Insomnia plagued Carrie Moore for the next few days. It embraced her mind, telling her that sleep was a foe that she didn't need, and one she could never win against. It wrapped around her limbs, making them heavy like metal chains, but restless like the wind that knocked against her window.

The teenage girl knew why she couldn't sleep, couldn't stop from pressing her golden cross to her lips, just to feel the warmth that radiated off the metal like the body warmth that radiated off Michael's skin. And while she wanted to talk to him about that stunning reveal, whenever she closed her eyes she saw an inverted pentagram and she'd blink her eyes wide open again.

Michael worshipped the Devil. Michael Langdon was a Satanist. That golden-haired boy with the delicate blue eyes that darkened so quickly when a tempest of emotion tore through him, that boy that carried her backpack and always wanted to hold her hand just for that tiny human touch, was a Satanist, a cult member. The polar opposite to her. So, so different from her, or at least, so she believed. Her religious morality told her that they cannot be friends, but her heart told her otherwise.

She wanted to fix the crack in her heart, the confliction that put herself at war with herself. So, she turned towards the Bible for answers, thumbing through the thin pages—to her mother's delight, who thought her only daughter was being diligent with her Bible studies—for any and all references to the Devil.

She stared with Lucifer's fall in the book of Isaiah. How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to the heavens: I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Might Hight.' But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit.

And she ended with a verse from Corinthians: And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. And she still hadn't found her answer as to why Michael Langdon, her neighbour and friend, could worship the fallen and damned angel that was the embodiment everything wicked and wrong with the world and the human race. There was no one worse than the Devil, save for maybe the Antichrist, which as the Holy text states, is Satan in human flesh. All of this is paving the way for the Antichrist himself to appear and get rid of any pretence of religion. He will do away with God altogether. He will perform signs and wonders to prove to the world once and for all that mankind is self-sufficient.

However, she didn't just stop with the Bible but turned to other literature. Carrie Moore was good at researching, good at studying, and it was something she enjoyed and often used it as a hobby. And her research into Lucifer and his story led her to John Milton's epic poem, Paradise Lost. Engrossing herself with the poem actually doubled as homework, as she needed to present a poem in English class on Monday. Regardless, her eyes soaked up the words, savouring over them as her heart pounded loudly in her ears, louder than the warnings in her mind. If you took away Satan from the equation, Michael and Miriam only practised another religion, and Carrie didn't have a problem with people practising other religions.

So, after a long weekend of no sleep and a battle against her mind and heart, Carrie decided that, maybe, it didn't matter that Michael Langdon worshipped the Devil. She tried always to never judge people and that included people that prayed to a fallen angel that defied his mighty Father and stormed heaven with an army of his brothers and sisters before falling to hell to make his kingdom.

Her heart was settled on Sunday night and sleep enveloped her with his gentle and soothing arms. But her dreams were far less gentle and soothing. She dreamed of horns and blood and fire burning the world to ash and smoke. Carrie didn't know it, but Michael Langdon across the street dreamt of the same thing that night too.

—

The focus of the weekend bled into English class Monday morning. Each student would rise and move to the front of the classroom and read a passage from a poem that spoke to their soul, enchanted their mind and bewitched their heart. Carrie had never excelled at public speaking and her stomach was in knots over the small presentation. Her palms were sleek with sweat and she chewed at her bottom lip as she walked to the front of the room, tugging and twisting at the paperback book housing John Milton's epic poem.

"You may begin when you're ready, Miss Moore," Mr Sanberg, the English teacher started from his chair off to the side. Carrie nodded meekly, looking up from her saddle shoes to the full class of students looking up at her. Well, actually, not all of the students were looking at her, some were scrolling down their social media feeds. Regardless, even one pair of eyes on Carrie sent her nerves into overdrive. She flipped through the book with shaking hands to find her selected passage. Paradise Lost was a long, narrative poem about Satan's role in the fall of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and included a lot of warfare and the supernatural.

Carrie licked her dry lips and read her chosen passage in a small and shy voice. And the topic of the poem shocked and unsettled many of the teenagers in the room. "Farewell happy fields, where joy never dwells: hail horrors, hail infernal world." She finished her chosen passage of the epic poem with a sigh before looking up from the page.

"Okay, uh, that was a little disturbing, Carrie," Mr Sanberg said, and there was laughter hidden in his voice. "Very dark. Maybe something a little brighter and more optimistic next time?" There was sniggering in the rows of teenagers and each snigger hit Carrie like a bullet. "That's also the most you've said in this class before." But the laughter was leaking out of it's hiding place. Carrie's heart fell to the floor and her skin flushed, hot and red.

"Fucking asshole," Tommy Ross muttered out from near the back of the classroom.

"What was that, Mr Ross?" Carrie's eyes sought out Tommy, blinding shock picking up her heart off the floor.

"It was fucking awesome," Tommy piped up, confidence lacing his words. "What Carrie just read out loud, sir. And as an English teacher, you should encourage such readings of classic literature." A stunned silence captured the classroom. No one would suspect Tommy Ross to come to Carrie's defence and aid, not ever.

"Watch your language in my class, Mr Ross," was all Mr Sanberg said in response. And Carrie hurried back to her seat, keeping her eyes off the teenage boy with styled black hair and kind dark eyes, letting her hair act as a curtain to shield the stock and gratitude imprinted on her face.

—

Monday also marked the day that the library was reopened and Carrie made a beeline for the warmth and silence of the place. But it didn't feel the same anymore. Carrie Moore knew what lingered there now, invisible and lost. A heaviness weighed on her shoulders as she walked into the quiet library. A mass shooting had occurred here and five teenagers, just like herself, had been shot dead. Harsh but quick and the only suffering those souls knew was that of the afterlife. Being in the haunted place reminded Carrie of how Michael Langdon was obsessed with the Westfield High Massacre of the 90s, and it also reminded her of how she hadn't come to a solid conclusion about that either.

Instead of returning to her research about her power, she found the memorial plaque secured on one of the far walls. The bronze metal was aged but the black text of those names was still stark. Carrie reached out her fingertips, tracing the names of students that had lost their lives this very place in 1994. What was it about this event that incited Michael Langdon?

"I always wondered why they never popped the boy that killed those teenagers on the plaque. He did die too and was a victim in some sense," Ava Gold said, suddenly at Carrie's side. Her voice was curious and compassionate. Ava Gold was empathic and understood the corrupt and crimping culture of Westfield High more than she let on.

"The shooter was a teenage boy?" Carrie averted her eyes from the names of the dead to her lunchtime friend. Carrie Moore realised she didn't know anything about the shooter.

"Yeah. He went here. Tate Langdon," she answered, turning away from the plaque to grab a free table. Carrie's heart stopped beating.

Langdon. Langdon. Langdon. No, that can't be right, she thought as her heart started beating again, slowly and loudly. It was all she could hear in her eardrums for a long minute.

She moved to the table too, pulling out a free seat and leaning forward on her elbows. "Langdon? Are you sure?"

Ava nodded, retrieving some fresh cookies from her bag. "I'm positive." The world around Carrie slowed down and her vision blurred at the edges. "Did you know Blackbeard was a real pirate? His name was actually Edward Teach." But Carrie didn't hear her friend. No, she could only hear the rush of her blood like the ocean in her ears.

Tate Langdon. Michael Langdon. That couldn't be a coincidence, right? Her throat felt tight and her fingers reached for her cross instinctively. But she didn't find strength and grace there now because her thoughts were consumed by two boys named Langdon that both had lived in the shadows.