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There's some folk born to be magic. There's some folk born to be priests. Me, I was born to be a demon eater. I's born to die young and fat and evil, sick from the soul. Might have done, too, but for the god in the thorns who saved me. Might have done, but for the god who showed me how to save myself.
It's like this, see. Some folk, they's born with a well inside them. Their whole soul just wells up and spills out. Those folk, they's magic. They got a force inside them, something they gotta give, gotta use. They's the magic ones. And then there's other folk, the opposite folk, and they's got a hole inside 'em instead. They got this space, this pit inside their chest, and that space is there for sittin' in. Gods. Demons. Whoever gets there first. Those kinda people, they got a hole inside their soul, and there's things out there lookin' to come and sit in it.
I's one of 'em. Got me a hole inside me. Big one. Biggest in all the world. I got a space inside me fit to swallow the sky. An' I didn't know what it meant back then. When I's young, when I was just a baby. I didn't know I had this space. Nobody else did either. So nobody got me to a priest. Nobody got me to a holy man so it'd be a god who'd sit inside me. Nobody came to fill me up with somethin' safe and right. I didn't tell nobody, and nobody knew.
So it got bigger. The more I grew, the stronger I got, the bigger that pit inside my chest got too. It got to be so big, I started feelin' it. This ... this stretchin' inside me, this yawnin', needin' to be filled up. I got older, got to be a young woman, and I started feelin' this hunger inside me.
It gets like that. You leave it long enough, it gets like that. That's how eaters are made. They got this hole in their soul, and it needs fillin', and if they go too long then they gets hungry. They gets so they need to eat somethin'. Somethin' with a spirit, a soul. Gods, they's a bit too big for most eaters. So it's spirits, it's ghosts and ghouls and demons that's first. Or people. Sometimes, yeah, eaters start with people. Gotta kill 'em first. Get the soul out, so's it can be eaten. There's eaters gone bad, gone so bad. There's a reason folks try to get 'em to a priest when they's still only young. You let an eater grow, lotta the time they just goes bad.
And sometimes they gets eaten too. 'Cause there's things out there. 'Cause there's demons, and other things, spirits that ain't one thing or the other, spirits that's so big they can't be eaten. Spirits that eat you back when you try. They comes in, they sits inside you, inside the hole in your soul, and they eats you from the inside out. That's what happens. Demons come and sits inside you, they eats your soul, and then they wears what's left of you to do their work.
That's what happened to me. I never ate nobody. I never ate one single soul. I got a demon instead. Thing came, sat inside of me. Tried to eat me from the inside out. That's what happened to me. But I's bigger than that demon. I had a hole inside me fit to swallow the sky. So I tried to eat it back. That's when my god found me. That's when they come and saved me.
I crawled outta town. I's stubborn, then and now, I's bulldog stubborn, an' I knew what I had inside me. I knew I'd got me a demon. So I crawled out, so's if it ate me I'd have nobody to hurt first thing. I got outside town, and I found me ... It was a thorn tree. Don't know why I's drawn to it, but I was. Felt right. So I crawled out and lay down under that tree, and I curled up around the thing in my chest, and we set to eatin' each other, my demon and me. We set to gnawin' on each other, and seein' which of us was gonna be full at the end of it.
It hurt, you know. Hurt so much. You ever been eaten up from the inside? It hurts so bad. But I's bigger. I was always bigger. That demon came, and it thought it'd sit inside me, but I was always bigger. Bigger than it, bigger than anythin'. It gnawed me up, but I was winnin'. I was eatin' it up inside me. By the time sun was settin', I was well on my way to eatin' my first soul. A bad one. One as'd make me sick. That's half the reason demon eaters go so bad. But I didn't know that then either.
The god did, though. My god come and saved me from that. Right there under that thorn tree, there while the sun was settin'.
I calls 'em Heein-Sheein. Other folks, they calls 'em the Twins. He-in-the-Desert and She-in-the-Night. They's not twins, though. They's all the one. Some spirits, they ain't one thing or the other. Heein-Sheein's one of those. They's a god, but I think mostly 'cause they's too big to be anything else. Gods don't trouble 'em none, nor demons either. They's one of the halfway spirits. They lives out there in the in-between.
They likes thorn trees. They likes fights where nobody's winnin'. They likes people who ain't one thing or the other yet. An' I wasn't an eater yet. Wasn't eaten either. So they came. I looked up, while me and my demon was eatin' each other, and they was sittin' up there in that thorn tree, lookin' down at me. Looked like a man, then. Little brown man with little black eyes. Wasn't quite sunset yet. They likes to be Heein 'til night's fallen proper.
