The Voodoo Doll

Chapter XXXV: Belleth

To my beloved daughter, Hitori,

If this letter ever found its way to you, it means that I am no longer the person I was.

I killed her, Hitori. I killed her. Do you understand?

I don't have much time left, but I will have to start from the beginning.

My name is Belleth, and I am a demon who fought in the war against angels that ended a year ago. I had no idea at the time what they would do to us. If I had known, I would have left the army a long time ago. Settled in the Core for all eternity.

They didn't care about us. Our own king didn't lift a finger when the gates closed and we were stuck on Earth, unable to do a thing but live like mortals, eat like mortals, piss like mortals and curse our own fate. Luckily, or unluckily, if I might say, our memories faded, little by little. We had forgotten how to be demons. We had forgotten the truth about this world. I had fallen in love, married a human female, and given birth to you, without remembering a single thing. I had no idea I was a demon until a week ago.

The memories are getting back to me bit by bit. My powers are returning. I'm feeling stronger than I have ever been, and my humanlike self will soon be erased.

It's not that I'm not glad for it. I am. I truly am. But a part of me is afraid, Hitori. Afraid of what I will become once I regain all my memories. Have you ever heard of the saying that the memories make the person? I heard it somewhere, but I no longer remember who said it to me.

You were so cute when you were born. Pitch black small hair, golden eyes shining like the sun when it first sets at dawn. I loved you, and I loved your mother. At least, my human self did. Now I feel nothing but emptiness. A hungry dark pit that longs to be filled. A monster that wants to taste blood again, after being contained for so long.

Killing is like watching porn, Hitori. Despite the ridiculousness of the comparison, it's oddly true. You enjoy doing something so hideous. You know from the bottom of your heart that it is something to be done in secret, you know why, but you keep doing it. Because it's thrilling, it's fun, it gives you such a wonderful amount of guilty pleasure that nothing else can provide you with.

I killed your mother, Hitori. Her name was Aino. Aino was the love of my life when I was a human. Now? She's dead. She's dead because I killed her. I can't forgive myself, yet I don't regret it. It sounds crazy, doesn't it? I never knew the transition from a human to a demon can be so hard.

It all started on that night. I was going home from my mortal work. I was exceptionally late that night, because I had a fight with a colleague and the damn boss let me finish his work as a punishment. I no longer remember where I even worked at, but it was fate that I saw what I saw, I am now sure of it.

Have you seen people die before your eyes, Hitori? I suppose you didn't. I sure hope so. I don't want my daughter to go through these things. My love for you might be one of the last things remaining in my humanity.

I saw it that night. Someone killed a woman. As blood splattered before my eyes, I remembered that color. That deep scarlet color, gleaming in the darkness, waiting for me to touch it, to taste it, to feel it with the depths of my consciousness.

And I had remembered, that very same night, how wonderful it was to be a demon.

Stories are never told the way they should be. We demons used to whisper bad deeds to humans, we encouraged them to lie, to deceive, to steal, to rape, to kill, but we also had our share of killing. Serial killers that were never found throughout the ages, famous geniuses above the mortal laws. It was us. It was all our doing. Angels are the ones who control the history records of the universe. They would never mention the fact that they could never fully control us since the three worlds were conceived. They could never prevent us from doing whatever we wanted.

The war was just a pretext to eradicate us. Earth was the only neutral territory, so on Earth we fought, then a fool closed the gates between Earth, Heavens and the Core. Was stopping all contact between immortal creatures a synonym to ending the war? Wrong. It was only a way to delay a catastrophe that was coming anyway.

The catastrophe, my dear Hitori, is me. Is us. The ones who were left behind, the ones who were forgotten.

I don't remember how I ended up here, in Fukushima, married to your mother, but I do remember it was a good life.

Not good enough to replace my demonic powers, though.

That night, I returned home shaken, but rather in a good mood.

As the days went by, Aino seemed to change in my eyes. She was no longer the woman I fell in love with. She was more than that.

She was the prey I earned for myself, as a human on his way to his old demon days.

I wanted to see that color again. I wanted to feel it with my own hands. I didn't want a stranger's blood, not yet. I wanted your mother to have the honor of being my very first kill as a demon. She deserved it. She was the closest person to me, and she deserved to witness my grand return.

We had already gotten comfortable in bed. I had already decided that this was the perfect moment to kill her. We've made love in a bed of scarlet roses, growing bigger and bigger as my skin grew hotter and hers grew colder, her thin arms slowly breaking the tight embrace they had on me, her body getting heavier, her racing heart coming to a gentle stop.

I killed her, Hitori, and now you understand why I did it.

I couldn't bring myself to kill you, so I decided to forget you, just as I'd forgotten my human life.

Giving you to an angel, the only angel I ever trusted, was the only way to keep you alive for the day you meet me again.

And when that day comes, Hitori..

You're going to kill me.