The Adoptive Demon

Hi, my name is Rosemary Miller and I am 17. I lived in an orphanage and several foster homes until I was 12, but none of them were ever good matches for me. I can be a lot for most people since I am very energetic and believe in witchcraft. I got adopted by Charlotte and George Celeste one week after I turned 13 and have lived with them ever since. They are perfect for me. Charlotte believes in witchcraft just like I do, so we bonded quickly talking about our differing views of specific parts. I did not believe that demons ACTUALLY existed but she proved me wrong, she likes summoning all the different demons and talking to them. She has even become friends with some of the more friendly ones. She taught me that it is very important to make sure that any time you summon anything that you put a circle of salt around the pentagram because if you don’t, the demon that comes through the portal has free roam and can possess you or anyone within a 10 mile radius of the portal. Anyway, I am talking about her too much, George is a different story and I didn’t have such a lucky start with him. 

When I first met him, it sent chills down my spine. I was creeped out, like, more than a normal creeped out of meeting a new set of possible parents. He was taller than the average male and was unusually skinny so he had a sort of awkward appearance to him even though he was not awkward at all. I got used to it pretty fast though, especially once I learned why. Five years before I got adopted, there was a day when one of Charlotte's summonings went wrong. Her circle of salt got disturbed and there was a space where the salt had been pulled away, making a gap in the circle. This caused the demon she summoned to be able to escape and possess anything it would like to, to prevent being sent back to the underworld. Once Charlotte realized this, she started screaming and running, running around the room away from it but also knocking things over which caused George to come running into the room. The demon saw George and decided that he wanted to take over his body. The demon possessed George but then got so weak that it passed out and fell to the floor. This gave Charlotte time to make a device that would pull George's mind and body to existence but the demon would be trapped inside him with no way out.

 *   *   *

Flashforward to a month later, they both found out that because of the weakened state of the portal between the human world and the underworld, on the first day of each month, it allowed the other demons in the underworld to transfer their strength from the previous month to the demon in George. This gives the demon in George the strength to resurface and try to permanently take over George’s body. Charlotte acted quickly and grabbed the device and trapped the demon back inside George’s body. They waited a day and then got to work. Charlotte had the idea to make another version of the same device but to input it into a room, so that all she had to do was lure the demon into the room and push a button to trap it in George’s body again. Once that was done, George had the idea that he could just go into the room on the last day of every month so that as soon as the demon transformed, Charlotte could just hit the button and everything would go back to normal. But when they tried this, the demon ceased to emerge, so George walked out of the room to talk to Charlotte and the demon emerged as soon as his foot hit the tile flooring. It started wrecking the house, ripping furniture, knocking down paintings and pictures from the wall. Charlotte grabbed the demon trapping device and got the demon to stay still enough to put it back into George. Now, she just stays up all night the night before so that she can lure it into the room and trap it. It’s not good for her physically or mentally but it does work to help make sure that the demon doesn’t escape.

*   *   *

Charlotte and George adopted me a week after I turned 13, I was so grateful for them. I asked Charlotte why she and George always looked so tired around the first day of the month a few times throughout the first few years living with them but they didn’t tell me until I turned 16. I was both horrified and amazed that George had a demon ‘living’ inside of him. I feel bad because I had to have asked at least a hundred questions about it. I quickly learned to live with it  and it almost became routine until last night…

Yesterday was July 30th and we all went to sleep early knowing that the next day, the 31st, we would get none because we would have to stay up to make sure that when the demon emerges from George, we can lure it into the room and trap it back in his body. We woke up this morning to a trashed house and George was nowhere to be found. What happened? The demon had to have emerged but how? There is no way for the demon to emerge without the strength of the other ones. Charlotte said that she doesn’t understand how, but the demon came a day early and it is important that we find it and get it trapped back in George’s body. 

Wait… I hurry over to the calendar that we have hanging on the fridge. It says that today should be July 31st but we had a Concert to go see a bunch of musicians perform on the 15th. We never went to that but we would not miss it for the world. As I connect the dots in my head I slowly realize what this means… It's June, not July. Meaning that yesterday was June 30th, not July 30th and today is not July 31st, it's July 1st. How could we let this happen, we always make sure that we check the date everyday so that this kind of thing doesn’t happen. How could we have been so stupid and reckless? We NEED to find him and make sure that he does not hurt anybody or this could get real serious really fast.

