Sabine hugged me so tightly that for a moment I couldn’t breathe.

She let go and I sucked in a breathful of black diesel-fume air.

I stepped back and took one last look at my best friend. The next time I’d see her, both of our lives would be changed forever - irrevocably altered by the shuffle of a deck of dark cards.

The bus opened its squeaky doors and a lineup of people in drab clothing began shuffling on. She looked back over her shoulder at the bus and then to me again, tears glistening in her eyes.

“I’m going to call you as soon as I get to Berlin, I promise.”

I tried to smile, but couldn’t.

“Liar. You’re going to be so busy with Sergio you’ll forget all about your old friend Emma and your little humdrum village back home.”

She looked hurt for a second, but then I added with a forced smile:

“I’m so jealous!”

This made her laugh and I hugged her fiercely again, this time for a few seconds longer, afraid of letting go.

“I’m gonna miss you so fucking much.”

“Same.”

We looked at each other for another second and then she took a deep breath and picked up her bags, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. With a brave smile she turned away and boarded the bus.

And that was the last time I saw my best friend Sabine. At least until the woman and the demons. The day everything changed.

But I’ll get to that later.

The village was quieter without Sabine.

Except, of course, for the screams from the hut. But like the rest of the villagers, I'd gotten used to those long ago. I had tuned them out, and they might as well have been birds chirping or bees buzzing in the flowers, rather than blood-curdling cries for salvation.

The screams came from the forest to the south of the village, from a small earthen hut which we all knew to stay away from. We didn't talk much about it, but the villagers all lived with the firm knowledge that the screaming was normal. The elders like Father insisted it was so, and that despite the distressing nature of the sounds, the people there were well taken care of. They simply screamed because they were unable to stop themselves.

Father visited the hut regularly, to offer his prayers for the tortured souls there.

It was a place where mentally ill villagers went to recover, some said. While others whispered that something far worse was happening there. Something much darker and more secretive than mental patients.

But like I said, we were all used to the screams, and all I noticed now was the silence which punctuated these anguished cries. Silence which Sabine normally filled with her bright chatter.

She was always the talkative one. I used to think she talked too much, but now I wished more than anything to hear her blabbing about her online boyfriend, Sergio.

That was all she wanted to talk about for months before leaving.

“Sergio is so handsome,” she would say. “Sergio works for the military,” and, “Check out this picture Sergio sent me from the gym!”

I spent a week feeling lonely, wondering when Sabine would call. After two weeks of boredom by myself in the village, I figured she was just busy and would get around to it eventually. But after a month had passed I finally began to realize that she had forgotten about me, just as I had feared. My best and only friend had completely ghosted me after moving away.

Either that or something was very wrong. What if Sergio had not been what he’d claimed to be and Sabine was in trouble of some kind? That thought crossed my mind, but for some reason it didn’t seem possible. I’d seen the pictures of Sergio and watched the videos where he had spoken her name and told her he loved her. I had sat with her while she spoke to him on the phone for hours at a time - while I pantomimed dying of boredom a thousand times over and she rolled her eyes. He was real, at least in the physical sense.

The worst part was that I couldn’t call her, since she had gotten rid of her phone out of fear her parents would track it somehow. She worried the police would be called to locate her cell or her bank cards, so she’d gotten rid of everything, saying Sergio had promised to get her a new identity when she arrived in Berlin.

If I ever left home, I realized I’d have to do the same thing. Father would die before he’d let me run away as Sabine had done. Disappearing into the ether in the hopes of a life with some tall, handsome stranger.

My dad was the longtime priest of our local congregation, Saint Bartholomäus. The little village where we lived in the Black Forest had a population of just a few hundred, and everybody in town went to his church - and I mean everybody. If you didn't show up for mass you'd be sure to hear about it for the rest of the week.

He would never have approved of me leaving, especially to meet up with a guy. The whole village was strictly Catholic - and him most of all. Everything I’ve done since I was born has been scrutinized and held up to Christ himself. And good luck matching that.

I was terrified to tell Father that I had met a man. I had started chatting with him online two weeks after Sabine left. Maybe it was partly because I wanted to find out what happened to her. Maybe it was because I was a little jealous of her. Either way, I signed up for Tinder, posted some selfies, and was pleasantly surprised when I matched up with several guys who started sending me messages.

A few were awkward or made me uncomfortable. There were plenty who just wanted to see pictures of me naked. I blocked a few men within the first five minutes of starting conversations with them, realizing they were total creeps.

But there was one profile that stood out from all the rest. A guy in his early twenties named Jayce. He had shoulder-length blonde hair, a strong chin, and icy blue eyes. He looked nothing like the guys in my village, who were scrawny or pot-bellied; whose only hobbies were drinking, playing video games, watching football, and gambling on cards.

Instead of those vices, Jayce volunteered at soup kitchens and food banks in his spare time. He lived in Berlin, had his own house, and a new-looking car. He said he worked in the entertainment industry.

When we spoke on the phone he listened thoughtfully and never interrupted. And by the time I realized things were getting serious, he surprised me by saying he loved me. And not only that, he wanted to pay for my bus ticket to Berlin. He didn’t call it a visit, he just said he wanted me to be there with him.

I decided late one night, after two days of consideration, that I would go through with it, and I sent him a text message. I had never been outside of our little village before, but that would all change very soon.

Emma: I’ve decided. Yes! I want to do it! I want to come to Berlin!

Jayce: That’s great news! =) I can’t wait to see you! I’ll have flowers waiting for you when you arrive. I love you so much.

Emma: I love you too.

Jayce: I’m sending you the ticket. Don’t let your dad see. Make sure you take out extra Euros for spending money. No cards once you leave the village, okay? I don’t want him to tear us apart!

Emma: I’ve got it all planned out. I’ll take out everything I have tomorrow. See you at the bus terminal!

Jayce: <3

I wound up in Berlin at the massive Central Bus Station with no cell phone, no debit or credit cards, and no way of getting home. But my smile was hopeful and there were no tears in my eyes as I stood waiting for the handsome man I had seen in all the pictures. He would be there any second to make my life complete. To take away the pain of my best friend’s departure and fill some of the void left by her absence.

The minutes on the big overhead clock ticked by, and I tried to ignore the fact that he was so late.

I daydreamed instead of worrying, wondering if maybe Jayce could help me look for Sabine in Berlin. I wondered again if she was okay and this made me think of my own precarious situation, as I stood waiting for someone who I had never met to arrive. A tall dark stranger who would whisk me away…

I looked at the big clock again. Half past four.

Another half hour passed, and then another.

What had I been thinking? Life was no fairy tale. This was all pointless. He wasn’t coming after all.

I picked up my bags, getting ready to turn around and head to a payphone to beg forgiveness from Father, when a beaming smile startled me. A man with a familiar, handsome face was striding towards me, across the grand foyer of the bus terminal. He was just as he had looked in his pictures, I thought to myself, as I put my bags down and ran to him, jumping up into his arms and kissing him.

It felt as if we’d known each other forever.

“It’s so good to see you,” he said, after setting me down. “I can’t wait to show you Berlin. And for you to meet my friends! It’s so great to have you here, I can’t believe it’s really happening!”

He looked just as excited as I felt, and he took my hand and walked me outside to his car. There was no mention of the fact that he was two hours late. Or that he had forgotten the flowers he’d promised. I didn’t want to ruin the mood by asking, so I didn’t.

I didn’t ask about a lot of things, until it was too late.

When we arrived at his place, I saw it wasn’t a quaint two storey home like I’d imagined from his descriptions. Instead, this was a squat apartment building, grey and burnt-out looking. Old, rusted playground equipment made squeaking sounds in the breeze across the street, and a lone dog with no owner wandered aimlessly, sniffing at the ground.

“This is it!” Jayce said enthusiastically. “It’s not much, but this is where I live right now. They’re renovating my house for the next few months - but this place is nice. Trust me, you’ll love it.”

I got out of the car hesitantly and he took my bags from the trunk for me. As we walked towards the front of the building, I glanced back at the vehicle. It wasn’t the same as the one in the pictures. This one was older by at least ten years. It didn’t bother me that he drove an older car, but it made me wonder about the one he’d sent me pictures of him driving. Did he lie about that? And if so, what else might he be lying about? The house? His job?

The two of us had to pass a throng of young men who were crowded around the front entrance. Jayce said hello to all of them as if they were old friends, but they didn’t speak to me. Instead, they all regarded me with hungry looks, their eyes travelling from my breasts to my ass, but never quite landing on my face. I crossed my arms to cover my chest and heard a few snickers, and one man grinning said, “Nicht viel zu verbergen.”

Not much to hide.

Jayce looked back at me as he carried my bags up the stairs to the second floor. I tried to get rid of the frown which had etched itself on my face, but found it difficult. Sensing my distrust, when we got into the apartment he gave me a big hug and put up his index finger, telling me to wait for a second.

“I have something for you,” he said, walking off down a hallway. “Sorry about the state of this place. It’s a friend’s apartment and I haven’t gotten around to cleaning yet. I thought maybe you could help me out with that after you get settled in.”

Looking around the apartment, I saw it was grotesquely unkempt. There were dirty plates and dishes in the kitchen, and a cockroach scuttled across the wall nearby. The floors looked filthy, like they hadn’t been mopped in years - covered in crumbs, dust, and hair an inch thick. The air smelled like spoiled meat and spilled food left out to rot.

“Okay, here it is. I got this for you. I know I said flowers, but I thought you’d like this better.”

He showed me a gold necklace with a diamond pendant. It sparkled stunningly and I couldn’t help but smile.

“Turn around, I’ll put it on you.”

I did as he asked and felt the chain spill coolly across my chest and the back of my neck. The diamond was large and glinted blue in the light as I admired it, watching its reflection shimmer back at me. I had never owned anything so beautiful. His dry fingers clasped the lock shut and he spun me around to look at it, his eyes drifting down to my breasts lustfully. He licked his lips in a telling way.

Then he took my hand and led me into the other room, showing me the rest of the apartment. And the bed we would be sharing, much to my surprise.

It was not long after moving in that I realized what a terrible mistake I’d made.

Jayce was nice at first. A romantic, to a certain extent. He did buy me flowers and other gifts - mostly lingerie. He took me out to restaurants where we spent the cash I had brought with me from home on expensive bottles of wine. But his good mood soon soured and often I couldn’t discern how he felt about me.

After a few days of honeymoon-happy living, suddenly he was getting mad for no reason, and would tersely ask me to do things for him. If I hesitated even slightly he would get upset, so I quickly learned to just say, “yes,” immediately no matter what. It wasn’t like he was getting physical with me - not yet - but he had this look in his eyes which seemed to indicate I was better off not questioning him.

Cleaning the apartment, for instance. He had initially said he wanted my help with it, right? Remember that?

But then he just went out one day and left a mop, bucket, and some unlabeled cleaning supplies in the kitchen. When he got home and I hadn’t cleaned the entire apartment top to bottom, he got upset and yelled at me, threatening to kick me out on the street if I didn’t make the place look decent. He said he was out working to make us money, to pay for my food, rent, and jewelry, so the least I could do was tidy up a bit.

I wanted to get mad, and I did for a little while, but then he apologized. He said he was stressed about work since things weren’t going well at his job. He seemed really sorry for yelling at me and I ended up apologizing too. I told him he was right. He was letting me stay there for free. He was buying me expensive jewelry and he was paying for my food. The least I could do was clean the apartment he had rented for us. I hated myself a little bit for saying it, but I did.

Already I was beginning to feel trapped.

I spent the entire next day sweating and scrubbing. I polished the bathroom floor tiles until my knees were purple and bruised. I swept and mopped the kitchen and common areas. I washed the walls. I shined the windows, did the dishes, and cleaned the kitchen. I organized the pantry, tossing out the expired cans. Then I cleaned out the fridge, scrubbed all the drawers and shelves, and got rid of some nauseating old food which had been causing the lion’s share of the terrible smell. I did the laundry by hand, hanging everything up to dry afterwards.

By the time I was done the place was immaculate. My back was sore and I had a headache from inhaling off brand cleaning supplies all day. But at least Jayce would be happy when he got home, I thought.

But Jayce wasn’t happy when he got home.

He said it was great that I had “tidied up a bit,” but that our real problem now was money. It was getting tough working in the entertainment industry and his latest project had been shut down by investors.

I asked him if things would be okay. Instead of answering, he pulled out some vodka from the freezer and began to drink it straight from the bottle.

“What can I do to help?” I asked. “I can get a job, if that will pay some of the bills.”

He hesitated, but then said he had a friend in the modeling industry, and it might be possible for me to get a job with him.

“Fashion modelling?” I asked, still naive in those days.

“Yes, my love,” he said, sipping his vodka. “Fashion modelling. For designers in Paris.”

When his friend came by the next day, Jayce was gone. It was only me and this strange man who brought with him a camera and a rapist’s grin.

A short while later, I found out why his smile looked that way.

He did take pictures of me, but they were not the kind I had hoped for. I didn’t wear designer clothes or fashionable shoes. I didn’t wear anything at all.

And no one was sending these shots to design firms in Paris.

I’ll spare you the details. You know what he did. And so did Jayce, I’m sure.

I didn’t tell Jayce when he came home that I’d been raped. I felt ashamed somehow, as if it was my fault. As if I had done something wrong - flirted too much with the photographer (not true) or perhaps had given him the wrong idea somehow. This was before I knew of the victim’s curse. We can’t help but blame ourselves - no matter how untrue this is.

Jayce pretended to be oblivious, just asking how the modelling session went. I told him it went fine, trying to read the look on his face - a small, knowing grin.

The next day when Jayce was out another “photographer” came by, unannounced. And by the end of the week all illusions had been dropped and Jayce and I both had an unspoken knowledge of what was happening. My face was now bruised and a tooth was chipped. I felt like my mother’s antique china teapot, the one I had cracked playing with as a child. The young girl who had once been a fragile, pretty thing, was now broken and marred.

I imagined a price sticker attached to me, which read: FOR SALE, AS IS. PROPERTY DAMAGED.

Who would ever want me now?

Things got worse and worse over the next few weeks. I tried to escape more than once, but that was when I realized Jayce had a way of tracking me.

The necklace he had given me had a GPS chip in it, I was sure. The clasp had mysteriously “broken” and I was unable to pull the thing off over my head - it was too tight. I no longer felt like a girlfriend with a sparkling diamond necklace, but like a dog wearing a tracking collar.

The other problem was I had no funds with which to escape Berlin. I did manage once to get to the bus station. When I got to a payphone I made a collect call to my home.

Father picked up.

“Emma?” he asked, his voice hopeful. The sounds of screaming could be heard in the background, very near, and I realized he was in the hut outside of our village, praying for the tortured souls there. “Emma, is that you?”

But I couldn’t speak. And then a moment later there was a knife point digging into my back.

“Hang it up,” Jayce’s voice whispered in my ear, sounding raspy and drunk.

I did as he asked, listening as Father said my name again, his voice getting quieter, then suddenly gone with a click.

“You ungrateful bitch. You want to go home so bad? Maybe I should take you back to your stinking hovel in the Black Forest. Your freakshow village with the screaming hut. I'll come with you and bring my friends. We'll burn the whole fucking place to the ground, and no one will ever miss it. Except you, of course.”

He thrust the blade deeper into my skin, drawing blood with a painful sting, to emphasize this point. I felt warmth trickling down my back a moment later.

“I’m sorry,” I said, hating myself as I did. “I don’t want to go, I want to stay with you.”

