In the soon to be future.
A wandering traveler, clad in black, walks along an old dusty road. In the distance, he notices the semblance of a town. Looking worn but healthy, the man has a small pack and wood cane.
As the traveler steps foot on Main Street, he notices multiple tenants rocking in chairs under awnings, like porch monkeys during the wild west. The remnants of the modern architecture mix with dust and smoke to create a feeling of hopelessness.
Near an old post office, a group of teenagers mingles. The man approaches and they begin to get quiet.
“I would like to talk to ya all about slayin,” said the traveler. “Slayin, what the heck are you talkin’ bout old man?”, responded one of the younger boys. With a grimace, the traveler squatted and said, “You’ve never heard of a slayer son? Let me explain somethin’ to you.”
He lays down his pack and sits on an old stump near the kids.
After a few seconds, showing great dexterity he jumps up on the stump and tilts his hat. After looking into the eyes of all amongst the group he says in a strong voice, “There are slayers amongst us.”
“Slayers of what?”, asked a redheaded girl almost jokingly.
“There are many names they have been called. Aliens. Demons. Inter-dimensional beings. It doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that you know that they are here.” “If you don’t believe, you cannot see. If you cannot see, you are destined to fall.”
“How can we fight against what we cannot see?”, shouted a small voice from the crowd.
“That is a good question little one. It is easy to see the enemy in the beings of others, but to see in the way I am trying to teach you, you must see the enemy as it enters within. This is the first step to the way of the slayer.”
“Nonetheless, it is quite difficult to explain to someone how to slay a demon. Once one has been ‘inhabited’, one will either slay or die. Most of the time a slayer’s death comes from his own hand. It is a sink or swim situation. Like a human thrown upon a bull against his will. If he survives, he automatically becomes a bull-rider, just as anyone who survives a demon becomes a slayer.”
“A demon will only come to those who are worth the challenge. A demon will not overtake an ‘easy kill.’ Demons get no pride from overtaking someone who cannot fight back.”
“Where does a demon go when it dies?”, asked the teenage redhead. “At the moment don’t worry about that. What is important is to know how they work. Your lives may depend on it one day.”
“What most people don’t understand is that demons have access to all memories and knowledge that a host contains and thus can make someone believe anything. One day you will realize that the deeply engrained beliefs most have, whether acquired recently or far into the past, probably came from a human possessed by a demon in some way. Thus, we can never be sure of the true reality. Demons are subtle. They are tricksters and almost ALL want something different.”
“How can we know if they are ‘in’ us?”, asked one boy.
“The first major sign of self-possession is random combinations of old thoughts or knowledge. Some revelations can be ‘true’ and explosive whereas some can be completely false, but believable enough for the host to question what reality actually is. Many a man has lost his entire family battling demons, including Hercules.”
“Hercules? Who is that?”, said the redhead. “Hercules was one the greatest slayers that ever existed. And still, he slaughtered his whole family under the possession of a powerful demon, Hera.”
“How are we supposed to defeat demons if people like this Hercules still lost his battles?”
“Although Hercules was strong and could defeat the greatest threats of his time, he did not have what I have and what I can give you,” said the traveler. “And what is that?”, said one of the prettier girls amongst the group. “Wisdom. Without wisdom, which cannot be passed like knowledge, none of you will stand a chance.”
“Demons cannot be seen in a physical sense, but they can be seen “in” other people. Once we learn to recognize it in others, we can recognize if they come within us.”
“Can we be a a slayer sometimes and not others?”, asked a boy. “To be a slayer, we must willingly choose to become one and after that, if one survives, one can no longer ‘leave the game.’ It becomes a life-long role,” said the man.
“This is a red pill, blue pill situation. If one of ya’ll would like to take the first step, this is your warning. It will come a time that you must choose sides. If you can’t handle that, then quit now. Go on with your life and forget you ever saw me. Pray that you never have to see what I have seen. But if you feel that you have what it takes, keep listening.”
