Daemon: The Latin term for a spirit or supernatural being. Not to be confused with the Christianized word "Demon"; a daemon is no more prone to being good or evil than a human.
I'm Michelle. Your average twenty-something girl, with one big difference. I communicate with, and channel, spirits. Not the dead -- living spirits, from otherworlds. Obviously, this causes quite a bit of skepticism, fear, and misunderstandings. There have been a wide spectrum of reactions to this, ranging from 'You're just making this up', to 'You're possessed by demons', to 'You are crazy'.
My good friend Mike has known about this for a very long time, and has a few of his own hypotheses on the subject. But what good is a hypothesis without an experiment to back it up? And so it is that I found myself willingly volunteering to undergo his 'experiments'. I myself am a bit biased in the matter (this is completely real for me, and I cannot possibly envision it being otherwise), but I'm curious to see how this turns out. And he's curious to know, for sure, whether I have Dissociative Identity Disorder, am possessed by evil (or not-so-evil) spirits, or something else altogether.
Herein, I shall record the details of these experiments, which will include interview of myself, the spirits, and those who have known me for quite awhile, along with other quirky tests, such as sticking me in a church and dumping holy water on me.
But first, you'll need some background info.
Ever since I was a child, I saw things that other people did not. Mostly, I saw these shadowy beings, especially at night (although not always), which would wander our yard, our house. They were large -- taller than six or seven feet sometimes, stooped as not to hit the ceiling with their head(s). They came in an assortment of shapes and figures, some bipedal and others not, although none of them having the exact silhouette of a human.
I couldn't have told you how I knew, back then (now I know it was empathy), but I knew that they were bad news. They emanated bloodlust, malice, and every night I would lie as still as physically possible, willing my breathing to be silent, willing myself to be invisible to them, as I watched them wander through the stairwell in my basement room. I was terrified every night for my life. Through terror and practice, I learned unknowingly to erect a barrier. Willing myself to be silent, willing myself to go unseen and unnoticed, none of them came near or even looked in my direction, and it truly was as if I were invisible.
It probably comes as no surprise that I was alienated as a child. Most children are more interested in playing with dolls or fake weapons and planes, whereas I kept to myself, worried whether I'd make the next day.
Things went on like this for quite some time, even became routine, I suppose. And then, when I was about thirteen, things changed.
That night, I watched the gruesome parade the same as any night, warily keeping myself unnoticed in my bed, not daring to close my eyes. The parade passed (for now), and the stairwell was momentarily empty. And then a new silhouette appeared. He (for I knew it was a he) had a decidedly humanesque figure, with no strange appendages or proportions, like the others had. He had a small build, about 5'3" or so, with a delicate, waif-like appearance. And, despite the fact that, this night (like with all nights), I had done my best to will my breathing to silence and my body to stillness, blending in with the darkness, he saw right through it. He approached my bed, although there was neither malice nor any sort of harmful intent that I could sense from him. Rather, if I had to give a name to the sort of emotion he radiated, I would have to call it nervousness. Or maybe hesitation.
He stood right at the corner of my bed, watching me, uncertain at first. I honestly didn't know what to think -- he didn't seem bad, but then again, this had never happened before, and I was pretty freaked out. I watched him, willing my fatigue to disappear, not sure, and downright afraid, of what would happen if I fell asleep.
However, just mere moments after he had come to my bedside, it was as if sleep, which hadn't seemed close at all just shortly ago, wrapped around me entirely and pulled me under, willing or not. I fell right into a dream, which in and of itself was nothing extraordinary. Rather, the shocking thing was that I wasn't alone. All my life, I had been a lone traveler in my own dreamscape of abandoned cities, twilight forests, ruins of all sorts, and a variety of other landscapes. I had always been alone, save for what I ran from. Sometimes I could see it. Other times it went unseen, but very strongly felt. Something that would devour me.
This dream, though, was different. There was a boy there, with brown hair and the brightest blue eyes you've ever seen. He wasn't very tall for his age (I guessed him to be a teenager), and slender at that, but he ran like the wind, and guided me to safe spots. He taught me to shift shape -- although I hardly perfected it, I could still use it to some degree -- in my dreams. Helped me to outwit and outrun the nameless predator. But the whole time, he never said a word. It was, more or less, as if he were mute. Desperate to know who this mysterious person was (as I knew he was the same person whose silhouette I saw before dreaming), I asked him his name as I felt wakefulness tugging at seams of my dream. I asked him over and over, and finally, after he and the landscape disappeared, a soft voice, in no way my own, replied.