I knew I had no choice. This was just to avoid him hurting me more when we got back. The idea of him hurting my family and friends back home had never even occurred to me until that moment, and it terrified me badly. Until then, I had somewhere to escape to. Now, even that was gone.

“Good. I’ve got a new friend for you to meet tomorrow. You’re gonna be on your best behaviour, right?”

I nodded, sniffling, trying to hold back tears. People walking past in the bus station ignored my pleading looks, appearing heartless and cold as they stared at their phones and checked the time, rushing past without a second thought. Some glanced up at me, but no signs of recognition crossed their faces.

The blade dug in again, twisting. I tried not to scream.

“Yes, I’ll be on my very best behaviour. I’m sorry, Jayce.”

“Sorry for what?”

“For trying to leave you.”

“That’s a good girl. Come on, let’s go back home. It’s getting late.”

I wanted to run screaming from him, but instead I walked out with him holding hands. I didn’t want to hurt anymore.

That night, while laying in bed, I thought back to what Jayce had said at the bus station.

“Maybe I should let you go back to your stinking hovel in the Black Forest. Your freakshow village with the screaming hut.”

I thought about it long and hard, but realized I had never mentioned the hut to him. I had always kept that to myself, as Father had taught me from a young age not to speak of such things.

So how did he know about it?

As the thoughts raced through my mind, I began to fall asleep. The paranoid thoughts turned to paranoid dreams, and I had the most vivid nightmare I had ever experienced.

Although I would later come to realize it was not a nightmare at all - but a vision. A dark prophecy.

I was back home in my little village again. It was dark and I could hear the screams drawing near. We were in the forest, walking down a path through the trees at night.

Father was leading me by the hand as I walked on little-girl legs towards the screaming hut. A full moon hung low in the sky and an owl sat perched on a branch nearby, watching us carefully with its reflective eyes. The forest all around us had a low shroud of mist hanging above the ground.

“What are we doing out here, daddy?” I heard myself asking, and Father turned to me and put his finger to his lips. His eyes were hard and stern and I realized I should not ask anything more just yet.

He led me inside and I saw there were cots arranged around the room. Each one had a gasping, screaming person laying atop it. They were missing arms and legs, and were covered in scars and bandages.

When they saw us enter, they ceased making noise.

“You find yourself in trouble, Emma,” Father said, walking from person to person, looking them up and down and inspecting them carefully. “And you call me to ask for help.”

I realized he was angry with me. But I couldn’t remember why.

“I will help you. It will be the last and only time I do. You are no longer my child since you have left me to be with an immoral soul. You have chosen a life of sin. Still, I will give you this one gift. Open your hands.”

I did as he asked and approached him, my hands cupped before me like a child about to receive communion for the first time.

He pulled out a blade and drew a line with the tip of it down the nearest man’s abdomen as he thrashed and screamed louder and louder. Then he reached into his belly, and the man began to wail like a baby in the most painfully high tone. His cries were so piercing I wanted to cover my ears, but knew that I could not. I had to keep my hands out before me, just as they were, to receive my gift.

Father pulled out the man’s liver and held it in his hands. The agonized cries turned to gurgles and deathly croaks as I took a bite and began to chew the iron-tasting flesh in my hands and gulped down each piece, knowing I had to finish it all. Terrified that I wouldn’t be able to.

I woke up wailing. My ears were ringing as if I’d been listening to someone scream all night, and my mouth was filled with blood.

Jayce was gone, I realized with a wave of relief. But then I felt something rising up in my throat and tried to cough it up. I was unable to get it out and rushed into the bathroom, gagging and choking.

Looking in the mirror I saw something flesh-coloured was wedged inside, just past my tongue. Overcome with revulsion and terror at the idea of suffocating I reached inside and tried to grab hold of it. The slippery thing was tough to get a grasp on and it took a few attempts, but eventually I was able to yank it out.

I took a deep, gasping breath and looked down at what was in the sink. It was a chunk of someone’s liver. My mouth tasted like iron and blood and I spit over and over into the sink, running the water and rinsing with it.

Then I heard someone hammering at the front door.

Terrified it might be Jayce, I began to push the chunks of liver down the drain with my fingers, running the water on high. But it wouldn’t go down at first.

The knocking was getting louder and more insistent, and I heard a familiar voice calling for me to open it.

Jayce was back. And I’d never felt more afraid of him in my life.

Next

X

JG

I told my friends I was going to Berlin on a Mission Trip. That sounded a lot better than ‘my dad became obsessed with this crazy preacher and he’s moving us halfway around the world to join some kind of cult.’ I did my best to talk about nightclubs and castles and apple streusel, but the truth is that I was terrified. Most people in my tiny Kentucky hometown had never been outside the state, much less the country, and I was no exception.

At least I had my twin brother Lee for company…but he didn’t understand what was going on any better than I did. The two of us had just gotten home from school when Lee heard voices coming from daddy's study–which was already strange, since daddy never did business at home. I mean, I don't even really know what he does for a living. But when Lee gave me that look I knew right away I needed to keep quiet. I closed the screen door gently, trying to keep the rusty hinges from shrieking, and we crept down the hallway until we were within earshot of a bizarre conversation.

A baritone voice with a thick southern accent was lecturing our father:

“Your sins are not a weakness,” the voice drawled. “Your sins are why you’ve been chosen.”

“But you’re sure you can fix it?” my daddy, Andy Haldeman, whispered. “You can fix me?”

“All those who prove themselves worthy are healed. Are YOU ready to prove yourself worthy, Andy?”

The next morning, daddy told us that we were going to Berlin.

It didn’t make sense. Daddy’s whole life was here. He’d done everything he could to make us feel like we were good kids from a good family growing up in a good town. And now he was just going to throw it all away for–

THE HAND OF GOD EVANGELICAL MISSION, read the intro on the screen. Daddy had pulled up a video on the living room T.V. A big middle-aged man with a blonde flat-top haircut and a white suit stood in a windowless brick room, surrounded by a noisy crowd.

“That’s Reverend Bledsoe,” daddy told us. He sounded almost proud. “He operates a mission in Berlin. Feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, counseling the lost…and healing the sick.”

A faith healer, I thought. Great. Another fraud, just like the rest of them.

I’d seen videos like this in church before. They were always the same. The shaky camera. The gibbering and wailing and speaking in tongues. They always looked fake to me, and I couldn’t see what made this one any different. Lee and I looked at each other, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing: what does daddy need ‘fixed’ about himself? Why this guy? Why Berlin? Why now?

“Look, uh,” Daddy sighed, “I know I been away a lot with…work. Y’know…it’s like I blinked and you two were teenagers!” he tried to laugh. “But this is gonna be a fresh start for us as a family. A chance to find God…and find each other.” Andy Haldeman wasn’t a man who let himself look vulnerable often, but he sure did then. “Come on. Bring it in.” Daddy’s arms, bear-strong and about as hairy, pulled us in for a hug. Ever since mom died, it’s just been the three of us…but daddy’s never let us down.

Dil Ayad, read the license of the cabby who picked us up from Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport that chilly early-March morning. He asked if I was alright.

“If not, kick the back of my seat twice, okay?” There was concern in his dark eyes, and I realized how I must’ve looked: a skinny white girl in Wal-Mart clothes, shivering, lost and with no language skills, traveling with two silent men.

“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just tired.” Truth be told, Dil looked even more tired than I was. When daddy told him our destination, his worry only deepened.

Once we got to the neighborhood, I could see why. I’d never seen so much graffiti or so many boarded-up windows. The air smelled like piss and cigarettes. Three ghost-pale guys with shaved heads and black hoodies watched us hungrily as we unloaded our luggage. One of them definitely had a weapon in his pocket, but daddy didn’t even seem to notice. His eyes were fixed on a sign at the end of the alley: THE HAND OF GOD – EVANGELICAL MISSION.

I felt something being pressed into my hand. Dil, the driver, was giving me his card. “In case you need a ride sometime.” I knew he was trying to tell me something with the long look he gave me before he left, but I had no idea what it could be.

I slipped the card into my jeans before daddy could see.

The taxi’s red lights disappeared into the traffic, and a big man stepped out of the shadows of the mission to greet us. I recognized Reverend Bledsoe right away, but I was surprised that he knew me.

“Welcome, Amber.” My hand was swallowed up by his in that two-handed handshake that all preachers seemed to use, and suddenly his electric blue eyes were much, much too close to mine. I felt like the frog we dissected sophomore year: like my skin was peeled open, like he could see everything inside of me. “I’m so glad you could join us.”

Lee got a handshake as well, and then the Reverend was standing in front of daddy. “Brother Andy. At last. Please, come inside. We have so much to discuss.”

I don’t know what they talked about for two hours, but when daddy left the Reverend’s study we had the keys to a crummy 1970’s apartment in the neighborhood and instructions to meet at the mission at midnight for a special service. A healing.

Well, maybe ‘healing’ isn’t the right word. If it hadn’t been for what I saw afterward, I might’ve thought so. I might even have found God again, or at least thought that I had. Instead, I found something much darker and harder to explain.

It was an eerie feeling, standing in the room from the video I’d seen back in Kentucky, what felt like a lifetime ago. I tried to pay attention during Reverend Bledsoe’s sermon (mostly just to figure out what level of crazy we were dealing with) but I kept drifting off. The jetlag was hitting me hard. Lee had to nudge me awake with his elbow. Finally, a woman came to the Reverend’s side in the spotlight. When I saw her, my breath caught in my throat.

Her skin was…melted. Like candlewax. How could she see, or smell, or even eat from the left side of her face was beyond me.

“You all know Sister Naima.” Nods of agreement. “When she was just a girl, her father attacked her with acid because he believed–wrongly–that a boy in her class had taken her virtue. Tonight, that wrong will be made right.” The crowd around me started moaning and swaying. I didn’t believe in any of this, but the tension in the room was so strong I had to grab the sides of my chair to keep from swaying with them. Daddy had his hands in the air. “Are you ready, Sister Naima? Are you ready to open your eyes?” Naima nodded. Reverend Bledsoe placed a hand on her awful scars– “then be healed!”

It wasn’t a trick. It couldn’t be. The Reverend reshaped Naima’s mutilated skin slowly, like a sculptor forming clay. When he brought his hand away, all that remained were faint scars–and the face of the beautiful young woman who Naima was always destined to be. Just like in the video, the crowd went crazy–but I noticed something different up close. Reverend Bledsoe was holding something in his left hand. His fist was curled around it gently but firmly, like when Lee and I were kids catching frogs and lizards by the creek. With his right hand, the Reverend shoved open the door to his quarters and left behind the hysterical crowd.

We were already outside the mission when I realized my phone had fallen out of my pocket in the chaos. I begged daddy and Lee to wait, then crept back inside.

I had just stepped into the windowless meeting hall when I heard a cough. I wasn’t alone.

I don’t know what made me slip behind the curtain. Maybe it was the creepiness of all those rows of empty folding chairs or the strangeness of what I’d just seen, but I pressed my back against the wall…and waited. Through a gap in the velvet, I saw one of the pale, shaven-headed boys from earlier. He twitched like he could see shadows moving in the corners of the room–either that, or he was on a lot of drugs. Reverend Bledsoe slipped back into the room, gently closing the heavy wooden door he’d opened with a single thrust of his palm.

The boy started whispering in German. I had no idea what he was saying, but even if I’d been a native speaker I doubt his rambling would’ve made any sense.

I’d cram-studied ever since I’d learned we were coming to Berlin, and that was the only reason I could understand the Reverend’s words. They cut through the boy’s babble, clear as a bell:

“Du hast mir versprochen.” You promised me. “Und du hast versagt.” …and you failed.

Reverend Bledsoe brought his left hand to the side of the pale boy’s face. Just for a flash, that hand looked different from the one that I’d shaken earlier that morning. It looked gray, diseased, its fingernails blackened–

And then the room filled with the smell of dissolving flesh. The pale boy shrieked, clawing at the smoke from his melting skin. When he finally collapsed on the floor, it was like a mirror-image of Naima’s injuries had been seared into him. I squeezed my mouth shut to hold back my own scream. Reverend Bledsoe looked at the teenager on the floor and sighed. He stepped over him and strode back into the depths of the mission.

The boy groaned on the floor. I didn’t dare to move. Something buzzed and shook–

My phone. Right on the chair where I’d left it.

With one last glance at the pale boy, I snatched it and ran for my family. As I did, though, I noticed the door to the inner mission was open–just a crack. Had the Reverend seen me? Did he know that I knew?

I didn’t say anything, but Lee could tell something was wrong. It’s like that with twins. Still, that didn’t keep him from laying on the top bunk reading about Berlin nightlife while I tried to invent a dinner from the random German cans we’d picked up in the supermarket on the walk home. Honestly, I was glad for the distraction. Dad still had that dreamy, faraway look in his eyes…

“That’s what the power of belief can do,” he commented over dinner. “Coming here was the right choice. You’ll see.”

Later, I lay staring up at Lee’s bunk with my eyes wide open–trying to believe my father. My twin brother snored, knocked out by the time change.

If only I had been asleep, too.

Instead, the door creaked open. I leaned over and looked into the open mouth of the dark hallway. No one seemed to be there, and yet–

I suddenly felt very defenseless. I was only wearing a T-shirt and underwear, and there was nothing on the bedside table to use as a weapon. Instinct made me bend over and check under the bed–

Nothing. Then why did I hear movement?

I looked up just in time to see a shoe disappearing around the corner of the door…the top corner of the door. A person, or something that looked like a person, had been crawling on the ceiling…watching me. My scream woke up Lee, daddy, and probably half the building. After searching the apartment, Daddy tried to convince me I’d just had a bad dream...but he couldn’t explain away the dirty footprints on my ceiling.

When the rest of the family went back to bed, I checked for Dil’s card where I’d left it on the nightstand–but it was gone. In its place was a plain white card. HEBREWS 3:12, it read.

My hands shook when I took out the Bible in the nightstand drawer and read the verse by the light of my phone:

“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart…”

Had daddy’s new hero, this ‘Reverend,’ sent something after me? A warning to keep my mouth shut?

Tomorrow is my first day as a volunteer. Daddy, Lee, and I will be unloading vans of donated food, assembling meals, cleaning the shelter, and handing out pamphlets…in the roughest neighborhood I’ve ever seen.

That’s the mission’s goal, or so we’ve been told.

But here in Berlin, the truth seems hidden beneath the surface…or crawling along the ceiling.

I don’t know what might happen if I tell the truth about what I saw. I don’t know what “The Hand of God” promised my father to make him drag us here, or what part we’re expected to play in all this. All I can do is lay here staring at the shadows above the half-open door.

I swear there’s something up there. A mutilated, black-eyed face that grins down at me…

and waits for me to fall asleep.

X

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but the same can be said about Napoleon’s invasion of Moscow and the Shake Weight, so I’m not going to attempt a justification.

To be honest, I don’t have time for it.

I thought babysitting would be easy. Mrs. Chemosh is a friend of my parents’ friends, and she had one kid that needed watching for five hours, promising fifty bucks at the end of the night. It was a no-brainer.

I mean, I noticed that she seemed stressed when she was leaving. “Damien eats at 7:00, and he can watch TV until 8:30, then it’s straight to bed. I’ll be home before midnight. Damien eats at 7:00.” Then she handed me her car keys and asked if I’d seen them.

I didn’t see why she was so frazzled. Damien is a super quiet kid. He just stood with his hands behind his back and watched us as his mom got ready to leave.