A few people wander off, but some stay. An older boy joked with his friend, “I’m about a tick away from beating the fuck out of that dude and walking away.” “Shhh… maybe your possessed,” whispered his buddy.
The traveler overhears, but continues on, “One must learn to ‘pick up’ demons in our day-to-day lives or travels. If one is prepared and ‘clean enough’, a demon may enter. It is a life or death battle. Either you slay or you are slain. We ‘slay” by surviving all mental and spiritual assaults from the demon and not hurting anyone in the process.”
“The question that must be asked is who is guilty when a man is possessed? The man or the possessor?”, challenged the traveler.
“Maybe the man AND the demon are guilty for whatever occurs?” quipped one of the boys. “The demon will always try to ruin it’s target in whatever way possible, including forcing its host to act guiltily. Guilt, however, is established by each person him or herself. A slayer cannot be held accountable the same way a “normal” person may be. They must be properly understood.”
“The man, or woman, who fights demons can never be held accountable for his actions for they are not HIS actions. In this lawless age, the slayer must be his own judge, jury, and executioner.”
“The world that we live in is one where enough freedom must exist for slayers to do what they must, behind the scenes, for the betterment of humanity. That is our sacred goal.” “For in an unfree world, all slayers would be arrested immediately upon any number of suspicions, as many have in the past.”
“Thus one could say, in essence, that the slaying of demons, or otherwise, IS the very basis for the foundation of this world. And IF this foundation ceases to exist, every evil from here to the outer infinity would have free reign in this existence. Thus, the slayers must reign. They must originate. They must rise again and fight for us all.”
“Like all men, you will either succeed or you will fall. As long as you are still alive, you have not lost your battle. Once a slayer, always a slayer.”
After a bit more expounding, the man in black asked, “Who would like to know more?”
A multitude of hands raised up while a small smile came to his face.
“Does anyone have a cup of water before I continue?”
A boy with a water pale approaches and begins to pour water into a cow horn for the traveler to drink.
“Thank ya kindly son. I needed that,” sighed the man as he sipped the horn.
“Even if someone considers themselves a good person or even ‘holy’ or religious, if they are not battling demons consistently, within, then the ‘positive’ change that they believe they are making is probably not big enough to create ‘great change.’ BUT, a pawn removed from the board can change the entire game. Battling demons within IS removing pawns from the battlefield. To a slayer, we see this as the peak of life since it is a means to an end, even if that end we cannot see. It is a natural process that has existed since time began. The demons piled up and all the great slayers died or were forgotten.”
“Our world was destroyed by villains that we could not see. A demon is not a villain. A demon is a demon. Our true villain was the collaboration of certain pockets of humanity with demonhood itself. They found out how to communicate and have been in league ever since to control the world through any means necessary, including destroying those who work against their cause. Slayers work to cleanse these demons and remove the “human” power structure that is in line with this demonhood. Whereas our numbers used to exist across the globe, there is only a hand full of us left now.”
“We count many holy men, prophets, and warriors in our ancestral past ranks. Maybe you have heard of the man once called, “Jesus the Christ?” The children looked at each other to see if anyone knew, but none had heard. “If the stories are true, Jesus was one of the greatest to have taken up the ‘spiritual sword’. Unfortunately, this noble man didn’t make it. A powerful inner demon tricked him into surrendering himself to the authorities. Some stories say that he was crucified, some that he was saved, some that he was resurrected. Those who work for the true Lord, slaying those who have acted against his wishes, have done miraculous things. But many and even the greatest do not make it. This is not meant to be discouraging. It is meant to show you how hard this battle truly is.”
–
Slayers is a book about a major character who has the ability to slay demons throughout his day to day life, not thinking much of it. Eventually he teaches and trains a whole squad to do the same.
The path to a better world is to cleanse the world of these trickster demons and to teach others how as well.
