Demon Contract

The pod said she was safe.

Monitors pulsed steady green, numbers whispering the lie of calm. Behind the glass she looked at peace, eyes closed, breath even, as if sleep had finally claimed her. Max believed it. He needed to believe it.

But inside—

Inside, Liz was already falling.

Not through dreams. Not through sleep.

Through fire. Through silence. Through something older than both.

Her father thought she was resting. Healing.

But she wasn't asleep. She was running…

The memory of antiseptic faded, slipping through her grasp like water. The smell of clean sheets dissolved into lavender, the rhythmic beeping melted into birdsong. For a moment she thought she had woken—really woken—in her own bed. But even as she breathed in, the silence pressed too hard, and the wrongness crept in around the edges.

***

Day 1.

Liz woke to silence.

She could almost feel her father's hand closing around hers, warm and steady, the way he'd held it by the hospital bed—his thumb brushing once across her knuckles. The thought should have anchored her. Instead, it made the silence feel heavier, as if he were already slipping away.

But the bed beneath her was too soft, the air too clean. The burns she remembered had vanished. This wasn't the hospital. It wasn't home either. It was some place in between, stitched together out of what she wanted and what she feared.

The ceiling above her was pale, the same off-white she remembered from home, threaded with hairline cracks that her mother had always promised to paint over but never did. A soft curtain shifted in the breeze, filtering sunlight into slow-moving stripes that painted her bed. The air smelled faintly of lavender and clean linen.

For a moment, she just lay there, chest rising and falling in the steady rhythm of someone who had been carried back into safety. The sheets were smooth beneath her fingers. The sound of birds floated faintly beyond the window. Everything was still.

For a second she almost believed it. Sixteen and still wishing for mornings that didn't hurt, still wanting to roll over and hear her mum banging pans in the kitchen. She told herself not to hope, not here—but the wanting came anyway, raw and sharp.

She sat up, blinking at the light. Her skin was smooth, unscarred. The ragged burns she remembered weren't there. She looked down at herself—tank top, flannel pyjama pants, both spotless and soft. Her bare feet touched the floorboards, cool to the touch.

It was her room. Exactly her room.

But it wasn't right.

There should have been noise: the kettle whistling, her father's uneven footsteps dragging across the hall, her mother's voice humming something low and tuneless. Here there was nothing. Not even the sound of pipes or cars in the distance. Just the slow, careful birdsong outside.

The silence pressed down on her chest until it was hard to breathe.

Liz stood, brushing her palms across her arms as if she could rub the wrongness away. Her eyes fell on the dresser—the picture frames lined neatly in a row, the same ones she had dusted as a child when her mother reminded her. She stepped closer, heart stuttering.

Something was off.

Each photograph was familiar. Vacations. Birthdays. Family dinners. But her own face was marred in every single one. Her eyes weren't blurred or faded—they had been gouged out of the prints, dug at with fingernails until only raw white paper showed through.

Her stomach turned. She stumbled back, a hand clapping over her mouth.

Her mind grabbed at explanations, desperate and childish. Maybe Dad… maybe he had taken them down, or tried to fix them, or—she cut the thought short. No. He wouldn't. He couldn't. Not to her. Not like this.

She thought of her father's hands, rough and clumsy, the way he held things too tightly without meaning to. He would never do this. He wouldn't scratch her out of pictures, wouldn't erase her. He was all she had left—and even here, he felt too far away.

The room no longer felt safe.

Her gaze shifted toward the door. She could feel it pulling at her—an ordinary wooden door with a brass knob she had turned a thousand times before. But now it loomed. Every instinct told her to keep it closed.

She hesitated, her fingers trembling inches from the cool metal. Then, slowly, she curled them around the handle and twisted.

The latch gave with a click.

The hallway beyond stretched out in golden morning light. Family portraits lined the walls, sunlight catching their glass frames. At first glance it looked warm, familiar. But Liz's pulse quickened as she walked past. The faces were all wrong. Her mother's smile was blurred into ash. Her father's outline was there, but his face had been erased, scraped away. Only her own figure remained, eyes missing, a hollow shape staring back.

Her throat tightened. She pressed one hand against the wall for balance.

The house smelled wrong too. Not lavender anymore. Something faintly acrid, like paper just beginning to burn.

Liz turned toward the kitchen. The counters gleamed. The floor was spotless. A vase of roses sat by the window—roses her mother had always hated. Too pretentious, she'd said. Too false.

The oven door was slightly ajar.

Her feet moved before she told them to. She leaned down, peering inside.