*   *   *

Charlotte and I quickly packed care bags, one for each of us, both consisting of a demon trapper each, lots of food and water, money to buy food if we run out, extra clothes and shoes, bandages incase the demon hurts us, our phones, portable chargers, flashlights, and handmade SOS signals that respond to each other when pressed. We headed out together and got breakfast at a fast food place because neither of us thought to eat before we left the house. 

We tried calling George’s cell phone but he never answered, which is to be expected because the demon probably doesn't know how to work a phone. We drive around town for a while before we decide that the car is useless in helping because it is forcing us to move faster than our eyes can scan all the people on the crowded streets of our city. We pull into the only parking garage that is not completely packed because of the upcoming construction that is forcing people to not use their driveways so everybody is using the parking garages. Once we got parked, we got out of the car and started walking around town. We had almost given up to eat lunch for the day when I spotted him. 

He was in the process of climbing up a hotel building from an alleyway and luckily no one had seen him yet. I grabbed Charlotte's arm and pulled her close to explain where he was, so as to not point and draw attention. She looked up at him, and when she looked back at me, we seemed to agree without saying a word. We snapped around and sprinted for the apartment doors and asked the secretary at the desk if we could take the elevator to get to the top floor. Once she gave us the okay to go, we headed for the elevator and went to the top floor. From there we climbed the stairs and went to the roof of the building. 

We peered down the side of the building, seeing only the rust colored bricks and the vines growing up the sides, and I felt a sudden rush of panic. He was not there, meaning that he had beaten us to the top of the building. We looked at each other as we both heard a bird tweet but it was interrupted by a loud squeak. We turned around to see ‘George’ eating the bird raw, its blood dripping down his face. It made my stomach curl to see it. He’ll taste that later. Charlotte and I both pulled out our demon trappers and were careful not to make any noise, so he wouldn’t see us. With both of the guns pointed at him, I carefully walked around behind him so that there was one of us on either side of him, but not quite adjacent to each other so we don’t get hit just in case he moves. We pull the trigger just as I step on a random stick that was laying on the roof. His head snaps towards me and he sees the gun shoot. He moves over a mere 6 centimeters and both rays happen to miss his body. He lunged towards me as I heard Charlotte scream “RUN! ROSEMARY! RUN!”

 I bolted away from ‘George’ and towards the stairwell that goes back into the hotel. I ripped through the open door and let it slam shut behind me. I ran down the stairs like my life depended on it because in a way, it did. If the demon caught me, who knew what it would do. Would it kill me? Would it eat me? Would it drag me down to the underworld? I reached the end of the stairs and ran into the door so hard that it fell off of the top set of hinges. I looked down both sides of the hallway to see if there was a fire escape that I could climb out of but I couldn’t see one at either end. 

I ran down the hallway and into an empty hotel room, suddenly relieved that it was empty. It was quiet, so I could think clearly now. I locked the door behind me and tried to slow my breathing down so that I could think about where I could escape to and how. I need to find Charlotte but I have no idea where she ran to. I looked through the peephole that is embedded into the hotel room door and was startled because ‘George’ was staring right back at me. He was trying to convince me to open the door for him and I almost did, he assured me that the monster was gone, that Charlotte had caught him and trapped the demon inside again, his bright blue eyes shining through. There’s only one problem with that. All demon's eyes are blue while on earth.

George’s eyes are green.

*   *   *

 I quickly snapped my head around the empty hotel room to look for an escape but the only thing here was a balcony and I’m on the ninth floor, there's no way I would survive that jump. I could go out on the balcony and try to climb down to the next balcony and ask them for help but this thing is ruthless. It won't mind killing an extra family just to get to me or Charlotte.

I decide to do that anyway and not let him see them help me but as I close the balcony door I notice that the door I had locked is hanging wide open. I panic slightly but realize that I closed the door directly behind me and he would not have had time to slip through the doorway. I feel the cool air and wind on my neck and relax a little bit. That was, until I saw the flag perched in a fern pot was just hanging there, straight as can be. There is no wind, and no safety, only the horror of being stalked by this creature that looks like my adoptive dad and will not stop trying to catch me. I feel the color drain from my face as my brain and body communicate what is happening and I feel my legs and arms lunge for the metal fire poker that was sitting on the porch next to the fern and twist my body to use it to stab this monster in the stomach. He fell to the floor but I knew that he wasn't dead, demons don't die because they are already dead and when George is trapped inside that- uh, thing, he also cannot die. 

