“Hello Chris

Danil

“Hello Chris. I’m Danil. Come to my embrace, creep to the centre of my web and let me wrap my long slender arms around you. I’m Danil, Chris, and you’re all I desire.”

Hi, my name’s Chris Harrion. Well, sort of. It’s also Danil, at least partly. I guess you could say it’s both, Danil is my mask, my armour, and Chris, he’s the fleshy bits inside.

Thing is, a couple of years ago I started growing up, fast. At first it was strange and worrying, but I soon got the hang of the changes inside me, and by the time I’d mastered myself, the world around me had changed for the better. Much better.

See, for the first time I started noticing girls. Obviously I could see them before, but they were just… people. Now they became much, much more. The first girl I liked was Sophie. Sophie’s a goth, pale skin, naturally black hair and eye shadow that makes her face look like a skull. These days she’s nothing to me, nobody means anything to me but Danil. Back then she was the only thing I could think of.

I was thirteen, and like any thirteen year old I was exuberant, happy, revelling in the fact that I had no worries past whether Sophie would agree to go out with me. So when I approached her, it was painful to hear her laugh say “Sorry Chris, I’m not into retards.”

Of course she was just trying to act big and mature. Impress her friends as well as reassure herself that she was above these vulgar “teen” emotions everyone told her she was supposed to be experiencing. So she told me to piss off.

That should have been the end of it, but something inside me got hurt by that. A ridiculous little scrap of me called Danil recoiled, bruised and angry. And so he unravelled his long, thin arms and began to dig his way out.

I went home from talking to Sophie with a face flaming red, her laughs, and those of her friends, following me. The humiliation was as painful as it was ridiculous. My face was red, I wanted a mask to hide it from the world. A part of me slid from deep within me to present itself.

I was a retard, loud and obnoxious, then my new mask would be collected and quiet. I was too popular for a rebel like Sophie? Then my new mask laughed at the thoughts of other kids. I was above them. I’d be miles above them. They’d look at me with awe as I looked back with disdain.

And the next day it worked. Instead of going to mess around doodling and joking and playing football with my friends, I sat on a wall and watched the world go by. Boring as hell, sure, but every curious glance I got from one of the students fuelled the fire of my resolve.

It worked; it went far above all my expectations. Something about my distance made everyone want to be my friend, kids would crack jokes to try and make me smile, I’d catch girls staring from across the classroom, narrow my eyes and stare straight back at them enjoying the embarrassment that caught them and hurt them, like it had hurt me.

It’s funny that. Nobody ever thought to resent my outward appearance of aloof cruelty. I was only a step away from being a complete reject, but by wielding my old popularity like a shield of mystery, people thought I was somehow more mature, that I’d managed to step above them and reach adulthood in mind before body.

So I sat and watched the world go by. Noting the cracks in every wall, the passing of each cloud. Part of me craved friendship, occasionally I’d let slip a laugh or a smile, let someone’s reaches for friendship tempt me, then withdraw in bitterness. Why should I be friends with anyone? I was alone in the world, I was above them. If they really wanted to be friends they’d have been there when I was being laughed at, been there to support me.

And every time I watched them walk away, I saw a smile in the shadows. A whisper in the clouds. Danil had come for me.

I saw him watching me over the playground one autumn day. His hair was shoulder length, framing his slender face like the night covers a half moon. He was an adult

(What else could he be? I aspired to be him, and when he came he was all I wanted.) with cruel lips and deep grey eyes. His clothes were of deepest black, a sleeveless top that left his long arms, bare and pale, folded across his chest.

Seeing him that first time was like every other time I’ve seen him since. A shock that runs down my spine and freezes my heart as it passes. A shiver of joy. He walked across the tarmac, people parting to let him through and all the while his eyes held my own. And saw straight though me.

It was all I could do not to wet myself in terror. He… knew me. The mask I was wearing was him, and he swept it aside and ridiculed the little retard called Chris. Little Chris who got rejected. Rejected by some girl! His lip curled in disgust. “Come with me Chris.” He hissed “And I can show you how to lose the mask, lose that pathetic insecurity and become a man.”

