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Being a mahr was relatively easy, when it came to being a demon.
Unlike other demons, mahr didn’t have to wait to be summoned to feed off of human’s souls: all they had to do was wait until a human fell asleep, and then they could slip into their dreams and turn them into nightmares: feeding off of the sleeping human’s unconscious terror. Most humans didn’t even remember their nightmares, and even if they did, they usually brushed them off as nothing, meaning mahr didn’t have to deal with discovery and the subsequent exorcism that some of their brethren faced.
If they were careful, they could feed off of the same few humans for years - even decades - and only had to move on when they were bored.
Chris was very, very careful.
He also didn’t bore easily.
As a result, he’d been feeding off the dame bloodline for generations. He’d started with the great-grandfather almost a hundred years ago, when he was just a boy. He’d followed him when he’d moved house to start a family of his own, and stayed feeding off of the humans in that house until just three years ago, when he favourite of the living humans, the oldest daughter, moved out to go to university. Her fear was delicious, so he’d had no trouble deciding to follow her across the country…but recently he’d come to regret that decision.
It was no fault of the girl’s own.
Kitty was a lovely young woman, and Chris didn’t blame her for her decisions…but that didn’t stop him from being angry about them. Because of her choice of a partner, her fear had started tasting bitter and acrid, and she was sleeping less and less.
It was very much disrupting Chris’s diet - and he was not happy about it.
He was also unhappy about the way Kitty’s usually sweet and open demeanor was being turned into something scared and withdrawn: hence why he was now knocking on the door of her apartment, dressed in a human glamour, waiting to introduce himself as her new neighbour. He had a plan to stop the waste of life Kitty called a boyfriend - and all he needed to kick it off was an introduction to the unpleasant mortal.
Of course, it wasn’t Sol who opened the door - probably too lazy to get off his ass - but a tired looking Kitty, who greeted him with a kind, albeit weak, smile.
“Hello.”
“Hey.” Chris made sure to smile charmingly, using a pinch of his magic to put Kitty at ease: “I’m Chris. I’m moving in next door, and just wanted to give you a heads up and apology in advance for any noise I make. Moving can get loud, you know? Especially when you drop full boxes of kitchenware on your toes.”
Both of them laughed, Chris continuing his effort to put Kitty at ease, and Kitty because the magic was already working wonders in relaxing her.
Unfortunately, it didn’t last.
“Who the fuck is it?” snapped a voice that Chris had heard a hundred time’s in Kitty’s nightmares, the ones he hadn’t given her. The boyfriend.
Kitty kept her smile up, but Chris was aware of the exact instant it became forced: “Sol, this is Chris, our new neighbour.”
“I just wanted to apologise in advance for any noise I make while I’m moving in.” Chris shrugged casually, even as he felt the urge to reach out and snag the mortal man and throw him across the hall when he made Kitty flinch by putting his hand on her shoulder: “Shit can get loud, you know?”
“Just keep it down.” Sol rolled his eyes: “I don’t care if you’re moving, doesn’t give you the right to be a shit neighbour.”
Kitty looked embarrassed by her boyfriend’s rudeness, but didn’t say anything - not that Chris blamed her. Instead, he just held his hands up in surrender: “Okay, okay, I’ll do my best man.”
“See that you do.” Sol sneered, before slamming the door shut in his face.
Chris turned away to head back into his new apartment…smirking openly.
The first part of his plan had gone exactly as he had intended it to. He had been introduced to Sol, and looked the man in the eye. After that had been done, all he had to do was wait.
It didn’t take long. Kitty didn’t take Sol back with her when she went to visit her parents; he was too lazy to bother making the trip, and Chris knew Kitty’s parents, so he knew they wouldn’t like Sol. Kitty was too nice to risk upsetting either Sol or her parents, so she went home alone, leaving Sol alone in her apartment…at least until the woman he was fucking when Kitty wasn’t around showed up. It was exactly what Chris had wanted; Kitty had an alibi, there was a witness at the scene, and Sol’s mind was easy to get into.
The man was an idiot - getting into his dreams was like opening walking through a doorframe with no door. And once he was in, Chris didn’t waste any time.
It had been a long, long time since he’d killed someone through a dream…but Sol was a weak, weak man with a weak, weak heart. Between the dreams of finding himself trapped in an endless shadowy maze that was filled with things that flittered and skittered in the shadows, that wailed and moaned from just around the next corner, that brushed bony fingers over his shoulders and scratched claws across his shoulders, and Chris draining every last drop of the man’s vitality by turning it into fear and feeding off of it, Chris was done in less than three hours.
Sol’s heart just…gave out.
It was an inexplicable tragedy…at least to the humans involved.
No-one looked at Kitty; Sol’s death was ruled as being down to natural causes, albeit strange ones, and even if it had been suspicious, Kitty had been across the country when he died. Sol’s bit on the side melted away as soon as she could, not wanting to be known as ‘the other woman’. And Chris the friendly human neighbour revealed himself to be overly superstitious, and moved out, saying he was scared to sleep on the other side of a wall of a room in which someone died.
Days later, it was like nothing had ever happened.
Kitty had cleaned her room, aired it all out, and replaced her mattress and bed-sets. It was as if nothing had ever happened in her room - no-one would ever guess that someone had died in her room just over a week ago
I’m so proud of her.
Human form happily abandoned now his mission was completed, Chris manifested in Kitty’s room, lowering himself to sit on the bed and just watch her for a few seconds before he slid into the nightmares he was inducing. Mild ones, obviously. Nothing like the ones that had killed Sol.
She might be food…but she was still one of the very few humans Chris liked. He’d never give Kitty nightmares like that - he'd only ever cause her enough fear for him to feed off of, and other than that…
“Don’t worry, darling girl.” he murmured to her: “No-one’s going to hurt you again. If they do…I’ll make their nightmares hell.”