The Demon Between Us

My mother always said that to believe in normality was a lie humanity tells to assure themselves that there is nothing else.

I should have believed her.

When I first met Zoe, she was already on the bed opposite mine, knees drawn to her chest. She looked like a frightened rabbit. Big round eyes, a small voice and hunched shoulders that looked like she was trying to disappear into herself.

"Hi. I'm Arya. Your new roommate."

She gave me a smile, but it did not reach her eyes. "Zoe."

"That's it? Just Zoe?"

"What else?"

I laughed, but she didn't.

The sound of my own laughter made me cringe and I stopped it, fast.

The room was not large. Two beds, two desks, one window that faced the concrete-coloured university parking lot. White walls, stained floor, everything the typical university dorm room should look like. It was normal. Something my old life lacked in great quantity.

"So where do you come from?" I asked as I dropped my case on my bed.

"Nowhere."

"Everybody comes from somewhere, Zoe."

She looked at me for a long second. Her eyes were brown, perfectly normal, but they held something that I really wanted not to see.

"You wouldn't believe me." And with that she pulled a textbook out. The conversation was over and I didn't push.

It was three in the morning, and I was barely awake when I heard the whisper from the other side of the room. The room was dark except for the faint glow of my cell phone charger.

My eyes fluttered open.

Zoe was lying on her side, her back facing me. At first, I thought she was having a nightmare or something. Then I realized she wasn't blinking or tossing or moving in general.

I shrugged and was about to ignore it, when the sound came again. It was so strange I thought I was imagining things.

The words that came out of her were not English.

"Arak nal shirr, Keth vun dar..." she muttered, over and over again.

My eyes snapped open. She wasn't sleep-talking.

I pushed myself up on my elbows, staring at her. "Zoe," I called.

She looked...wrong. Her shoulders didn't move. And it just wasn't Zoe.

"Zoe," I called again.

No response.

I got off the bed and walked toward her. As I crossed the room slowly, every instinct screamed at me to stop. But I didn't.

I reached out and touched her shoulder. Then slowly, she turned her head to look at me. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was moving on its own. The voice coming from her mouth sounded nothing like her. It was scratchy and deep.

Then she said my name. Well, she said the name she thought was mine. Out of the blue, in a voice that was definitely not hers. That was when I noticed she was smiling in her sleep. What she was smiling about, I didn't know. But it was definitely not a friendly smile.

"Zoe, wake up," I said, shaking her shoulder.

Her eyes snapped open.

The voice disappeared, and the smile vanished.

There was nothing wrong. She was normal. Brown. Human. She blinked at me like I was the crazy one.

"What's wrong?" she asked. Her voice was hers again, soft and tired.

"You were talking in your sleep," I said. "In some weird language."

She frowned. "I don't talk in my sleep."

"You just did."

"I've never done that before." She pulled her blanket up to her chin. "You probably imagined it. Go back to sleep, Arya."

I wanted to disagree, but she was already rolling on her side. I stood there for a while before going back to my bed. I lay back down and stared at the ceiling.