How can we show a character transition in a season of television that is not necessarily “character development” (although character development may occur), but “demonic development” or the transformation that one can go through in a given period either “becoming possessed” or “defeating the demon” and coming out of possession? This period is not something that can happen overnight, nor over a short amount of time. Most demons take months or years to overcome. The book is about a “normal” person or at least building a premise for what is normal of the main character. As the show and season go on we see the transformation gradually from his “average normal” character into the character merged with whatever demon the character is “fighting” during that season. And eventually, we see the return from the “possessed” state of the character back into the “normal”.
Slayers are not your average or normal novel or drama in that a character goes and battles demons that we can see. It is about a character who goes to places, whether close or far, and demons that are in those areas inhabit him and use him to do their bidding. Through this character’s strength and knowledge, he can defeat them by surviving. How can we portray this in a novel? In a film? Will it bore the audience to death as most are only looking for “external” battle scenes? Would it translate better as a novel or short story?
Would it be better if the character was a soldier? That he does physical AND mental war. Or should we exclude death?
We should not exclude death, but show what these demons do to people they inhabit. Make it a book about suicide, possession, and how some people have learned how to overtake the demons that come within but also that are in others by explaining the knowledge the main character has.
The villains would say that they are in line with demonhood, because that is the true G-d, they believe, as they are what have been visible in society for thousands of years.
Demons can last forever until they are defeated by a slayer. In essence, even many demons would like to find a slayer who can “end their time.”
Questions the slayers must face: Where do demons come from? Are they a created entity or they an entity that has created themselves in the human world?
Potentially, demons come from the spirits of very bad human beings that are stuck in this invisible demon time or dimension after death. Thus the slayer must work against the demons that are from our past and teach people in the present moment that if they die as a “very bad person” they might be reborn as a demon, which might remove their free will, until they are defeated by a slayer.
The Slayer would obviously have a “flaw” in what society would say as a flaw, but which the slayer and other slayers would not call “flaws”, but necessary abilities to survive their fights. A further “flaw” might be seen as alcoholism or using drugs, but if they are used to help the slayer in his survival and victory, they are not actually flaws. The monks of Christianity made beer in order to give them a helping hand against demons in the past.
The MAIN point of slayers is that we learn that nearly everyone that has mental issues, and suicidal issues, is actually potentially possessed by a demon. Thus those who are battling demons are usually “good” people because demons will only attempt to take down those who are a threat to the demonhood, as well as the entity that is connected to the demonhood.
When a demon comes in it can be very scary. Especially if we are unaware of what demons are or do. If we are knowledgable about the subject, then if a demon enters we can recognize it for what it is. For one, it is temporary. No demon can survive in a human being longer than a certain period of time. The only way that one can be sure a demon was in them if they recognize the change within, it residing within and changing thoughts and patterns around, then it leaving and the person returning to normal.
Most believe that people just go “crazy”. That it is a normal thing and can be explained scientifically or psychologically or whatever and yet what has the scientific, psychological, or medical fields done but castigate and remove the idea that demons exist and our physical and mental conditions can be influenced by them?
In the past, demons were common knowledge. People who were more susceptible were also common knowledge. People knew that certain individuals among society were more affected than others and that these people would go through swings of “normalcy” mixed with swings of “possession.” They knew that the men or women who went through these swings were doing a great deed by battling the hidden elements within society. That is why they were revered, respected, and even promoted in society. It is certainly a reversal that we live in now where people who go through these battles are looked down upon by society, they are ridiculed as someone who is “inflicted” or “sick” or a “bad” person, when in reality society just doesn’t see reality or what is going on behind the scenes.
Demon-hunters have been hunted for centuries. Nearly all knowledge of the original culture that these entities and collectives had was destroyed. The world we live in now is a world built by demons for demons. It was never supposed to be this way. The demons have won only because of cooperation by humans either through ignorance or stupidity. It is time to take back the high ground.
A single human demon-hunter who knows what he is doing can not only win the necessary battles in the modern day, they can swing the tide of the entire war for eternity to come. They can ‘dent the universe’ with their knowledge, wisdom, and experience. Why would anyone wish these type of people ill-will, when they so selflessly work for all of humanity? Only those who are allied with the demon-hood would work against someone who was trying to help them.
