Short Story: Incubus

The sable bed sheets - torn and tattered. While the alabaster covers are ripped to shreds by the ravenous razor bladed teeth of a demon so putrid. The bondage of body and a traitorous mind held repulsed to a shell of its former self. The heart beats like a horse's gallop. Life is writhed from my lungs. It is there, the sudden rush and reminisces of life! Ah Incubus, how the nights were when you would come. You came to me, a child of life and of the flesh. Oh Incubus, how you were the dirty trickster. How you possessed my mind, and tainted my being with your sweet lure of limitless power and life.

In return, you granted me eternal suffering and torment - the daily nightmare. Ah, yes, how so many rested their heads on their pillows, tending to as they say, "get their beauty sleep." You would come to me Incubus, on the nights of old and new. Since I was of the age four or five, you found pleasure in granting me such vividly, grotesque and horrifying night terrors; spawning into the world, possessing new beings and things.

So many people had said to me, "Oh, well they're just that, nightmares." How you all are so foolish. Even so, I would have loved to have agreed with them. Nevertheless, these nightmares, however, were more than just that.

Oh, how you crept into our world...tainting us! You recalled events of the past, present and foretold the future. Only glimpses of what I've seen from my hindsight. This share of what pain I have endured, of the dismemberment of my mind and a fight with myself, a constant struggle between good and evil.Where there is a story of war one wages with themselves. Of love, hate, revenge, death, life, the question of when we die. If we are judged, and the determination placed upon us is eternal suffering. What is more painful than to experience life all over again?

Knowing what will happen and not able to do a damn thing about it. To live through every day. When you cannot change the past, present or future, and not even able to destroy yourself - to be ridden of the pain of living. Immortality. What is the point of living on, when everyone around you is taken in time?

Incubus, you came to me so early. You possessed the toy chest mother had bought for me, didn't you? You crept into the house, deep in the bewitching hour and laid hidden in it the night before. You waited... For when mother and father had tucked me in. You sat there patiently waiting, smiling at me with your velvet stitching's and patches of birds and a house. Then, you finally came alive Incubus.

And so began your terror. There was nothing strange or odd in day life. However, in the night life, your insatiable hunger would manifest and consume, and with it, me. Oh, how so many nights you granted immortality and eternal damnation on my soul. You would sit at the foot of my bed. And thus, you began your feast, slowly inching closer, tearing the sheets that bound me! I peer into your hellish crimson glare, and your gaping inkiness-abysmal mouth. The razors and knives slicing and gutting my body. The pure innocent ruby blood - splattering - a sweet and ripened wine you harvested.

The slow fading of life it seemed, however, was only to be the beginning. You mute and stun me with your bewitching gaze and haze. Curse you, Incubus, curse you! How you lied and tricked me. How tonight will be, I shall endure your pain, and one day escape your treacherous way. You cackle, most putrid and profuse with victory. The darkness that you bind me in, I will escape. For now I float in darkness - alone, cold, numb, decaying.

Morning comes to save me, the light banishing you back to the void. With this temporary salvation, I shall devise a plan. Oh yes, Incubus, it shall soon be your turn.

Death's hour and the prime of twilight approaches. The lights are silhouetted by the shadows of the deceased. The damned cry and still they pray. Oh Incubus, I see you - staring, salivating, waiting. I see you smiling with your clever mouth. You would cackle maniacally as mother would leave the lights on, and even recruited the night-light to your aid.

However, fair Incubus, I will soon splice your newfound ally and crumble it to its renowned daily task. For once I am disembodied, your attack is made. Tonight, you and the flame, together take sadistic glee in binding me to the grill of hell, and char my body. As you cackle maniacally in your newest victory, the damned cry and continue to pray to their falsehoods. Your servant is now thriving and nearly ready. My power grows and with it, your inevitable defeat. Can you feel it Incubus? Soon...

The new dawn frees my soul. Returning to my body, I prepare for the day. Self-preservation and honing, I train for the night. For tonight, I will make my stand against your tyranny! You observe and smile - waiting for the night to come - for my disembodiment. Where you thought, I was unable to resist. Oh, how wrong you are Incubus. For now I can run and react to your attacks. Fending you off until the lights salvation was all I needed.

See how the light and myself, have aligned together as one. Do you now feel the fear you inflicted upon? And so it begins fair Incubus, the fight that was destined from the very beginning. I shall be victorious! I shall end your suffering of the people! I shall take your place and with it, your power! Ah Incubus, how stunned you look.