The only problem with the demon being unconscious on the floor is that now, even if Charlotte comes with the demon trapper, it won’t work. The demon has to be fully conscious for the trapper to work effectively enough to not let it back out when George falls asleep. I dig into my bag and pull out my SOS button but it is completely smashed. I push the button and almost get startled when it doesn’t beep or buzz like it normally does when it sends the message. I pushed my SOS button again, still hoping for it to buzz but it remained silent and still. I pull out my phone to see the shattered screen reflect a thousand tiny images of myself back at me. I click the power button and the screen lights up with my home screen. I quickly unlock it and navigate to the phone dial and call Charlotte. First ring, no answer. Second ring, still no answer. Third ring, she hasn’t picked up yet. Just one more ring before I hear her pre-recorded voicemail. Fourth ring and a slightly too long pause before I hear her voice. 

“Hello?” It takes my brain a second to register that she answered. A second hello rings through the phone and I quickly. “Charlotte? Is that you?” “Yes Rosy, what's wrong? Did something happen? Are you okay? Did you escape it? Is it trapped yet?” The questions were rapidly fired at me and my brain refused to think long enough to respond to any of them. I asked her to repeat them all slowly and then explained what all happened. How I ran for my life, how my bag and everything in it, including my SOS button, got smashed, thinking that I had escaped, then making the demon fall unconsciously and then asked her to come to the hotel with her trapper and wait with me. She said that she would come as quick as she could but that she had been seen by a few police officers on the top of the building and was being questioned but had made up a good lie that would get her out fast. I told her that was fine just to hurry because we don’t know how long the demon will be out for. 

I hung up and looked down at my phone, it was already at five percent, I needed to find a place to plug it in. I unlocked the balcony door and slipped inside. While I walked over to an outlet to plug my phone in, I had an idea but it would be hard to do by myself. I need to decide if I should drag him inside and relock all of the doors or if I should just leave him to sit here pathetically on the balcony of the hotel. I ponder the question for a little while and decide to drag him inside. I realize that I can’t lock him in the room because it locks from the inside so I shove him into the tiny half bath that the hotel has and push the dresser against the door so he can not get out. I sat on the bed facing the dresser against the bathroom door and waited for Charlotte. In the time it took for Charlotte to get to the hotel and up to the room, I had recharged my phone all the way, eaten the majority of my snacks, and scrolled through social media for god knows how long. It was now around 2 o’clock in the afternoon and we need to get this demon trapped. I grabbed my bag to retrieve my demon trapper as Charlotte got hers. I pulled mine out and instantly was hit with a wave of disappointment. It was shattered. If we have any chance of getting this demon to be trapped away in George again then we have to use only Charlotte's device to temporarily trap him, get him back to the house, then permanently trap him using the room. 

Charlotte and I waited in the hotel room until we heard a noise from the bathroom at 3:27 p.m. We moved the dresser back to where it was originally, I had my body leaning against the door as Charlotte charged up the trapper. She looked at me and we locked eyes. It wasn’t until now that I realized just how scared she was. Her face was as pale as a vampire’s would be and you could see the veins in her face. Her eyes were bloodshot and filled with anxiety as she gave me the nod to open the door. I never noticed her crying but she must have been because her cheeks were also tear stained. I slowly opened the door and Charlotte's face snapped into pure horror. She fell to the floor and I ran to her, scraping my knee on the warm beige carpet of the hotel room floors. I looked into the bathroom and was sure that I had the same look on my face. 

*   *   *

He was dead. It was very clear that George was dead. His chest was split into two like the demon had dissected him. Charlotte was screaming now. She was crying and I could tell that she really loved him. She looks at me and as our eyes meet I can tell exactly what she is going to say. “We are going to find that thing and kill it.” I explained to her that we can’t because it's already dead and the realization of this made her just start crying harder. She was heart-broken. 

