THE DEVIL EMBRACED ME

THE DEVIL EMBRACED MEChapter One – The Child Who Learned to Stay Silent

“Some people are not afraid of the darkness. They are afraid of the silence that comes after everyone leaves.”

I don’t know exactly when I started feeling lonely.

Maybe there was no particular day. Maybe loneliness didn’t arrive all at once, but slowly slipped into my life, so quietly that I didn’t even notice when it became a part of me.

At first, I was probably just a child who needed attention. A child who wanted to be heard, to be asked how he felt, to know that someone noticed when his smile wasn’t genuine.

But children don’t always know how to explain what they’re missing.

Sometimes they cry. Other times, they become loud. Sometimes they seek attention at the most inconvenient moments. And sometimes, they learn to stay silent.

I learned to stay silent.

I don’t know if it was a choice or if I simply understood, at some point, that certain things were better kept inside.

And so I began to grow up.

I learned to answer “I’m fine” even when I wasn’t. I learned to hide my disappointments, swallow my questions, and never show how deeply certain things affected me.

Not because it didn’t hurt.

But because I didn’t know who I could show that pain to.

The years passed. My body grew, my voice changed, and my responsibilities became greater. From the outside, I was becoming just another ordinary person.

But somewhere deep inside me, a child remained, still waiting.

Waiting to be chosen.

Waiting to matter to someone.

Waiting for the day when he wouldn’t have to fight for a place in someone else’s heart.

And perhaps that’s exactly why, when I became an adult, I began to love with a fear I couldn’t even understand myself.

It wasn’t easy to explain what was happening inside my mind.

Sometimes, I could have a perfectly normal day. I’d talk, laugh, go about my business. Nothing seemed wrong.

Then, without understanding why, that feeling would appear.

An emptiness.

It wasn’t exactly sadness. It wasn’t anger either. It was something difficult to describe, as if somewhere inside me there was a room no one had ever entered.

I could be surrounded by people and still feel alone.

I could have my family beside me and still feel that something was missing.

And the worst part was that I didn’t know what to ask for.

How do you explain to someone that you need love without making it seem like you’re asking for too much?

How do you tell someone you want to be reached out to without having to disappear first?

How do you explain that sometimes all you need is a hug, without questions, without explanations, without having to justify why you need it?

I didn’t know.

So I kept silent.

But one night, the silence became too heavy.

It was late. The house was quiet. Everyone was asleep, and I was left alone with my thoughts.

I sat on the edge of my bed, my elbows resting on my knees, staring at the floor.

My phone lay beside me.

I picked it up, unlocked it, checked for messages, and put it back down.

Nothing.

I wasn’t necessarily waiting for a particular message. I think I was just waiting to feel that someone was thinking about me.

I sighed.

“What’s wrong with me?” I whispered.

The question hung in the air.

I stood up, walked to the window, and looked outside.

The city was asleep.

I stared at my reflection in the glass. A tired face, eyes that seemed to have seen far too much for someone my age.

“You have everything you’re supposed to have,” I told myself. “Why can’t you be happy?”

I tried to smile.

I couldn’t.

“Maybe you’re the problem…”

That’s when I heard a voice.

“No. I don’t think you’re the problem.”

I froze.

I turned around sharply.

Someone was standing in the corner of the room, beside the wardrobe.

He was tall. Dressed in black. His silhouette seemed to absorb the light around him. His eyes were strangely bright, and his smile looked neither friendly nor threatening.

I took a step backward.

“Who are you?!”

The stranger tilted his head slightly.

“Do you really want to know?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I came because you called me.”

I laughed nervously.

“I didn’t call anyone!”

“Yes, you did. Many times. You just never used words.”

I stared at him, confused.

He began moving closer, slowly.

“You called me every night you felt like you couldn’t take it anymore. Every moment you wanted to cry but stopped yourself. Every day you smiled at people while a storm was raging inside you.”

I felt my stomach tighten.

“You’re crazy…”

The stranger smiled.

“Perhaps. But tell me, human… when was the last time you were honest with yourself?”

I didn’t answer.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

He shrugged.

“Some call me evil. Others call me darkness. Most call me the Devil.”

I started laughing, but the sound quickly faded.

“Perfect. Now I’ve really lost my mind.”

“No,” he said. “You’re just tired of lying to yourself.”

He moved closer to the window and looked at my reflection.

“Do you know what I see when I look at you?”

“I don’t care.”

“I see a man who wants to be loved so badly that he’s started to become afraid of love itself.”

I clenched my jaw.

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“Then tell me.”

“I have nothing to tell you.”

“Fine. Then I’ll ask.”

He turned toward me.

“Why does it hurt so much when you feel someone puts you second?”

I stood motionless.

“Why do you need someone to reach out to you just to feel that you matter?”

Silence.

“Why is it that whenever someone becomes a little distant, your mind starts creating scenarios in which you’re no longer loved, no longer wanted, or about to be abandoned?”

I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

“Stop!”

The Devil took a step back.

“All right.”

For a few seconds, nothing could be heard.

Then I spoke, almost in a whisper.

“Because I’m tired…”

He turned around.

“Tired of what?”

I ran my hands through my hair.

“Everything! I’m tired of wondering whether I’m enough. I’m tired of feeling like I have to fight for people’s attention. I’m tired of pretending that nothing bothers me. I’m tired of being the one who always understands, always forgives, always waits!”

My voice began to tremble.

“And what I hate most is that sometimes I feel like I have nothing left to give, yet I’m still the one trying to fix everything!”

The Devil said nothing.

I sat down on the bed and covered my face with my hands.

“I just want to matter to someone…”

Then something happened that I never would have expected.

The Devil sat down beside me.

He didn’t laugh. He didn’t judge me. He didn’t tell me I was weak.

He simply stayed.

After a few moments, he spoke.

“Do you know what’s saddest about humans?”

I looked up.

“What?”

“They eventually come to believe they must do something extraordinary to deserve things that should come naturally.”

He looked at me carefully.

“You don’t want the world. You don’t want millions of people worshipping you. You don’t want to be the center of the universe.”

He paused.

“You just want to matter to the people you love.”

I nodded.

“Exactly…”

“And you’ve come to believe that if you don’t receive their attention, it means you’re not worth enough.”

I wiped my eyes.

“Maybe.”

The Devil sighed.

“Then we have a lot of work to do, my friend.”

“We?”

“Yes. You and me.”

“Why would you want to help me?”

He smiled.

“Because I’m tired of watching people condemn themselves for wounds inflicted by others.”

I looked at him.

“But you’re the Devil…”

“And you’re human. Neither of us is as simple as we appear.”

Then he stood up.

“Come on. I want to show you something.”

“Where?”

“To the place you run away from the most.”

“And where is that?”

He turned toward me.

“Inside yourself.”

I slowly stood up.

I didn’t know whether to run, scream, or follow him.

But something inside me wanted to discover what I had hidden so carefully.

I reached out my hand toward him.

The Devil took it.

In that very moment, the room disappeared.

In its place appeared a long, dark corridor, with dozens of doors on either side. Some were old, others seemed new. Whispers could be heard coming from behind a few of them.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“Everything you’ve never said.”

I approached the first door.

There was only one word written on it:

CHILDHOOD.

I reached for the handle.

But before I could open it, the Devil stopped me.

“Be careful. Not everything you find here will be easy to look at.”

“I want to see.”

He looked at me for a long moment.

“Then let’s go. But don’t forget something: we’re not returning to the past to punish you. We’re going back to understand the person you’ve become.”

I opened the door.

And for the first time in many years, I was forced to look at my own story.

END OF CHAPTER ONE