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Chapter Five: Imaginary Friend

Writer's picture: holiestdemonslayerholiestdemonslayer

I was in first grade, a change in pace for most students as they transition from playing to learning to having to sit down and study. For most kids, this is a fun time to be alive; for me, well, I still had that ability to see demons, so it was a little trickier for me to adjust. I still had some good friends; my one best friend at the time was into sports, so I got into things like baseball and some soccer. I was pretty good initially, but that may have been for another reason.

          Like many kids, I created an imaginary friend. I was really into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so I named my friend after the villain of the show, Shredder. But I also liked one of the other characters, a half-mechanical bull, so my friend’s name was Bullhead Shredder. Everything started out simple and easy, but then it went wrong.

          At first, everything was like any other imaginary friend. We talked and played together. But slowly, things started to sour. I got extremely hyperactive, and I had a hard time sitting down to do anything, which is why sports was a good thing for me at the time. Hyperactivity is still a problem with me on occasion. I constantly must move even when I am supposed to be sitting down.

          When it would be time for recess, I would tell all my fellow students that I was going to turn into a monster. I would then chase them around, growling and snarling at everyone around me as I entered recess. I would arch my back and scream at the top of my lungs while curling my fingers into claws, ready to swipe at anyone who got in my way. I demanded everyone in my classroom to listen to me; if anyone challenged me, I would ask them if they wanted me to change into my bestial form.

          When I started doing this, the visions of the things I saw around me ceased. For the first time since I could remember, I wasn’t fearful of falling asleep at night; it was like the things I saw were okay with leaving me alone if I acted this way. This was because those demons were slowly attempting to take me over. It was intoxicating, though. I felt stronger, much stronger than I had ever felt before. I could run fast and think fast, and everyone seemed to like me, although they were more scared of me than anything else.

          My first-grade teacher asked me what my favorite colors were. I told her that they were red and black. When she asked me why, I said to her that red was the color of blood and black was the color of death. Times were different back then; you were allowed to say crazier things, and people wouldn’t call you crazy. I was 5 to 6 years old so that kids would say the weirdest things. But how I got away with that, I would never know. She didn’t even tell my parents.

          My parents had moved us from the church I had been born into and into a new church with my grandparents. I began this pattern of requesting to go home with anyone else except my parents. I would loudly exclaim that I wanted to go home with anyone other than my parents in the middle of the church. I don’t quite know why I did this, but I thought it had something to do with my imaginary friend. I often went home with my grandparents or my aunts and uncles. My parents told me later that they always felt embarrassed by this because it made them seem like I didn’t want to be with them. They felt like other people thought they were abusive parents.

          There were two significant incidents at the church. The first incident was with my mother. For some reason, I refused to listen to her and started to make a loud commotion during the service. My father was in the choir at the time. When he heard the commotion and realized that it was his son, he stomped out of the front of the church, grabbed me, took me downstairs, and smacked me behind several times. Later, when the new minister came, I became best friends with the minister’s son, and we played with the minister’s laptop. We spilled soda all over the computer and caused the laptop to malfunction. I again was smacked in my father’s knee and was told that that was two and that I didn’t want to see what three was. While the second incident was an accident, that first incident, I believe, was a consequence of my imaginary friend. I was slowly beginning to talk back more.

          There was a moment on the playground when it became so windy that it was blowing all the students around. In my head, I was told that the wind wouldn’t touch me, that I should extend my arms out, and that it would not blow me back. So, I looked at a friend and said, “Hey, watch this; the wind won’t move me.” So, I extended my arms, and the wind came; all the students were blown back, but I remained in place, not moving an inch.

          My anger started to intensify as well. A boy from my cousin’s school decided to come to her house one day and throw eggs at her. When I was like this, I became enraged and went outside to chase him. At first, my aunt tried to hold me back, but I got loose and chased the boy down the street, attempting to do something to get back at him for doing that to my cousin. My cousin was about ten or more years older than me, so to give you an idea of what was happening, a 16-year-old was running away from a 6-year-old.

          I also got angry at my friend’s brother. I don’t know why, but he did something that caused me to lunge, grab, and start growling at him. I threw him up against a transformer outside of the church. What infuriated me was that he began to mock me, pretend to growl, and act like he wasn’t scared. So, I began to hit the transformer with my fist beside his head with the intent in my young mind to get the transformer to explode and hurt him, not realizing that if I had achieved that goal, I too would have been injured as well. My friend’s brother freaked out and told me to get off of him, and he didn’t mess with me anymore after that.

          Everything would come to a head one day out on the playground. There was this kid in the class who just wasn’t bothered by anything. All he did was smile and live his life. I got it in my head that I wanted him to be afraid of me, so I walked over to him and screamed in his face. He just looked at me and smiled without a care in the world. I got in his face, and I yelled, “I’m gonna kill you.” He looked me in the face and said, “No, you won’t.” I stood back dumbfounded. He continued, “This isn’t really you.”

          Something in those words resonated with me. I looked at myself and realized that this wasn’t who I was. I didn’t want to be the person that people were afraid of. But my friend wanted me to be that person. He wanted me to be powerful and take what was mine. He encouraged me to do the things that I shouldn’t do with the intent to be the most powerful being ever. It was not my friend.

          When I decided not to listen anymore, the negative things returned. I began to have nightmares again. I saw things in my house, but this time they were worse. I remember that I told my mother that I wanted to throw myself out of a window; she got upset and cried, so I made it a point that no matter what happened, I would never harm myself like that or ever attempt to take my own life. I could never put my mother through that. But what would I do? The attacks were unceasing. One day, I cried out for help, and something else answered.

          My father had asked me numerous times after it happened why I chose to get baptized at that time. I have always told my father that it just felt like the right thing to do. But, in truth, the voice that answered my plea that day told me to get baptized. I can never be sure whether it was indeed God or just an angel, but it said to me that if I got baptized and followed God, Jesus Christ, I would no longer have to worry about these things. I believed it, because at the time that it communicated to me, the attacks stopped.

          So, early in my second-grade year, my best friend’s father, the church minister, would baptize me. The moment that I went under the water, it was like something inside me had changed. Like some piece of me that I had before was gone. The memories of the demonic forces that tried to harm me were gone. I was a brand-new person. From then on, if I thought I saw something, there would be this feeling of, you don’t have to worry about that; ignore it, and that’s what I would do. Except for one instance, right after I was baptized.

          My sister was born 2 years prior and was already walking and talking. I was walking down the second-floor hall past my parents’ room, and I sensed something. I turned to investigate my parents’ room and saw my sister reaching into my father’s dresser. I said, “Sister, what are you doing?” It wasn’t my sister.

          It turned to look at me. The face was pale; its eyes were blood red. The black hair that I associated with my sister was stringy, and rows of sharp, pointed white teeth lined its mouth when it opened its mouth. It stepped down, but somehow, its height never changed. It extended its arm towards me, and its hands had sharp clawlike nails on each fingertip. The only thing I can tell you to get a good representation of what this looked like is a movie called “One Missed Call,” the girl in the end scene looked like the demon girl, but the demon girl was worse. I stepped back, not knowing what I should do, I blinked, and she was gone. In my mind, I heard, it’s okay, don’t worry about it, so that’s what I did. Was this the little girl who had bothered me when we first moved into the house?

          That would be the final time that I would ever see anything until 5 years later, when another tragedy would befall my life, one that would take me down a path that would define the rest of my whole life.

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