Day begins - dawn breaks. For later, we shall face each other in battle comrade - rigorously training, self-empowering, continuously salivating, insatiable - the hunger for power. You grinned fiercely as you knew you would win a final time. In an exercise of dexterity, you evolved, granting yourself more teeth than a great white, the stealth and reflexes of a cobra - hissing and lunging at me, devouring me wholly one last time.

As I laid listening to the cries of the damned and their demonic prayers who bellowed in your abyss. I laughed at your wretched being and cried vengeance! Justice! That I will prevail and I, will be the predecessor! Then you will be the one feasted upon! I will be the hunter and you, Incubus, the prey!

The light's grace calls and summons me home. I awake and carry on my training for the coming battle of epic proportions. You will not, however, see me until the final battle, my old friend. Ah, fair Incubus, do you smell it; the bitter scent of defeat? That is the sweet scent of your death that is upon you. Mid-day is now upon us fair Incubus. How you stare waiting, hungry, wanting. Nevertheless, you wonder. Where is your servant? What trickery could he be up to? My old friend and teacher, the final twilight comes and with it, your end. In my bed, I endure a valorous knight's sleep, ready for battle.

Then time enslaves us as you lunge for my soul. The damned pray and they cry. Do you hear them Incubus? They demand your demise. Your relentless assault continues as my warriors body dodges and endures harsh damage. I try to escape through the door, yet you have so cleverly bound it with us. Leaving only the window of truth; I glance for it, but you knew this already. Rigorous is your charge at me, sending us to the depths out beneath the window. Snapping at me with your maw on our fall down. I, however, gain the upper hand in crushing you.

Wounded, I stand tall victorious. You play possum, seeking to ploy me, Incubus. I reach for a stone of relinquishment. Raised on high, as you ready your final attack. I break upon your mouth, not with the hopes of slaying. Your attack dazes me into the wall, ready for your next move. You hope to finish me off and harvest my soul once and for all. I search my being and find that light's grace has blessed upon me the dagger of truth. I raise and plunge it deep into your body - stabbing and slashing your wooden shell - setting you ablaze in the fiery depths of Hell. For I am victorious, your fierce grin decimated and utterly turned to ash.

Oh Incubus, how does the pain of death, defeat and the torment of the damned feel? However, light's grace returns me too soon. You linger still Incubus. I can sense it. A job left unfinished. Where are you? The damned do not pray, nor do they not cry! They dare not say. I must wait now into nights newest duel.

The lion's roar rolls across the heavens. The world blinks many at a time and sheds its impurities on high that fall. It dances to the tribal ritual and sound, where light sets thin and twitches every so often. For this would be a turn as Incubus, you have returned. You are agile and with the strength of the alligator's bite. You tread effortlessly like Pepe Le Pu in pursuit. You stalk in solitude. For this night, you seek to exact vengeance, my old friend.

Tonight there will not be any mistakes. You come to me Incubus, above my slumber. You've turned the very same tool of my salvation and freedom, into now the tool of exacting vengeance, fear and destruction. You smile as you gaze - cackling, taunting, gesturing at me, hinting at my demise. You crash through my window and pull me by the throat out. Devouring my body bit by bit, cackling manically as you drink my blood as your wine. My short-lived victory, and the light's betrayal, I will exact my revenge on them both! Incubus, I will end your reign of terror soon.

You have come my friend. No doubt to quench your thirst and hunger. I give unto you - my anger, hatred and misery! You pull me through the window yet again. Our fate entwined as we collapse together against the cold earth. I stand battered and broken - raising your half of righteousness to quell your rampage for me. You lacerate and wildly attempt to dismember, and disfigure my being. While I hack and slash at your slender and beautiful form.

I plunge the blade of betrayal deep into you, spilling your soul and freeing the damned. The light will not save you this time, old friend. I reach for your soul and devour it whole. I have granted you a merciful death. In part, it is all the more suffering to you. While you are tortured, bound, and forced an eternity of those you took, their vengeance at long last is exacted.

The light finally comes. The disembodied spirit returns to its body. The light rejuvenates my broken body as I have assimilated you Incubus. You are defeated, yet I know you will break free one day. Deep down, in this fleshed shell of a prison, you lie in slumber, inoculating, waiting, watching, plotting. You will return, and you will once again attempt. However, I will be waiting, salivating, insatiable and wanting. Oh Incubus, how we have become - one.