A scrap of fabric burned silently within. Her mother's scarf. The soft wool she used to wrap around Liz's neck in winter. A flame ate it piece by piece, though there was no heat, no smoke—just the steady, unnatural glow of fire that wasn't fire.

Liz staggered back. Her shoulders hit the wall, breath jerking shallow.

The hallway behind her had changed. It stretched longer now, impossibly so, shadows running along the ceiling like spilled ink.

Her chest tightened. Her legs refused to move.

The silence grew heavy, pressing in from all sides. Even the birdsong outside had stopped. Her lungs ached with the effort of holding breath, but she didn't dare exhale. The house itself seemed to listen.

And then she heard it.

The creak of footsteps above her.

Slow. Careful.

And a voice—soft, familiar, crooked at the edges.

"Elizabeth? Why are you hiding from me?"

Her throat closed. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes.

"Mum?"

The word slipped out in a whisper, fragile and aching.

The silence answered back with a second creak. And then footsteps, closer now, moving toward her.

***

The footsteps were light, almost delicate, but each one struck Liz like a hammer.
They came closer. Closer. A rhythm she knew too well—her mother's morning shuffle, the sound that used to mean safety, warmth, coffee brewing in the kitchen.

Her chest hurt with every beat of her heart. She pressed herself flat against the wall, nails biting her palms. She wanted to speak, to scream, to run, but her lungs refused her. She could only wait, trembling, as the sound drew near.

And then her mother appeared at the far end of the hallway.

For an instant, Liz's world cracked open with relief.

It was her. It had to be.

The navy cardigan with its worn cuffs. The white slippers, flattened with years of pacing across hardwood floors. Her hair pulled into its usual messy bun, strands breaking free to spill across her face. The small, steady smile Liz had chased like a lantern her entire childhood.

Liz's throat convulsed. Her knees almost gave. The ache inside her chest flooded into something warm, something desperate.

"Mum?" The word escaped broken, ragged. She hated how small it sounded, how much it begged.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Her mother's smile widened just slightly, soft and patient. "Of course I'm here, sweetheart."

Relief hit her like a drug, dizzy and hot. She wanted to throw herself into that hug, to believe it was real. But the thought was too childish, too naïve—something a little kid would do, not someone who knew better.

Tears welled in Liz's eyes, blurring the hallway into watercolour. Her whole body trembled with the force of her wanting. "But… no, you can't. I saw you. The fire—" Her arms wrapped tight around her ribs as if she could keep her voice from breaking. "You died."

Her mother tilted her head, smile fixed. "Shhh. Don't cry. I'm here now."

The words should have soothed her. They always had. But something was wrong.
Liz froze, realizing it all at once.

Her mother's tone had the right shape, the right cadence. But it carried no breath. No warmth. The sound didn't fill the space like it used to. It just floated there, hollow and brittle, like a phrase played from an old recorder.

And the smile—

The smile didn't move. Not when she spoke. Not at all.

The first sharp edge of dread cut across Liz's ribs. She took a half-step back, eyes fixed on her mother's face. "What… what is this?"

Her mother moved closer. Too smooth. Too precise. Every motion was just a little too clean, like a puppet pulled by invisible strings. She extended her hand. The palm looked right. The nails, the lines, even the faint scar across her wrist from when she'd cut herself in the kitchen. But it was wrong all the same, uncanny in its perfection.

"You brought me back, remember?"

Liz's stomach turned to ice. "I—what?"

Her mother's head tilted further, the angle unnatural, her smile stretched like elastic. "You asked for me. You begged for me. And you opened the door."

Liz's breath hitched. A dozen memories slammed into her at once — crying into her pillow after the fire, whispering bargains into the dark, I'd give anything, just bring her back. The things she hadn't dared tell anyone. The secrets she had swallowed until they burned holes in her chest.

Her pulse thrashed. "No… I didn't… I didn't mean—"

The figure's smile cracked wider, just for a heartbeat, and Liz saw the truth.
Not her mother's lips. Not her mother's face. Something stretched too thin, something wearing the skin like a mask. A thing that didn't blink. A thing that had learned how to walk but hadn't learned how to breathe.

The hallway seemed to lean in on her, the air thickening like syrup. Liz's knees buckled. She pressed herself harder against the wall, her whole body shivering.

"You're not her." The words came out broken, more plea than accusation.

Her mother's voice rippled with static. "But I remember her laugh. Her warmth. I remember the sound she made when the flames took her throat."

Liz gasped, horror flaring through her bones like cold lightning.

The walls groaned in answer, stretching longer, shadows dripping from the ceiling like tar. The photographs peeled back in strips, revealing raw plaster streaked with teeth marks, as if something had gnawed the house hollow.

