The only time I ever remember being truly happy was before I was eleven years old. My life was good. My mother and father loved me and treated me to every luxury affordable to them. My brothers and sister were also very happy. Our lives were akin to a faerie tale in many senses. My father was not a king, a prince, or even rich, but he was very financially able.
Shortly after my twelfth birthday my mother began to act strangely. She began staying in town until late with no account of where she had been. Father assumed she was having an affair and though this disturbed him greatly later he would wish that this had been the case.
This behavior worsened over the next several months. I vividly remember it all. She ceased to cleanse herself, comb her hair, or change into an unsoiled frock. "She looks like a wild woman," our neighbors could often be heard to mutter. Inside a ten-day she went from being mildly delusional to a full-blown psychopathic maniac. The clergy refused to believe it to be a possession of any sort. Even though they would stand behind their grand marble altars and preach out about evil and it's "taking root in men's souls," they did not believe their own words. Or did not care enough. Indeed no one believed she was anything more than a lunatic that needed to be locked away for her own safety and those around her. This sentiment was reinforced by a mandate from the lord-constable and mayor. This commitment, as fate would have it, arrived one day too late.
Our money was nearly gone and our house had been sold by father to pay for the priests solemn prayers and pious blessings that he swore would help. We now lived in a small squat three room dwelling in what father used to refer to as the slums. The interior looked as though we belonged to some weird religious cult. There were holy symbols etched in all the walls, holy candles and incense on every shelf (and constantly ablaze). Food lay forgotten, spoiling, and uneaten in a dozen places and twice that dried or dripping from the walls. Strange idols and good luck tokens sent by family members made mom's room look like some bizarre shoppe of unusual antiques.
It was a blustery, chilly day and I was running an errand for my father. He refused to leave mother for even a brief moment to get more flour and bread, because mother needed his constant attention. Who knows, but this proximity might have been the final straw. Upon my return, I found my parents home surrounded by city guards and onlookers. After shoving my way through the throng, I managed to just get inside the front door before a guardsman grabbed me by the cloak. I know I only saw a mere glimpse over 37 years ago before I was yanked back outside, but that image was forever ingrained in my memory and my nightmares.
I saw five burly guardsman holding down my mother as she was being tied with a stout and already fraying rope. One yelled outside for someone to call for spell support from anyone. The interior was splattered with a dark red mosaic pattern. The unusual artwork seemed to have a life of its own and moved accordingly toward the floor as if seeking to escape through the front door of the building. Indeed it did have a life of it's own, my father's. It was his blood. The screams of my mother, the yelling of the guards, and the commotion of the surrounding townsmen flooded my mind and nearly my vision as well. All of this was secondary to the centerpiece of this macabre scene, which was my father's half eaten decapitated head on a plate at the dinner table. Nearby lay his old rusted militia sword fouled with crimson stains consistent with a deadly campaign.
I was taken to an orphanage until I became eighteen years of age. For the next six years, I spoke only to the librarian and then it was only questions on "demons." How do I fight them? What made them the way they are? Why do they want us? How can I destroy them? I became more and more obsessed. I could only drink holy water or white wine. The nuns that controlled our environment could not afford to waste holy water upon a stubborn youth that refused to drink normally. After nearly twenty trips to the infirmary for severe dehydration, they relented and allowed me white wine with my meals. My mind repelled all liquids for my remaining childhood. Holy water and white wine were the only substances pure enough to not be a vessel of demons.
Upon eighteen years of age, I was released into the world to embattle "demons" and save humanity as I was unable to do for my mother (or father). My life was devout, dedicated, and boring. Training, knowledge, preparedness, and desire did not make more of their ilk threaten the world than normal. After several serious encounters, I decided that the "real thing" was farther and fewer between than had I dreamed. So, I changed my angle of approach. I no longer sought them out to kill them and remove them from our plane. I now sought them out to control them as they would control us. There is something that they need from us that will probably forever be beyond our understanding, but we can turn the tables and hunt them for their power. To leash and control them, is to no longer FEAR them.