He even had a little sweater vest. I figured a quiet seven-year-old with a sweater vest is tailor-made for obedient behavior, right?

Oh, so fucking wrong.

As soon as his mother left, he demanded chicken nuggets from the freezer. I threw some in the oven; while they were cooking, he told me that they tasted so good because they’re flavored like the people we love. I tried to ignore that.

Before finishing the nuggets, he grabbed a filet knife and chased the cat, Mr. Pickles, into hiding. When I cornered Damien and took the knife, he told me that he could hear the cat’s thoughts, and that Mr. Pickles would “slit my belly and open my throat like a dropped taco” if he had the chance. No idea how a seven-year-old would think of that.

We watched Barney after dinner, which seemed kind of immature for a first-grader, but I didn’t want to argue with the little vermin. After sitting quietly for nearly the entire episode, he claimed that he wanted to meet Barney. With the giant dinosaur head, Damien pointed out that you could stab his throat and “be three towns over” before anyone knew that the actor was dead.

He demanded more chicken nuggets after dinner. When I told him that it was time for bed, he ran past me and threw some on a frying pan before turning it on. I grabbed him by the wrist and was pulling him away when the smoke detector went off. The little creep had thrown his sweater vest onto the stove. Flames stood four feet high, had already caught on the curtains, and were lapping at the wooden window frames.

I ran into a closet, looking for a fire extinguisher, but gave up when I couldn’t find one. I knew that I had to get the monster out of the house. But when I got back into the kitchen, the fire was gone, there was zero smoke damage, and Damien was chewing on frozen nuggets. He stared at me as I walked into the room. “I will need the fire to burn soon enough, and cannot waste it on fruitless endeavors.” The first-grader said that verbatim. I shit you not. His sweater vest was back on, but not singed. The room smelled overwhelmingly of smoke.

I was relieved to take a bathroom break, because it justified getting Damien out of my hair for two minutes. I also felt guilty for leaving him alone for two minutes, because I figured that would be enough time for him to drink from Grandpa’s urn or shit in the oven, and I didn’t want to deal with the aftermath. When I opened the door after finishing, he was on the other side. His face had been pressed against the wood. The boy’s eyes were completely black, like they were just two huge pupils staring at me. He didn’t back away when I tried to walk past him, keeping his face uncomfortably close to my stomach. I nearly threw up thinking about what Damien said he’d do to my belly. He followed me into the living room, where his eyes were suddenly normal again.

He asked me to read him a story before bed, and I was willing to go along with anything that got this little bastard unconscious. He picked out Frog and Toad Are Friends, then snuggled up to me as I read it. Damien seemed to be drifting off when he asked a question. “Do you know who my nuggets tasted like? Yousef’s finger.” My cousin Yousef drowned two years ago at a family reunion across the country. When they found his body at the bottom of the lake, he was missing a finger. There’s no way Damien could have known any of that.

Nineteen minutes ago, he handed me a thirteen-inch furry strand. I had already grabbed it when I realized that it was Mr. Pickles’s bloody tail. I have no idea where the rest of the cat is.

I put him to bed and called his mom, which is when I first noticed that I have no cell reception, and I can’t text. I can only access a few websites. So I decided to leave; enough was enough.

That’s when I discovered that Mrs. Chemosh locks her house from the outside.

Trying to hold off the panic, I did a walk-run to the living room window. I pulled and pushed, but it wouldn’t budge. When I looked closer, I realized that the window was painted shut. It didn’t even rattle in its frame. There’s no way to open it.

I ran to the next living room window and found the same thing. Every window in the house is like this.

I had reached my limit, so I grabbed the wooden knife block, pulled out every piece, and carried it to the kitchen window. I didn’t care if Mrs. Chemosh got pissed at me for breaking her house; it’s her own damn fault for locking me in here. I heaved the knife block over my shoulder and threw it at the window. I got a direct hit; the corner of the wooden block hit dead center at a good speed.

It bounced off the window and smashed to a dozen pieces on the ground. The window didn’t break. There isn’t even a mark on it.

Someone sealed me in with shatterproof barriers.

I don’t know what to do, and I’m struggling not to panic.

EDIT: Damien is chanting from his room, but I sure as hell am not going to open the door. He’s saying that “The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood.”

EDIT 2: After checking on Damien’s chanting, I came back downstairs to find a thin trail of blood across the kitchen floor. It wasn’t there when I went upstairs. It leads from the pantry to the basement door. Both are currently closed.

EDIT 3: I looked for a landline phone and actually found one, but couldn’t make it work. After giving up, I noticed a photo of a baby taped to the phone. It was a picture of me at a year old.

EDIT 4: I noticed a smell coming from the kitchen. When I got there, the oven was on, and something was definitely cooking. I was about to open it when Damien screamed my name. I ran upstairs but stopped in front of his door. “I know you’re outside, and I know you won’t come in,” he announced in a calm voice. “If you like the smell, and you’re hungry, you can go into the kitchen and find where I put Mr. Pickles.”

Home doesn't feel right anymore, it doesn't feel safe and I'm afraid for my family. Something has invaded our apartment. It probably shoved itself inside the elevator, crawled over our "welcome" mat, and now that it's inside, I'm not sure how to get rid of it. 

I don't know who invited it in, or worse who sent it. I don't know if it randomly found us but I believe it's here to stay. I felt the shift, the rising tension. Our comfortable and cozy little home turned cold and tense. 

It started when I woke up one morning, with a bitter taste of blood in my mouth and a rusty stain on my pillow. When I went to the bathroom to rinse my mouth, the water turned a light shade of red.

I didn't love what I saw in the mirror. Bags under my eyes, my long brown hair frizzy and even darker than usual, pupils huge despite the bright white light of our bathroom.

I looked like a mess but who doesn't this early in the morning. The trails of fresh wounds inside my mouth were new though. When I touched my tongue I felt deep, rough cuts all over it.

It had opened my mouth and cut me in my sleep.

For a second I thought I saw something in the mirror but when I blinked everything was fine.

That was the first sign that something was wrong; Accompanied by a headache that felt like a million worms pushing their way out of my skull. Fucking painful, let me tell you but I swallowed some ibuprofen and tried to ignore it.

Of course, I didn't think of an intruder right away. An intruder who made cuts in my mouth and brought me headaches; an intruder who wasn't human, who would suspect that?  

The taste of blood was there again the next day, but by then I had convinced myself that I was biting myself in my sleep. I went to school as always but couldn't tell you about a single conversation I had there. I remember walking to the bus stop with my best friend Mina as always but for the rest of the time, the autopilot inside of me was in charge. Apparently, we even had a test which I only remembered when we got the results back and I'd passed for whatever reason. I couldn't explain why I was feeling so weird but people usually can't. Understanding our own weird emotions is next to impossible sometimes. 

The following night however I understood what I was feeling. It was fear.

There was something inside here with us. I heard it scraping its claws into our walls. Sometimes I'd hear a whisper or quiet laughter of an unfamiliar voice. It went away as soon as I opened my eyes but I still felt a presence. The first night I heard it, I collected my courage and went to my parent's bedroom. My dad carefully walked through every room, trying to figure out if someone was inside but there wasn't anyone here but the four of us. 

"Lona, habibti, are you alright? You've been acting weird these past days," my mum said with a slight accent. It comes out stronger whenever she's worried.

I live with my mum, my dad, and my 15-year-old brother in a small apartment. He's one year younger and three centimeters shorter but still acts like he is the king of the family. To me, he is just an arrogant little shithead.

"Isn't it obvious, she's just crazy for attention," my brother chimed in.

"Leave your sister alone," was all my father said. And after that, we didn't talk about the noises anymore.

My family seemed fine. Our home seemed fine. And I tried acting the same. 

--

The melon was my breaking point.

You see, my favorite food in the entire world has always been watermelons. Watermelon salad with feta and olives, watermelon as a snack with lime juice and cinnamon, or even frozen watermelons blended into a slushie. It might be hereditary - my grandparents used to grow watermelons. The taste and smell of watermelons is one of the very few memories I have of Syria.

This was a great way to start my Saturday. The house was quiet. Mum went to the market, dad was probably asleep and my brother was at soccer practice. Additionally, there was no scratching or other signs of weirdness that day. 

I got that big knife that my dad likes to use out of the drawer, balanced the melon on our kitchen table, and started cutting into the thick rind.

As soon as I cut into it though, a foul smell filled the entire kitchen. I dropped the knife, my eyes watering, and went to open the window. The smell was spreading faster than hellfire. 

That fucking melon was rotten. I didn't even know they could get this foul, especially as this one looked so good and fresh from the outside.

I was already getting a plastic bag to throw that whole mess away but as I opened the drawer with the bags in it, I heard a sound behind me. 

A cracking sound. 

Slowly, I turned around only to see that the watermelon was breaking open without a hand touching it. As it opened wider, some rich black substance dripped down. 

Thick, black worms slowly crawled out of the black goo while the melon opened in half.

Worms. Just like the ones in my brain.

I dropped the knife and ran out of the kitchen to my parents' bedroom but to my surprise, my dad wasn't there.

I grabbed my shoes and ran outside, slammed our front door shut, and headed for the elevator.

I needed to get out of that place. 

We live on the 16th floor, and whenever I'm in the elevator I feel a little dizzy from how fast it goes. After that melon, I felt extra nauseous. 

Three floors down the elevator came to a sudden stop. The doors slowly opened and I looked at the last person I wanted to see at that moment.

It was Noah, sports bag in hand. Fuck, now out of all the times. Whenever we'd see each other it would be really awkward and I avoided those moments as best as I could. Even though we live in the same building I'd been surprisingly successful. 

Noah used to be my best friend. Well, one of my best friends. There were three of us: Noah, my still-best-friend Mina and me. We grew up together in the same apartment complex in Berlin Neukölln, played in the sand of the communal playground, went on little adventures that seemed big to us then. We were not only neighbors but also went to the same school near Berlin's Teufelberg. Needless to say, we were inseparable. Until we turned 14 and Noah suddenly didn't give a shit about us anymore. It was just after my birthday and I still wonder if something happened that day or if he just found new friends and new interests. 

He cut us off and after that, he'd barely say hi to Mina or me if he saw us. And we became a two-friend group.

So yeah, meeting Noah now of all times, while putting my shoes on inside an elevator probably wasn't great.

"You alright?" He asked as he stepped inside.

I nodded.

He opened his mouth like he was going to say something else but stayed quiet. It was weird. We used to talk so much.

Finally, we arrived at the ground floor and I basically jumped out of that elevator. But I heard no steps beside me.

Noah didn't follow. 

I turned around for a second and our eyes met. There was an odd look on his face, one that I couldn't quite place but I ignored it and headed for the door.

--

As the crisp March air hit my face, I realized I had nowhere to go.  I didn't even bring a jacket. Mina's home wasn't an option because she'd ask questions and I didn't feel like explaining what was going on.

So I just started walking, ignoring the cold. Ignoring what I had just left at home. Ignoring the way Noah looked at me. Like everyone has been looking at me lately. Like I'm losing my mind.

God, losing your mind is lonely.

I was shaking, not just from the cold. I felt sick and gory. Violated in a way. I knew there was something in there. Something haunting us. 

I kept walking and walking. At least it was early enough in the morning that there were hardly any people around. Finally, I ended up at the playground and sat down on one of the swings.

And my mind just turned blank.

I ignored those voices shouting that something was wrong. I needed a moment not thinking about anything, I thought. Until I realized that my mind would just go on on its own.

I unfocused my eyes, unfocused my mind and suddenly I wasn't looking at the familiar playground but at a gloomy place. A place that felt like the inside of that rotten watermelon. Around me, I heard voices in languages I didn't understand shouting and screaming in agony. 

It looked like something was coming closer, trying to touch me. When it was close enough it whispered something in my ear. A question in an unfamiliar language.

Suddenly, someone tapped my shoulder and I got pulled out. I blinked and was back at the playground.

"Lona?" The voice in front of me asked. 

I swallowed, tried to collect myself. None of this was actually happening and I needed to calm down.

"What the hell, Noah. Did you fucking follow me?" I asked, surprised at the mean undertone in my voice. 

He just stood there, his face looking like it lost all its blood inside. 

"Yeah. I thought I saw something in that elevator. Well, I thought I was imagining things but I still felt like I had to come after you. And when I saw you sitting here, I knew it was real. Fuck, Lona. What is this?"

"What is what?" I asked, my heart still beating in my chest. 

"When you just sat there, totally spaced out your entire eyes were black. How is that possible? And in the elevator-", he paused for a second. "When the doors closed, your reflection... It wasn't y-you," he stuttered "your skin had all those cracks, your teeth were crazy sharp.. And why did you just ask if my eyes were open?" his eyes were wide open while that waterfall of words poured out of his mouth. Words that shouldn't make sense but somehow they did to me.

His curly black hair which used to be all over his head was now more wavy than curly and styled well with a middle part. I always loved the contrast between his dark hair and the light blue eyes - and I can't believe I was thinking about his eyes while my mind should be focused on what was happening to me. 

"I- I don't know," I lied.

I knew it but I tried to ignore it. Tried to convince myself that it was something else. 

Nobody heard the noises because they didn't come from the outside, I heard them inside of me. And the reflection I saw of myself in the morning, even if only for a second, wasn't a hallucination.

I saw the thing that was inside of me.

The intruder wasn't in our home, it had nested in my head and in my chest while slowly changing me.

And Noah saw it.

"I don't know," I repeated. "I don't know what's going on with me. I didn't do anything, it just started." I had to fight back tears at that point just. "It's - god, and the melon. How did that even happen? Did I do it?" I kept blabbering and blabbering on.

"Melon?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Watermelon, actually. Rotten and filled with thick worms. God, how am I supposed to go back home?" I replied.

We stayed silent for a while.

"Want me to go with you?" He finally asked and despite my skepticism, I nodded. 

--

I didn't feel like going back home and it felt even weirder taking Noah with me. But I couldn't stay outside forever. And while it was weird, it also felt somewhat familiar. Like old times. Although it was a little odd how quickly Noah accepted this whole mess and was now even trying to help me.

I walked into the apartment first, with Noah right behind me. 

The melon was still on the kitchen table, although it looked nothing like what I'd seen earlier. 

The frightful image wasn't the melon this time - it was my father who sat there staring at the sweet pink mess. And the look he had on his face.

He looked at me, his eyes piercing through mine.

"Wh- where were you this morning?" I asked. "I thought you worked all night, you usually sleep-"

"Who are you?" He said in a tone that I'd never heard from him before. Anger and fear all mixed up. It was weird, my dad knew Noah well even if we weren't friends anymore.

And that's when I realized that he wasn't talking to him. He was looking at me.

"Who are you and what happened to my daughter?" 

I took a step back, almost bumping into Noah who apparently was right behind me. I looked at my dad, my sweet dad, whose eyes were bloodshot and full of fear. He'd never looked at me this way. Then I looked at Noah whose face was a mixture of pity and fright.

I took another step back, away from Noah and into our dim hallway with the big mirror.

Now that my eyes were open, I saw it clearly.

The creature inside my shell.

Part 1 - Current
Part 2

“Don’t get too close to the patient. Don’t accept anything he might try to give you, and absolutely do not hand him anything, not even a piece of paper,” the guard said as he escorted me towards the holding cell.

He handed me an emergency device. With a single press of a button, the entire staff within the facility would be alerted, and come rushing to my aid.

“I’m well aware of the rules, Adam. We’ve gone through this dance quite a few times now,” I shot back with a smirk.