I sat there and held her until her sobs slowed into small whimpers. My body looked calm for how tangled the thoughts in my mind were. I couldn’t stop thinking but at the same time I couldn’t think of anything. My mind is a blank canvas eagerly waiting to be marked upon. I am getting hot as I feel myself start to violently shake. I’m not quite sure why I am shaking because I can’t think of anything. It could be out of grief that George is dead, or it could be out of fear that there is now an unrestricted demon running loose around the city. It could also be because the demon is constantly one step ahead of us even when it has no clue what we are going to do. But whatever it is, I need to make it stop because now, my entire body is trembling. I can tell by the way that she looked at me that Charlotte can feel that I am shaking and she starts hugging me. She is not crying anymore but I can tell that she is still sad because she won’t look straight. Her eyes steal glances towards the bathroom and look away several times. I tell her that there is nothing that we can do to save George. What we need to do now is catch that demon. 

My stomach complains to me that all I’ve eaten today is a bunch of sugary snacks so I suggest to Charlotte that we head out to get something to eat for lunch. We made sure that the hotel door was locked so that no one could accidentally find George. Then we could come back and take him to the graveyard and bury him. We headed out of the hotel and started talking about where we wanted to eat. We decided to go to the little diner across the street from the hotel for some cheeseburgers and hash browns. We don't normally eat out but we didn’t want to go all the way home to eat just to come back here. After we had eaten all of our lunch and let it settle in our stomachs, we devised a plan to get George out of the hotel. We stopped at the local supermarket and grabbed a few items. We grabbed several rolls of plastic wrap, a suitcase, trash bags, a box of disposable gloves, a pair of masks, two cooking aprons and some gauze. When we finally made our way back to the hotel and snuck George's body out. It wasn’t an easy thing to do but once we put the gloves and aprons on we managed to put gauze around his wounds to hold him together, wrap his body in the plastic wrap, put it in the trash bag, and wrap the trash bag in the plastic wrap. 

Once that was done, we neatly fitted him into the suitcase along with the masks, gloves, and aprons so that we wouldn’t look suspicious walking around with bloody clothes on. We washed our hands, grabbed our bags, and headed out of the hotel. We made sure not to jolt the suitcase too much out of fear that it would somehow start bleeding and we would get caught. We drove to the graveyard and dug up a fresh grave, pulled the coffin out, dug a smaller hole under it, put George in the smaller hole, placed the coffin back where it was, and replaced the dirt. It didn’t look any different than it had before so we had done a good job. 

We went back home to research what this demon likes. Charlotte said that it was the demon of Studiose Gluttony, Beelzebub. We researched what would lure the demon in and what would repel it away. We learned that sweet, fancy foods would entice it to come near us without being a danger and healthy foods repel it. Without a second thought, we went out to get donuts. Charlotte and I share a passion for trying all new kinds of donuts whenever they come out. We made sure that we got the sweetest donuts there were in the shop and also grabbed some cookies. 

We headed out with the fresh donuts and the aroma of them let us find him almost instantly. He was hypnotized by the donuts and we were able to grab the rope that Charlotte grabbed from the house and tied him up enough that he couldn’t escape. We took him back to the house and put him in the special room. The room itself was helpful to keep him locked up somewhere in case the rope broke but we could not use the device to contain him anymore due to the fact that he is not possessing George anymore. We created a summoning area and drew out the pentagram, set the candles, got the salt ready, then brought Beelzebub out, he was still tied up for our safety. We made the circle of salt around him.

Charlotte cautiously stuck her arm in to untie him. She grabbed the rope and pulled cautiously on it until it untied. Beelzebub immediately sprung up and reached for Charlotte's arm with its long, knife-like fingers. Charlotte was quick to pull her arm out of the way but she was not fast enough. Beelzebub's sharp nails had scratched her arm terribly. She told me that she can not hold her arm up enough to do the chant to send him back to the underworld and that I would have to do it myself. I could not believe that I had to do this all myself. 

Charlotte walked away to tend to her wounds and I followed moments after her asking a million questions a minute. I had never summoned a demon let alone send one back. What do I chant to make it go back? I could use my phone to look it up but who knows if that will give me reliable information. I definitely don’t know how many times to say the chant. Is it just until the demon disappears? I went to Charlotte with all of these and she gave me answers. She told me that to send him back, you make sure everything is correct for a summoning and then chant “Home. Sweet. Home.” three times with about five seconds between each of the three words and ten seconds between each entire chant. I went back to the summoning area and Beelzebub was just sitting there, he looked hopeless and half of my brain had the thought to let him go but the other half was slapping me telling me not to. 

