The Demon Within 12-17-17
Ever since the day I snapped it felt like something changed inside of me. I can’t explain what it was, but I felt different. I no longer cared if I lived or died…matter of fact…I didn’t really care about anything anymore. I just wanted everyone to die. At night I would dream of demons attacking me and would wake up to my body covered in scratches. I began to see shadows moving around me that continued to grow in number. Sometimes I could have sworn I saw blood and the Grim Reaper. I couldn’t tell if I had lost my mind or if I was now somehow connected to some sort of evil.
My birthday was late, so I went into the 9th grade at the age of 13. After attempting to commit suicide several times and failing; I decided it would be better for someone else to kill me, so I decided to look for a gang to join. I didn’t have much luck with it at first, but refused to give up. Then one day at school a group of boys walked up to me, told me I had potential and began punching me. After they were done they told me I was a part of their crew now. While I was looking for a group of people to get into trouble with; these guys didn’t seem like they were what I was looking for. They treated me horribly and the trouble they caused seemed pointless. I began to question myself…is this really what I was searching for? It just didn’t feel right…
I was the type to stay to myself, keep out of sight, keep quiet and just do what I had to do. I usually got A’s in my classes, but I was also usually around the trouble makers. I started to get tired of this “crew” I was a part of and would constantly avoid them, but one day they were able to catch up to me and one of them grabbed me while the other said, “Seems like you’ve been avoiding us.” I thought he was about to hit me, but a tall, light-skinned guy with braids slid up on them real quick and said in a demanding voice, “what are you doing with my brother?” The two guys quickly backed off and said, “I’m sorry…we didn’t know.” They hurried out of there and the guy turned to me to say, “Hey. I’m Dame. You don’t have to worry about them anymore. Everybody knows me and my boys carry heat in the trunk. You can hang with us.” This was the day that my life began to change.
In my eyes Dame was the coolest person I had ever met. He was laid-back and relaxed. Nothing ever seemed to bother him and he would always crack jokes during class. He always had Chris and Jason around him. Jason was tall, but a little shorter than Dame. He was skinny, dark-skinned and kept his hair cut low. He would crack jokes more often than Dame, but when he became serious, he was not someone to mess with. Chris was about the same height as Jason, but he was a bit heavy and only a shade darker than Dame. He had a tendency to be the class clown, but when things went down he had “them hands.” There were of course other members of the “crew”, but these 3 were the only ones I became close to.
As the school year went on I realized I was in a completely different environment from what I was in before. Students would get into fights that often led to bloodshed, the security was full of ex-convicts and people would bring weapons to school. No one messed with me anymore since Dame claimed me as his brother, but he couldn’t be around all the time, so I still had to be careful. Dame could see that I wasn’t built for that life, so he always encouraged me to stay out of trouble and to just keep my head in the books. I decided it was for the best, so I avoided trouble and concentrated on work.
Near the end of the school year a guy named Ty was enrolled. I heard that he had to attend our school, because he was expelled from a school in a rough neighborhood. When I had met him I could tell that he was a different breed from anyone I had ever been around before. Just being in his presence gave me a chill up my spine. I began to feel like this choice to go down the “bad boy” path just wasn’t something that was for me.