How could I refuse such a beautiful offer? Become a man. To see the respect in the eyes of the other kids, and know it was really earned, not just respect for a mask I wore out of shame.

That night I dreamt of him. We were standing in a cold, bare room. He sat on a chair near an empty fireplace, long gone cold, and I stood quaking in my pyjamas. “Come forward.” He said. His mouth opened very little as he spoke, and I caught only a glint of white tooth and red tongue. A stab of pain lanced through my groin and I forced my feet forward. Perhaps it was fear, perhaps some kind of attraction. Who knows? It’s unimportant, because then he reached out a hand and took my own. Long fingers caressed my knuckles, back and forth, back and forth. I stared hypnotised.

“Listen to me Chris.” He said. “Repeat what I say to you.”

I nodded silently, throat knotted and tongue dry.

“You’re nothing, Chris.”

“I’m nothing.”

“What are you Chris?”

“Nothing!”

“That’s right. And what am I?”

“Everything.”

“No Chris, think.”

It struck me. A wonderful thought, my heart sprouted black wings and dove into the darkest chasm of despair even as I wept for joy.

“Master. Master Danil.”

“Yes Chris. Your Master. Now come.” He held out his arms and I fell sobbing into them. He rocked me back and forth soothingly, murmuring to me the beauty of my insignificance, pouring into my heart the true extent of my pathetic existence.

“Master. Master Danil.”

Danil owned me. There’s nothing I could or would do to resist him. Why shun this beautiful part of myself? Through his grey eyes I saw the emptiness of the world, and the black flames of resolve that burned in me warmed us. His long arms entwined around my neck and torso, he rode my spirit like a palanquin, and I carried him, as was my place.

Together we went places I could never have found alone. Sitting sullenly on the wall, the whole world a shade of violent black and purple, I saw those dull smears of light that came to me, as subjects come to kiss the feet of a king, and I could truly laugh at them. I no longer needed pathetic things like friendship. Their opinions left me indifferent. Let the world hate me. I had Danil, I stood below him and that was enough.

To feel his breath quicken as I whipped the souls of these children, to feel his excitement rise as I sent them stinging back to their place. For that I would have done far more than merely remain friendless and alone. I would have given my soul. In a way I suppose I did.

Each day I grew more Danil’s slave. My mind opened to him with every hour that passed, and I realised that he was indeed the master of my mind. To him I was a vessel; a means of inflicting his anger on the physical world.

So when the chance came, I realised my life was reaching the moment Danil had been guiding it to. Sophie walked to the feet of my throne.

Like a dog returns dripping wet to its master after a day spent free in freezing rain, Sophie came to me to beg for forgiveness.

“You’re interesting, Chris Harrion.” She told me. Directly to the point. I would have expected no less from the demoness who handed me to Danil. The swirling haze of black and purple shifted to allow her face into focus. Not much changed since last year (Was it only a year? The timeless mire of bitterness felt like one blissful eternity.) her face was still pale and skull-like, covered by a thin mask of goth make-up. Ironic; she was so like the old me, trying so hard to appear above the world, yet in truth so ridiculously close to it.

This was Danil’s prey then? So be it. She continued. “You’re hiding something from me Chris. Somewhere under your skin there’s a real you. I want to find him.” She looked directly into my eyes, but even she couldn’t hold the full force of Danil’s malevolence for long. She cast her eyes down again.

How hilariously close to the truth. Naturally she was just spouting typical rubbish. An attempt to be deep and adult. My voice came out cracked, part Danil, part me. “When?” It was the first time I had spoken to somebody in four days.

“Saturday?” She whispered, her voice full of hope. See? My soul cried to Danil. See how she’s below me? Just another child behind that mask. He didn’t answer with his usual reassuring caress. That would have worried me, had I not been so drunk on the thought of returning the shame and pain that this whelp had once inflicted upon me. Saturday, tomorrow, she would feel the full might of Danil’s slave.

The day dragged onwards in a vortex of darkness. Sensing the mad ecstacy that burned inside me, none dared to approach and seek my pain. When I slid from my wall - the afternoon lessons having passed far away in a building I only seldom graced - my heart was searing with anticipation.

