"I think I finally get it."

"Get what?" There was something about the look in his eyes, the confidence, the surety, that had me swallowing hard.

"You." And as he smiled, it was almost smug. "I get you, Oz. You're a little, Aren't you?"

If only I had known at the time just how much those few little words were going to change my life.

The Little Of Oz Series

Grandmother Heidi, God rest her soul, had been a religious woman. She had lived with her hand to the bible and her heart open only to her God. She had been terrifying, in her own way, but delightful in others.

Perhaps she had sensed the dormant sin that had lived in my bones, or maybe she had caught a glimpse of the impurity that was my soul. Either way, my time in her company was passed in her favourite way: she would tell me stories of God's fallen one, the beautiful one, who now lived only to whisper wrongness into the ears of innocents. She told me of Hell, a place where demons walked and eternal torture lay in wake of all sinners.

She had told me of her Hell, but for all her stories, for as much as they had bought me nightmares, they failed to hold in contest with the Hell I had created for myself.

Demons paled in comparison to being so close to the thing you wanted more than anything in the world, but being unable to reach it.

Chapter36