Mallory was trembling, maybe out of fear, but most likely out of excitement. The veins around her left eye seem to bulge and throb.

“Mallory was attacked… so we got to kill a demon.” She wheezes inward and lets out a short laugh. “A real demon, not one of those weak ones. The look on their face… as we fed on their Despair… was sooo funny!”

I frown as Mallory continues to describe in detail how she mutilated the demon unfortunate enough to cross her. Despair is an interesting thing. We’re not sure what it is, but it’s only found in humans and demons.

Human’s don’t normally have a lot of Despair. If I were to put it on a scale of 1 to 10, humans are usually at a 4. And demon’s, being primarily made of Despair, are at a 10. As described by Mallory, 

“It’s in their blood, and in their meat. And… it’s delicious!”

I thought I had weaned her off of Despair, but it seems she still has a taste for it. Her rambling was getting graphic, and it only seemed to be pushing her further down her rabbit hole, so I interrupt.

“What’s with the human blood?”

She purses her lips, as if she was trying to keep from smiling more. “Well….. There was an accident.”

“Continue.”

“I didn’t wanna hurt him, but…” Her voice suddenly deepens and distorts. “We kind of did.” She covers her mouth for a few seconds, then continues. “He was a hunter too, but he kept trying to hurt us. He called us a demon… And then he ended up in half.”

“He ended up in half?”

“We might have caused him to end up in half.”

I sigh loudly. “Oh, Mallory.”

Her bliss finally seems to subside, squishing her cheeks together in frustration.

“You’re mad at us.” She spits out. “He attacked first.”

“And so you ripped him in half?”

“It’s not the worst way to die.”

I look her up and down, trying to quell my frustration. She’s been doing so well. It’s not her fault.

“Okay. You need to stabilize.” I step out the way. “Go take a shower, eat some snacks. We’ll talk about this later.”

Mallory mumbles under her breath, shuffling further into the house and into the bathroom. Teriyaki watches her with wide eyes, her expression unreadable. When Mallory is out of sight, Teriyaki looks to me.

“Is she okay?”

“Yeah… mostly.” I flop back down on the couch. “Can you, uh, clean up your… skin… We’re going to be heading out soon.”

She gives me a small nod. I slouch down further into the couch and close my eyes. This is not what I wanted to wake up to this morning, but I probably should’ve expected it.

Having a moment to myself, I can’t help but to remember—back to when we were nine. I had gone out of town with family, and when I returned, Mallory had befriended a demon. It wasn’t the first time she’d befriended a demon, but this time was… different. To make a long, frustrating story short, that demon put what can only be described as a Despair tumor in her.

And that tumor became sentient. Mallory was never completely human, and I was fine with that. She was still as good as any other full-human kid. But this tumor changed her—corrupted her. And it made her do monstrous things.

It would encourage Mallory to do such horrible things. It had no concern with morality, only with what was “fun”. When I realized that this entity was separate from Mallory (which took longer than I’d like to admit), I gave it a name for clarity.

We call it Mal.