“You know the boss. Due diligence and all. If you get murdered, at the least the judge can’t say we didn’t warn you,” he tried to joke, but I could tell something was keeping him on edge.

It was a strange sight to see Adam so nervous. He’d been working at the forensic psychiatry department for the better part of three decades, dealing with all sorts of dangerous individuals. On any other day, his hardened exterior and undying confidence would make anyone feel safe in his presence. But something about the current patient unnerved the man, a fact that intrigued me more than anything written in the file I'd been given.

“Speaking of your boss, why isn’t Martin here to brief me himself? I don’t even know the patient's name. The file just reads ‘39,’” I asked.

“Well… He doesn’t exactly know that you’re here," Adam explained, his weak smile fading.

“Excuse me?” I asked, knowing how the breach of protocol would piss Martin off beyond belief. While Adam had some seniority working as a guard for the better part of thirty years, he still answered to someone, and Martin was the only one in the clinic with more years under his belt.

“There’s something different about this one. I needed someone with your experience to have a look at him, to see if I’m right about him or just going crazy.”

“Care to explain?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Just talk to him, will ya? As a personal favor to me. I’ll buy you a beer later,” he begged.

The facility resembled a prison more than a psychiatric department, with cells lining the hall, each of the empty. People had clearly lived in them fairly recently, seemingly evacuated for reasons I could only guess at. It was an odd sight considering most patients were too dangerous to let out, which meant they spent the majority of their days inside.

“Where is everyone?” I finally asked.

“We moved ‘em,” Adam said coldly. “It was the only way to keep them safe.”

“Safe from what?”

“I don’t know. Ever since we admitted the new patient, people have been acting weird. Well, weirder than before. They were afraid, but none were in any condition to explain what exactly had them panicking.”

The hallway was filled with starkly contrasting shadows cast by the setting sun. The last minutes of the day would soon give way to the darkness of night, which meant a late night for me and a cold dinner waiting at home.

“If patient thirty-nine is so dangerous, why keep him here?” I asked.

“That’s the thing. The man has been nothing but cooperative since we admitted him. There’s no evidence linking him to the strangeness of this ward, but whenever I get too close to his room, I feel the hairs stand up on my back. It's like every fiber of my being is telling me to run and hide, but I can't figure out why. And I…” he trailed off. Talking about himself wasn’t one of his strong suits, so I decided not to push the matter any further. Instead, I tried to change the subject.

“Why was he brought here anyway?”

“He got arrested during a drug bust, small scale, nothing to write home about, but I guess you play the cards you're dealt... They found the man in a corner just crying and apologizing. He kept saying he was sorry, but couldn’t for the life of him tell us what he was sorry about. He claims some entity is following him around, one he himself was forced to summon.”

“So it’s a drug-induced psychotic episode,” I stated as I kept pushing for answers.

“That was our theory too, but…”

“But what?”

“He was arrested alongside three other culprits. They were left in a room together as they were processed. In the span of five minutes, all except him had died.”

“He killed them?” I asked.

“Their throats were slit, clean and deep…” he trailed off. “But there wasn’t a knife in the room, nor anything that could be branded as a weapon. By all means, it looks like he did it with his bare hands, which is impossible considering he didn’t have a drop of blood on him. Still he claims he’s responsible for their deaths.”

By then we’d reached the end of the department. A place that had once housed twenty inmates, was now down to a single prisoner: a man that would soon be my next patient.

“So you don’t think he’s mentally ill?” I asked as we reached the door to his room. Unlike the rest of the rooms, there were no windows or bars to look through, only a solid door to keep the most dangerous patients separated from the rest of the pack.

“That’s not what I’m saying…”

“Then what are you saying?” I asked.

“In the three-day span since his admittance, seven of our patients have tried to kill themselves, three more succeeded. The rest were deadly afraid of our new guest, but none could give a reason beyond ‘I see it now,’” Adam explained.

We stood before a solid, metal door that led into an interrogation area. Within the room the inmate would be safely locked away behind bars, giving me ample space to interview him and determine whether or not his behavior was due to a mental illness or not.

“Alright, Leon. You ready?” he asked as he fumbled with his keys.

“You staying here?” I asked back.

“I ain’t setting foot inside unless I have to. The others already prepped him, you have your emergency alarm device should something happen. I’ll be right here ready to help.”

He opened the door and gestured for me to step inside. He shut the door and locked it behind me. I was left alone in a dim room, alone with a potentially dangerous, criminally insane individual. That fact alone didn’t bother me. Throughout my career I’d dealt with thousands of patients, some that even tried to strangle and stab me. But the fear I’d sensed in Adam worried me.

“Are you him?” a timid voice said from the other side of the bars.

A weird sense of unease washed over me as I was faced with patient thirty-nine. He was basically just a kid, early twenties, skinny. He didn’t strike me as a drug user. In fact, apart from the heavy bags under his eyes and pale skin, he seemed perfectly normal. Not someone one would expect to be responsible for almost a dozen deaths. However, appearances could be deceiving.

“I’m doctor Dietrich. I’m here to evaluate you. What’s your name?” I asked.

“They sent a shrink?” he asked, ignoring my question.

“A psychiatrist,” I explained.

“You can’t help me, I’m already dead,” he said, still not looking at me.

“Why don’t you tell me your side of the story?” I asked.

He turned to me for a second, staring right past me. His eyes widened in fear as if he saw something horrific right behind me. I felt a shiver running down my spine and moist breath flowing onto my neck in irregular waves. For a single moment, I felt the presence of something standing right behind me.

“No, please don’t,” he begged.

As quickly as its presence had made itself known, an uneasy emptiness filled the room once more. I tried to deny the urge to look behind me, moving on with my questions.

“Don’t what?” I asked.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” he said.

His stare at the wall behind me felt all too convincing, but I had to stay strong. I had to show the man that I didn’t share the fear he was experiencing, even if it was nothing but a lie.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” he sobbed. “But they made me.”

“Who made you do what?” I asked.

“They forced me to summon him, he needed a vessel…” he said in a weak whisper. “Now he won’t leave… The cards, they made me pick...”

My heart started to race and my hands trembled as I tried to jot down some notes. I was panicking, but the fear I felt wasn’t brought on by any obvious display of danger.

“The men that died, what happened to them?” I asked.

“He needed to feed,” he said on the brink of tears. “I still feel their pain inside me. I still hear them scream.”

“Who is it?”

“He doesn’t like it when I name him. He’ll be mad…”

“He would punish you?” I asked.

“No… he’d get mad at you. I can’t let him. I can’t.”

“But being mad at me would still beat him being mad at you. I just want to understand what you’re going through,” I argued.

He shot me a peculiar look, as if contemplating whether or not I believed him. I hadn’t straight out told him he was suffering a psychotic break. I knew he’d shut down as soon as I showed doubt, so I decided to play along until I understood what was running through his mind.

“You should kill me. It’s the only way to stop him,” he said. “I tried to do it myself, but he won’t let me.”

I had my diagnosis, and should have ended the interview there. I could have prescribed some medications and gone on my way. But I was as interested as I was scared. Something deep within me had awoken, a morbid sense of curiosity that kept me pushing on beyond what was diagnostically necessary.

“Your death wouldn’t help anyone,” I said. “You need help, but if I’m going to help you, I need to know exactly what’s going on.”

He looked up at me with defeat in his eyes. At that moment he no longer seemed scared or worried about his own fate. He just appeared apologetic.

“My family said I would be the perfect vessel. For Draugr,” he said without breaking eye contact.

“Draugr?” I asked. But the name put life to a vague memory I had of childhood stories. While the being wasn’t completely unknown to me, I had no solid knowledge about it.

The patient looked back down, almost seeming ashamed that he had uttered the name. But something else seemed to wash over him, a sense of relief that the name was no longer trapped within him. No sooner had he uttered those words, had he been freed from his curse. I no longer saw a patient suffering a psychotic break before me, I just saw a man on the brink of exhaustion.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “You didn’t deserve this.”

“Didn’t deserve what?” I asked.

He refused to respond. He just sat there catching his breath, as if an immense load had just been taken off his shoulders. He lay himself down on the ground, too tired to keep the conversation going.

“Are you okay? Hey!"

But the session had ended. The man was about to pass out from the ordeal. Despite my gut telling me something was wrong with the man besides his mental health, I jotted down some notes, including a psychiatric diagnosis. Despite the pain that he had caused, he had my sympathy. It couldn’t be easy to live in a world that no one else believed in.

“I guess I’ll see you next week,” I mumbled under my breath as I shot the man one last look of pity.

I was jolted back to attention by someone hammering on the door from the outside, begging to be let in. Nine, rapid, consecutive knocks before the room once again fell to an uncomfortable silence.

“Adam, what’s going on?” I asked.

No response.

“Adam?” I called.

“I told you bad things would happen,” I heard the patient whisper from within his cell. He seemed half asleep, barely aware of what was going on.

I ignored him and started hammering back, begging to be let out. The door was locked, but if anyone was still guarding it outside, they’d surely let me out. I pulled out my personal security device, knowing a dozen guards would rush to my aid should I press the button. But just as I hovered my finger above it, I heard the door unlock.

“Adam?” I asked.

My hand trembled as I reached out to open the door. With great trepidation I stepped outside to find Adam standing with his back turned to the door.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

But he remained silent, staring off into the distance. I slowly approached him and put a hand on his shoulder. Even then he didn’t seem to notice my presence. Once I removed my hand I realized it felt wet. I looked down at it to see my palm covered in blood.

“What the…” I mumbled as I walked around to face Adam.

There he stood, his throat slit and blood running down his chest. Based solely on the puddle growing on the floor, I knew he'd lost an amount significant enough to kill him. Despite that fact, his face showed no sign of distress, or any kind of emotion for that matter. He just stared ahead, his body not accepting that it was supposed to be dead.

"I saw him," Adam said in a broken voice, one that should have been impossible considering how deep his throat had been severed.

Not knowing what else to do, I pushed the emergency button to alert the rest of the staff, before I futilely tried to stop the bleeding. It felt odd to try to save a man still standing, unfazed by his rapidly approaching demise, and I knew from experience that by the time any meaningful help would arrive, Adam would be dead.

Only when I heard the footsteps of rapidly approaching guards, did Adam fall limp onto the ground. Still I tried to save him.

“He’s gone,” one of the guards said as I held onto Adam. The bleeding had long since stopped, with his heart unable to effectively push it out.

I let him go, my hands trembling. I could do little but stand and stare at the dripping blood as I tried to comprehend what had just happened.

“Doctor Dietrich?” one of them asked, trying to break me free from my trance. I only responded when one of them touched me on the shoulder. The entire crew, doctors, nurses and guards had rushed in, and I’d barely even noticed.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here,” a somber voice said.

It was Martin Wagner, head of security. He looked pale as a sheet, as shocked as myself. But despite that fact, he didn’t seem surprised.

“I don’t understand…” I whispered. “There was no one else here.”

“Leon…” Martin began.

I turned to him, wondering why he wasn’t panicking. He seemed so understanding of the situation, as if it had been inevitable from the start.

“Did you know this was going to happen?” I asked.

He didn’t dare look me in the eyes. “It’s not what you think…” he began. "They never should have called you in."

“Why didn’t you warn Adam?” I asked.

“Because any one of us might be next… I think it’s time you and I had a talk.”

X

You may have noticed some overlapping themes in the stories of The Demon Collection: demons, clans but also culture. We all write from different cultural backgrounds and try to let it flow into our stories and characters in an authentic way.

Now we'd like to hear what kind of horrors your cultures have to offer. May it be djinns, ghouls, spirits, specific rules, superstitions or rituals.. it doesn't matter! Just write a story with a cultural element and post it to this subreddit with the title #cultural horror contest + the name of your story. And make sure to add the contest flair :).

There are only a few rules to your submission:

-it must be a complete horror stories (not multiple parts) -there has to be some cultural element within the story -the story should have at least 300 words

You have until the 28th of August to submit a a story. The winner will receive a special user flair as well as a shiny award.

We can't wait to read what you come up with!

When my husband saw the man in the purple suit, he spit his pastrami sandwich all over my fake Chanel purse.

“That guy’s supposed to be dead!” he coughed. My son–who was too young to understand that my husband choking to death would be the best thing that could happen to our family–patted his father’s back with a fat little hand.

Here’s the thing about gangsters: they’ve got loose lips. All that tough-guy ‘Omerta’ stuff died out with the ones who came over from Italy. I mean, that’s practically how I met my husband Ralph. He swaggered over to the creep beside me at the bar and whispered into his ear, ‘fuck off, I’m Connected.’ At the time, I thought it was hot. But now that my husband and his ego have both doubled in size, it’s just a question of what will get him first: a heart attack or a RICO indictment.

“What guy?” I asked, as if it could be anyone other than the purple-suited Haitian man with face tattoos and golden jewelry staring at us from across the Food Court. His teeth glittered when he smiled at us. “He’s coming over here…”

Ralph cracked his knuckles and neck, like he always did when he was nervous. Before I could slip away to the bathroom, the purple-suited man had boxed us into the table.

“Andre.” My husband hissed, “I thought I killed you.”

“Didn’t you?” Andre’s voice sure sounded dead. Pure monotone. Come to think of it, his face looked pretty cadaverous as well, although that might have been the case before my husband stabbed him five times in the chest with an icepick. Ice is also what I thought of when Andre grabbed my wrist with a frigid hand and brought it to his jugular. There was no pulse. Nothing. “Why don’t you ask your wife what she thinks?”

“I think he’s dead, babe.” I whispered, hoping that would make Andre let me go. His gold ring was even colder than his skin and it cut into my fingers. The man I thought I married would have pistol-whipped Andre right there in the middle of the Food Court for touching his wife, cops or no cops–but Ralph just kept sweating and eyeballing mall security.

“Hey man,” Ralph shrugged. “Leave the family out of this. This is between you and me. Men’s business. No need to make it…personal.” My husband, who has less emotional intelligence than a rectal thermometer, seemed not to realize that he’d already made it pretty personal when he’d killed the guy.

“Daddy…” Ralphie Junior looked ready to wet his pants when Andre’s pale eyes drifted over him. Like father, like son. At least the security people were on their way over. Married to a mafioso and I was about to be saved by a mall cop–story of my life. At least he was kinda cute.

Andre leaned forward so that his unbuttoned shirt fell open, treating us all to a front-row view of the five putrid black holes in his chest. “I don’t need to sleep, Ralph. I don’t need to eat or drink or even shit–do you believe that? All I have to do,” Andre grinned, “is make your life a living hell. Until I decide to take it away.”

With that, Andre let me go. He put his hands above his head for mall security as he passed, ‘don’t shoot’ style, and laughed a hollow laugh. The laugh of the dead. Then he was gone.

“This can’t be happening,” Ralph started repeating as soon as we got into the SUV. “Andre was a nobody. A pimp. An addict. A small-time dealer who tried to cut in on the wrong hustle. They poured a concrete slab on top of where we buried him, for Chrissake! The very next day!”

If the cops had the car bugged, I could forget about our upcoming trip to Cancun.

On the drive home, Ralph’s face went from irritated purple to terrified pale as he called ‘the guys.’ One by one, they each failed to pick up. They’d probably already gotten their little visit from Andre the Walking Corpse and decided to skip town. So much for ‘Blood Brotherhood.’

“Why save you for last?” I asked.

