Glimpsing Light
After I did that, things became fairly nice for a while. Jeremy moved away at the end of 8th grade, but when I entered high school, my classmates started to talk to me again. In time, I got a new set of friends. This time, I kept Lair’s teachings and predictions to myself. I didn’t want another incident like the one in middle school to cost me all of my friends again. Since I had a destiny none of them could understand, I thought I was better than anyone around me, but I kept that to myself.
Liar encouraged that arrogance. He began to instruct me in occultic practices using the altar I’d built to invite him into my body. He also inflated my ego by telling me that I was destined to become a great leader. An outward shell of arrogance in this world is attractive and many people mistake it for leadership abilities and my new friends were no exception. It wasn’t long before I led many of our activities. In time, I became the president of one of the school’s clubs as well.
However, the shell of my pride was very brittle. In my junior year of high school, I became friends with Mary. She was a girl in my Latin class. That semester, she and I were also teaching assistants. We graded papers together for a science class right before lunch. Although I found her attractive, I believed I was too superior to her for anything meaningful to ever happen. When we talked, I bragged about all manner of things – except the spiritual realm. I still wasn’t open about my continued activities along those lines. Liar encouraged my haughty behavior. He told me that puffing up my ego would protect me from getting bogged down by all the messy emotions that lesser beings were so often distracted by.
Instead of either being repulsed or entranced by my silly show of machismo, she had the only reaction I wasn't prepared for— she genuinely cared about me. Liar insisted my attraction to her was merely physical. He reminded me that she was hardly my first crush. This was just a passing thing. I was too important to fall for someone like her. Sure, most of my friends were dating by this time, but they don't have important spiritual missions, like I did. For the first time, his lies couldn't agree with what was in my heart. I accepted Liar's words as true, but I became torn. I’d never experienced anything like this before.
Near the end of November, the school was having a balloon send-off during AIDS Awareness Week. During one of my classes that day, I wrote what I thought to be a hilarious note stating that the Antichrist is walking the Earth; Jesus had returned, and the time is drawing near for Armageddon. Since the high school I attended at that time was on a mountain ridge near a major city, if I tied the note to the balloon during the send-off, the balloon would likely pop over the city. Someone could get the note falling from the sky and freak out. I showed this note several of my friends and they thought it was hilarious.
The balloon send-off was during lunch, so I had the opportunity to show it to Mary before I sent it on its way. When she read it, then looked at me with eyes full of hurt and told me that she actually believed in the things I was making fun of. I was shocked. She was a Christian! Of all the people I could be attracted to, she had to be a Christian. Before I could respond, the teacher came into the cubicle where we graded papers together and offered us a balloon each. Mary said that she was going to stay there during the send-off. She asked me to stay there and not send the note off.
It was the first time that I was standing between the Kingdom of Light and the Kingdom of Darkness. There were two roads for me to choose, and they were each clear as day. Liar was screaming in my head to leave and send off the balloon with the note. I had entrusted Liar with my life thus far, so I took his advice. I grabbed a balloon, tied the note to it and sent it off. I chose to remain with what I was comfortable with: darkness.
My friendship with Mary collapsed shortly thereafter. I tried to use one of the occultic gifts Liar was teaching me to try to affect another person's dreams to try to manipulate her into re-establishing our friendship, but it wasn't working. This was the first time that my gifts failed to affect someone else. Mary graduated high school at the end of the year, a year before I did. Shortly thereafter, I never saw her again. The chance to apologize had come and gone.
