By bedtime Nolan wasn’t thinking about anything that had happened that day. He was focussed on tomorrow, he was worried. Nolan didn’t want to steal anything or to get in trouble. He didn’t really need revenge against the jerks at the jerk table and the thought of what he had agreed to do Monday made him extremely anxious. It was hard to go to sleep without making a decision and in that moment he asked God to help him. As soon as he did, Nolan realized God wouldn’t want him to steal from anyone. Suddenly the decision was simple, Nolan would just have to tell David no or avoid him or something. Once he knew he was going to do the right thing, Nolan fell asleep easily.
After a few hours of sleeping Nolan felt something terrible. It felt like there was an elephant on his chest and two hands around his throat. He couldn’t breath but he was still asleep so he wasn’t sure what to do. He shook himself awake but the feeling didn’t stop! Nolan lay there helpless, unable to breathe, and an invisible presence, maybe one of the demigods, was trying to kill him. He couldn’t see anything on top if him but he sure could feel it. He looked up at the fan and there was something dark in the air. He could see a dark light floating in circles around the room. It looked like water circling the drain only it was up around the fan and circling down on him.
Nolan tried the only thing he ever knew to try when this kind of thing happened, to tell it to leave in Jesus’ name. The only problem was that Nolan couldn’t speak, he didn’t have the strength to utter a word. Whatever kind of demonic hidden monster this was, it was stronger than Nolan and could stop him from speaking the command for it to leave. Nolan tried a few times but when he wasn’t able and the air was short, Nolan screamed out inside of himself. He didn’t need his mouth to work, his spirit could talk. In his spirit he screamed out, “leave in Jesus’ name!!!!” All it took was one try and the presence left his room. No more mystical wind swirling around his fan, no more evil spirit of a dead demigod on his chest and suddenly he could breathe!
It took Nolan a few minutes to catch his breathe and he was tired. So he decided not to be afraid of another attack, they were coming anyway. He just went right back to sleep as if nothing had happened. He never told people when this sort of thing happened, you just couldn’t tell people these sorts of things. Soon he was asleep again and he saw a field of yellow flowers in his mind. It didn’t really feel like a dream, it felt like he had been taken to another world so that he could heal up by morning. The wind blew off of a waterfall in the distance, through the field and right into Nolan’s nostrils. He lungs came alive with every breathe and he spent the rest of the night feeling alive.
Practice Outlaw 