selena, that is awful of you! It's one thing to take from a cat, but to take eyes from a human? That's just cruel and evil and sick."

"Why are you saying this to me Lily? I mean you are the one who is cruel. You promised those girls you would go see them, but you never did. One of them died, of bleeding. It was the one with two babies. Her therapy got so rough once that it actually killed her! Not that you care about them anymore, you just left them in there alone and scared.

"Selena go away! You are just a bratty messed up girl who doesn't know how to behave. I never even liked you! You were just a way for me to pass the time I had while being locked up in the home."

"You know what Lily, that was really mean and hurtful, and mean people don't deserve to live."

Selena lunged towards the bath, with water now stained red from my dirty body. Her hands grabbed ahold of my neck, and pushed me under. I struggled against the little girl's weight as I took in mouthfulls of metallic water. I pushed back up and fought for air.

"Get away from me you devil child!"

She scratched at me and left marks like a razor would. They stung and bled. I rounded on her and slapped her across the face. With that she grabbed hold of my skull, slammed it against the bathtub wall, and forced me over the side, where I fell unconscious.

I awoke sometime the next day with somebody banging on the door with urgently.

"Go away! I'm trying to sleep, you can come back later okay?"

"Oh dear, I'm afraid I can't do that, this is Miss Deserot from the Home for Feeble Minded Young Ladies, I have come here to help you. Sweetie just come on out so we can help you." Instantly I woke up. I went to stand up but winced and fell back down. The back of my head was bleeding and I had scratches that looked like razor marks all over my body. How did those even get there? It didn't matter, what did though was the fact that I wouldn't let her take me. I'd kill her first. Thats when an idea came to me. I saw the razor lying inches from my face. I grabbed at it, stood, and ran to my enemy. I looked her straight in the face and saw the fear in her eyes. I could tell she didn't want to die, didn't think I could do it, but she didn't belong and I did. I was going to win once and for all. No one could make me do anything. With that I took the razor blade and slit her throat. I watched as she stared back in shock. I laughed at what I had done. Through the years my laugh, like my soul, had gone through many changes, it started as that of a childs, full of joy and wonder, it then morphed into the emotionless thing I called laughter while I was in the home, now though it gurgled and bubbled like a baby's first giggle. I watched her eyes dim and her rosy skin pale until I couldn't watch any longer and the deep crimson blood covered the mirror. Only then did my mind begin to clear as I slowly sank to the ground and surrendered. The darkness began to take over and my vision went dark. The last thing I heard was Miss Deserot's screams about blood pooling out from beneath my bathroom door, yelling for someone to help her, but by the time help was there, I was not. I had beyond a doubt won the fight. I Lillian Abrams had killed the enemy, Lily.

Epilogue

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;"

2 Peter 2:4

History has fictionalized us to be without emotion or feeling, but I assure you that this is not true. If you have any knowledge of the Lord and His scripture, you will find that the heavens and earth were created in a six day period. In the heavens we existed as angels, beautiful and pure. Lucifer had wanted more glory, however, that God was unwilling to give. So Lucifer was cast down into the lake of fire, and some number of us decided to go with him. to live as demons, and to give up our titles as angels. I don't think any of us realized the chains that would hold us down in hell. The names we are about to give you are not our real names, but rather just descriptions of ourselves. The story of Lillian Abrams started on the thirty-first of October, otherwise known as Halloween. On this night every ten years the veil goes down between us angelic beings and you humans. This gives us just enough time to possess a person as we seek our revenge against God. We corrupt the most precious humans. In Lillian's case she was possessed six times, but what most don't know is that her story started ten years before, when her father was possessed on the very same night. Shiva had taken Lillian's father's soul and used him to do her biddings. With her being the demon of mortal destruction and all it wasn't much of a surprise when she turned Joseph Abrams into the mass murderer of the century. If only Lillian had stayed within the home we wouldn't have been able to reach her, funny how fate worked.

Huicthgara

Humans need sleep to function, it is something that they cannot live without. If you read cases of insomnia, most likely all caused by me, you will see the damage caused to a mortal's health. Your functioning skills will start to shut down, preventing you from doing simple tasks such as shutting a door completely or reading a newspaper. Eventually certain parts of your brain will shut down completely, limiting your ability to sleep, and sometimes I will push you so far over the edge you can die. I thought I could push Lillian over the edge when I stopped her from sleeping but somehow she kept going. It was a good thing I had five others to help me ruin her.

Sitri

Lust and desire can cause all types of problems in a life. I can bring unwanted pregnancies, feelings, oh and lovely diseases. I sure can be a life-ruiner. Some people like to take the pain I bring them and say it changed them for the better, but they are just lying, priding themselves with letting the world think they are fine. Deep down inside, they hate that baby that came from me, they despise having to take care of the diseases that haunt them. Those feelings, they shook their whole world up into an earthquake of destruction. Look at where those feelings got Lillian, wanting to have sex with a dead guy, but hey, I guess we all have our quirks.

Hantu Kopek

Oh the nightmares had been a brilliant idea.. It was hard trying to be as inspiring as Shiva had been with us six but I knew together we could create something just as amazing as she had. Now after being inside Lillian I knew she missed her parents and wanted nothing more than to be with her precious Eddie. Really for a good nightmare that's all you need, the things you want or miss the most. I would give her almost exactly want she wanted and then I would take someone she missed to crush all of her hopes and dreams. It's quite amusing to witness eh?

Frucissiere

How do you feel when thinking about the day you die? Does it bring your heart rate slightly up? Does it bring jittery uncertain thoughts to your mind? Of course it does, because anyone who has experienced death, hasn't been able to come back and tell the living about it. That is why you thought Lillian was just hallucinating when she saw her mother, father, Eddie, and Selena, but I assure you that that was just me, having a little fun torturing her with past loved ones. The dead have thoughts too, you know. It's only fair to let a few of them air them out, Although using the dead to harm herself, like when she tried to kill herself and blamed it on Selena, was definitely an unexpected bonus.

Agramon

Fear. That shaky feeling you have. When your heart stops and you can't manage to take a breath. When the panic rises and you're gasping for breath. That's all me. What Lillian didn't tell you was how she lived in a constant state of terror, not being able to trust anything or anybody around her, including herself. She was even afraid of her own shadow, much to my amusement. I have to thank the rest of the demons for this. They set her up for the terror, I just got to intensify it to the point she was fearful to be inside of her own skin. I watched her close into herself as she tried to cope with the feelings inside her mind, along with the hyperventilating and crying. With all of us it was a miracle she even lasted those two months and four days.

Aosoth

Now despite what all of the other demons have told you, I am indeed, the best. I am the female force of passion and death, and have you ever seen a death more passionate than Lillian's? Killing herself to be free from, well, herself. I loved every minute of it. The funniest part was the fact that the poor girl actually thought she won, no, she did exactly what I wanted her to do. I, in the end, was the one who finally destroyed Lillian. It was one of my better accomplishments. Maybe in ten years my next victim will be an even better masterpiece.

The point being is that we devoured what was left of the little girl named

Lillian.