The devil, for now, stayed in the dark. Would you like a different tone—more literal, political, or horror-focused?
She tried to exorcise herself—cleansing rituals from the internet, sage from the farmers' market, a therapist who called it "anxiety." But the bedevilment wasn't in her head. It was in the calendar. Every date felt possessed. Every anniversary, a trap. bedevilled 2016
By December, she stopped fighting. She sat on her fire escape as snow fell, watching the city blink its halogen eyes. And for the first time in twelve months, she laughed—because maybe the devil was just loneliness wearing a costume. Maybe 2016 wasn't cursed. Maybe it was just honest. The devil, for now, stayed in the dark
The year had started like any other—resolutions scribbled on napkins, the slow thaw of January's gray. But by spring, something had curdled in the air. Not politics alone, though the news cycle was a fever dream of outrage and absurdity. No, it was quieter than that. A personal haunting. It was in the calendar
She first noticed it in the way mirrors held her gaze a second too long. Then in the flicker of streetlights that followed her home. Her phone autocorrected "hope" to "hopeless." Her dog growled at empty corners. Friends canceled plans with excuses that sounded rehearsed. By summer, she stopped sleeping. The ceiling above her bed seemed to breathe.
2016 became the year the devil didn't need horns or hooves. He wore earbuds, scrolled through Twitter, and whispered, "You're the only one who sees it."