Her mother's voice followed, softer now, almost tender.

"You said you'd bring me back, Lizzy. And I came home."

Something inside Liz shattered.

Her breath tore free.

And she ran.

***

Liz ran.

Her bare feet slapped against the floorboards, but the sound didn't echo the way it should. Instead, it sank into the wood, muffled, swallowed whole. The hallway stretched in front of her, impossibly long, each step pulling her further without ever closing the distance to the front door.

Her lungs burned. Her legs trembled. Still she kept moving.

Behind her, the thing wearing her mother's skin walked with calm, unhurried steps.
"You don't need to run, sweetheart. You asked for me. You wanted me."

The words crawled into Liz's ears and settled there, pulsing like a heartbeat. She shook her head, hard, but they didn't fall out.

The walls groaned. Slowly at first, then louder. The wallpaper blistered, bubbling into wet, pulsing veins that ran along the plaster. Family portraits peeled off in strips, frames dangling crooked. The faces inside twisted as she passed — her father's smile sagging into a black gape, her own reflection clawing bloody lines where her eyes should be.

"Stop it," Liz choked. "Stop—"

Her throat scraped raw. "You're not her! You're not my mum — you're just some thing pretending!" The words burst out desperate, childish, furious, like a girl yelling at the shadows in her closet. But the house only groaned louder, mocking her with its silence.

The house didn't stop.

The ceiling sagged downward like stretched skin. Shadows poured across the floorboards like oil, seeping into the cracks, making them creak in pain. The air grew hot, then cold, then hot again, alternating in sick waves that made her stomach lurch.

Liz stumbled into the kitchen. For one desperate moment she thought it would be safe here, the sunlight spilling bright across spotless tiles. But the light was wrong — too white, too sharp, like a dissecting lamp.

The vase of roses on the counter had blackened, petals crumbling inward as though rotting in fast-forward. The oven's door hung wide now, and the burning scarf was almost gone, reduced to glowing threads that refused to die.

A smell hit her then — sharp, chemical, wrong. Like plastic melting inside her own lungs. Liz staggered back until her shoulders struck the wall, breath jerking shallow, heart hammering like it wanted out.

The voice came again, closer now, but from everywhere. From the walls. From the floor. From the air itself.

"You left the door open, Lizzy. I only had to step inside."

The fluorescent bulbs above her popped one by one, glass raining down in sharp glitter. Darkness rushed in behind them, thick and choking.

Then the fire came.

It didn't ignite with sparks or smoke — it simply was. One instant, the walls were walls; the next, they were sheets of blackened flame, racing upward, folding inward, devouring ceiling and floor alike. Curtains flared into skeletal ash. Cabinets buckled and bled tar.

Liz screamed. The heat didn't burn her skin, but it pressed into her chest, into her throat, as if it were trying to char her from the inside out.

She staggered back into the hallway, but it had changed again. No more family portraits. No more wallpaper. Just a raw, endless corridor of bone-white plaster, sagging and slick with something that dripped down in thick strands.

And at the far end, her mother stood again. Smiling.

But not alone.

From the hollow of her chest, something smaller began to crawl out. Child-sized. Wrong-limbed. Its grin spread too wide, stretching until it split its face. Eyes blinked open across its skin in places where no eyes belonged — one on its jaw, one across its ribs, one staring blankly from the centre of its chest.

It dropped to all fours. Its nails scratched sparks against the warped floor.

And it giggled.

Liz's stomach turned to ice. Her breath came ragged, broken sobs as her back hit the wall. There was nowhere left to go.

The child-thing's giggle bent upward into her mother's voice.

"Don't cry, Lizzy. We're a family again."

The flames shrieked around her as the creature began to crawl.

***

Liz ran. Her body trembled, lungs burning with smoke that wasn't smoke, air scraped raw on the way down. Every corner spat her back into the same place—kitchen, hallway, door—until forward felt like a lie.

She crashed into a wall. Her cheek struck plaster that pulsed under her skin, warm and spongy, as though she had hit flesh. She staggered away, bile rising.

A giggle slithered behind her. High. Too high. Too loud.

"You can't run forever, Lizzy."

She bolted again, bare feet blistering against the warped floorboards. They screamed as she stepped on them — not groaned, not creaked, but screamed in voices that weren't wood.

And then it hit her.

The weight came from behind, small but vicious. Claws sank into her shoulder, dragging her down. Liz's face slammed against the floor, splinters tearing across her cheek. She screamed, flailing, but the thing pinned her with the easy strength of something that wanted her to feel how helpless she was.

Hot blood spread under her collarbone. Its claws weren't deep enough to kill. Just enough to hurt. Just enough to mark.

