Lee

Dreaming always felt like a swirling whirlpool of memories for Lee. But he could never tell if it was his, or that thing’s. That demon that lurks inside of him. It calls itself the Demon Lord, but he never bothered to ask it’s name. Ever since he could remember, he had been cursed with it’s soul. It’s soul always attached to him, like a parasite with no way to remove it. It was a monster, always coming out when he was the angriest, the most annoyed, or felt the smallest amount of destruction and chaos reigning in his heart. When he slept, he saw memories of it’s past life. But it was always angry, always in a rage. Slaughtering and killing things. Things he’d never seen before. Were they demons? Were they just monsters? Or were they something else? Regardless of that, life held no meaning for the thing. Yet, tonight was different. And he didn’t know if it was because of her. They were laying on a bed in an old style Engawa that came from a story book in Japan. The demon had laid there, peacefully with a girl who looked eerily like Monique.

Demon: You can’t remember, can you?
Monique-look-alike: I’m sorry.

Their voices echoed across his head. The demon comforted her, gently combing her hair through his fingers.

Demon: It’s alright, darling. It’s alright.

Was he in love before? Who were they, and why did that girl look like Monique? Before he could reach out to that pure memory, it vanished quickly. Was it something that it didn’t want him to know? Or was it a painful memory? Someone it missed dearly. Someone whom it couldn’t find, couldn’t see.

He felt his consciousness pulled to another memory. The day the house burned down. The day he and his sister became orphans. The house was set aflame, fires refusing to be brought down by the slightest of wind or rain. Like it was living, breathing, consuming. He reached out to Karin, surrounded by flames that went on roaring…but when he could finally see his hands, monstrous claws came to view. Blood soaked everywhere. Flesh bits on the claw’s tips. His parents ripped apart and covered in claw marks. Was this his doing? What had happened? Everything was so picture perfect.

Monique

A flurry of songbirds filled up the morning sky. The sun was so bright outside, how could it not wake her and pull her out of her empty dreams? She stretched her muscles and let out a huge yawn. It dawned on her that Lee had slept peacefully next to her. Literally with just about two inches away. Fingertips that she knew deep down in her goddamned soul were touching hers. If any telepath could hear her know, they’d hear a bellowing scream. That soon quieted down as she saw his nerve-wracking state. She nudged him a bit, slowly trying to wake him up.

Monique: Hey, Lee…y-you okay?

Though his eyelids were closed, she could see his eyes darting left and right. Sweat droplets appeared faster than ever. His entire bodied trembled. What was he so scared of? She took to violently shaking him. She didn’t know what else to do.

Monique: LEE! WAKE UP.

His eyelids opened wide, darting around. For a glimmer of a moment, she saw his panic. But only for a moment. As soon as he saw her face, a rush of calm came along.

Lee: Good…good morning?
Monique: I don’t know, is it a good morning? You looked like you were having some bad nightmares.
Lee: Just one long stream of it.

He got up and stretched out his legs. How could he so easily recollect himself? Was that his magical power?

Lee: We should start heading out, see where we’re at. Hopefully, civilization isn’t that far.

She tried handing his jacket back, but he refused.

Lee: Looks like you’ll need it more than I do.

He gave it back to her, dressing her up in his thick black jacket then zipping it up then putting the hood up for her.

Lee: Besides, if we run into anyone, I really don’t wanna stop to tell make up some story.
Monique: F-fair enough.

They left the cave and began to walk towards a destination. She had hoped he knew what he was doing.

Lee

He had no clue where the fuck he was going. He was praying his instincts were guiding him to somewhere. He kept walking with a purpose, a fake-ass purpose as to not alarm nor worry Monique. Deep down inside, he honestly wanted to look cool in front of her. Though, he couldn’t understand why. As soon as a dirt path was found, perhaps a good two hours later, he silently celebrated. Thank you, blind instincts.

Monique: You had no idea where we were going.
FUCK
Lee: I-I totally had every idea.
Monique: What a bad liar.
Lee: Nooo! I knew where I was going, now let’s go find a sign post.

They quietly followed the beaten path, looking here and there for a sign. A literal sign. Lee shoved in her hand whatever berries he knew was edible to keep their energy slightly up. He had noticed Monique was fidgeting around.

Lee: Anything you wanna talk about, Monique Obviously?
Monique: Well, I-It’s more like what you want to talk about…you looked terrified back there so I was worried about you.
Lee: Yeah, you would be too if you dreamt about your past.
Monique: Do you want to talk about it? I mean you don’t have to.
Lee: It’s only fair. You showed your scars, time to talk about mine

Monique worriedly looked at her arms but quickly realized he wasn’t talking about the physical kind.

Lee: I guess you could say, I grew up in a picture-perfect family. With all the fixings you know. Oh wait, sorry, bit insensitive.
Monique: It’s fine.
Lee: Well, it’s like this: Dad got famously rich. Mom was super sick. But none of the latter mattered. Everyone wanted to know how we were so on the outside, we were the perfect family. Son always did as he told. Daughter was always the perfect doll. We were always just oh so perfect. Then…mom died. And everything was suffocating. Strained. Like he didn’t really care he lost the love of his life. Like he only cared enough that we looked good, acted good. Like nothing phased us. So, dad really wanted both me and my sis to be the best at everything. For mom. Always using that same old fucking excuse. Get perfect grades. Score the perfect goal. Play the perfect instrument. Get the perfect awards. Be the perfect, PERFECT. Because if you're anything LESS, you'll be disappointing mom. God he always loved using that.