I lit the five candles and prepared to say the chant. I started speaking but didn’t recognize my voice. 

“Home. Sweet. Home.” That’s once, just two more times and we are free. 

“Home. Sweet. Home.” Second one down, but something isn't right. 

"Home. Sweet. Home.” Beelzebub fell not very gracefully through the floor and I caught a glimpse of the underworld and silently prayed that I would never end up there. 

I went to sit on the couch and turn the television on as I hear a loud bang coming from the kitchen where Charlotte was wrapping her arm. I get up quickly and I rush to the kitchen, the first thing that I see is Charlotte's horror stricken eyes. She looks like she has seen a ghost. I look over and try to see what she is looking at but she is looking at something on the other side of our fridge. Where the doorway is. I walk around the island counter and to where Charlotte is standing. I look to where Charlotte's glassy eyes lead and I feel my heart do one thousand backflips. I wasn’t sure what I felt in that moment. I was confused. I was disoriented. I was petrified. I tried to grab Charlotte’s arm and run but my body refused to move. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. Covered in dirt, chunks of trash bags and plastic wrap all over, standing in our kitchen was a man we thought to be dead. 

George Celeste. 

He was standing right in front of me but I didn't believe that he was here. He looked sad and disheveled, and he still looked dead. His gauze bandages were not staying on very well and it looked like his wounds had gotten dirt in them. He was staring back at us with eyes that looked like they had glossed over and he couldn’t see us. He was mumbling words but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Charlotte looked at me and back to him before asking him what he was saying. He stopped mumbling, took a deep breath, and started screaming. “HOW DARE YOU LEAVE ME THERE! I COULD HAVE BEEN HELPED! YOU COULD’VE TAKEN ME TO A HOSPITAL AND SAID I GOT ATTACKED BY A BEAR OR SOMETHING! HOW DARE YOU LEAVE!” 

Then he waved me away. I backed out of the room just enough so that he couldn’t see me but I could still hear the conversation. He had calmed down a bit and spoke to Charlotte. He was almost talking in a hurried whisper. Like he was in a rush and was telling her a secret. “I thought you loved me.” was the first thing I heard him say to her. “Charlotte, I thought you loved me with all your heart and would do anything to save me. That’s what you said you’d do. You told me you would always do anything to save me from him. You didn't save me. You let me die." And right as he had said that I came to a realization. 

He IS dead. He didn't come back to life, he went to the underworld and must've crawled back up when I sent Beelzebub back down. We need to find a way to get him back to the underworld. I quickly grabbed the rope that we had used to tie up Beelzebub and crawled around the island. Charlotte saw me and made sure that she didn’t give me away. She casually moved out of my way and I leaped towards him and tied the rope around his ankles. He shouted out in what was either pain, fear, or surprise and it gave me a second to make sure that the ropes were secured. Charlotte then grabbed more rope from the counters and tried to wrap up his arms but she tripped over me and toppled to the floor. She had accidentally grabbed George’s arms when she started falling and pulled him down onto me. 

We were combobulation of arms and legs and we were all scrambling to get up. Charlotte got up first and quickly pulled George up off of me and tied his hands up so that he couldn’t escape. We went to the summoning area that we had created and put George in the circle. We made sure that all of the candles were still lit and that the circle hadn’t gotten messed up. We sat around the pentagram adjacent to each other and recited the incantation. 

“Home. Sweet. Home.” I look at Charlotte and I can see the pain of having to do this in her face. Her wrinkles are starting to show even though she is only 35.  

“Home. Sweet. Home.” This time, nothing feels wrong even though it is killing me to have to do this to George. Only three more words for us to speak before George is gone forever. 

“Home. Sweet. Home.” This time, instead of the ground collapsing, there was just a staircase leading down to the underworld. Charlotte was crying now and I could see how much this hurts her to watch. George looked at me and waved slowly, saying goodbye for now. He then turned to Charlotte and waved like it was a goodbye he wished to never say. She whispers to him, “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I swear I tried my best.” He looked at her and I swear that he had also started crying but I couldn’t quite tell because he was facing away from me. He whispered back to her. “I know, it just hurts that I can’t be with you anymore. I love you.” Charlotte was crying too hard to speak now so she just nodded her head and blurted out a choked out an “I l-love you t-too.” George turned away and gave one last wave goodbye to the world he was soon to leave. He started down the steps as I felt a tear roll down my cheek, “I’ll miss you!” I shout to him just as the ground is closing up again. I hear a muffled “Me, too!” just before it sealed off. 

