“Mrs. Videl just experienced the miracle that is childbirth, so I will be subbing this class,” said the teacher, who sounded like she smoked twenty packs a day and looked like she got her hairstyle ideas from Marge Simpson. “Pull out your textbooks and appear busy,” she continued as textbooks practically flew out from under the desks. “You can listen to your music, head-phones, or whatever; you can make crude doodles—just look like you’re trying or something.”
I quickly followed orders, picking up my textbook and plugging into Green Day. I began to drum along with Tré Cool and decided to turn to the page where verb conjugation was discussed. I was pretending to be interested in how to conjugate verbs, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. I spotted him from a distance and he seemed to be waving at me. Weird.
This guy looked like the guy from my dream. He had donned the same black trench coat and even had the same coif. It was starting to freak me out. I could make out his muscular build and see his facial features. It was him. He was still waving. I put my face in the book and did my best to ignore him for the remaining ninety minutes of class.
The bell rang. And just like that, class was dismissed. As everybody dispersed and disappeared into either the car line or the bus loop, I heard the voice. It was calling my name. “Owen, Owen,” the man cried out.
I turned around. He knew my name. I began to walk towards him.
“There you are, Owen,” the man said as he got closer to me. His look of concern turned into a somewhat reassuring smile.
“I saw you l-last night,” I stammered as I continued to fight the throbbing inside of my head. “Y-y-you were in m-my dream.”
“That wasn’t a dream; that was real.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “I’m sorry. What?” I asked, dumbfounded.
He gazed back at me. “Yeah.”
I couldn’t understand how or why he was being so nonchalant about this. “So, I almost jumped off a building and you really plunged a sword into me?” I asked curiously.
He paused and appeared to be thinking about his answer. “Uh-huh.”
“Who are you anyway—and what happened last night?” I asked indignantly.
“Do you really want to know?” As he said this, the man reached into his pants pocket and pulled something out with a closed fist. He stretched out his hand with his palm facing upwards to reveal two pills, a red one and a blue one.
My eyes grew wide. “Are we in ‘The Matrix’?”
The man slapped me on the back of the head. “No, these are for your headache.”
I stood in amazement as this seemingly angelic man had just Gibb-smacked me.
“That probably didn’t help though,” he said, smirking all the while.
“Not really, no.”
“It’s time for business.” His smirk quickly turned into a seriously straight face. “We have to go.”
“What?” I said. “I still don’t understand.”
“Get in the car, kid.” He hastily pushed me into his jet-black 2016 Camaro.
We drove off to ‘only God knows where.’ We then pulled up to a very swanky-looking office building. When the stranger and I walked in, it was clearly swanky on the inside, too. It had a modern interior with sitting areas spread throughout. The far back wall had a something hanging about twenty feet up. It was a giant medieval shield with a broadsword going down the center and angelic wings protruding from behind.
We walked up to a receptionist’s desk. She looked not a day over twenty-five and was chewing gum while she was reading a newspaper. The stranger approached her desk. He said nothing and the receptionist quickly looked up over her newspaper. “Hi, Marth.” Her face was beet red by this point.
Marth waved me over. The receptionist noticed me and the fact that I was with him. She stopped making googly eyes at Marth and looked at me. “Hi, Owen. We’ve been expecting you.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. I watched as it looked like Marth was signing us in at some kind of office.
“Fourth floor.” The receptionist winked at him.
Marth turned and thanked the receptionist, and we boarded the elevator. We arrived on the fourth floor; Marth and I turned a corner and entered what looked like a theater.
“Class is about to start,” Marth said.
“Class?”
“This will give you all the answers that you want. I’ll come find you later. I’ll be in the gym.”
“Where’s the gym?”
“I’ll be back before the class ends,” Marth said as the door closed.
I walked into the auditorium. It looked very grandiose and very expansive. There were ten other people inside scattered about.
A man walked up onto the stage to the podium. He introduced himself. “Good afternoon, students. My name is Professor Hutcheson. How is everyone’s head doing, hmm?” He chuckled to himself. “Yes, yesterday really did happen. It was not a dream. And yes, you did see demons.”
The other people in the room started looking around at each other with puzzled expressions on their faces.
“Demons are everywhere and they are messing with everyone and trying to destroy us. Why? Because we are made in God’s image. The one who comes against us, Satan, hates God. So he and his demon pals hate us as well. But…we have dominion over them. God has gifted all of you with the ability to do battle against these demonic forces. He has empowered you to see these demons and destroy them.
“Demons can only enter a person’s body by being allowed in. People don’t literally say, ‘Demons come in me.’ No, they slowly creep in by things you say and do. It’s all about guarding your heart. If you don’t allow negative things into your life, you won’t be prone to demonic activity. Each demon has a different job. Some are there to fuel your anger, some make you sick, and some just come to bring depression upon you. Demons have been doing this since the beginning of time; so they know all the different ways of deception and how to manipulate humans. They are very smart and they usually work in teams. One may be attacking while the other is distracting you.
“We break each demon into classifications based on size and intelligence. Class-one demons are the small, annoying ones that don’t say anything. They just buzz around trying to distract you. Their size ranges from as small as a mouse to the size of a river otter. Class-two demons are slightly bigger; their average size is like a full-grown cow. They can’t talk, but they can roar, shriek, and make many high-pitch screams. The class-three demons are usually four-to-fourteen-feet tall. They vary in shape and features. These can communicate with people in any language. They know how to terrify and destroy people’s hopes and dreams; so be cautious when fighting them. The only class-four demon is Satan, but he doesn’t come off his underworld throne for anything. I guess he has to save all his energy for Armageddon.
“Now, how do you exorcise