"Arc'ehn."
It's hard to explain what it felt like the first time I heard Arc's voice. It was like I had previously been in a tinted glass bubble, and that voice had broken it to let fresh air, never before tasted, in. I was never the same, nor would I wish to be.
From then on out, I could speak to him. Not out loud (well, I could, but I'd probably look like a schizophrenic), but via thought. And he would speak back, so clearly that it was as if he were sitting right next to me, speaking out loud, although I knew it was by thought as well. We started talking regularly, although soon after I was aware vaguely of another presence lingering around, like Arc, whom I hadn't come into contact with before. His name was Ahkra, and he is, quite frankly, terrible at first impressions. He ignored my probing questions, refused to introduce himself, and for quite awhile I wondered why he even bothered to come my direction -- until I realized that he was bound to Arc, and the two were in love.
Not too surprisingly, with all this going on, I was starting to wonder if I was just plain crazy. I started to ask them more probing questions, like where they came from, and why I shouldn't think they were just hallucinations of a lunatic. At that point, they started to teach me. They told me what they believed -- their perspective on reality, and I tested it against logic and quantum physics, since I had, previously, not been a particularly religious person, and science was all I had to test it by.
According to them, before the multiverse, before anything, there was the Lokoi. It was everything and nothing. It took up no space, and no time, for neither time nor space had come into existence yet. It was sort of like an incomprehensibly huge entity in a state of singularity. It was sentient, but not in a way that any of us (including Arc and Ahkra) could possibly comprehend. It was stable, at rest, sort of. And something happened to rouse it.
At that moment in time, it was like a giant animal, shifting in its sleep to shake off the dust. Only, the "dust" were infinitely small particles of the Lokoi which had broken off. They were about on scale with an electron compared to the size of the sun. These pieces were Lokoi in nature, which is to say they used to be part of the Lokoi. One of them became the multiverse -- an infinitely diverse collection of worlds playing out every single possibility, and each of them connected. Another became Time. Both of these were, like the Lokoi, sentient, although not on a level we can comprehend.
Other particles were born into entities, known as the Children of the Lokoi. They were beings of pure energy so vast that they could create a physical form for themselves, and yet all that they were was too much to fit inside. And so, the body became the mind for the rest of the energy, in a way. It's center. Ahkra was one of these - a child of the Lokoi. Others were born from the multiverse, like Arc, and like you and I. Each one of us still has at least a spark from the Lokoi, passed down like a gene through generations, which is what gives us our intelligence and energy.
They explained the manipulation of energy, and why "magic" doesn't thrive in this world.
They explained a lot of things, but I suppose I'm getting a bit too far into the workings of the clock, hm?
There were others that followed Arc and Ahkra. Raien, and Faeruun. Aieryn, Morals, Rynuin, and so, so many others that I spoke with. Arc and Ahkra tought me to defend myself against those who would wish me harm. They taught me to go to my center, my mind. An old, broken-down castle with its ceiling open to the sky from age sitting atop a hill in a meadow, surrounded by forest, with a vast body of water to the North. They would sometimes stay in the castle, which was actually pleasant on the inside, and taught me to defend it -- a skill that I would come to desperately need later on.
After that, they taught me how to leave. I could go to explore their worlds, or just rest within my fortress. More than that, they could take over for me. It was possession, in a way, although before the very first time, we set down laws for it. Like a contract. Basic, very important rules, such as not to hurt anyone. Also, I kept my memory open even while I was gone, so that they could access it like an open book. (Awkward situations tend to arise if this isn't done).
And, that's more or less where I am, today. I have many more spirits I've met along the way, though (literally hundreds of them), and continually meet more.
By now, you've probably formed some sort of an opinion of me. Whether you think I'm insane, eccentric, confused, or anything besides, though, I'd happily like to hear what you have to say. As a part of this experiment, I will quite honestly answer any question I receive. Just shoot me an email at thedaemonexperiment@gmail.com and I'll post the question and answer in the next blog entry.
For now, adieu, and I will see you all in the next post, and the true beginning of the Daemon Experiments.
~Rynthae
(Michelle)
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