I didn’t eat, there was too much to prepare. None should disturb my night with Danil. Not this night. Huddled before a mirror, I awaited his appearance. He stepped through to the physical world with barely a glance at my quaking form.

“Chris.” He breathed “Come to my heels. I would speak with you.”

Crawling, I sat beside him as he stared out at the stormy sky. In our world the sky was always dark, a mess of smeared clouds rippling in circles about an obsidian moon. His hand touched my neck and ran down my spine. His fingers moved gently over each lump of my spinal column, explored the cracks between my muscles. Gradually he felt his way round to my chest, and his arm encircling me, he hauled me to his height. My shirt fell away, and his arms were all over me. Every gap in my ribs was touched and explored; his palm pressed my stomach gently while an arm held my head to his muscled chest. Down; he ran a finger along the contours of my hip then to my inner thighs, stroking them, tightening a spring that was winding in my chest.

His hand had returned to pressing against my back when he finally took my chin and forced my gaze into his own. “Your soul, Chris.”

It wasn’t a request. I leant forward and his cold lips met my own, I closed my eyes and felt the last of my free will be devoured as his tongue slipped around mine and went on and on, into my throat, filling my lungs, my blood, my body. The moon crackled briefly with a pulse of power then all light faded.

I awoke on Saturday.

Sophie had knocked on the door, and, finding no answer, let herself in. She saw me at the same time I came to. I was standing, clothed in black in the hallway. It must have been dark in her world too, for winter had come, and the nights arrived early. My senses were extended beyond their normal range. While Danil had before allowed me to share his dark vision, now I could hear each beat of Sophie’s heart, smell the faint fear that was oozing from her pores. I could even taste her lips from where I stood. Danil was no longer simply holding my leash, he had entered me and we were one entity.

With his cold blood slicing through my veins I held out a hand for Sophie. She walked forward carefully, taking small steps as though reluctant to end the journey that would lead her to me. She nervously asked me why my eyes were so black, but I didn’t reply, I just lead her up the stairs. Up and up.

We passed the top landing and continued into what used to be a brick wall. Now a staircase of glass, bleeding blackness, lead us further upwards. Her eyes were half closed as if she was sleepwalking. Some flow of power through my hand was keeping her asleep. We carried on upwards, bursting through the roof of the house to a vista of crawling shadows and flickering lightning. The sky turned and turned, the clouds like a crowd of silent watchers, beckoning us towards them.

The stairs entwined themselves around us and all time ceased to exist as we trod step by step towards the centre of the sky. An eternity passed, and the black moon, etched by red veins and pulsating violently, came closer and closer. Then we stood below it, truly below it. I could have reached out a hand and caressed its perfectly smooth surface had I wanted to, but somehow during the climb I too had lost control of my actions. The stairs twisted on themselves, turning upside down. Sophie gave a moan of shock and grabbed the edge of a step, but I remained still, unable to move an inch.

Now there was only one way downwards. Onto the moon. We stepped off the smooth stairwell and placed our feet on an equally glass-like ground. All around us were the red veins of this moon. They surrounded us, ran beneath our feet, etched runes and symbols as if of their own will.

This was the heart of Danil’s power then, the place where he could be whole, physical and powerful. Sophie slumped to the ground and sobbed. “Where are we Chris? What the hell is this place?” She had returned to her senses.

“Where are we?” came Danil’s voice, rising unbidden from my gut. “This is your world Sophie. Don’t you remember? The day you sent me running you created this, and everything I am.”

“Who are you? You’re not Chris.”

Danil laughed manically. “Of course I’m not Chris. Do you think that pathetic child could lead you to the gates of Hell as I did? No Sophie. I’m more than Chris. I’m part sorrow, part pain; part confusion, part clarity and resolve. I’m the demon you unleashed… together.”

I shrank further into myself. Danil, had grown inwards, no longer a mask. My heart felt ready to explode from the pressure of his soul, which had corrupted every part of me. All the while he talked to the pale girl hunched on the ground in mortal terror. “Yes Sophie, you know me don’t you. Because I’m part you, girl, and the part of me that’s you is infinitely more appealing than the part of me that’s Chris.”