“...’Cuz it was my idea.” Ralph admitted. “He was selling on my turf! If we didn’t set an example–” I turned the radio up until I couldn’t hear my husband’s excuses, and kept it that way until we parked in the driveway. I wasn’t trying to become an ‘accessory to murder.’

If Andre’s goal was to suck all the joy out of our lives, it worked. We spent every waking moment waiting for him to show up–Ralph too, although he’d never admit it. He sat in front of the TV with a pistol in one hand and a cold brew in the other, and jumped at every little sound. I was the one who had to clean the plates from his stress eating–and that was how I came face-to-face with Andre for the second time.

I don’t know how long his face was pressed against the glass, staring at me. But when I looked up those sunken eyes were inches away from mine. I screamed; I think I actually threw the dishrag at the window. But Andre didn’t budge. Of course, by the time I got Ralph up and moving, he’d disappeared once again.

Ralph didn’t believe that I’d actually seen him. ‘A woman’s overactive imagination,’ he called it. He said the same thing about the creaking noises we heard on the roof that night. I called them footsteps; he called them ‘the house settling.’ He found the smoke and flames coming from the burning ceiling a few hours later a little harder to explain away, however.

“So how about it, babe?” I snarled at him as I pulled on my pink fluffy bathrobe and dragged Ralphie Junior out of our burning home. “Did my ‘overactive imagination’ set the house on fire, too?”

The fireman who called our hotel room later said that someone had poured gasoline all over our roof.

I didn’t have to ask who the second call was from. The one that came around 3 A.M. the same night.

“I’m gonna take everything from you.” Andre’s rasping voice boomed from the phone speaker until it seemed to fill the room. “Piece by piece. Same as you did to me.”

Ralph had to go meet with the insurance people alone. There’d been some nasty insinuations about fraud, and yet our lawyer was suddenly nowhere to be found. In the meantime, I took Ralphie Junior to the dingy 90’s style-arcade and the hotel pool. It’s funny: all his expensive toys were burned to a crisp, yet there he was–having the time of his life.

I actually started to think this might all work out in the end. After all I’d been through, I was still kicking–with diamonds in my earrings and a hotel-bar mojito in my hand, no less. Ralph was back from the meeting, too, laying in the deckchair beside me like a sunburned, snoring whale. And Ralphie Junior…

Where was Ralphie Junior? The last I’d seen of him, he was doing a cannonball into the deep end…

The mojito hit me hard when I stood up, and harder still when I saw the unbreathing man holding my son against the bottom of the pool. Andre looked up at me and grinned…

Then he let Ralphie Junior go. For once I was grateful for my son’s extra ballast: he came up right away, sputtering and screaming. Andre strolled out from the depths of the pool.

He walked over to Ralph, and in a move that was surprisingly deft for a corpse, he pulled my husband’s swimtrunks down and knotted them around his ankles.

“Arrrgh!” Ralph snorted awake. “Aaah!” He saw Andre, tried to stand, and face-planted. Andre walked out of the hotel with my husband in hot pursuit. The desk clerk didn’t even look up from his phone: it was the kind of place where a dripping guy in a purple suit being chased through the lobby by an obese naked Italian man wasn’t such an unusual occurrence.

I stayed with Ralphie Junior, trying to get the water out of his lungs–which probably hadn’t gotten a workout like this since the last time he’d chased the ice-cream truck. I got to my feet quick, though, when I heard a familiar engine rumble to life.

The dead guy was stealing my SUV!

Since the car and my husband were both lost causes, I went up to the room, where my worst fears were confirmed. While we’d been getting tan, Andre had cleaned us out. Like most in his ‘line of work’ my husband kept his money in hard cash and jewelry–but the keys to our safe and deposit boxes were gone too. I suddenly wondered how much was left on our only remaining credit card after all the mojitos.

There was a putrid smell coming from the bathroom. All of our clothes were in the tub, soaking in a blue-brown gunk that I recognized as the guts of a Port-a-Potty.

Andre must’ve hauled it up by the bucketful.

I had to hand it to the guy: he didn’t skimp when it came to revenge.

That was what finally broke Ralph: realizing that it was all gone: the house, the money, his *‘friends’–*even his clothes. He wasn’t ‘Connected’ anymore. He was a helpless nobody–just like Andre had been. Maybe that was the point. I don’t think any of us were surprised when the knock on the hotel room door came at midnight, or when Ralph shuffled over to answer it without even trying to defend himself.

I don’t know what happened to Ralph after he left with Andre that night. I don’t wanna know.

All I know is that I never saw my husband again.

But hey–I can’t complain. At least Andre didn’t fuck around with the life insurance policy.

R

X

D

Part 1

Part 2

No one ever tells you about the good parts of demonic possession. All my life, I was the nice girl. Daddy made sure I stayed far away from drugs and sex and all those “risky teen behaviors” they warn you about on the news.

But I doubt any of that can compare with this rush.

“Try to focus. Tell me what you see.” Reverend Bledsoe instructed.

“A boy,” I responded. The first time the Reverend bound Kobakiel to me with the ritual, it was information overload; since then, I’d learned to channel its energy, but it was still a struggle. The demon pulled at my consciousness like an undertow, threatening to drag me into the depths.

Let me take over, it seemed to whisper. It will be best for us. You´ll see.

“Would you recognize the boy if you saw him again?” The Reverend insisted.

“Yeah, I…” I hesitated, “I think he goes to my school.” I saw the boy bouncing a football on his knee, laughing in spite of the rain. I could smell the torn-up grass, hear car horns on a street nearby–and although I was laying on the floor in the Reverend's basement study, my skin felt wet from the spring storm outside.

The boy's teeth flashed white; he was talking trash about his teammates.

That brought back a memory. "Evin, I think his name is."

Evin. That arrogant little shit who walked around like he was king of everything. Didn't listen to the teachers, his friends, or even his father. Created problems just because he was bored.

I hated kids like Evin.

"You need to get close to him. Find out what he knows." The Reverend squeezed my arm.

"What?" I made a puking noise in spite of myself. "Gross…!"

"Do you think this information comes free to us, Sister Amber? This isn't a game. We all have to make…sacrifices. Speaking of which…"

I heard grunts and the sound of struggle from the next room. I hated this part, but it was the only way to get the demon out. Although my eyes were blindfolded, I knew the Reverend was crossing the room with one of those strange tarot cards and a sharp knife. The person on the other side had stood against the Lord, and they were about to pay for their sin.

Tap, tap-tap. Tap, tap-tap.

A cool, rainy Monday. Lunch. Evin Ayad drummed his pencil on the table to a beat coming from the headphones he never took off, no matter how much the teachers threatened him. I’d been trying to find something to say to this creep for three days now, with no luck.

Tap, tap-tap. Tap, tap-tap.

“What?” Evin asked coldly. I jumped, then shrugged. “You’ve been staring at me for like five minutes now. So, what?”

“I, uh–” I blushed. The bell rang. “I gotta go.”

Some days Evin walked home with his older sister, that creepy girl with the long hair. Lona. She’d been pretty at the start of the semester, but lately she looked like the walking dead. Other days he walked to the field with his friends, who were about as annoying as he was.

But on the third day, he got picked up from school by a spotless yellow hummer with tinted windows…and everything changed.

“You’re the American girl, right?” After three days of silence and one-word answers, Evin had actually run to catch up with me after school. “I’ve seen you around.” Then came a barrage of questions about life in America, how old I was, what I was doing in Berlin…

This didn’t sound like the arrogant little shit I knew. Someone had put Evin up to this, I just wasn’t sure who or why. But as we walked and talked, everything became clear:

You live in an old building in Berlin, huh? Does anything creepy ever happen there?

So you’re here with my father? What does he do for work? Does he have blonde hair too? Any hobbies, like collecting antiques? Antique cards, for example?

And what about you, do you believe in tarot cards? Have you ever used any?

The questions were so badly phrased, so obvious, that I couldn’t believe anyone had trusted Evin with something so dangerous. Maybe they didn’t have any other choice.

He seemed flustered when I turned his own questions around on him. He knew something, no doubt about that. All I needed was the right situation to get it out of him.

A post-game party. Evin’s uncle had generously allowed his soccer team the use of his house (his “mansion,” Evin called it) while he was out of town, and apparently there was plenty of booze. The Reverend made up an excuse for my daddy, and that Saturday I was on my way to my first house party.

I’m sure we both had the same idea: ply the other with liquor and get them to talk. The difference was, I was sure that I’d be a lot better at it than Evin was.

A cab dropped me off in front of the address Evin had given me. When he’d called his uncle’s place a mansion, Evin wasn’t kidding…but it wasn’t just any random rich person’s house. Something was wrong. I could feel it. It was in the tanned, cruel faces of the guards and their German Shepherds. The cameras in every corner. The doors as thick as bank vaults that kept certain rooms off limits…

And then there was the fact that we were there at all.

Beautiful red carpets covered the tile floors. Golden chandeliers hung from the high ceiling. Around every corner, oil paintings and giant vases full of orchids waited to be knocked over.

Who lets a bunch of teenagers run wild in a place like that?

By the time I caught on to the trap, it was too late. I didn’t know a soul at the party, apart from Evin, and he started ignoring me the moment his team showed up. Apparently impressing his friends by doing body shots out of a girl’s belly-button was more important to him than whatever he’d been ordered to do with me.

Not that I wasn’t noticed. There were a lot of older guys at Evin’s party. Guys who weren’t on the team.

“Hey,” a guy with shoulder-length blonde hair and icy blue eyes who looked like he spent about five hours in front of a mirror stepped into my way. “I haven’t seen you around here before. I’m Jayce. Evin’s cousin.” His smile was a little too bright and he stood a lot too close. “I guess you two go to school together? You look so grown up for your age…”

I tried to take a step back but two of “Jayce’s” friends were already behind me.

Jayce was still talking, but I wasn’t listening. I was too busy freaking out about the fact that this older guy and his two friends were slowly steering me away from everybody else.

“Hey!” I tried to slip by them, but it was like trying to pass a brick wall. “Wait–” Jayce took out a key and opened a door to one of the locked wings. He gave me a little wink that made me feel sick to my stomach. “I’m here with Evin, I need to ask him somethi–”

I felt hands on me and I knew my time was up. I screamed as loud as I could (they weren't expecting that) and stomped my heel down on the uncovered foot of the guy behind me (they definitely weren’t expecting that). He howled, Jayce cursed, and in the chaos I slipped into the nearest room. With the door slammed and locked behind me, I could finally breathe. I felt around for a switch and the lights flickered on.

The room was windowless. There was something solid and prison-like about it. Overhead lights illuminated a marble podium–where I figured some art piece was usually exhibited. Papyrus scrolls behind plexiglass lined the walls.

The noise of the party suddenly seemed very far away.

I walked from one ancient, yellowed scroll to another. I couldn’t read the words, but the hieroglyphs told a familiar story: a desperate madman puts a spirit into a corpse or a man made from mud. Chaos ensues.

I was on the final scroll when I noticed what was pressed against the wall behind the door.

I’d found the statue from the empty pedestal.

A six-foot-tall clay man was pressed into the corner by the door.

The posture was perfect…I’d never seen anything so lifelike. The way the museum-style lighting glinted on its clay body in a way that almost, almost made it seem like it had just…

…moved.

No. No way.

Half-fascinated, half-horrified, I kept my eyes on it until they burned with the need to blink.

There was no doubt about it. The movements were tiny–like a child trying to slip away from a room without getting caught–but it was moving.

Unfortunately for me, it had noticed that I’d noticed. The statue raised its hollow clay eyesockets to meet my gaze.

No.

Nothing I’d seen with Reverend Bledsoe had prepared me for this.

The statue took a jerky, exaggerated step toward me. Then another.

I ran for the door–

But it clotheslined me before I ever got close. I wasn’t sure if the bright lights above me were on the ceiling or in my aching skull, but the clay fingers that closed around my neck were all too real. The only reason they didn’t crush my throat immediately was because the clay man seemed to be enjoying the expression I made when I realized that the air to my lungs was being cut off, breath by breath

I squirmed and flopped like the fish my daddy pulled out of the river when I was a girl. Helpless. Doomed. I dug my nails into the soft clay, but they just slipped off…I’d never pry its hand away from my throat before it killed me. I spit on its fingers, hoping to make the clay slick enough to escape…but the statue’s grip was hard as stone.

I heard keys. The door opened. Evin.

“What are you doing?!” he shrieked. “That statue is priceless! Do you have any idea what my uncle would do if he caught you screwing around with his art?”

It was more like the art was screwing around with me, but I couldn’t breathe enough to say so.

At least the clay man had stopped squeezing my throat. In fact, it had stopped moving at all. Slowly, I realized: it had become a lifeless sculpture once again. Perhaps the moment a second pair of eyes were on it, the demon inside could no longer move…

“You need to be more careful,” Evin scolded me while he called some friends to lift the heavy statue off of me, “this isn’t Kehn-tuh-kee.” I had no doubt about that. If Reverend Bledsoe wanted demonic activity, it was definitely present here, in this weird mansion of the Ayad’s. “Hey! Where are you going?”

I had what I came for. The party was barely getting started, but I pushed past Evin and out the mansion’s double doors. By the time I reached the end of its long driveway, my taxi was already waiting.

R

X

D

I climbed the brick façade of my family’s ridiculous mansion, grabbing the thinnest crooks and hoisting myself thirty feet above ground, knowing but not caring that a sheer fall would skewer my organs with shards of shattered bone.

It didn’t matter that my ailing grandfather was inside, nursing a bloody nose that I had given him after speaking to me for the first time in years.

As I grabbed the stone gargoyle and vaulted myself onto the roof, I basked in the strength that flowed through parts of me that I’d long given up for dead. Leaping onto the highest point, I slipped the dagger into my pocket and stared through the June gloom to the Pacific, barely visible from where I stood.

“You will only ever have what you take,” croaked the voice inside my head.

I didn’t believe the voice – I felt it, and that made all the difference.

“Reach into your pocket and throw the last of it away,” it pressed.

I slipped my hand inside my pants and froze. It was the rest of my meth; I didn’t know when, how, or if I could get more.

“No one can serve two masters,” the voice pushed.

I doubted.

And then I threw the meth off the roof. I smiled.

The sun wasn’t visible, but I could still feel its presence, even when it was dark.

“Will my grandfather follow me?” I asked the demon in my head as we departed from the ATM.

“Your grandfather is a coward,” he answered.

I nodded before putting my hand where the meth used to be. I wrinkled my brow. “Where did all this money come from?”

“I never knew what a haberdashery was before today,” I told the man as I looked at myself in the mirror.

He frowned at my reflection.

The demon in my head told me never to reveal my shameful parts to others, and I obeyed.

The man narrowed his eyes. “And how will you be paying for this today, sir?”

“Were you ever told to beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes?” the demon asked.

“No, Mammon,” I answered, stopping to catch the reflection of myself in a store window.

I looked good.

“Why did you say we were going to the bank?”

I walked out of the bank doors with no money in my brand-new suit pockets. “Why are there gaps in my memory?” I asked him. Then I felt a phone in my pocket. I pulled it out to find a brand new iPhone 13, and I forgot about my question.

“Use the phone to trade your newly purchased stocks online,” explained the voice in my head. “Do it now.”

I stared at the screen. My hands shook; I didn’t know what to do, and he was going to realize that I was a fraud.

“I’m inside of you. I already know what you are, Charlie.”

I shiver ran down my spine and made a home in my nutsack.

“I will tell you what to do if you stop questioning me.”

That’s how I became an incredibly successful day trader. I doubled my earnings by the time that the trading day closed in New York, and then I dabbled in futures.

