My heart was racing as I tried to come up with a decent answer to Jaime's question. Am I ok? I asked myself. No. I'm not ok. But I wasn't about to make myself out to be crazy, so I lied to them.

"Yeah, I'm ok," I said as casually as I could manage.

"Alright, if you're sure," Jaime said reluctantly.

I nodded in response and tried to calm myself. Be rational. I said to myself. Think about what happened.

It didn't take me long to review everything that had happened. Jake was fine, we'd sat together, even laughed a bit, and then as he'd gotten up to leave, things went horribly wrong.

It's that damn book. It's gotta be. It made sense to me. The urgent warning to not read it, the creepy vibe of it, and the mystery of who Thomas was. And how fucking desperate Jake was to keep me from reading it. But then again, how could that kind of stuff even exist?

As Jake and Jaime stood together and talked about random stuff that was of no importance to me, I watched Jake with the eye of a hawk. I was trying to figure out what was reality and what couldn't possibly be real. But no matter what, I kept seeing things that couldn't possibly be real.

Like Jake's eyes being a completely different color. Jake had blue eyes that I loved because they reminded me of our mother, not lifeless mint green ones. And his voice. I didn't remember it being way off from what it should sound like. But, the big kicker was how he was acting.

Usually, he was a sweet kid who didn't care about what people thought of him. If somebody didn't like what he said, he'd roll his eyes and laugh. He wasn't the type of guy to just completely go off on someone if they said something he didn't like. But yet here he was, being the total opposite of what I knew him to be.

It was like someone had taken my brother and replaced him with an evil, snotty clone. Yet somehow, I was the only one that noticed just how different he was.

"Hey, Jaime?" I said when I just couldn't take their awkward conversation anymore.

"What's up?" She looked relieved to have someone else to talk to.

"Do you think maybe you guys could talk about something else?" I asked kindly. I could tell, from the look on her face, that she'd been asking the same thing in her head.

"I beg your pardon?" Jake chimed in angrily before she could answer. "Were we talking to you?"

I sighed to try and calm the anger that ran through me at that moment. Who does he think he is? I asked myself in disbelief.

"I think I'm just gonna go..." Jaime said awkwardly.

"Yes, please do." Jake snapped. "Clearly Reagan here can't mind her own fucking business."

I remained completely silent even though my blood was boiling. Had he really just said that?! Jaime backed away slowly and looked over to me apologetically before leaving.

When she left and we were alone, I let Jake have it. I was just too pissed to let it go like I usually would.

"Seriously, Jake!?" I snapped angrily. "What the hell is your problem?!"

He spun around and stared at me hatefully before answering.

"You! You're my problem!" He yelled. That so wasn't like him. He'd never raise his voice at me like that.

"Excuse me?" I gasped in shock.

"Oh, what? You can't handle the truth?" He shook his head before laughing.

"That's funny to you?" I asked angrily. "Treating your sister like shit, kicking your girlfriend out of the house? Oh, that's all really fucking hilarious to you, Jake?"

He laughed even harder at my anger and I decided to take away his fuel by shutting up. I wasn't going to give this monster any fuel to his stupid fire, and I certainly wasn't going to let him win.

My mind flashed back to my dream that prior night, and I couldn't understand why this moment felt so familiar. It wasn't at all like my dream. I wasn't in the guest room, Jake wasn't tied up, and yet this moment felt exactly like my dream to me.

"This is so stupid, Jake," I said after a long pause of silence.

The tense feeling in the room was enough to make anyone, no matter how tough, feel uneasy. And I wanted to put an end to this unnecessary fight.

"Yeah, you're right." He said in a rude tone. "It's so stupid that I'm stuck here with you."

"Jacob, I swear to-" I froze before I could finish. As I said, I'm not that religious, but I refused to swear for whatever this awful attitude my brother had was.

"You swear to what?" He teased as he laughed. "You're a chicken, girly."

He laughed and started chanting 'chicken' over and over.

"Shut up," I said through clenched teeth as he kept chanting.

He was testing me purposely, and if he didn't stop he was going to push me over the edge. But that's what he wanted, to test me, to push me over the edge until I did something drastic.