Understanding hit me like a knife. I’d gone too far, my soul was a shrivelled husk, and my beautiful black wings wanted to fly away on their own. Danil was going to leave me.

I screamed then. The mad red and black of the moon flickered in and out of existence, mixing with the familiar walls of my room. Sophie was sitting on my bed watching me, frozen in time. Two possibilities or two realities? Was this circle of runes some illusion created by Danil? A way to lure Sophie to his domain? Was he not, after all, a being of spirit? I still had the power to fight back! I had to. To lose Danil would be to lose everything, to lose my master.

Pulling on my reserves of strength I fought to recreate the image of my room around me. To hide that dark stairwell that had led me to the moon. No! It had never been there! We had always been in my room. Danil held out a hand to clasp Sophie’s. He reached a claw to slice open her wrist and enter her blood. Sophie sat on my bed, watching me, curiosity in her frozen eyes as Danil pressed his nail to her skin and drew a red line. I screamed and staggered backwards.

“What are you doing!” He roared as he fell away from his prey alongside me.

“I won’t let you have her! You can’t leave me.” I screamed in reply. A flame within me leapt to life and tore through the tendrils of Danil’s domination. I fell sprawling from his body, myself again, able to move. Danil reacted swiftly, and grabbed Sophie’s bleeding wrist. I clasped his ankle and pulled him backwards.

“Chris, what’s wrong? Chris? Wake up!” That was Sophie, back in my room, the real world.

“Get away!” I screamed, replying to both at once.

“Is this a joke, Chris? Are you alright?” Frantic.

“Let go you worm! Let… me… go!” Wrathful.

“Never!” Resolved.

I leapt forward, my feet finding friction on the carpet of my room, even as they slipped in Sophie’s blood, running across the dark glass. I beat my fist down, smashing Sophie hard onto the bed. “You can’t have him!”

She screamed; pain and fear mixed in her strangled voice. But there was nobody to hear her. Nothing to stop me. My fists landed again and again, pummelling her face. My body was winning over my mind, Danil had unfolded his dark wings and was beating them powerfully to escape my grasp, even as I held his leg to anchor him to the ground, but that vision was faint, colourless compared to the red, red blood that was flowing from Sophie’s shattered nose and swollen eyes. She had stopped screaming, stopped struggling. Unconscious? Dead? I didn’t care. I continued to beat her until her body was an unrecognisable mess of blood and bruises and I had fallen into a fitful darkness born of exhaustion.

Part of me never awoke from that darkness. That part was called Danil. His wings torn and half of his power reduced to a bloody pulp, he could no longer manifest himself. Though I ached for his slender fingers to soothe me and his cold eyes to punish me, he could no longer command me as he had. I lay in the crusted bedsheets, the air turning slowly from the metallic scent of blood to the sour one of decay.

But I couldn’t move. Not to shudder and sob as I longed to, not to move away from the terrible scene as I knew I should. When the sound of a wailing siren reached my ears, my vision was tunnelling. Faint voices informed me that the corpses had been discovered. Those of my parents, Sophie’s, all those remnants of the child I had been. I was older now, Danil had given me what I wanted.

And now as I sit staring blankly at the white walls of a padded cell, I can only remember. My body was ravaged by Danil’s forced control. My muscles refuse to acknowledge an owner after such violation. But my mind remains my own, as does this heart which, even in the cold sack of meat which surrounds it, continues to beat with a fire that refuses to die. And that is how I shall remain.

But a dark portal opens before me, and I see the glinting of an obsidian stair. If this cell had a window, perhaps I would also see a dark sky. So I’ll leave this body and seek out my throne on the red veined moon. Perhaps Sophie waits for me there. Danil too, since he is now mine, and not I his. And as I unfold my wings and stretch them my thoughts go to you. Perhaps one day when you feel alone and vulnerable you will feel my long fingers stroke your neck and a whisper on the wind will brush aside your mask and allow me into your soul.

But until that day, think of me, dear reader, for I am more than Danil. Come creeping to the centre of my web of blood and let me wrap my slender arms around you. For I am more than Danil, dear reader, and you’re all I desire.

THE END