"Hey," a voice whispered, "Hey. Hey. HeyheyheyheyheyheyheyheyheyheyHEY! Wake up. It's TIIIIIMMMMMEEEEE FOOOOORRRRRR SCHOOOOOLLLLLLLL!"

With that voice came an intense, nonstop poking. Finally, I opened my eyes, and glared at the shadow that was standing over me, poking my nose.

"Go away," I mumbled, "Just five more minutes."

"No," the shadow replied, "I am going to sit here, and annoy you, and record you in your sleep. Get up."

I sighed, and chucked a pillow at him. However, I forgot that normal material objects couldn't touch him. The pillow flew right through him, hitting the wall on the far side of my room.

"Try again!" he sang out, "But I bet that... YOU CAN'T CATCH ME!"

I jumped as he screamed into my ear, then glared at him, and pulled myself out of the bed. He looked over at me, and I could feel worry radiating off of him. I could touch him - that's a fact. I glared at him, then grabbed his arm and threw him into a wall.

Wait.

That sounded strange.

Let me try again.

The annoying partially demonic creature that possesses my body poked me awake. I tried to throw a pillow at him, but I couldn't, because he can't be touched by most physical objects, and it went right through him. Then I threw him through a wall.

No... that doesn't sound right, either.

A shadow woke me up in the morning and I threw him through a wall.

That works.

Let me explain a few things that may be confusing you first, before we continue.

First off, I'm not human... technically. I mean, I am, but I'm also not. I'm possessed by a demon, which is the thing that makes me not human. (Well, that, and my own ability of being able to interact with the nonphysical realm.) The demon's name is X. He's been with me since I was little. He can hang around outside my body, or stay inside of me. It's his choice - and my choice. We argue a lot over where he'll spend the day. Unfortunately, if we spend too much time separated from each other, we could die.

That would suck. For both of us.

And on that specific day, when X woke me up, we were about to go to school. High school, to be exact. Which was the last place that I wanted to be with X in. While in my body, X can make me do things. Like speak, walk, dance, move, stuff like that. He usually doesn't take control of me unless he wants to humiliate me. And even then, he's only in a 'humiliate the human who lets me stay inside of her body' mood every now and then. But I still try to stay aware of whether or not he's in one of those moods.

"Are you going to try to humiliate me today?" I mumbled, lying back down, "If so, just leave me alone. I can stay home."

X reappeared next to me and sat down on the bed. Putting his hand on my shoulder, he quietly said,

"No, not today. It's your first day of school - I may be a demon living inside of you, but I still want you to have a good life. So get up! Get a life! If you get up in the next minute, we can fly."

I quickly sat up and asked,

"Really?"

"Really," X replied, "I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it."

I rolled my eyes, and muttered,

"When I was six you told me that there was a monster that lived in the basement and would attack me if I went down there without you."

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that," he laughed, "I didn't even mean it, but you still fell for it... for three years!"

I rolled my eyes, then said,

"But you didn't mean it. So you do say things you don't mean."

X laughed, then said,

"Okay, point made. You're already up, so I guess it's settled."

I smiled, then shooed him out of the room so I could get changed.

Later on, about half an hour before I was supposed to leave for the bus, X dragged me out to the forest, which is where we usually flew. While he was in my body, X could also give me his powers. One of which included flight. And invisibility. And telepathy, telekinesis, a billion other powers that I'm not going to bother to name... I'm seriously overpowered, as my gaming friends would say.

Of course, all of that power didn't come without training, and recently, X had been teaching me to fly. He would control me, since it takes a while to learn it, like any new skill (only flight is more dangerous, because of the fact that falling would probably mean death). But I loved it anyways, since I loved heights, and I knew that I would be able to control my flight patterns one day, so I would repeatedly ask him to keep on training me.

So that was why we were out in the middle of the woods: training. X and I stood in the middle of a small clearing, facing each other. I was taking deep breaths, trying to stay calm. I wasn't nervous about the training - I loved doing it. But I didn't like it when X reentered my body - we called it merging. It didn't just hurt when he did. It burned. It felt like someone was cutting me to shreds, and made sure that every single nerve ending of mine was affected by their blade. I hated that feeling, and usually felt like absolute crap for about five minutes afterwards. X had told me that he disliked the process almost as much as I did, even though he didn't experience my pain. He felt terrible about causing me harm, even though it was unintentional. But despite the fact that neither of us liked the merging, it still had to be done. X gently held my hands, and calmly said,

"I'm going to start now, alright?"

I nodded, and he began to fade out. There was a faint tingling sensation in my hands, which quickly grew into a burning, searing pain that spread across my body. I closed my eyes tightly, tears streaming down my cheeks. Soon the pain subsided, and I took a few deep breaths.

'You really need to breathe during this,' X said from inside of my head, 'It helps with the pain. And, you know, oxygen is life. I wouldn't want you to die, and have to reanimate your corpse and explain to your parents that you held your breath for too long, and now you're dead.'

I let out a snort, and smiled, then said,

"Well, I'm breathing now, so I'll live another day. Can we start now?"

'Sure,' X replied, 'I'm going to start growing your wings now - wait a minute.'

"Isn't it summoning my wings?" I asked, "Since you're materialising an item, or a set of items, from a non-material realm into a material realm to interact with the objects around it."