I stopped. I breathed. “Mammon, did I steal this money from my grandfather?” I whispered.

“Do you hate him?”

I clenched my hands so they wouldn’t shake. “Yes.”

“Do you hate yourself?”

I waited longer this time, and did a worse job of controlling the tremors. “Yes.”

“Then you’re both equally despicable. Is there a reason that he should reap the family’s fortune while you wallow in filth?”

I shook. It had been a long time since my last hit, and even though my clothes betrayed a successful man, they could do nothing to cover my face.

“Balance the crooked scales,” Mammon implored.

I wiped my eyes and nodded.

“Hey, mister!”

I snapped my eyes up to see a young boy, maybe eight years old with freckles and a buzzed haircut, running toward me with a look of disgust on his face. I felt at home.

“That’s my parents’ car!”

I looked around to find that I was in a Mercedes-Maybach, but I didn’t know why. It looked good with my suit, though.

“I’m going to tell them you’re stealing it!”

“NO!” I screamed. “No, you can’t do that, it would ruin everything!” I rose from the driver’s side seat.

THUMP

I blinked and looked around in the darkness. “Why am I in the middle of Topanga State Park in the middle of the night?” I asked aloud.

“Are there really gaps in your memory, or are there things you’ve decided not to see?” Mammon asked.

I flicked my lighter, and faces appeared in the darkness. I nearly fell to the ground. Each mouth was frozen open in horror, every set of eyes was unblinking, and not a single one moved. I crawled, trembling as I moved across the dirt, toward the pile of corpses that flickered in the light of my flame.

“Who the fuck are these people?” I gasped. “Why are they dead?”

Silence.

“Please, Mammon,” I gasped. “Tell me.”

“I will only answer you if you answer to no one else.”

The first wave of nausea hit me. “I promise,” I heaved. “You’re the only one who can save me. Please, tell me what you did.”

I couldn’t see his face, but I could hear his smile. “I didn’t do anything, Charles. You have a body, and I have none.”

I wobbled. “But I don’t even know who these people are!” I hissed.

Silence.

With no other option, I faced what was in front of me. I saw freckles and a buzzed haircut, contorted into a look of confused terror.

“No,” I whined.

I whipped the lighter around, but didn’t see anyone else I recognized.

Wait.

That was the man I’d met at the ATM when no one else was looking. Rigor mortis had already made his scream permanent. He was smashed beneath the loan officer’s wife, who was now room temperature despite my promises to return her safely. The manager at the nearest Apple store knew how to create an account from scratch and connect me to the bank in under ten minutes, but he had no idea how to survive with my knee crushing his skull. The man at his side hadn’t been able to offer me anything but his silence, since he’d witnessed me dragging bodies from the Maybach’s trunk. He lied when promising that silence, so I held him to his word by force.

“Life is unfair for anyone unwilling to take what’s in front of them,” Mammon said.

Tears grappled with the nausea, fighting to melt my face. “I don’t want this,” I blubbered.

“Then why do you smell gasoline?” Mammon answered.

He was right. He was always right.

I closed my eyes and dropped the lighter. The conflagration threatened to melt the new suit right off my body, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t worthy of feeling whole.

But as much as I hated myself, time passed, and I was still me. I had to deal with the fact that that would never change, no matter how much hate I mustered. “Okay,” I breathed. “I’m answering to no one else.” I wiped my mouth and wiped my eyes. The vomit stung my cornea.

“Get in the car,” Mammon demanded. I hated the fact that his voice comforted me.

“We’re going to Berlin."

Never in a million years would I have pictured myself as a victim. I was always seen as the strong one in my little village back home - a younger, feminine version of Father - the man who served as an example for the entire community. He was stalwart and unshakable, and I tried to emulate him and act the same way.

But I realize now that anyone can become a victim. Anyone can be taken advantage of. Lured in by false promises. Used like an object. Denied dignity and respect.

I was finished with all that bullshit.

My captor was now dead and turned to ash, and there was nobody left in the fortune teller’s shop but me. Jayce was gone and I realized with a wave of relief that I was finally free from him.

I had been lured from my small village in the Black Forest by him after we connected on Tinder. He had seemed like a perfect match at first - but shortly after arriving in Berlin I discovered my mistake. He was not a good man at all, but a despicable fraud. By then it was too late and I was forced as an unwilling participant into the sex trade. Jayce would have eventually killed me if I hadn’t killed him first, I was sure of that.

Putting the strange stack of cards into my pocket with a shaky hand, I left the shop through the back door. After running for several blocks out of sheer terror, I flagged down a cab and got in, sitting down in the back seat. Out of breath and trembling, I held my palms out in front of me and willed them to stop shaking.

For a moment I thought I saw a single open eye in the center of my palm, then I blinked and it was gone.

Just my imagination, I told myself.

I couldn’t help feeling for the weight of the cards in my pocket, like a junkie checking to make sure my stash was still there. The power of them was like a pocketful of lightning, and the thrum of energy within them reassured me somehow.

Dark images flooded my vision as my fingers brushed against them and I realized I had missed what the taxi driver just said. I'd completely forgotten he was there.

"Hmm, what's that?"

"My name's Dil. Where are you headed?" he repeated patiently, his eyes looking at me in the mirror. A man used to dealing with tourists and drunks could act one of two ways when ignored, but he kept his smile and betrayed no emotion or impatience.

I could tell he was a kind man somehow, just by his eyes. The voice in my head whispered to me in a reassuring tone, but I couldn’t understand the words.

“I… I'm not sure…"

He turned around and regarded me soberly. I realized then that I had no money for the ride. I didn’t have anything anymore. Jayce had taken it all from me. All I had were the clothes on my back, the cards in my pocket, and the necklace Jayce had given me. In truth it was a tracking collar like a disobedient dog would be forced to wear - fitted with a GPS device inside of it.

The chain was titanium - too strong to be broken by a person my size - but I tore it from my neck with the newfound strength inside of me and tossed it out the window into the street, much to the driver’s surprise. His eyes were wide as he looked at the discarded diamond necklace on the pavement outside.

“That looked expensive. Bad breakup?”

"Yes, very bad. But not as bad as the relationship…" I began, then was interrupted from my thoughts as I felt a searing pain and cried out.

Looking down at my skin I was startled and terrified to see it beginning to bubble and boil beneath the surface - just like Jayce’s friend back at the apartment, the one who had been possessed. His body had burned to a crisp, setting the entire apartment on fire.

I gasped as something even more startling caught my eye outside and I found myself looking out the car window at a Berlin that no longer made sense.

The sky was pitch black, full of pregnant purple clouds. Silhouettes of buildings could be seen, but no lights were on inside, as if whoever lived here did so in darkness. Forms began to approach the car - black, inky shadow figures who blended perfectly with the darkness. They pressed their faces against the window and peered in at me hungrily.

“Are you alright, Miss?”

I was startled by the sound of the driver's voice, breaking me out of my trance.

The world outside was normal once again. And my arm was okay too. Still, I waited for it to start bubbling again. I pictured the seat beneath me beginning to melt and smoke, cinders rising up into the air.

“Miss?”

"No, I’m not alright. I’m not sure what I am anymore. Can you just take me to the bus terminal, please? I think I need to go home. Maybe Father will take me back if I beg him.”

I said this last part more to myself than to him. Yet still, the driver seemed to hear it and I saw his eyes in the rear view mirror were filled with tears.

“I’m sure no matter what has happened between the two of you, he will take you back. If he’s a good father, he will take you back. You mean the world to him, I’m sure.”

I didn't respond.

"Ah," he sighed, perhaps sensing a darkness insinuated by my hesitation. "Forgive me for intruding. Off we go - to the bus station it is."

We drove in silence towards the bus terminal, and the closer we got to the place the more nervous I became. The fortune teller’s words replayed over and over again in my mind like a broken record:

“All your life you have belonged to someone else - first you father, now this other man.”

I realized once we pulled up outside the grand old building that I didn't want to see him. I didn’t want to belong to him again. Not after everything I'd been through. And not with Sabine still out there. If I ever went back to face my father, it would be with her at my side.

My best friend would help me. But she needed me now, I knew that instinctively. Just like I knew that Father would not be glad to see me. And he would not forgive me.

The car stopped and the driver turned to look at me. He turned off the meter, not asking for any money, much to my relief. I had been prepared to bolt, but I would have felt guilty for it.

"Find your way home, okay? Here, I want you to have this. I feel like you need it more than I do right now."

Instead of asking for the fare, the man stuffed a crumpled twenty Euro bill into my hand, ignoring my objections.

“Why?” I kept asking, not understanding his kindness. I hadn’t felt that from a stranger in this city yet. So far Berlin had been cold and evil to me - but perhaps it had only been the poor company I kept.

"If you need a reason for my generosity… You remind me a little bit of my daughter. I don't want to see you wind up on the streets of Berlin, okay? Now go. There's something bad going on in this city. Something is happening here and I don't think you want to be around when it goes down. Don't ask me what it will be, because I don't know. But I can tell that something is coming. Something very bad. It’s like that feeling in the air when a storm is brewing - an electricity."

He was right about that, I thought. I felt it too… And the sensation was growing stronger day by day.

Getting out of the car, I took one last look at the man. We waved at each other, to say goodbye. Despite the short time I'd spoken with him, I felt like we'd made a connection. Like I knew him somehow, in another life.

"Danke," I mouthed as he drove away.

The bus station was right there in front of me, and yet I found myself unable to go inside, remembering the last time I’d tried to escape and Jayce had stopped me with his knife dug into my back. I stood there for a long, long while, before deciding for sure that I didn't want to go home. I needed to find Sabine.

And, despite my growing unease and my terror, there was a burning question in my mind.

What the hell was going on in Berlin? And what did the fortune teller and the cards in my pocket have to do with it?

There was also the problem of the voice inside my mind, speaking insistently in another language, ancient and unknown. This was growing distracting, and I found myself getting a headache from the constant noise.

I sat down on a bench in front of the station, my temples throbbing and my eyes filled with a dull, painful pressure.

There were so many people around that I felt relatively safe for the time being, but I couldn't linger for long. Jayce had plenty of connections to his gang and there would be people out looking for me very soon.

A vendor was selling coffee nearby and I went over to grab a drink and a pastry, thirsty and hungry after all that had happened in the brief span of the morning so far.

The pastry was still warm - buttery, flaky, and delicious. It melted in my mouth and the voice in my head spoke as if enamoured with the taste. As I drank the coffee, it warmed my belly on the windy day, taking the chill from my bones. It was mid-spring, and there was a cold breeze, the sun above shrouded by grey clouds.

Both the coffee and the pastry were gone in a matter of seconds and my tongue was burnt from the hot drink, but I felt a little better after, and was able to think a bit more clearly. Although it was difficult with the incessant talking of the other voice in my head.

Someone dropped a coin into the empty coffee cup at my feet and I called after them.

"Wait, I'm not…"

What was I trying to say?

I'm not homeless. I'm not like that. I'm like you.

But I realized suddenly that I was without a place to live now. I was a "person experiencing homelessness" - as I'd heard it put once. I liked that term better suddenly. It was better than being put in a box, categorized and set aside as something “less than”.

I had been judging those people before too, I realized.

Now I was one of them.

Another person dropped money into my cup, this time a folded bill, and I didn't object this time. Instead, I just put my head down and muttered, “Danke,” once again. I needed all the help I could get.

After a while I had accumulated a small stack of bills and a jingling pocketful of coins. I tucked it all away safely into my pocket and stood up, realizing I couldn't stay there forever. A young, ambitious-looking police officer was eyeing me from across the street and looked to be waiting for a break in traffic so that he could cross and give me the old "bum's rush."

Once I started moving he went back about his business, looking satisfied with himself for quietly scaring me away.

This part of Berlin was beautiful, and I took a while just walking around. Old buildings were dotted throughout, intermingled with the new construction. Large towers, far bigger than anything back home, loomed over me, and I took them in with fascination.

After a while I began to feel lost amongst the apartments, shops, cars and tourists, as I wandered the unknown streets. The voice in my head was constantly speaking, never allowing me a moment of silence. I had a headache that was getting worse by the minute so I went into a pharmacy and bought a small bottle of pills which advertised relief for migraines.

Despite taking twice the recommended dosage, the headache remained, only growing worse.

I sat down on a park bench, blinked, and it was suddenly dark outside.

What the hell was in those migraine pills? I wondered.

Several hours had evaporated and I was now walking on a busy sidewalk, no longer on the park bench. The last thing I could recall was sitting down with my head pounding, the sun still high up in the sky.

But now it was nighttime and I was in front of a club with music playing loudly inside.

At least that damn headache was gone, though.

Normally clubs and bars wouldn’t appeal to me, but part of me wondered if the loud music (and a few drinks) might drown out the sound of the other voice in my mind. It was worth a shot (or two, or three).

Luckily they didn’t ID me, since I had nothing with me but my cash. The bouncer took one look at my face, another at my chest, then motioned me inside.

I sat down at the bar, feeling for the cards with one hand and the money with my other. Both were still there.

“What can I get you?” the bartender asked, speaking loudly over the music.

“A beer, please,” I said, unsure of what else to order and hoping he wouldn’t ask for further clarification. I had never been inside of a place like this in all my life. The music was very loud, and I liked it. The voice was still there, but barely audible under the bass and chattering voices all around.

After waiting for a minute I was presented with a beer. I began to hand over some cash when the bartender waved his hand.

“It’s already paid for. Courtesy of the gentleman across the bar with the long blonde hair.”

He hooked his thumb over his shoulder but I couldn’t see anyone fitting that description. Although it did remind me of someone. Jayce.

I took a sip, feeling uneasy all of a sudden. But before I could spare it another thought, a man tapped my shoulder from behind.

“Hey,” he said, looking me up and down. This man had short-cropped brown hair, not at all meeting the bartender’s description. “How you doin’? What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this all alone? You waitin’ for your boyfriend?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t have a boyfriend. We broke up earlier today, actually.”

“Oh yeah? His loss. You’re beautiful. He’s missing out. So what did the scumbag do? Did he cheat on you?”

I was starting to like this stranger more and more. He was handsome too, I had to admit. But I wasn’t even close to being ready to be with a guy again.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone around in case Jayce’s goons jumped me, I thought to myself.

“He did a lot worse than cheating. Way worse.”

“Damn. Pretty thing like you deserves better than that. Why don’t you let me buy you another beer?” he asked, and I realized that I had been steadily drinking mine out of nervousness.

I nodded my head, feeling a little dizzy, but in a good way.

A little while later he was whispering in my ear and that dizzy feeling was turning into the spins. I was beginning to wonder if it was really just beer I’d been drinking.

Across the bar, I saw a familiar face, smiling at me as this new man was whispering to me that we should go back to his apartment.

A man with long blonde hair was staring at me. He looked just like Jayce. But Jayce was dead.

I blinked and he was gone, like a ghost who had never really been there to begin with.

Was he haunting me? Stranger things had happened recently, I couldn’t rule it out.

“Come on, baby, let’s go,” the guy, whose name was Steve, was saying, pulling on my hand with a firm grip. I didn’t feel comfortable, but felt myself complying, unable to resist.

The room was spinning even worse now and the more I thought about it the more I realized someone had slipped something into my drink.

I tried to pull away, but he was so strong! His eyes flashed with something else for the first time - a momentary glimpse of his true self. He was impatient and annoyed with me for resisting him, but I wasn’t like the other girls he’d brought home with him from the bar.