Finally, he stopped his stupid chant and began laughing evilly as I sat on the couch in silence and fumed furiously.

"Jake, I really don't want to, but if you don't shut up I'm going to have to use force." I threatened angrily as his laughing grew to a hysterical bawl of laughter.

"Pfft!" He laughed harder and shook his head. "You wouldn't hurt a fly."

​
His laughter stopped abruptly and he began to shake spastically.

"Jake!?" I instinctively called to him.

I didn't run to his aid this time, too filled with rage to much care for being near him, but I felt a pang of guilt as he stood in place and shuddered. He began to fall over toward the couch but caught himself just as he was about to fall face first.

I saw his arms stop shaking and then he began breathing heavily.

No way. I was just about to lean toward him when I saw his eyes. They weren't green anymore. Instead, they were his lovely natural blue eyes that I'd always seen when I looked at him.

He took deep breaths and slowly began to move toward me.

"Reagan?" He said shakily.

My heart skipped a beat when the evil voice I'd been forced to hear was replaced with my brother's soft voice.

"Jake, what happened to you?" I asked.

"I don't know." He looked so lost and scared I almost wanted to cry. "What's happening to me?"

Nothing made any sense. How did he go from being a kind and gentle guy to being a total opposite in a matter of seconds? Only one thing crossed my mind that made sense. Something I'd read about in the past.

Dissociative Identity Disorder.

"Jake, you need help," I said as I stood up. "I'm going to call around and see if we can find you a doctor, ok?"

"Your joking!" He said and looked at me with a look of shock and disbelief.

I could see how hurt he was by my words. But he needed help! I knew the damage that mental things like that had caused when they were left untreated, and it wasn't pretty.

"Reagan!" He looked really irritated and was now standing upright.

I began walking to the staircase without saying a word to my angry brother. It's for the best. I tried to convince myself. He needs help or he'll end up going to a loony bin.

The idea of my brother being locked away in a mental hospital with a white straight jacket was frightening to me. He wouldn't last a day in one of those places. And he didn't deserve to be in one of those places.

I felt so guilty as I ignored my brother's desperate pleas to answer his questions and walked up the stairs. But, I had no choice. If he didn't want to take help the easy way, he'd just have to deal with it. Or at least that's what I told myself when I locked myself in my room and began dialing Jaime's number.

In the middle of dialing it, I stopped. What am I doing? I put down my phone and sighed. This is not the right thing to do. You can help him in better ways.

I built up as much courage as I could and headed to Jake's room.

When I reached his closed door, I could feel my nerves starting with me. God, please say he didn't lock it. I thought as I put my hand on the doorknob. But, as I prepared myself to open the door, it swung open.

"Gah!" I yelped and jumped away. I put my hand on my chest as Jake stood silently in the archway of the door and frowned.

"Oh, my gosh!" I laughed to try and lighten the mood. "You scared me!"

My tactic worked. He grinned at the idea of giving me a well-deserved scare.

"Can I come in?" I asked cautiously.

He sighed and backed away into his room so that I could enter.

In that small moment of happiness that we shared it felt like, even though I didn't deserve it, Jake had forgiven me. And it reminded me of why I loved him as much as I did.

Jake had already sat down on his bed by the time I had reached the middle of his room, and he patted the spot next to him.

"Wanna sit down?" He asked. I couldn't believe that after what I had just put him through he still wanted me near him. It felt almost too good to be true, so I took every step with care.

I sat down next to him and looked him directly in the eyes. Blue, that was a good sign.

"How are you?" I asked since it felt like forever since I'd asked him that.

"I don't know...." He said slowly.

"Well, how do you feel?" I asked.

"Ok, I guess." He sighed and looked at me. I knew what the look on his face meant. It was the face of 'I need someone to listen'.

"What's wrong?" I asked before he could shut down and avoid the question.

"There's... a man... He talks to me. Tells me things. At first, I thought I was crazy, but... Then he started saying stuff that made me think he was real." He frowned and looked down before he shook his head.

