Legacies || Hermitcraft

Chapter XXII - The Demon

Timeline: August 2008

Word Count - 4.5k

TW: Abuse, Violence, Religious Trauma, Attempted Murder, Death (Mentioned/Implied)

Fear was a dangerously powerful weapon. The darkest thoughts and feelings of a person could be brought out and acted upon out of fear, and although some used it wisely, to keep themselves and those they cared about out of harm's way, others used fear to twist and manipulate those around them for their own selfish benefits.

Easthaven, at a glance, didn't seem like the kind of town to be ruled by fear and manipulation. It was an idyllic little village surrounded by a valley of flowers, with thatch-roofed cottages, mossy cobblestone paths, and a river of crystal-clear water running through its centre. It was the perfect place to live, or so someone who'd never been there might think, but underneath the pretty houses and gardens lay a long running history of murder and bloodshed.

The villagers were superstitious. Not an inherently bad thing, per say, but they took their superstition to a level so extreme it was sickening just to hear about. From the moment they were old enough to understand, fear was relentlessly drilled into their minds, a fear of something many thought to be just a story or myth, but one they swore with their lives was as real as the stones they stood upon.

Demons, a supernatural race of hellish beings that had descended upon the Overworld under the guise of innocent mortals to plague its inhabitants with temptations of sin and chaos. In the villagers' eyes, anyone could be a demon, and therefore to eliminate any risk or doubt amongst themselves anyone displaying 'demonic behaviour' was to be eliminated too. It was a sickening tradition that had run for centuries, but in a cruel manner of irony, not a single person who had 'disappeared' over those hundreds of years had actually been a demon.

At least, not until about 17 years ago.

If there was one thing the villagers feared more than a demon, it was the idea of someone in their midst being possessed by a demon. Children were told stories of possession as cautionary tales, how the demon would take full control of the mortal's body and force them to commit horrific acts of violence and terror. Paintings in books would depict red-eyed humans with sharp-toothed, spine-chilling grins on their faces and bloody knives in their hands as the world around them burned in eternal hellfire.

Wels didn't like those books or stories. Hels hated them. After all, they were likely the only two people in the village with any idea of what a demonic possession was or how it worked, and the fact that nobody but Wels' parents had ever noticed Hels' existence was enough proof that the other adults didn't actually know what they were talking about.

Wels and Hels were friends. Even though Hels' possession of the human child had been accidental, the two had quickly come to terms with it and it hadn't taken long for either to adapt to things. Namely because Wels had only been a few months old when the possession occurred, and because Hels had discorporated just a few days prior and was severely in need of a body to keep himself alive. It was a strange circumstance, but they didn't mind sharing, as they were lucky enough to get along well, and neither minded having the extra company around either.

In fact, the only people who seemed to take issue with Hels were those who didn't actually know him. Namely Wels' mother, who saw the demon as a wretched beast destroying all that was good within an otherwise perfect child, and the village's cleric, who would have exorcised Hels a very long time ago if the process of doing so weren't lethal if performed imperfectly. Hels hated both of them too, and although Wels tried his best to create some neutral ground between the two parties, his efforts were typically in vain.