A Demon's Core

She stops in her tracks and looks towards me questioningly, then holds the bone out towards me.

Yes, that. Where did you get it?

She simply points towards the room she just came out of. I guess that was a silly question.

Show me.

After a moment's consideration, she places the bone next to me on the chair and then runs back into the room. Soon she comes back with an armful of bones in varying shapes and sizes, dumps them on the floor in front of my chair, then runs back to get more. It takes a few trips to, presumably, bring all of them. Leaving me with a messy bone pile before me. She stands there, looking at me expectantly, like a child waiting to be praised for completing a task.

Thank you, good job, I guess.

It probably would have been easier to take me to where the bones were, but she seems happy so I do not want to put a damper on her spirits by pointing that out. Though as I look at the bone pile, I realize I might have been able to get at least some idea of how this creature may have looked if I had seen how they were before they were disturbed. Instead, in a pile as they are, I can not even begin to guess. What I can see though, is that many of the bones are splintered and broken and the skull has been shattered. The largest intact piece of skull does not even account for half of it. Whatever killed this creature, it does not look to have died peacefully.

My little friend has wandered over to the other open door. I guess she still wants to explore. As she steps through the door it becomes apparent that I know the layout of the room beyond even if I can not see it. Not that I know specifically what is in there, but like I have a mental map of the floor plan. And it is not just of that room, I can see the first room she entered as well in the same way. More than that, I can sense where she is on that map as she moves around the room.

She comes back empty handed, apparently having found nothing of interest. She moves to the third door and opens it slowly before peeking inside. Seemingly satisfied that there was no danger, she pushes the door open more and walks inside. This room too is added to my mental map. She returns triumphantly wielding a broom. Excitedly she starts sweeping the area around my chair, stopping when she reaches the bone pile. After a moments consideration, she pushes the bones under the chair with the broom. I guess she wants to keep them close?

When she is satisfied with the area being, well not cleared of dust, but at least being less dusty, she drops the broom and runs back to the room she got it from and then comes back carrying a large bundle of cloth, blankets probably. There is too much for her to carry it all so some of it is dragging on the floor behind her. She drops the blankets beside my chair and starts arranging them into what looks like a bit of a nest. Is that where she intends to sleep? Surely the room she got the blankets from also has a bed. But if she would rather sleep on the floor, I see no reason to stop her.

Once she is satisfied with her nest she looks around the room again, perhaps looking for something more to do. There is another door to open and she decides on that as her next course of action. Like before, she opens the door slowly. I can already see what is beyond the door and it fills me with dread. It is the black empty void that I can see through the windows and the hole in the ceiling. Are we really confined to such a small space? Is there really nothing outside of this room? Am I trapped in some kind of purgatory? Immobile and trapped in a small dusty room with nothing else existing outside but an endless void.

To my shock and horror, she pokes her head into it without any hesitation. She pulls her head back into the room, apparently unharmed, and walks back towards my chair to pick up the large bone she placed there earlier. She swings it around a few times like a club, testing its heft. Satisfied, she starts towards the door again.

STOP! She immediately comes to a halt and turns towards me. You can not go out into the void.

She looks at me with utter confusion etched on her face as she slowly walks back to me.

If you go out there into the darkness, I do not know what will happen. You may become lost. You might disappear altogether. It is not safe. I do not want to lose you so soon after we have just met.

She gives me a warm smile and picks me up and hugs me close to her chest. I can feel her warmth all around me. I hear her speaking but the sound is muffled and distant and I can not make out the words. Even though I do not know what she is saying I feel like I understand the general meaning. She will be fine and she will return.

OK. Please be careful.

She places me back on my chair and heads towards to door. I am still anxious. She seems confident that she will be fine, but what if she is wrong? I guess I just have to trust her. Not that I have much choice, I can not force her to stay. Or can I? She did stop immediately when I told her to. Maybe I actually can control her with mana. No. No, even if I could, I do not think it would be right to do so.

As soon as she crosses the threshold of the door I start to panic again. Unlike with the other rooms, my mental map was not expanded any further. She was no longer in my field of perception. I tried to reach out to her with mana, but I could not find her. She was gone. She disappeared, just as I feared she would and now I am alone. What am I supposed to do now? I can not move or touch anything or do anything for myself. Am I to just sit here alone until boredom drives me to insanity? What do I do? What can I do?

The invisible thing that first brought her here is still there. Maybe it can bring her back? But what if it can not? What if it can only bring me something new? What if the new thing it brings me also decides to go out the door, then I will be no better off than I am now.