"Go on," I said, wanting to know more.

"No, it's crazy." Jake shook his head again.

"Jake, tell me what he said." I persisted.

"He said... I belong to him. That I'm his." He put his hands on his face and sighed deeply. "He said he wants control of me or something like that."

"So what? Are you saying you believe you're possessed or something?" I asked without even thinking.

He shrugged his shoulders, and I knew what he was trying to indicate. He didn't know what to believe. But then again, neither did I.

What would you think if the person you loved most came up to you and said they were possessed? Would you believe them? Call them crazy?

I felt so guilty for being so mean to him before when clearly it wasn't his fault, maybe he was just really tired and stressed, and I really wanted to apologize. But, I was afraid that the second I did, things would get awkward again. So, I settled for small talk after a few minutes of silence instead. It turned out to be a good choice.

I found out that Jake and Jaime were officially 'together' and that it was the recent buzz at his school. We even talked about things he usually kept to himself. Like how he was doing in school and what his classes were like. But, it was sad to hear that he didn't have any friends.

"No way!" I shook my head. "I refuse to believe that you don't have any friends!"

"No, it's true!" He laughed.

"But why?" I felt legitimately bad for him. "Aren't you lonely?"

He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. But, of course, I should have known. My brother, the loner.

After hours of nothing but fun and laughs, I let my guard down. I didn't think anything would happen if things were going so well. But, I was wrong. Jake was in the middle of telling a stupid story about his classmates when he stopped abruptly and froze.

"Jake, what's wrong?" I asked.

When he didn't answer I waved my hand in front of his face, to try and get a response out of him, but I got nothing. But, after a few minutes of him remaining unresponsive, I began to grow agitated. He's pranking me. He's gotta be. I thought.

"Ok, haha. It was funny, but jokes over now, ok?" I said before realizing that maybe it wasn't a prank. If it wasn't, then what was going on?

Between the shaking, the mood swings, the eye color, and now this! I felt like I was going to lose my mind! What the fuck was happening?

"Jake, please answer me," I begged. But he didn't respond, just stared blankly toward his closet.

When am I going to get a break? I thought with a sigh of frustration.

I couldn't make sense of anything that was happening, and it was driving me insane. But even worse was that it was happening to the one person I held very dear to me.

When Jake still didn't respond to me calling his name, I tried to think of other ways to snap him out of his weird trance. I tried shaking him, I tried yelling his name again, but he still didn't respond.

"Jake, snap out of it!" I yelled for the tenth time.

At this point in time, I was losing it. I could feel the anger building up, but I tried to keep it at bay for my brother's sake. Because maybe, just maybe, this wasn't his fault.

After a few more moments of silence, he finally blinked a few times before looking over to me.

That's impossible!

I refused to believe that his eyes were the same lifeless green that they had been earlier, yet the proof was right there in front of me.

"Jake?" I cautiously asked before bracing myself to run.

He shrugged his shoulders and smirked. "Sure. If you want to call me that."

I don't know why. I can't explain it. But for whatever reason, I threw away my earlier theories and began thinking that maybe, just maybe, this had nothing to do with a mental disorder. Maybe something actually was possessing my brother. Ghosts aren't real. Demons aren't real. Are they?

I had no idea whether to believe or not, but even I had to admit that creepy stuff had been happening. Like the fact that Jake's room was way colder than the rest of the house. The heavy feeling I got whenever I stood outside the door. And the creepy things happening to Jake.

It all was enough to almost make me believe that the scary monsters that parents always told kids didn't exist actually did. But, what did I know?

If demons did exist, and one truly was after my brother, what could I do to protect him? How could I, a small-town girl with no experience with anything, possibly help?

It just seemed to make sense given everything that was happening. It was the only explanation I could see for how his eyes changed to a completely different color. I mean he could've put in contacts somehow, but his eyes weren't the only things that changed.

His voice was usually soft and kind. Not rough and sinister. Or piercing to the bone. And I knew that, as much as Jake loved pranks, he wouldn't ever take one that far.

Yet, even with all this proof, I didn't want to believe that a demon was sitting beside me.