I walked over to Charlotte and just sat with her. We stayed on the floor and cried together for a while and then we cleaned up the summoning area and went into the living room. We sat down on the couch and decided on a movie. We started the movie and ate some snacks until we both fell asleep. It felt like I was only asleep for a few seconds when I woke up again. I heard a metallic beeping of something close to me. Charlotte must have the oven on. I slowly open my eyes expecting to see our living room in front of me with the tv on the news channel and all of our snack bowls from the previous night on the coffee table, but that's not what I find at all. 

I opened my eyes to myself laying in a bed with white sheets covering me from my shoulders to my feet with my arms out. It was uncomfortably cold and there was something poking at my arm and it felt frigid. I was in a hospital bed. I sit up and Charlotte races to my side. Her wrinkles are gone but she's still been crying, I can tell from the lines on her face from the foundation that she uses. She asks me how I feel and I say good as I start crying. I was crying so hard that I could barely breathe. I managed to choke out one measly sentence. “W-Why am I in t-the hospital?” Charlotte looks to the man that had been sitting next to her with a worried expression. He walks closer but I can still not tell who he was because of the bright fluorescent lights on the ceiling. It wasn’t until he was standing no more than a foot from my bed that I realized that it was George. He looked everything except dead, his face was pink-ish but still the tan that I recognized, but at the same time he looked very worried and apprehensive. 

I think that Charlotte could tell that I was startled because she said, “It’s okay, it’s just Goerge, Rosy.” I was still confused. “Charlotte, why am I in the hospital and how is HE here?” I asked her and this time it was her that was startled. “Rosy, don’t you remember?” She’s just making me upset now. I have asked her twice now why I am in the hospital and she hasn’t answered me either time. “What am I supposed to remember? That George is dead? That Beelzebub killed him and then we sent both of them to the underworld? You’re confusing me Charlotte!” Her face went pale and she looked at me with empathy in her eyes. “Rosy, you fell down the stairs at the apartment a week ago and have been in a coma ever since. The doctors said that you had severe brain damage and internal bleeding. Noone thought you were going to survive.” 

“What?” I hear myself say it outloud but it’s not me saying it, it’s someone else that is using my mouth to speak. “What do you mean a coma? Like you are telling me that I have been in this hospital, in this room, laying in this bed for an entire week?” CHarlotte looked sad answering but she let out a muffled, “Yes.”

I can't believe it. This is amazing. George isn’t dead, he never was and the entire thing that I thought was the last four years of my life is all a lie. 

This. Is. Great. 

Charlotte still looks concerned about me saying that George died and we sent him to the underworld but other than that she looks happy. I explained to her what I have now summed up to all have been a dream and she looked mortified at the fact that that is what I was thinking about and going through for the week. She told me that George is very much not dead and that he is not and never has been possessed by a demon.

We stayed one more night in the hospital before I got cleared to go home again. The doctors told me no stairs for a week and no running or other athletic activities for two weeks. Charlotte on the other hand, made some rules of her own. I am not allowed to read any horror books or watch scary movies past ten p.m. any more because she doesn’t want me having anymore “scary nightmares about your father.” I can’t blame her though. I’m pretty sure that we won’t be watching anymore movies that involve demons for a while now. 

We stopped at the store on the way home to grab some snacks and popcorn. Once we got home, Charlotte and George went to the kitchen and made some popcorn while I went to the living room to get comfy on the couch. I was on my way to the couch and that’s when I saw it. Salt. There was salt on the living room floor. On a normal day, I wouldn’t think anything of it but it just so happened that the salt on the floor was no more than a foot away from where the summoning area was in my dream. This could not be a coincidence. I went to ask Charlotte about it but realized that it would make her uneasy to know that I am still thinking about the dream so I asked George instead. I pulled him out of the kitchen and pointed to the salt. “There’s salt on the floor over there, what happened?” That’s when he looked at me, looked towards the salt, then back at me, grinned a smile that was just slightly too big for his face and pulled the index finger of his right hand up to his mouth. He only said one word, but that one word shook my entire existence. 

“Shhh.”