Blood Sacrifice {Part 4 of 5}

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I exhaled and wiped the corner of my eye. It was feeling a bit damp. I wasn't going to cry, but I have to admit that I was unnerved by sharing the whole story and not being told that I was out of touch with reality. She hadn't asked once if I was taking any meds, doing any drugs, or just drunk.

I didn't know what to say next, but it was okay because she had another line of questioning. I kept wondering when we'd hit that pivot point, that stage where she'd finally have enough of my story, where we'd move toward the "treatment" phase of the discussion.

"Let's talk a little about how you ended up here, okay?" she asked, "Tell me what happened and why you have those bandages wrapped around your wrists again."

It's always hard to know whether I should be embarrassed or what. How are you supposed to feel when someone thinks you've failed at killing yourself?

For a moment, I gathered my thoughts. Do I continue? The voice in the back of my head kept saying that she's going to change course in the conversation and attempt to help me understand what's wrong with me. I pushed the thought away. As the saying goes, in for a penny, in for a pound. I decided to continue and tell her the truth.

"I had to make a blood sacrifice." There I said it. The tables are about to turn.

"What does that mean?" the doctor asked without judgment.

"I don't know for sure, but the demon keeps telling me that it will set me free. He says, 'The blood sacrifice will set you free.' I don't know what it means. I don't hear it very often, and I'm always alone when I do. I can always feel his presence when he arrives. The hair goes up on the back of my neck. I want to tell you that it turns cold, but it's so much more than that. The air around me feels like it's on fire, but I get so cold that I can hardly move. That is until I begin to do his bidding."

She looked at me again and then wrote more on her notepad. "He tells you to cut yourself?"

"Not exactly. He doesn't use any other words, but I wish he would. It's like I'm drawn toward someplace to do something, but I don't know where. The first time that I heard his voice, I used my fingernail to cut my leg. Then the priest came in, and everything went silent."

What about the other times?"

"I hear his voice. I go, but I don't know where I'm supposed to go. I've gone to churches, into the woods, alleyways, broke into an old folks' home. Each time, I cut deeper and poured more of my blood out. I ended up arrested most of the time, brought here or Trinity Hospital. I get stitches and an IV and a round of time with head shrinks, like you. I take the drugs. I try to tell myself it's not real, but I know that's a lie. It is real."

I stared at the bandages on my wrist thinking about how this last time was almost the end of me because I'd soaked the church alter in red. I could feel her gaze moving up and down. I knew that she had to be crafting the words to sound comforting but explain to me that my head is whacked.

"Have you ever gone back to that crypt in the woods?"

I felt my eyes almost pop out of my head. What the hell? Did she not listen to me about how horrifying it was down there? Before I could temper my words, I heard them burst from my mouth, "Are you fucking kidding me, lady?" I threw those words at her with an incredulous tone, and I wished that I hadn't. She'd listened to my whole story and not made me feel like my mind was making things up. "Sorry, that place was too much."

"It's just an idea," she said softly, "Perhaps something we should do together."

It was one thing for a shrink to listen to my story, but something completely different to think that I'd go back to the Gates of Hell. I couldn't wrap my head around the idea that after just one conversation she could be so interested in making me mentally sound that she'd trek through the woods with me.

Then it hit me — I knew exactly what she was thinking. We'd go out there and find some old cave, and she'd gently point out how my imagination created this fantastical tale of a demon that haunts me.

I interlocked my fingers together, pulling them tight against my stomach. Okay, I thought, maybe I had it all wrong. What if the demon was telling me that if I brought someone else, call it a blood sacrifice, that he'd finally leave me alone? My mind raced madly in circles, thinking about each possibility of what might occur if she and I crawled into that crypt and went down those stairs. I kept coming back to the same thing. Freedom. If I really were crazy, then she'd be able to help. If there were a demon, she'd be able to help. Either she could be the blood sacrifice, whatever that means, or help find my way back to sanity.

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