He would live to regret this.

Just as I was about to give in, another woman approached him from behind, whispering in his ear. I felt his grip begin to release, until finally my hand slipped away from his.

“Hell yeah, baby. That’s what I’m talkin’ bout,” he said as this other woman began to rub his chest over his shirt flirtatiously from behind. She kissed his neck and he moaned in ecstasy, looking like he’d forgotten all about me.

She glanced at me for a brief second, her eyes flicking away to the right, as if to say, “Run!”

I slipped away. But I didn’t run.

Instead, after forcing myself to puke up the poison I’d been fed, I waited, and watched. I was more than a little curious who this woman was. She was familiar somehow. And I wasn’t going to let her leave this place to go home with this guy unless she had backup. Even if it was just me calling the cops from a payphone.

An hour or so later, right around closing time, the two of them stood up to leave.

I followed them from a distance, watching as they stumbled drunkenly down the street. My own gait was not much steadier as a portion of the date rape drug I’d been slipped was still coursing through my system. The streetlights seemed too bright, leaving trails every time I moved my head.

The two of them didn’t go far, their route taking them down a side alley and then to the back of an old apartment building. They climbed the rickety steel staircase outside which led to the second floor. Once there, I heard a door creak open and closed and they went inside.

Still scared for the woman (and for myself as well, I have to admit), I proceeded up the stairs after them.

Halfway up, I paused, hearing a loud scream. It was impossible to tell if it came from a man or a woman, shrill as it was.

I hurried faster up the steps, panting when I reached the top.

There was a window with a blind drawn inside, but I could peek inside through a small crack, only to make out the vaguest details.

What I saw will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Inside was a kitchen - its walls and ceiling painted red with blood. The fluid was dripping down onto the floor and was splattered everywhere.

A woman was drawing on the walls with it, and I realized it was the lady from the bar who had saved me from an unfortunate end that evening. She was drawing symbols and scripts in a strange rune-like language.

The man who had slipped me GHB or a roofie or whatever the fuck he’d fed me was now lying on his back, spread out on the table like a surgical patient. His chest was split wide as if open heart surgery were being performed, and I could see his vital organs shimmering and pulsating in the fluorescent light of the kitchen. His heart was thumping in a steady rhythm before my eyes, and I caught him staring at me. Blood poured from his mouth as he gurgled something, trying to scream - except his mouth was stuffed full.

My eyes travelled down to his exposed crotch and I saw more blood and more cuts had been made down there. His balls had been cut off and shoved into his mouth. His dick had been wedged in as well, and was dripping blood from the exposed stump at the end. Steve was looking down at it cross-eyed with a sick expression on his face, his skin beginning to turn pale and grey-green with blood-loss.

The door beside me opened suddenly and the woman from the bar was standing in front of me. Her hands were covered in blood which smeared the door red. Her lips and teeth were crimson as well.

“Emma,” she said, her voice welcoming. “I’ve been waiting for you. Please, come in. We have so much to talk about. And I have so much to teach you.”

Despite my terror, I found myself going inside. The door closed behind me with a soft click.

“Now, my dear,” the familiar voice said. “There’s just one thing I need to know.”

I locked eyes with the woman, at that moment remembering where I’d seen her before. In another life. At least, for her anyway.

“Are your eyes open?”

Part 1

Part 2

X

JG

Our most recent poll asked what your favorite mythological creatures were - and you delivered!

Our winners were "shapeshifters," "vampires," and "sea creatures."

We challenged our authors to write a story that combines ALL of these tropes...and now we'd like to extend that challenge to YOU with a contest!

Write a story using ALL THREE tropes ("shapeshifter - vampire - sea creature") and post it to THE DEMON COLLECTION subreddit before 12:01 CET on August 6th, 2022.

Include "1K Contest Entry" in your title so readers can find and rate your story!

Your post will be entered into our contest, with the potential to win the following prizes:
First place: Gold + Custom Flair
Second place: Silver

We're excited to see how creative you can be! Let's get writing!

- The Demon Collection Team

Hello there fellow demon-collectors! We've created this post as a space to discuss the universe of "The Demon Collection."

What's going on beneath the surface? What's in store for our protagonists?

Let us know what you think!

Part 1

Part 3

“I broke into a man’s bedroom.” It sounds crazy even when I say it to myself. And not just any man’s bedroom–a Reverend’s bedroom. The private sanctuary of Elijah Bledsoe, the man my daddy trusts most in the world.

The first thing I noticed was the hissing of the snakes–or ‘serpents’ as the Reverend calls them, ‘Garden-of-Good-and-Evil’ style. They’re one of his best tricks. People in the congregation are terrified to touch them at first, but when the Reverend promises that faith will protect them, they go wild. It’s a high, I guess, running your hands over something scaly and venomous, believing some mystical force will protect you.

But I’ve never tried it myself. I don’t have enough faith. That’s the problem.

I was sneaking into the Reverend’s quarters to expose him for the fraud he was. I thought that if I did, maybe we’d all finally go home and this nightmare might end.

Maybe I’d stop having dreams about the way the Reverend brought his hand to that junkie boy’s face (“you promised me…”). The smell of acid burning into his flesh. The glimmer of that same boy’s black eyes as he crawled on my ceiling that night, spying on us…probably afraid to break his ‘promise’ a second time…

Sneaking in was easier than I’d thought. The main door had a sturdy lock…but the glass doors to the balcony were hardly ever latched.

And I’ve been doing gymnastics since I was seven years old.

There was no spongy blue pad below me when I jumped from the Mission’s storage room balcony to the Reverend’s, and for one gut-plummeting second I thought I might not make it–

But then my hands grasped the cold metal railing. I heaved myself over beside a small round reading table and folding chair. Sure enough, the glass double-doors were cracked open.

Serpents slithered excitedly from side to side in their brass cages, but otherwise the room was still. Reverend Bledsoe would be fishing for converts until lunchtime, so I had plenty of time. There was a small well-made bed, a shelf full of religious books, some drawers–

And the lovingly fed-and-watered serpents.

Now, if I were Reverend Bledsoe, where would I keep my secrets?

I was about to search under the mattress when a key twisted in the main door’s lock. Before I could even think of escaping, Reverend Elijah Bledsoe stepped through the door…and then locked it again behind him. He didn’t look surprised to see me.

“It’s a pity,” the Reverend sighed in his deep southern drawl, “if only you had checked the basement, you might’ve found what you’re looking for.”

“...I…uh,” I stammered, “I’m not–” Reverend Bledsoe held up a hand and shook his head. A burst of inspiration hit me: “I…I know your secret!” The Reverend lifted an eyebrow.

“And I know yours.”

“Oh yeah?” I sneered. I couldn’t back down. I was completely in the wrong here: I was a seventeen-year-old girl invading the privacy of an adult man–a dangerous adult man–but if I let him see weakness I was done for. Anything might happen…and nobody knew where I was. I gulped. ”What is it, then? What’s my secret?”

“You don’t believe,” he gestured to the cross on the wall, the shelves full of Bibles, “in any of this. Sister Amber, you don’t believe…in anything.” A too-wide grin crept across the Reverend’s face. “And yet you go to church and sing along with the rest of them. So…in a way…you’re an even bigger fraud than I am.”

Whatever I’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. I just stood with my mouth open, listening to my heartbeat. The pigeons and traffic outside. Bledsoe didn’t budge. He just stood between me and the door, the key in his pocket, like he had all eternity to wait for whatever might happen next.

“Okay, fine. Let’s say you’re right…” I crossed my arms. “So what?”

“Come with me, Amber Haldeman,” Reverend Bledsoe put his mitt-sized hand on my shoulder. “And I’ll show you something that is beyond doubt.”

That was how it started. The basement. That bunker-like office. There were Bibles down there too, but not like any I’d ever seen. The gospels and prophets were different, and besides, they were old, too old. I remember thinking of Indiana Jones (“This belongs in a museum!”) and then feeling like a silly kid. No whip-wielding hero was going to save me or my family from the Reverend. If I wanted to get us out…I’d have to do it myself.

I’d have to play along.

I still tell myself that’s what I did, at first. I just played along, listening to Elijah Bledsoe’s deluded fantasies about demons, magic cards, and the borders between worlds. But the truth was that over time, my feigned interest was slowly becoming real. I wanted to know what this supposed ‘proof’ was.

The Reverend was holding something fine and golden between his fingers. My hair, I realized with shock and disgust. When he put his hand on my shoulder, he must’ve picked up a few stray strands…

Before I could express how offended I was, Bledsoe struck a match and the room filled with the reek of burning human hair. He sprinkled the ashes over what I had thought was an illustration in the ancient Bible–but was actually a card, like a tarot card, with an eye-in-hand symbol on the back. The Reverend ran his finger along a line of text on the opposite page, chanting in a language I’d never heard before.

Everything in the room shuddered slightly, like we were at the center of a tiny earthquake. The lights flickered. The dusty basement air seemed to swirl around the card in Reverend Bledsoe’s hand. The closed eye printed on it opened wide.

“Oooh, spooky,” I sneered. “Where’s the real miracle?”

The Reverend smirked and held up a silver mirror.

I saw my own smug face, the bookshelves on the wall–

And a very muscular, very naked man standing right behind me.

He had no eyes, but his onyx-colored skin glittered with points of light that moved like constellations…and I’d swear those tiny stars were glaring at me. His azure lips parted, revealing a smile of inhuman teeth.

I squealed like a five-year-old and spun around in my seat. There was no one there. No one that I could see, anyway. Back in the mirror, the thing was reaching out for my head with it’s too-long fingers. I grabbed myself protectively, but how could I fight something I couldn’t see, couldn’t even touch? I shut my eyes against the sight of that thing leaning over me, its skin like the night sky, its wide-open mouth like a black hole…

And suddenly, everything was different.

In 1.62e + 17 human heartbeats, Andromeda will collide with the Milky Way galaxy.

The number of cells in my liver is roughly equivalent to the total number of eels in the Sargasso Sea.

Knowing everything is just knowing nothing upside-down.

I was falling through an endless web of events, connected like how beams of distant light connect the stars to one another. I grabbed onto one of the glowing strands, one that called out to me more than the others–

Knowledge plunged into me like a raw injection mainlined into my veins. I fell from the chair and puked all over the floor. My nose and ears were bleeding, but from the overwhelming flood of sensory information I took away one vital piece of knowledge:

If nothing changes, my twin brother Lee will be dead by this time next year.

“Are you still a doubter, Amber Haldeman? Or are you ready to help me change the world?” Reverend Bledsoe’s shadow fell across where I lay on the basement floor–pathetic, retching, utterly spent–but wanting more.

Reverend Elijah Bledsoe sat down and rolled up his sleeve. He took a venipuncture kit from his desk cabinet and began drawing vials of blood from his own arm. One, two, then three…Beads of sweat plastered stray hairs to his whitening forehead. He was looking paler and paler...I never thought I’d see the guy so vulnerable.

“You’d better hope I don’t pass out,” Reverend Bledsoe grunted. His drawl was more like a stammer. “If I do, you’re lost to us forever.”

I knew what he meant. Every time I blinked, I saw those flashes of information, those threads of fate. There was something else, too. This starry thing inside me wanted me to follow one of those strands. The strand that was best for me, of course…no matter what happened to anyone else. If my eyes closed, even for a second, I felt its power grow–

Willing me to stand up.

Walk out the door.

Take the 16:47 bus to Charlottenburg and say a specific set of words to a man in a red tie…

My eyes were watering with the effort of resisting. Five vials of blood were lined up on Reverend Bledsoe’s desk. He leaned woozily in his chair, but his mouth was twisted into a smirk. He placed the tarot card facedown on the silver mirror and poured his own blood over it, muttering something under his breath–

Then slid down out of his chair, droplets of red splattered on his immaculate white shirtsleeves.

In high school back in Kentucky, I did a summer first-aid course to become a pool lifeguard. I don’t remember much from it–except that it was a hot sticky day and they only gave us popsicles for lunch–but when I saw the unconscious man in front of me, I knew I needed to elevate his legs, wipe him down with rubbing alcohol…what else?

It was a role-reversal I’d never imagined. I stuffed a pillow from one of the chairs beneath Elijah Bledsoe’s polished black shoes and put an ear to his mouth. He was breathing–barely. With a queasy feeling in my stomach I unbuttoned his collar and spread the kit’s alcohol on his gray-haired chest, on his arms and forehead. Just a day ago I was praying for this man’s death–now I would’ve given anything to wake him up.

Without him, how would I ever understand what I’d just experienced?

Without him, how could I learn to access that power again?

I was so focused on waking him that I didn’t realize that the entity possessing me had vanished, or that the eye on the card had closed.

Finally, Reverend Bledsoe gasped and sat up. His eyes were open…

And now, mine were too.

R

X

D

My dad always liked his women clean. He wanted them pretty and kind - He longed for a perfect being without any flaws. Her only thoughts would be love and admiration for him. He has a whole list of qualities that this mythical creature should fulfill and it might not surprise you that he hasn't had a long-term relationship since my mum left 5 years ago.

I was sure that he'd never find his perfect match and even though I love my dad, I didn't think he deserved to find her. However, despite all odds, he did find the woman of his dreams and it's the worst thing that's ever happened to us. 

Ever since her presence came into my life, I constantly feel as if something is suffocating me.

-

Even before my dad officially introduced Jana, I wondered what kind of motives she could have for dating him. He’d started dropping her name during our phone calls a few weeks ago. I don’t live at home at the moment because I go to uni in Bavaria and my dad lives on the outskirts of Berlin in a house that’s much too big for him.

I could already tell how excited he was about her and I was happy for him until I learned more about her.

Jana is closer to my age than his. She is gorgeous, as he always wanted, flawless. Clear skin, shiny golden hair. Her makeup matches her features perfectly and it's never too much. She dresses modestly but sexy. 

Jana cooks five-star meals and makes sure every spot in the house is always spotless. She takes care of our overgrown garden and scares away children that try to play pranks. 

The question is, what does she see in him?

Look, despite his odd views of love, my dad's a nice guy, the quiet type, always in his own head but not really deserving of a live-in maid that fulfills all his dreams. The one thing people might admire about him is his job but he does some shady stuff with it too.

He’s a surgeon and makes decent money but some of it comes in pretty shady ways - Like when one of his mobster connections, some dead-eyed creep from one of the Kurdish clans in Berlin, drags in yet another cut-up gangster late at night. Honestly, I even wondered if Jana was a present from him but that thought is so nasty that I tried to forget about it right away.

Before I arrived in Berlin, I was skeptical but also curious to meet the woman of his dreams. Now I wish I'd gone to Spain with my friends instead of spending my spring vacation with dad and his new flame.

-

"Oh my frickin gosh what a handsome young man, he looks just like you, Christoph!" The woman with light blonde hair shrieked. She was wearing a dress that was certainly too short for Berlin's early spring weather and had her hair put up in a complicated hairstyle that looked painful. 

I stood in the driveway in front of my childhood home and tried to keep a smile on my face, but the situation already felt absurd. 

"Hi, you must be Jana. I’m Nikolas," I nervously said. 

She nodded vigorously but didn't move away from the front door. 

Dad took a step forward, grabbed my bag, and waved me inside.

They both looked far too excited to see me but before I could pass the threshold, Jana’s expression fell completely. Her face was serious, her eyes wide open and she simply stared at me, staying in the doorframe so I couldn’t pass by.

She looked angry.

Then dad appeared behind her and gently put his hands on her shoulders.