Liz twisted, tried to throw it off, but it only pressed closer. Its breath rasped over her ear, a parody of warmth.

"You begged for her back," it crooned in her mother's voice, sweet and cracked. "And I answered."

She tried to scream no, but it came out broken. Her throat was too dry, too raw.

The creature licked the blood from her shoulder with a tongue that was wrong — barbed, rasping like a cat's, but far too long. The touch was obscene. Degrading. It wasn't trying to kill her. It was trying to claim her.

Tears stung Liz's eyes. She bucked, kicked, clawed at the floor, but her nails only peeled splinters loose. Her arms shook with desperation.

"Get off me!"

The child-thing giggled. It pulled one hand from her shoulder and slid its claws slowly down her spine, not cutting, just letting her feel each sharp tip trace bone.

"This body is mine now. Mine to wear. Mine to split open. Mine to crawl inside and stay."

Its voice broke into April's again — her mother's gentle timbre, hollowed out and wrong. "Why don't you love me, Lizzy?"

That shattered something in her. She screamed so loud her throat tore, raw and wet. For a heartbeat, the creature recoiled, cackling as if her pain delighted it.

Liz rolled, shoving with every ounce of strength she had left. Somehow, impossibly, she knocked it back. The thing hit the fireplace with a sound like bones snapping.

She scrambled up, chest heaving, blood hot against her skin. Her shirt hung in tatters. She was half-exposed, trembling, her body already bruised and scraped.

The demon crouched where it landed, smiling with too many teeth. It wasn't hurt. Not really. It was enjoying this.

Her legs barely held her. Still she ran, sobbing, hair plastered to her face with sweat and blood.

Behind her, the child-thing laughed again. Not like a child. Not like her mother. Like something that had learned how laughter sounded and was still getting it wrong.

And the house shifted to help it.

Hallways collapsed. Doors twisted into bone. Stairs folded down flat. The world conspired to funnel her forward, like prey being driven into a trap.

Liz ran anyway, because running was all she had left.

***

The front door burst open behind her with a splintering crack. Liz staggered through, bare feet slapping against the threshold, lungs burning with smoke that wasn't smoke. For a heartbeat, she thought she was free.

Then the house collapsed.

It didn't crumble in fire and ash like it should have. It folded inward, groaning like a throat swallowing its own scream, beams snapping and walls twisting until the whole structure imploded into nothing. Not rubble. Not ruin. Just absence.

Liz stumbled back onto damp ground.

Her feet sank into something soft. Not mud. Not soil. It pulsed faintly beneath her toes, warm and spongy, as though she were standing on muscle stretched too thin. She looked up, chest heaving—

—into a forest of black trees.

They rose higher than any she'd ever seen, skeletal branches twisting like fingers trying to catch the sky. No leaves. No wind. Just endless trunks fading into darkness. The air smelled wrong, sharp and sweet, like rotting sugar laced with blood.

Her breath hitched.

She turned, searching for stars. For the moon. For anything. But the sky was gone. There was only blackness above, heavy and endless, pressing down until it felt like she was buried alive beneath the world.

Somewhere between the trees, something laughed.

Not aloud. Not behind her. Inside.

Liz froze, clutching her torn shirt against her chest. Her knees trembled. She tried to force air into her lungs, but the sound was already there, worming through her ears, curling behind her eyes.

"Don't run, Lizzy," the demon whispered, but this time it wasn't coming from the shadows. It was threaded through her own thoughts. "You can't run from me. I'm already here."

Her pulse slammed against her ribs. She clutched her head, shaking it hard, like she could rattle the voice loose. "No," she whispered, broken. "No, no, get out—"

The ground beneath her feet pulsed once. Twice. Faster now. Like a heartbeat waking.

The trees creaked. Slowly, they bent toward her. Not from wind, but in unison, their skeletal branches curling lower, reaching. She staggered backward, tripped, fell to her knees in the warm, breathing soil.

The voice leaned closer. Sweet. Patient. Crooked.

"You don't have to keep running. You don't have to bleed. All you have to do…"

Her breath tore ragged through her throat. "Stop."

"…is say yes."

Liz pressed her hands over her ears, shaking, sobbing, but the word had already rooted inside her skull. It echoed in the silence, in the trees, in the pulse beneath her knees.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

She screamed into the dark: "No!"

Her voice cracked, young and furious, as if she could claw the world into listening. For once she didn't care if it sounded childish. It was all she had left.

And in that moment, saying no felt stronger than any yes the dark could force into her. It was the only thing that was hers.

The forest screamed back. Branches cracked like jaws snapping shut.

"Yes."