How to purge someone's Inner Demon.

You open your eyes.

John was there to greet you with a salute, and also wearing an army uniform curiously enough. "Sir! Welcome back to the ****, Sir!"

"Uh..." You had no idea how to respond to that.

"Heheh," he started to chuckle, "You like the new look? I thought since we were gonna go to battle soon, I'd dress for the part in order to psych ourselves up."

Huh... You know, sometimes it's hard to believe that this guy was your subconscious. You don't seem to know about yourself as well as you thought you did.

Whatever, back to the matter at hand.

"Alright, John. Lay it on me. How do I purge this Inner Demon from Miss Cardigan's mind? You said you know how?"

"Yes, I did." He cleared his throat before beginning to explain, "Let me warn you right now that it's not going to be as easy as you think. This isn't a battle of strength, you aren't gonna be punching it to **** like some cartoon villain."

A clipboard materializes out of nowhere and rolls up behind John as he further explains using simple imagery.

"First thing's first, and understand this very carefully. Getting rid of an Inner Demon does not mean killing it for good. It's not like a wound that you can easily heal up. More like an allergic rash that shows up every now and again and you need ointment to lessen the symptoms before it goes away."

"Wait, what? You mean if I beat it, it might come back again?!" You asked incredulously.

"Well duh. It's not a disease, it's a mental state. Everyone has their own Inner Demons, some stronger than others." He pointed at you, "Even you have your own Inner Demons inside of you as we speak. It's not uncommon. Just because you **** yourself to stop being sad now, doesn't mean you stop yourself from being sad forever. It's just basic human nature."

"So... No matter what I do, she's still going to have that monster festering inside of her?" You frowned, feeling like everything was lost before it even begun.

"Technically, yes. BUT- and there is a HUUUUUGE but here-" John dramatically stated, flipping the board to show a picture of two female stick figures of Miss Cardigan. One where she's sad and there's a black shadow looming over her, and one where she's triumphant and happy, sitting on her shadow like a couch. "You can still weaken the Inner Demon inside her to the point where it no longer affects her life anymore."

Wait, what? How does that work?

"Judging by the stupid face you're making, I'm assuming you have no idea what I'm talking about." John pointed at you with a frown, before continuing, "I'm just gonna simplify this using a really easy to understand metaphor. Let's pretend that, you have a dollar one day. A special super deluxe dollar that you got from dear Mommy and Daddy- are you with me so far?"

Were you always such a condescending prick, or is it just your subconscious?

"Now let's say you accidentally lost that dollar one day. How would you feel?"

"I mean... I guess pretty sad about it."

"Pretty sad, you say? Not soul crushingly depressed to the point where you want to die?" He asked.

"That's kind of an overreaction to something as simple as losing a single dollar. It's not that big a deal."

"Exactly!" He cheered, "To you, it's not that big of a deal at all! You don't place any importance on that dollar! But... You'd still have a small tiny insignificant part of you deep deep inside, that still sort of kinda misses that dollar, and still wishes to have it back. Am I right?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, it is a dollar. It'd be a waste to lose one."

"Boom." He pointed at you, "That feeling right there? You just formed an Inner Demon inside you without even realizing it."

...

Okay, you're lost again.

"A small, tiny, insignificant Inner Demon that exists, but doesn't bother you at all. You don't let it affect you, because IN YOUR MIND, it's completely meaningless. You don't let that dollar ruin your life because you place no value in it."

Wait, you think you're starting to see where he's going with this...

"Ah, I see those cogs turning up in that noggin there! Think you can figure the rest out?"

"Okay... So I'm starting to get the picture... The reason why Miss Cardigan's Inner Demon is so big and scary is because... she lets it affect her mind. She takes it too seriously, and won't let herself move on from what happened back then... And everytime she lets it affect her, it grows bigger and stronger until it completely affects her life."

"Yesssss? Go on?" He looks at you expectantly.

"Sooo... What I have to do is just... Find a way to get Miss Cardigan to forget about what happened back then and try to convince her move on, so that she stops getting depressed by it, which in turn, weakens the Inner Demon until it stops giving her nightmares and ruining her life! Because by that point, she wouldn't care about it anymore!"

John starts clapping, "Congratulations John, you are now a master of second-grade elementary psychology. I have a diploma made just for this moment." He pulls out a framed diploma and hands it to you with respect.

You throw the dumb thing behind you and continue on, "But the real question is, how the hell am I suppose to get her to move on and forget about such a serious moment in her life? She's completely convince that any man who dates her is willing to leave her for that Samantha chick from back in her teenage years. What, do I just go in her dreams and kill the shit out of Samantha in front of her to make her feel better?"

"HA. HAHAHA." John laughs dramatically, "If you really think killing someone you hate in your dreams will help you out in real life, Miss Cardigan would be completely cured five hundred times over about a ten years ago already. No John, that's a terrible idea, and might actually cause the damage to be even worse. You basically just planted the idea in her head that it's completely okay to kill everyone she hates. That's not moving on from the problem, that's just another way of giving in to her Inner Demon besides suicide."

Oh... Dodged a bullet there, didn't you?

"I think it's time I teach you how to master the art of Dream Manipulation and Suggestion Planting." John announced, kicking his board away and gesturing you to walk inside a door, "Come. Field experience will do you some good."

You look at him curiously, before entering the door.

You find yourself back in front of Miss Cardigan's house again. It wasn't raining this time, and the sun was actually up and shining.

Memories of the last time you were here sent chills down your spine, but you pushed onwards.

Time to cure a lonely teacher's highschool trauma.