He felt her worried looks as he continued talking, keeping his gaze at the sky.

Lee: But…I guess I just wasn’t cut out for it. I snapped one day. Started a fight. Continued to start more. Can’t tell you honestly how many fights I got into during those days, too many to count at this point. Then there were the drugs. Mostly weed. I think? I started stealing things too. Just for the shits and giggles not cause I needed them or anything. I was maybe 15 when dad wanted me to get back in line. But what line was there to return to? So, I just left. But my sis? Poor Karin stayed behind.
Monique: How far apart in age are you two?
Lee: ‘Bout 2 and half years. She suffered more than I did. I was 9 going on 10 by the time Mom kicked the bucket. I had a good amount of time with her, knew she was always actually trying to look out for us and be there for us unlike dad. But she lost her at such a young age that she had to grow up without mom and essentially be the replacement. She looked so much like our mother it was uncanny. And I know deep down, to this day, dad knew that. Abused it even. Cause…she’s too nice. She couldn’t leave him no matter how many times I begged her to come with me. She wanted to stay at that god forsaken house. Be little miss perfect. Just so dad can smile again.

He started kicking a pine cone that unfortunately came our way. The roads started going downhill, he carefully navigated as he continued on.

Lee: Then one day, on her 16^th birthday, she got the one wish she ever asked of him. A family dinner. Just the three of us. However, dad couldn’t follow all the way through. He just had to invite step-momma-Cruella. Think he married her as soon as I left. Karin tried so hard to not talk shit about her, but the moment I met her, I knew she just didn’t care about anyone but herself. I was invited unknowing how bad it was going to be. It was under the pretense my dad was going to apologize for how bad things had been between us. How he wanted us to be a family again. Little to my knowledge it was just to show off that he was happier being with someone who just wanted his money. The night went on, things got worse. Fights erupted between the two of us. Cruella just sat there and laughed at it all while swirling her fine glass of wine. She called me pathetic, useless. Said I wasn’t even worth the effort for apologies or anything in that matter. Like I hadn’t already known that. She acted like I didn’t even know that I fucking thought that!

He took a breather. Calmed his nerves that seemed to spike up further.

Lee: But how can you be enough for someone like Him? How can you even fathom being better than what he wanted you to be? We all have our limits. Even if we try so hard to go above and beyond them, we’ll hit the ceiling eventually.
Monique: How did Karin feel throughout that entire fight?

He stopped in his tracks. She did the same. He stared at her with the saddest of smiles. Eyes hollow. As if all the sorrow were drained away.

Lee: I had always wondered why she remained so calm. She just smiled. Sat there, perfectly like a doll. But little did I know that the moment Cruella said one bad thing about our mother…how little did I know that was when she snapped. Flames suddenly exploded from all around her. A flash of brilliant light shined hella bright and I blacked out. When I came to it, I reached out for Karin, her body was covered in so much fire, yet she wasn’t burning from it at all. It was as if the flames were hugging her, comforting her from her rage. And as I reached out, I saw inhuman claws covered in bits of flesh and blood. The wretched stench of iron finally hit me. I then saw what I had done. I tore them apart. Turned them into confetti. That was the day we both heard it. The screeching noises. The feelings of the entire world rejecting you as a whole. And yet, that didn’t matter to us as much as knowing we had to bolt out of there. We were the survivors. We knew deep down inside the blame was going to be put on us, so we ran. What was it that made us do that? Was it the hatred that stewed all of our lives? Was it the rage that festered in our hearts? None of us knew till they showed up.

He turned quickly to continue the walk. He knew if he stayed in that position he’d start to break into tears. Remember any of that was just so difficult. Mostly because the blame he gives to himself. The fact that he believes any of it happened at all because he was never there for his sister. He ran away. She stayed…why wouldn’t he think any other way?

Monique: They?
Lee: You’ll get properly introduced to them soon enough. Alexis, Terra, Danny, Ben, and Ken. All four of them are actually natives to the world we’re going to be at one day. Hopefully by the end of the day. They came to get us on a rainy day. It didn’t take too much to convince Karin but man, I was in straight up denial. I guess they had to send five of them to keep me in check. See, Karin and I ended up finding out we were cursed. Cursed with beings that didn’t live on our world. They’re still trying to figure out how a sweet, innocent kid got stuck with the wraith of a Phoenix King and how I got stuck with the rage of a Demon Lord. It’s still a mystery.
Monique: What would happen if you didn’t comply…like if you didn’t go with them?
Lee: Elimination. It’s extraction or elimination. And we mostly want the former.
Monique: I-is there hope for being able to live your life in another world?
Lee: For the vast majority of people, yeah. Some of us just get stuck in one singular place but it ain’t so bad.
Monique: I assume you didn’t put up much resistance.
Lee: Right you are, Miss Obviously. Right you are. I couldn’t bear to abandon Karin again. So regardless of my beliefs, I took their offer and we both left our world behind. The nice thing about it, all of our troubles stayed behind too.