My name is Teddy. I’m ten years old and a demon wants to eat me. 

I can see it but nobody else can. I can talk to it but nobody else can. 

The demon screams at me at night but I don’t get scared. Even when I see spit drip from its sharp black teeth as it tries to bite my head off I’m not afraid. I’m ten after all. I’m not a baby.  

I can’t tell my mom or dad about the demon and they wouldn’t believe me anyway. There are rules that you have to obey when a demon owns your soul, and one is that mom and dad can’t ever know. Nobody can help me it says. 

The demon promises that one day soon it will eat me until I’m almost dead. Then with one more big bite I’ll be done for. Those huge black shiny teeth are sharp as my dads razor. I’m sure they could munch through my innards like pink blancmange. We have that at school for dessert sometimes but I don’t like it anymore. 

The demon knows I cannot be his blancmange until I am thirteen. I don’t know why thirteen. The rules are the demon’s and not mine. It knows I know about the thirteen rule. I’m safe. I’m only ten. Ha!

*

Hello. I’m Teddy and I’m eleven.

A demon is dying to kill me by gobbling me up. It will eat my toes, my tummy and lastly my head. It owns me, it keeps on telling me. But it can’t hurt me yet - not thirteen, see! It still tries hard to scare me though. 

It gets really mad at me and said that it can’t wait to chew my head off. It can’t wait to grab my skull in its three-fingered claws that are sharp enough to gut fish or little kids. I’ll bleed through my eyes as it squeezes my brains to a blood-orange pulp. Finally it will bite into my inflated head until it pops and my blood dribbles down its chin and onto its serrated chest. 

It taught me the word ‘serrated’. I’d heard it before but I didn’t know what it meant. The demon said that it can mince up children straight into its belly to save time by just using this serrated, kiddie chest-grater. Like a smoothie maker for monsters. But it will not eat me in a fast smooth way. I have to suffer slowly, it says but it doesn’t say why. 

The demon has shown me too how this will look. It’s brought a lot of broken thirteen year old girls and boys to my bedroom at night. 

I said “Eeeeeuuuuuwwww!” as I saw innards come out through their bellies like red wet sausages and get swallowed down the demons gullet. It also taught me ‘gullet’. I like that word. But I don’t really like seeing the broken kids eyes after I go to sleep. 

*

Hey there. I’m Ted. I’ve just turned twelve. Mom says I’m almost a “young man” now. A lot can happen in a year. I’ve grown up a lot. 

My demon is still coming to me every single damn night. It warns me. It promises me that the agony it will inflict on me will have me begging it for death. I will know a “unique suffering” before it finishes me off. These aren’t my words BTW. These are demon words. It talks very passionately about me most of the time.

The demon talks in lengthy detail about my death. How it will flay me. Or maybe strangle me almost to death. But release me, then strangle some more, then go round again, again and again. 

Its rheumy yellow bloodshot eyes stare wistfully into the dark folds of my lamp-less bedroom as it describes my death. The demon bites through all my bedroom lightbulbs, keeping it dark to enhance the mood, it says. Mom ran out of lightbulbs, “what do you keep doing in that room at night Ted?”, she asks. But she wouldn’t believe me. And I can’t say. 

The demon wonders what will I taste like. How warm will my thirteen year old blood be? How quickly will it cool and clot? Do I know my blood type? It doesn’t make a difference, but it would like to know. 

Will my brain be aware of what is happening while I’m being eaten alive? Will the demon chuckle contentedly while it does? (Oh yes, it says, it will chuckle). Will my meat be firm and tender?

How loudly will my bones snap as it shears through me right down to the marrowbone? I decided I don’t like that word - ‘marrowbone’. It’s ugly and gives me images of the inner parts of me that shouldn’t be seen. Should never be messed with. And especially, should never be eaten. 

Will I be easy for it to digest? Will I give it a dickie tummy? Or gas? It must be playing with me, demons don’t get gas, surely? But it says they do. Their internal digestive system is made of brimstone and lava-fires that glow through its smoothie-maker rotisserie chest. The gasses from it exhaust through nose-less nostrils and it’s backside. I don’t know a sorry death until I hear and smell a demon fart my half-digested body, it said. It didn’t say this to be funny either. And I never laughed. 

Sometimes the demon gets so lost in its stories of how it will enjoy violating me that I think it forgets I’m even there. But there I am. In my bed. Making sure my ever-so-slightly hairy toes aren’t poking out from the bottom of my football pitch quilt. 

I squirm inside when I imagine the monster chewing on my toes. My poor toes that have been content on the ends of my feet for twelve years, un-gnawed. I can’t quite believe that one day they will be no better than sausages on cocktail sticks at a children's birthday party. 

Great Ted. Why did you go and think of that - birthdays? My next one is… I can’t quite comprehend it yet. It’s real, but not real. The demon and its funky breath is very very real. I’m still twelve. For now. 

*

I’m Theodore. Tomorrow I turn thirteen. 

I don’t want to talk about it. 

No mom. I don’t want a party. 

*

Greetings. I am Malphas. Or Dajjal. Or Xezbeth. 

I have been known by many names in many cultures. 

I have existed for centuries. All should fear me. Especially children. Those that don’t are the lucky ones. But awareness comes with age. Awareness brings concern. Concern brings fear. Fear brings death. I am death. 

I am a clock-watcher. A time-eater. I have no end. 

Teddy once thought himself eternal, as the young do. Blinded by his youth. Ignorant and immature. But immaturity eventually blossoms. It wears down like enamel on teeth and ripens like a blood-orange, ready to be eaten. 

I wonder, does Teddy remember the blood-orange promise I made him? Not to worry. It has no impact on his outcome. 

*

I am Malphas. The demon that ate Teddy. He was aware to the very last bite. 

I strangled him. I flayed him. I grated him. He begged. He suffered. He cried. I chuckled. His bones snapped loudly. His head popped messily. His marrowbone was stringy. His blood curdled. His toes were hairy. He gave me wind. My stomach feels troubled. He was too gristly and I am still picking bits of him from between my teeth. 

I am the monster that finally ate Teddy and he tasted… Average. 

They really are past their best at thirteen.