The doctor said that mum had severe schizophrenia and she needed to take her medication three times a day, every day or she would become delusional. I had to take care of her and my sister now, as our dad just got in his car one day and fucked off. The doctor said that might have been what triggered her illness. Over the days and months she got worse, like the medication wasn’t working. We took her to see multiple psychologists and doctors, but they all dismissed her.
She just sat there. Rocking backwards and forwards. Muttering the same words under her breath over and over. "The darkness is coming, the darkness is coming." She kept scratching at her arms continuously until they bled like there was something itching underneath her skin which she had to dig out. We tried to get her help, but every time anyone went near her she let out bloodcurdling screams and her eyes rolled right to the back of her head. She’d gotten so bad that we had to tie her down by her wrists and ankles to the bed in the attic so she couldn’t mutilate herself any more than she already had. She froze her eyes focused on one corner of the room. "Can’t you hear them? They’re calling for me, the voices, it's coming. Darkness. Nothing but darkness," she cried. Almost instantly she began screaming again, trying to break free of the ties that held her in place, violently trying to rip them off with her teeth. You could see the frustration building in her eyes. After three hours of contorting her body and shaking the bed she fell quiet again.
I rushed into my little sister's room to check she was alright, after all she was only seven and it was hard to explain what was happening to mum without scaring her. She was scrunched into a ball with all the pillows over her head, most probably trying to block out the events of the attic. I perched on the end of the bed and walked my fingers up her arm and gently stroked her golden hair. She came out from under the pillows, "Has it stopped?" I nodded my head, tucked her into bed and left her a kiss on the cheek. By now, I was shattered myself so I went back up to the attic to make sure that mum was still calm. She seemed flat out so I locked the door and headed off to bed.
I found it hard to sleep anymore and the doctor had prescribed me sleeping pills. I sat in bed and took two with a sip of water. They kicked in straight away, thank God, and I fell straight to sleep. This sleep however was soon to be broken as a strange scratching sound woke me. It could have been anything so I dismissed it and closed my eyes. Just as I was about to fall back to sleep a loud bang made me jump out my skin. I heard my sister scream and I ran straight for the door but it slammed right in my face! No matter how much I tried to get it open, it wouldn’t. The banging was louder and all I could think of was getting to my sister and keeping her safe. Somehow I managed to prise the door open and I rushed to my sister’s bedroom. The attic door was hanging off its hinges and there was trail of blood all the way down the stairs. The colour drained from my face as I realised where the trail was heading. I kicked open the door to my sister’s room to find mum crouched on top of my sister’s lifeless body, her mouth oozing with deep red blood. I was almost sick. Her hands filled with my sister’s flesh which she had ripped off of her stomach in large chunks. Her intestines hanging out. My mum turned to look at me. Her eyes were completely black, there was evil in her face. She threw the pieces of flesh onto the floor and slowly began to make her way towards me. I backed up towards the door, my heart racing. She showed me her arm and smiled deviously. I looked down at what she was showing me; it said, "Darkness lies within." She had carved those words into her own skin with what looked like one of her own teeth. I looked away and once again felt the need to be sick but I swallowed it back down.
I couldn’t take it. That wasn’t my mum, it was a beast, a demon. I ran out the room and down the stairs. She followed, chasing after me, calling out to me, "Join me child." I kept running until I got to the kitchen. I grabbed the knives. All the lights suddenly went out and I was in total darkness. I could hear my own heartbeat. Then I saw it. Her glowing eyes in the corner of the room, just stood there. She began to hobble towards me. I took a breath and rammed the knife straight into her beating chest. She screamed so I pulled out and went for her again and again until she was on the floor. Still not dead though. As I stepped back I knocked over a tray of cutlery. It rained knives, forks and spoons all over her face. One of the forks landed straight in her eye socket, I grabbed it and began to twist it around and around until she finally stopped screaming. Dead.
I froze for a second and tears began to stream down my face. What have I done? I ran out of the house and down the street my hands and clothes covered in my mother's and sister's blood. I went to the only place I could think of where I knew I’d be safe from it all. Church. I sat down by the altar and I felt a warm hand on my shoulder. The priest sat down next to me and nodded as if he knew about everything. He told me that my mum wasn’t a schizophrenic and that she was possessed by a powerful demon that took control of her body. And that if I didn’t kill her… It would have killed me.