It is only after making certain choices that you begin to understand them. It was only after I walked away from my mother, emerging at some random point in history, that I could see the alternative to my decision. Granted, I can see time, but there are as many alternate timelines as there are potentialities. Potential is determined by two things: chance and choice. Chance is any random occurrence in the universe, from the oscillation of atoms to the drift of galaxies in the unending dark. Choice is made by the biggest movers in the universe: beings capable of rational thought; in this case, humans. You can choose to get up in the morning, or stay in bed. You can choose to kill another human being, or spare that human’s life. As regular time-blind humans cannot see beyond the choices they do not understand, I can only see alternate timelines when I understand the choice I made leading to that alternative.

In that alternate timeline, the choice I made was one of selfishness born out of loss. I can see it now, as you might watch a pre-recorded show on television. A few minutes ago, I discerned the demon to be my mother. At that moment in time, I never wanted to be separated from her again. Therefore, I could have chosen to become possessed by her. Human beings become possessed by demons fairly often throughout history. When God walked the earth, he and his followers drove out demons. I watched the damned flee screaming from their words, much the same way demons run screeching or crying from Kanya’s summoned words. I don’t believe in God, but like every other human I can choose to become demon-possessed. In that alternate history, within the corridor of time, I chose.

“Don’t leave me, mother,” I see myself weeping while horns sprout from her hair and the barbed tail lashes out from her dress. I watch myself take hold of her as she grows bigger, clinging like a small child on top of a fierce rhinoceros. “You have been wandering for so long, but you have a home within me.”

“Stop, Aaen!” I hear Lionel shout, “Do not lose yourself to her madness!”

“Madness? She is my mother!” I hoarsely shout back, “I will not lose her again!”

“Aaen! You are stronger than this! You are better than this!” Nara pleads with me. Kanya is oddly silent. She looks stunned as the huge mother-beast disappears inside me without opening a wound. Demons and angels, being spiritual in nature, do not enter human bodies, but human spirits. Thus my body shows no outward corruption, but eyes are windows to the soul. My new eyes cause my fellow time-walkers to flinch away in revulsion and fear, except Kanya. In her silence she begins to weep, great dewy drops rolling down her cheeks, falling lost in the time streaming beneath her feet. She raises her hand.

“Woes of the Words!” she summons, shouting so loudly that the tears break away from her face, hanging among the sinews of time like diamonds in a river. My mother and I pause, listening, then are lost wailing, howling until she surges out of my eyes and mouth in a hideous black flood. Cringing and trembling, we curl around each other, the son with the mother. I watch myself reach out a pale hand to the shivering horned head, but the insanity has taken her again. I watch the mother-demon tear apart her son, my limbs rent asunder from my torn torso, my three companions watching in awful horror. The mother-demon leaps through a door, carrying her son’s head in her dripping red jaws.

I can watch no more.