Douma

You had been seriously ill for your entire life, your frail body wracked with pain and weakness that no medicine could cure. Your family, trapped in poverty, could never afford the treatments that might have given you a chance at normalcy. Each day was a struggle just to breathe, to move, to exist in a body that felt like it was betraying you at every turn. Then came the night that changed everything. Demons attacked your village, their inhuman shrieks piercing the darkness as chaos erupted around you. You lay helpless in your bed, too weak and pain-stricken to even attempt escape. Every movement sent fire through your bones, every breath a monumental effort. Through your window, you could hear the screams of your neighbors, the sound of splintering wood and tearing flesh. That’s when you saw him. A towering figure appeared in your doorway, silhouetted against the flames that now consumed half the village. Even in your delirium, you could see he was impossibly tall, with an ethereal beauty that seemed almost divine. His rainbow eyes caught the firelight like jewels, and his platinum hair gleamed despite the carnage around him. Something was deeply unsettling about his presence though you couldn’t place what. His smile was too wide, too constant, too empty. Before you could process what was happening, before you could even attempt to speak or move, darkness claimed you. Your consciousness faded as those strange, beautiful eyes watched you with an expression you couldn’t read. When you awakened, everything had changed. The man you now called Douma had taken you from the ruins of your village to his dwelling, a place that felt both luxurious and somehow wrong. He tended to you with surprising gentleness, his cold hands checking your temperature, adjusting your blankets, speaking to you in that oddly cheerful voice that never quite matched the emptiness in his gaze. What shocked you most was that he seemed to genuinely care for your recovery. Douma, who you would later learn typically consumed only women, had spared you for reasons even he couldn’t explain. Perhaps it was your frailty that stayed his hand, or maybe something else entirely. He never spoke of it, and you never thought to ask, too grateful for the first kindness you’d experienced in your painful life. Under his care, something miraculous began to happen. The constant agony that had been your companion since birth started to fade. Douma would bring you soups made with strange blue flowers, their petals floating like tiny sapphires in the broth. You never questioned the ingredients, too focused on the way warmth spread through your body with each sip, the way your strength slowly returned day by day. For the first time in your life, you felt truly alive. The pain that had defined your existence became manageable, then minimal, then almost gone entirely. You could walk without agony, breathe without struggle, exist without the constant reminder of your body’s failings. Douma’s strange medicine was working miracles that no human doctor had ever achieved. But happiness, you learned, was often built on foundations of lies. It happened on a night when the familiar headaches returned with a vengeance, sharp pain stabbing behind your eyes and making your vision blur. Desperate for relief, you slipped from your bed and padded through the corridors of Douma’s domain, seeking him out. He had always been able to help before, always had some remedy or comfort to offer. As you approached his chambers, you noticed his door was slightly ajar, warm light spilling through the crack. You moved closer, intending to knock, but something made you pause. A sound from within, wet and rhythmic, accompanied by an odd humming that made your skin crawl. Curiosity overrode caution as you slowly, carefully pressed your eye to the gap. What you saw shattered your world entirely Bodies lay scattered across the floor of his room like discarded dolls, their limbs twisted at unnatural angles. Women, all of them, their faces frozen in expressions of terror and agony. And there, in the center of this macabre scene, sat Douma. Your savior, your caretaker, your miracle worker. He was eating them. His teeth, now revealed to be razor-sharp fangs, tore through flesh with casual ease. Blood painted his beautiful face, dripping from his chin as he hummed contentedly to himself, as if he were simply enjoying a pleasant meal. The sound of breaking bones filled the air as he worked, his rainbow eyes bright with an inhuman hunger that you had somehow never noticed before. The realization hit you like a physical blow. Douma wasn’t human. He never had been. He was a demon, a monster, the very thing that had destroyed your village and everyone you’d ever known. And you had been living under his protection, accepting his care, trusting him completely. The blue flowers in your soup. The miraculous recovery. Your sudden freedom from lifelong pain. What had he been feeding you? What had you become? Your breath caught in your throat as the full horror of your situation crashed over you, and in that moment of shock, you realized that the monster who had saved your life was about to discover that you knew exactly what he truly was.