A/N: Don't know where I'm going with this. Advice, critique, and suggestions are welcome with open arms, a box of chocolates, and free champagne --- minus the box of chocolate and champagne.
I don't exactly remember how I found myself in the state that I'm currently in, and even if I did know, I doubt it would change a damn thing. Growing up with a devout Christian/die-hard conservative, who told me that my mother was a sin-loving woman that wanted nothing to do with me, and that my good-for-nothing father was the devil, for a grandmother, one could imagine that my childhood was less than perfect.
I was brought up with strict Christian values and taught to fear God in such a way that I should never commit a sin, lest my goal in life was to burn in the deepest pits of hell. My grandmother believed that anything not stated in the King James version was the work of the devil, and that true Christians separated themselves from this. She believed that her rules assimilated God's rules, and that fear was the best way to enforce this.
I can remember that even as I downed my maple syrup oatmeal in a plastic Barbie bowl, she recited stories about demons who were out to get children of God like me. I told her that I was scared of tales like these, and that I wanted to hear nicer ones like the other kids did.
"Heathen stories?" she said, using an accusing tone. "You want to hear devil stories about faeries and witches and idols? I think not."
There was one demon that my grandmother made sure to remind me of every day. She enforced that this demon sat next to the devil in hell; that this demon was against all of God's creatures; and that this demon was a murderer who wanted nothing more than to take me away from God.
"Sophia," she once said, "The blood demons are fond of children who don't read their Bible. The devil preys on the weak!"
I always made sure to read my Bible after that, and so often that I literally knew chapters like the back of my hand. And although I became stronger in my faith through this fear of the devil and what God would do to me, that didn't stop one from sinking his teeth into my shoulder.