They spoke to me, while I was lyin' there starin' up at them. Leaned out among the thorns, pursin' their lips while they looked at me, and then they hopped down and they says to me:
"I'd spit that out, if I was you. Nasty thing. Make you sick if you don't."
'Cause they's poisonous. Demons. They's bad for you. They turns you sour from the inside out. Even if you win. Even if you eat them instead of them eatin' you. They turn you bad anyway. Win or lose, demon eaters always go bad. You puts things inside your soul that's that bad, they make you sick no matter what.
"You's doin' good, girl," the god told me back then, leanin' down to squint into my chest and see the demon I was eatin'. "That one bit off a whole lot more than it can chew, I sees that. You done good. But you gotta spit it out now. You gotta trust me. Nasty thing like that, you don't want it stuck inside you. Spits it up, there's a girl. You'll feel a lot better once you done that."
An' I didn't know how, they don't exactly teach you how to spit up demons from inside your soul, but I managed it somehow. I spit that thing out. I rolled over and I coughed it up, all black and slimy, chewed up and floppin' in the dirt. I got it out, spit it outta me, and then I just sat there lookin' at it. My first demon. My first soul. I chewed it up and I spat it back out.
Heein crouched down next to me. Patted me on the back, grinned down at me like I'd done somethin' special. Guess I had. They likes in-between people. Neither one thing nor the other. Until you eats something, you ain't an eater. Until a god sits in you, you ain't a priest. But if you's had somethin' inside you, you ain't just empty either. Eaters don't spit things up. But I did. And that made me somethin' different. I didn't know that yet. But Heein did.
"That's it. That's it darlin'. You get that all up. You did real good. That's a girl. You's all good."
I think I spat at 'em for that. Tried to, anyways. Never did like bein' talked down to. I's not entirely sure, but I think I did try to spit at 'em. Gave a right good glare at the least. Done laughed at me for it. Patted me gently on the back. They sat theyselves down and poked at my half-dead demon with spindly fingers.
"You mind?" they asked me, while the sun was settin' and they was goin' from Heein to Sheein. Picked the demon up, dangled it a bit for the askin'. "Don't make me sick way it does you. You mind if I has some?"
I don't even know if I tried answerin' that. Didn't protest, anyways, and I guess that was good enough. They slit the demon down the middle. Was mostly dead then, but it wasn't all the way. It was live enough to feel that still, I think. I had to go around behind the thorn tree. Didn't have anything left inside me, in my stomach or my soul, but I gave a good try coughin' it all up anyways. Just got spit, mostly. Spit and bile. Sheein picked the demon up, one half in each hand, and swallowed 'em whole, one after the other, like they was nothin'.
Yeah. There's a reason neither gods nor demons come messin' with Heein-Sheein. They's a god 'cause they ain't nothin' else, but I reckon they'd eat gods too if gods came gunnin' for 'em. So mostly gods don't. Mostly nobody does. They lives in the in-between places, and nobody comes tryin' to bother 'em none.
An' these days, too, nobody much comes botherin' me.
I's born to be a demon eater. Got a hole inside me, got a great big hole in the middle of my soul. A hole so big, even big things come tryin' to sit in it. But I's bigger than them. I's gettin' bigger all the time. Not 'cause I's eatin'. 'Cause I ain't. 'Cause the hole gets bigger if you don't try to fill it up. Gets so big, you could sit a whole world inside it. Or a demon. Even a god, maybe. Let it get big enough, maybe a body could even eat a god.
I wouldn't do that, though. Don't know too much about gods, but I reckon I wouldn't want 'em inside me any more'n demons. Wouldn't want Heein-Sheein in there. Sneaky, spindly, wicked thing. They'd make a right mess of me. Don't doubt that for a moment.
So I knows better now. I knows to spit them out, all of 'em, no matter what they is. I knows now I don't gotta have anything inside me I don't wants to be there. Just 'cause there's a hole in my soul, don't mean I need to have it filled. I can just ... leave it there. A part of me. This nice clean space inside my soul, big enough to sit a sky in.
An' if somethin' else comes along, tries to sit inside it like that demon did that first time, then I knows I can eat them just a little bit. Chew 'em up some, so they know better then, and spits 'em back out again. Most times they learn. Most times they don't come back. The times when they do, I just goes and finds my god. I goes to Heein-Sheein, so that when I spits 'em up, my god can pick them up in spindly fingers, splits them down the middle, and swallow 'em down where they won't make nobody or nothin' sick ever, ever again. I's good at it, too. I got demons who'll run the whole length of the world just to get out of my way.
That's who I am now. That's who I's meant to be. There's folk born to be magic. There's folk born to be priests. There's folk born to be eaters.
And then there's some who goes the other way, and ends up in between.