Origin: Dreadout (PC)
Appearance: During the first Dreadout, Linda, the protagonist, will have to face two very different kinds of Demits. The first foe is Demit Lorong, a gigantic abomination that lives and kidnaps people in an illusionary dimension. The creature is an enormous humanoid, with the body horribly twisted and somehow “wrong” proportions. The head is especially big, with long and dirty hair, white eyes, and a wide-open mouth. On the contrary, the limbs are long and thin, stretched on the side of the corridor where the creature is crawling to hunt its victim, defying gravity. Demit Lorong will crawl on the walls of its illusionary hallway, confined in this space too small for its body, wailing with a high-pitch cry while going toward the victim. Running is the only way to survive, hoping of course to find the exit behind the illusions.
Demit Pintu is the same species as Lorong, but its appearance is very different. The creature is in charge of guarding a door, making it impossible to open, manifesting only when strictly necessary as a gigantic head with also big hands. Demit Pintu is bodiless: the head, with long gray hair, and the enormous hands, with unnaturally long fingers and nails, are the only elements of this figure. The creature can abnormally open its mouth, stretching the skin as if the mouth was sealed with glue, creating filaments connecting the lips. Demit Pintu is lightly attached to reality since it is difficult to spot and it is intangible most of the time, making it a dangerous enemy. The creature’s main attack consists of regurgitating a river of maggots, which will deadly hurt the player. As well as the Demit Lorong, to defend the door that it is securing, Demit Pintu will drag the trespasser in an alternate dimension made of infinite darkness. And here is where the battle will take place.
Symbolism: The Demits are mythical creatures born from Indonesian folklore. They are a wide and complex class of legendary beings, often translated only as “The Myth.” Demit is a term often associated with general mystique entities, grouping together several Indonesian folkloric creatures, including ghosts. The term got quite famous for the recent horror-fantasy series Halfworlds, from the famous Indonesian director Joko Anwar. But the Demit can also identify a particular class of genies, or djinn, especially in Javanese folklore. They are hermit beings, living outside the human reality, usually linked to a specific place. Some creatures can be linked to natural places, such as mountains, while others can be more connected to urban areas. Demits are interesting beings that find their counterpart in different mythologies, guardian spirits or nymphs protectors of holy lakes, or hidden caves. A Demit is an excellent guardian and will protect that place with all its strength, for this reason, they can be also employed as guardians. This is happening in Dreadout: Demit Lorong is guarding a hallway, while Demit Pintu is securing a door. They both use a similar strategy, dragging the trespassers into an alternative dimension made of illusions or eternal darkness. Demit Lorong haunts an infinite illusionary corridor, stalking everybody inside, tricking them with dozens of fake doors that are hiding the only real exit from this insane dimension. Similarly, Demit Pintu also drags the victims in a dimension of complete and dense darkness. Their names are also encoding for their guardian function, since “Lorong” in Indonesian means “hallway,” and “Pintu” instead means “door.” A Demit marks a limit where human knowledge should end, a threshold while stepping into forbidden and hidden truths. A Demit is the scarecrow for human curiosity, but also a warning for trespassers of remote or isolated places, an unforgivable lesson on leaving old things alone.
Surreal and Creepy 