'It is,' X said, 'But it sounds better to say growing. I'm thinking in terms of how attractive the language I use is.'

"Nobody's hearing you but me," I said, "So you don't have to worry about your fancy language."

'Yeah, well, we're not in band right now, so you don't have to worry about your fancy walking, but you were still roll stepping  all the way here,' X pointed out. I rolled my eyes, then stretched out my hands. There was a soft rush of wind past my face, and I smiled.

"Wings grown?" I asked. X let out a quiet 'mhm', and I gently touched my back. I never tired of feeling the softness of my wings - or X's wings. They sort of resembled a wispy, vague, shadowy outline of wings, and felt soft. Almost like velvet.

'Are you ready to fly?' X asked. I nodded, and I felt my wings extend to their full length. It was always strange to feel something on my body being controlled by someone else, but I trusted X. I had to - he had been living in and out of my body (mostly in) for the last 14 and 1/2 years of my life.

'Okay, start running,' X began, 'Like you're being chased by a bus. I'll tell you when to jump.'

"By a bus?" I asked. I could almost sense X nodding. I rolled my eyes, then started to sprint as fast as I could. The chilly morning wind bit at my face. It was a great way to wake up. Cold air filling my lungs, the leaves crunching beneath my feet, the trees rushing by, early morning sunlight streaming through the trees... perfect. Best way to wake up.

'Okay,' X said, 'Now jump. Remember to look up where you're going. Trust me to avoid any trees that are in your path - this is just as much of a trust exercise as it is a training one. I'm ready when you are.'

I nodded, then leaped towards the sky. There was one exhilarating moment when I knew that I had gone from jumping to flying, and I felt perfectly weightless. Then came the hard part - trusting that X knew what he was doing. On our way towards the sky, he would swing towards trees, or make me plummet briefly towards the ground. Then, after he extended his powers to me to briefly enable me to fly through objects (so we could pass through the canopy), we found ourselves above the trees. My morning got even better. The sun shone over the trees, rays of light beaming out. As far as the eye could see, there were trees. And mountains. There was also a small gleaming a little ways off that I was pretty sure was a lake. I had never known for sure - it was out in the middle of nowhere, there weren't any trails leading that way, and X and I had never flown out that far. Behind me was my house, and some of the other houses, and then the town that I lived in. I smiled, and X said,

'Well, we should start heading back. Let's practice our drop fall. Just so you can be prepared on the day that I forget to care about your safety.'

"Which will hopefully never happen," I laughed.

'Which will probably happen in the near future,' X corrected me, before we began to plunge from the sky. I angled myself so that my wings were slowing my fall a little bit. Then, as I had done quite a few times before, I spread them as wide as possible, and landed on the ground. My fingers brushed against the forest floor as I landed, then straightened up. Suddenly, I heard someone applauding me.

"Wooh!" an unfamiliar voice cheered, "That was cool!"

I whirled around, almost crashing into a girl who looked my age. She had light brown hair, blue eyes, and a pair of cat ears... literal cat ears... poking through her hair. Okay, so she clearly wasn't a human, unless every single human on Earth had spontaneously grown a set of cat ears overnight. Cool.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked, still startled by her presence.

"Hi," she said, "I'm Katrina, but most people call me Kitten!"

I smiled, and shook her outstretched hand, then said,

"I'm Maxima, but most people call me Max. And, uh, I'm possessed by a demon named X. It's complicated."

"Oh, so are you a vessel?" Kitten asked, "Is X Lucifer? Are you Lucifer?"

I leaned back, feeling slightly uncomfortable, then slowly replied,

"No idea what a vessel is, no, and no."

"You don't know what a vessel is?" Kitten asked, "Do you watch Supernatural?"

'I do!' X cheerily piped up, 'Tell her I do. Tell her that the demon who possesses you does!'

I rolled my eyes, then hissed,

"Why didn't you ever watch it with me?"

"Because I... didn't know you?" Kitten awkwardly said. I shook my head, then explained,

"I was talking to X."

Kitten slowly nodded, and X said,

'Okay, so I thought you wouldn't like it. That's all. Sorry, sorry, you get a cookie. Now can you tell her that I watch Supernatural?'

I rolled my eyes and muttered,

"Fine. Okay, Kitten, X does. He does, but he doesn't watch with me. Don't ask how he can move in and out of my body, it just gets even more complicated."

Kitten nodded, and said,

"Okay, I won't ask. It's early in the morning, anyways... I don't like thinking about stuff after waking up."

'Same,' X softly laughed. I smiled, then checked my watch. We had... crap... five minutes or so until we had to get to the bus.

"We need to get to the bus," I urgently said, "Like, right now."

Kitten's cat ears twitched a few times, then vanished, and she stood up, then grabbed her backpack. Together, we ran through the forest, to the bus stop. I was nervous, but also excited - we'd be going to a new school, yes, full of giants... I mean... upperclassmen, but thankfully, I'd be running into that situation with another nonhuman. And who knew... maybe I'd find some others like me.

A/N: Yay! I posted the first chapter and now I feel accomplished! I just wanted to let you know that this story will probably be slower in updating because of the fact that it's mostly going to be written in between classes, or during lunch.