When you’ve been living in a home for awhile, you start to become less curious about the different oddities that initially grabbed your interest. The shoebox under the bed full of spiders becomes just another shoebox. The weird portrait of what appears to be you, but if you had lived a different life, just becomes another bathroom decoration. The large, scrawling black letters in the laundry room that read “Take no prisoners” becomes just another live laugh love style message to get you through the day. However, there are some occasions when the curiosity lingers and you just can’t shake the feeling there is more to the story. Most often, this happens with the demon living in the attic.

Before you start to worry, keep this in mind: the demon is more afraid of you than you are of them. Sure, they might be a chaotic evil servant of the Dark One from another plane, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have fears and anxieties just like the rest of us. Also, in case you are wondering, yes they are non-binary.

So, how do you solve a problem like Mephistopheles? How do you satisfy this deep need to understand this entity without getting hurt both physically and emotionally in the process? You take the first step. You overcome the boundary. You make it a point to say, “I’m not afraid of you, I just want to get to know you better.”

By doing this, you are putting the ball in their court, so to speak. You are giving them the opportunity to engage with you. If they decide not to bridge that gap and keep to themselves, that’s their choice. But, if they do reach out, it’s your duty to honor the agreement and see it through. We’re not saying you need to be best buds or anything, you just need to take this for what it is.

After all, befriending a demon has all sorts of fun perks and benefits that come with it. For instance, I made friends with Thornaxxyx, the incubus living in my attic, and now they are one of the few people I know I can rely on no matter what. All it took was me making the decision to not let me curiosity fade, but use it to establish something new.

I encourage all of us to do the same.