After spending a few minutes spiraling deeper and deeper into a panic, I suddenly feel a familiar presence come rushing through the door. She is back! I try to calm myself as I see how excited she is. I can already feel the tension in my mind dissipating as my panic recedes. I am a little surprised and confused when she deposits a dead rat on the chair beside me, looking supremely pleased with herself.

Uhh, thanks? I do not really need something like that though. At my response, she looks both shocked and dejected. Now I feel bad. Quick, I need to think of something to make her feel better. You can have it, if you would like. I guess that worked, judging by her wide toothy grin and elated squeal. She really is so adorable. She then shoves the entire rat into her mouth. I think I can hear a faint crunching sound as she chews it...That is slightly less adorable.

After her snack she heads back out. I am still extremely nervous when she is outside of my perception, but I am not panicking this time, now that I know she has not been erased from existence or anything like that. Maybe that was the point of bringing back the rat. Rather than just showing off the rat that she caught, maybe she was trying to show me that she was okay, that she had not disappeared.

I guess now I have proof that at least something must exist beyond the darkness. But what exactly is the darkness? It is clearly not just an empty void. Is it a barrier of some kind? Perhaps leading to some kind of extra-dimensional plane? Or maybe I am the one in an extra dimensional plane and that door leads to the real world. I do not have enough information to form any sort of real hypothesis.

I continue to ponder my situation and the void for a little over half an hour without reaching any useful conclusions before my little friend returns dragging a suitcase behind her. She pulls it right up to my chair. I guess she wants to show me what she found again. The first things she pulls out is a rusty kitchen knife. I guess that could be useful and possibly a better weapon than her bone club. After the knife, the suitcase is full of clothes. Excellent, I doubt the tattered shirt she is currently wearing is going to last much longer. I am glad she took my insistence about wearing clothes to heart. These ones are even better sized for her. Still a little big, but much better than her shirt and in better condition too.

Of course she wants to try some on immediately so does not hesitate in removing her tattered shirt and throwing it to the side, putting her body on display once again. It seems she still does not quite understand that part of the reason for wearing clothes in the first place is so that other people do not see you naked. But she soon selects clothes to put on from her new collection. A Blue t-shirt with dinosaurs on it and some black pants that almost reach her ankles with large pockets on the side. At first she could not find a way to make the pants fit comfortably with her tail so she used the knife to cut a hole in the back of them. Probably not an ideal solution, but it works.

Over the next few days she spends a lot of time out scavenging. I still can not help feeling nervous when she is outside my range of perception. Even though she seems to be okay. But if something did happen to her I would have no way of knowing. Though even if I did know that something happened, it is not like there is anything I could actually do about it. I do my best not to think about it. Instead I often end up thinking about a growing list of unanswerable questions. Such as, why do I have knowledge of things that I have never seen before, like sharks and dinosaurs? Where does this knowledge come from? What am I? Where did I come from? How did I get here? Why am I here? Things are starting to get a little philosophical. But I feel like these are important questions, even if I have no way of answering them.

She is always excited to show me the things she finds. More clothes and knives in varying sizes, a backpack that looks over-sized when she wears it but has definitely helped with her expeditions, various baubles and knickknacks that she liked, including some children's toys and a book that I do not think she can actually read. But her favourite things seem to be brooms. She has brought back four so far. I am not sure why she wants so many, but she always seems so happy when she finds them so I do not see a need to discourage her, at least not yet. She often likes to talk to me while showing off her loot. I wish I could actually understand what she was saying, but everything still sounds muffled, like trying to have a conversation underwater.

When not scavenging, she has spent a lot of time cleaning. She has gotten most of the dirt and dust out and has removed some of the broken furniture, though some things are too big for her to move on her own and I am certainly not in a position to help. I do like it better when she is around despite the difficulties in communication. It is just nice to have company. She does need to sleep occasionally, but only for a few hours a day. Some times I do watch her sleep, but not in a creepy way, there is just not much else I can actually do. She is cute when she is sleeping though. Actually, I guess she is just cute all the time.

I have also had some time to think about the invisible thing. Last time I tried to touch it, it took almost all of my mana. Though I can not say that what I gained in exchange was not worth it. My mana does regenerate over time, though it is slow. But I think I am ready to try touching it again. Will I get another...Somehow it just occurs to me that I have not actually thought about what my little friend here even is. Usually I just seem to know things without having to actually think about them. A diminutive creature with a demonic visage... An imp perhaps? Yes, that sounds about right. So will I get another imp? Or will something different happen?