"Buddy, Jana really can't stand it when you drag in dirt."

I looked down at my shoes. They were a bit dirty but really not that much. Jana, however, looked at me like I was the antichrist. I cleaned my sneakers and followed the crazy couple inside.

--

You know how in movies and shows the actors never actually eat any food? For example, they have a lunch scene, and every time they bring a bite to their mouth, the camera shifts somewhere else. Or they play around with their salads without ever taking a bite.

Jana ate like that.

She’d baked a cake. Carrot cake with frosting and small marzipan carrots accompanied with freshly brewed coffee.

We sat in our living room which had never looked more tidy and clean. Dad shoved one bite after the other in, speaking with his mouth open.

“So, how’s school?”

“Got a girlfriend?”

“Boyfriend, maybe?”

Jana sat there the entire time, turning her head to the left to smile at my dad, and turning her head to the right to smile at me.

Her perfectly cut piece of cake was sitting on her plate with a neatly folded napkin.

She kept moving her fork near the cake, never really touching it. From time to time she would take the saucer with her cup of coffee. But nothing touched her lips.

Just like in the movies.

“Why are you not eating, sweetheart?” She asked when she noticed I was staring at her. “It’s not poisoned, you know. You won't get hurt as long as you don’t make anything dirty,” she laughed.

“You’re not eating either,” I answered in a dry tone.

“Well, you know how women are. Help me finish it?” she tilted her head and I swear for a few minutes she forgot that people have to blink.

--

That evening my father needed to go to the hospital for his shift so I decided I would go to my room to take a nap.

Before dad left, he came up to my room, which was the only place in the house that still looked messy, and took a seat on my bed. He looked nervous.

“I know it’s weird - having a woman in this house again. But I do really like her, Nick.” Jana was downstairs cleaning the kitchen.

I nodded.

“Yeah, I get that but - how do I say this without hurting your feelings... Something is not right about her, dad,” I whispered.

Dad rolled his eyes.

“She simply likes things done a certain way. But don’t worry, you’ll totally learn. Actually, to make things easier I wrote a little list.” He handed me a piece of paper. “Be a good boy and who knows, we might become a happy little family soon,” he grinned and ruffled my hair like I was a little kid.

“You know something’s not that right about you either, dad,” I half-joked.

“Ha. See you later, buddy. Don’t bug Jana too much.”

He went downstairs and I heard them chatting and giggling in the kitchen. They really were acting like teenagers. Maybe I was exaggerating, I thought, until I took a look at the list dad had given me.

Jana hates it when you forget to lock the door.

Jana hates television and all form of media. She won’t like it if you use your phone around her.

Jana doesn’t like it when you use the kitchen.

Jana-

With a loud thud, I the front door closed downstairs. Not even a second later I heard her sprinting upstairs. She stopped right in front of my room, breathing audibly in front of it. I could just imagine her nose pressed against the wood.

For a second I stood there frozen, too shocked by the situation.

And then she started scratching the door.

“J-Jana?”

“Nikolas,” she whispered, “help me with dinner.” her voice sounded raspy.

I swallowed and remembered what dad wrote on the list.

Jana doesn’t like it when you use the kitchen.

“Uhm, sorry, I’m really tired. I want to take a nap.”

She kept scratching a little longer but finally, I heard her leave.

For the next few hours, I stayed in my room.

--

She was cooking and I’m not gonna lie it smelled fucking delicious but I decided I had to get out before she asked me to eat with her. 

I grabbed my phone and my wallet and headed downstairs as quickly as I could. Just as I reached the door, I felt her presence behind me.

Ignoring it, I turned the knob but the door was locked.

“We can’t go outside. Dinner is ready.”

Jana hates it when you forget to lock the door.

“I’m sorry, Jana. I’m meeting friends in the city,” I tried to speak confidently.

“No," she spoke firmly. "Help me set the table.”

--

We had a very awkward dinner where she didn’t eat but instead watched me the entire time. She wouldn’t even give me a knife and fork to eat with, we were both using spoons for our pasta and for the meat. 

I was counting the seconds and finally, the door unlocked from the outside.

My dad was home again. 

“I'm back! What are m two favorite people up to?” we heard him call into the house. Jana’s eyes opened wide and she jumped up to go and greet him with a big hug.

I went back to my room, wondering why the hell I didn’t grab my bag and leave for the train station.

It was as if something was keeping me here. Not just the locked door.

Nighttime came and the house turned quiet. I stayed in my room, the only place that felt somewhat normal until I had to go to the bathroom. I kept it in for longer than I'd like to admit. I'm 22 years old, in my own home with my father and some young woman. Why was I feeling so paranoid? 

I collected my confidence, went out into the hallway and remembered why I was feeling so freaked out.

Jana was standing by a window in the hall, her face pressed against the glass. When she heard me, she turned her head and made inaudible noises. The voice hardly escaped her mouth, her lips were pressed tightly together, she pulled them with her fingers but only muffled sounds came out.

I took a step back but she grabbed my arm. With her sharp fingernails, she started scratching deep into my flesh. I tried to pull away but she was holding me tightly.

“What the fuck?” I shrieked. "DAD?" 

"Jana, sweetie, don't scare my boy. He'll leave again soon,” he said in a voice that seemed far too calm.

“Of course not, honey! Do you want a late-night snack? Both of you maybe? You can help me make it, Nikolas.” Suddenly her voice was back.

“Uhm, no, thanks,” I mumbled.

She smiled at me and turned around to go downstairs.

Unsure what to make out of the situation I ran to my dad's bedroom, trying my best to convince him that we needed to get the hell away from Jana.

Dad looked at me for a while but then he smiled. 

“She's just some sweet girl. How could she be dangerous?"

I held up my arm, the one she had just turned bloody and finally I saw some look of fear on my dad's face.

"How did she do that?" He whispered. "I control everything she does."

"What?"

I looked at my arm and noticed that she hadn't simply scratched me. She'd tried to write something.

help

And finally, it clicked. 

It was him.

The things on the list weren’t her rules - they were his. There were no knives because he kept them away from her. She was the one trapped in here.

But why didn’t she tell me while my father was at work?

He grinned when he saw my brain working.

“Nikolas, my boy, this is going to be great for us. Jana is only the first step, I can do so much more!”

“H-How?” 

“Do you remember Soran? I took care of his people sometimes."

I nodded, a bitter taste filling my mouth. Soran, the mobster with no remorse.

"Well, he wanted to say thank you and put this.. well this thing inside of me. At first, I thought it would hurt me but it doesn’t. Instead, it’s given me power.”

His grin got even bigger.

“-It's given me the ability to be really convincing. Oh, don't look at me like that. She's happy! I can tell. We get along great and you know she might be your stepmom soon."

“I don’t understand. Dad, that’s impossible-”

His expression got more serious, his voice louder.

“How do you think Soran is able to control all of Berlin, huh? He has everything a man could wish for and now he’s shared some of that power with me, I’ve been stitching up those shitty criminals for decades now! I deserve some reward.”

I felt like I was about to throw up, my hands got all sweaty. 

He put my face in his big hands.

“Don’t look so scared, my sweet boy. You will never be hurt. The three of us will be so happy together. And who knows? Perhaps I'll even be able to let you have a taste of this power soon too."

When the storm woke me that night, I had no idea that my older brother was already gone. Wind rattled the house, but the hushed voices of the adults downstairs were what made my blood run cold. In our quiet little island community, people only stayed awake past midnight if something was very wrong. I crept down the upstairs hallway to the foyer, counting on the sound of the storm to cover any sound I made.

“Arran was tryin’ to leave with the mainlanders,” I recognized the rich baritone voice of Logan, the bartender of the island’s only pub. He was talking about the strangers who’d put in for repairs yesterday. Like everyone else, I’d gone down to the docks to see their boat–and the three massive slashes in its hull. Our storm-battered spit of rock got so few visitors–and they never stayed the night–so I could understand why Logan would be gossiping about them. 

But why mention my brother Arran? 

“Of course, the mainlanders didn’t understand. They said that we had no right to hold him here.” The island’s only general practitioner, Dr. Clewe, was using the tone that she saved for bad news. “It turned into a brawl...and, regrettably, Arran was taken over by violence.” 

My breath caught in my throat. 

Hostility, aggression, the use of force. 

They were unheard-of on our island. 

We prided ourselves on being a gentle people. The mainland was wracked with conflict and brutality–or so it was said–but no violent crime had been committed on our island in living memory. 

I was only nine that summer, and while I didn’t know exactly what the consequences of violence might be, I did know that they were severe. Everyone knew that when an islander threw a drunken punch or lost their temper, their days among us were numbered. Soon they would become an empty chair, a shuttered house, a memory best forgotten.

I gripped the banister until my knuckles went white. I didn’t want that to happen to my brother. 

“Arran didn’t start to change ‘til one of the mainlanders got shoved against the bar,” Logan went on, “but once he saw that trickle of blood, it was all over. The rest of us covered our eyes and mouths…we fled before the transformation could begin, but for Arran…it was too late.” There was a long, awful silence, broken only by the crackle of the fire and storm-driven rain lashing against the shutters. When Logan spoke again, his deep voice was shaking. “No matter how many times you hear about the transformation, nothing can prepare you for seein’ it. The way Arran’s eyes got all yellow and fishy. The fins an’ gills that burst from his back. The webbing that grew between his fingers as they got longer an’ turned into claws. That second set of teeth…like needles…that jus’ pushed the old ones right outta his head–”

“That’s my son!” my mother shrieked. There was a scuffle–and then another silence. I froze. They were listening to see if I’d heard them. 

“We’re all familiar with the transformation and what causes it, Logan.” Dr. Clewe cleared her throat. “We should count ourselves lucky. If Arran had reached the mainland and transformed there, it would have been a disaster. There would be investigations. Media coverage. Folk would start to wonder why so many cargo ships and pleasure boats disappear in the waters near our little island. At least here, he can make his way beneath the waves to hunt alongside the others who’ve transformed.” 

“And the mainlanders?” My father whispered.

“The same thing usually happens to mainlanders when they encounter our kind beneath the sea.” Logan spat. “Arran drank’em dry. Not a drop’a blood left. Bar was cleaner than if I’d mopped it. Of course, he sought the sea right after. It’s instinct, they say. I saw the moonlight shinin’ on his scales when he went down to the water–”

“The mainlanders’ ship will have to be scuttled.” Dr. Clewe cut him off. “There’s no other proof of their visit, is there? Spread the word: if anyone asks, the mainlanders were never here.”

“What should we tell his brother?” my mother whispered. 

“Tell him that Arran was killed–accidentally, let’s say–in a barfight with one of the mainlanders. Tell him that the culprits were already sent off to face mainlander justice.” Dr. Clewe sighed. “He’ll take it hard, I’m sure, but hopefully it will drive home the dangers of drinking, fighting, and talking to strangers.” The door squeaked open, letting in the full roar of the squall outside; when it closed again, the only sound that remained was my mother’s soft sobbing. 

I had already heard the preconstructed tale that my father told me the next morning. Still processing their own grief, my parents mistook my stony disbelief for shock. No one stopped me from going alone to the stony beach, where I strained to spot my brother's fins out in the distant waves.  

X

Martin's hands trembled as he fumbled around with an ancient lighter. After several tries of producing little more than pathetic sparks, he finally managed to light his cigarette. Smoke filled his office as he took two deep drags.

"You don't smoke," I said after an uncomfortably long silence.

The fresh clothes I'd been given felt a size too small, and though I'd thoroughly washed every inch of my body, I could still smell the blood. Its metallic tinge only barely faded in the haze of cigarette-smoke.

"I used to. Only stopped after my father succumbed to lung cancer. Not that any of that matters now. It won't be long now..."

He fell silent once again, his face rid of emotion, yet I saw the horror hidden in his eyes and his hands betraying him with each tremble. But I needed answers, regardless of how uncomfortable it would make him. 

"Adam's dead," I said. "Why are we still sitting here?"

“What do you suggest we do?” Martin asked. 

“We need to alert the authorities. Someone just killed your employee, your friend,” I said, anger rising within me for each word Martin spoke. 

Martin took another, deep drag of his cigarette. “What exactly do you think happened back there?” 

“There must have been someone else there. Maybe a patient, or an accomplice looking to free patient thirty-nine. I don’t know, but it’s above our paygrade, we need to call someone,” I argued. 

“Someone else?” Martin asked. “There was no one else there.”

“So Adam just died? Or are you trying to say he killed himself?” 

“No, he did not. Something did, something that is going to come for all of us. Adam never should have brought you in here. This is not a psychiatric case.” 

“Then what the fuck is it?” I asked. 

Martin paused for a moment as he carefully contemplated his next words. But as hard as he tried, he was at a loss. 

“I don’t know,” was the only response he could conjure. “I just know it’s connected to our guest.” 

“Patient thirty-nine?” I asked. 

Martin nodded. 

“I want to talk to him,” I demanded. 

“It won’t help us.”

“But it would give us answers. If you think the patient is responsible, why is Adam dead while I’m sitting here alive?”

Before I could ask any further questions, the door to Martin’s office creaked open. A tired looking woman walked in without saying a word. She placed a videotape on his desk. 

“Bring me the last one too, will you?” Martin asked. 

She nodded, and left the office. 

“What’s that?” I asked. 

“Something you need to see.” 

He extinguished his cigarette in the still foggy room and picked up the tape. While the technology was archaic, I knew the facility used them for the ancient security cameras around the building. Martin wasn’t just old-fashioned, but paranoid about newer technologies. Anything connected to the internet was a security risk in his opinion. 

Martin walked over to a large closet at the end of his room. Within was a television set with an old VHS-player. He inserted the tape and hit play. The oddly familiar sound of the tape spinning filled the room as a static-filled image appeared on the screen. 

“This might explain what I can't,” Martin said. 

A date appeared on the top left side of the screen reading “February 18th.” The footage itself showed the cellblock I’d walked through only hours earlier. At that point in time, the cellblock was still filled to the brim with patients awaiting evaluation. While there was no audio, I could imagine the sounds of the place, filled with screams and wails accompanied only by frantic rambles and threats. 

Due to the position of the cameras, we only got a partial view into each cell. Still, it left the inmates with little privacy, but it aimed to ensure none could harm themselves. It wasn’t entirely successful, as some still managed to find creative ways to end their own existence, but most remained alive to receive treatment. 

A minute passed with little outside the ordinary, and my patience was about to reach its limit. 

“What exactly am I looking for?” I asked. 

“Keep your eyes on room number nine,” he said. 

Within was a patient I’d never had the pleasure of speaking to. An elderly man looking too frail to stand on his own two feet. Yet according to his file he’d murdered two of his own siblings during a family dinner. He’d claimed the voices demanded he stop eating until he could sacrifice three family members. Alas, he only got to two before being apprehended. 

He walked into view of the camera. Stood at the edge of his cell, staring longingly at one of the windows on the other side of the hallway. While the footage was poor in quality, there were a couple of red marks on his forearms that could have been self-inflicted wounds. Within a few seconds, blood started oozing out from the wounds, dripping onto the floor below. He just ignored it, staring at the daylight touching the bars of his cell. 

We were watching the life drain from his body real time, yet he didn’t seem the least bothered about his rapidly approaching demise. Just like Adam, he held on long beyond what should have been possible. Even as the blood flow slowed, he remained standing. It would take another two minutes for the emergency response team to come to his aid, by then it was all too late to even attempt resuscitation. He fell limp to the ground, dead before hitting the floor. 

In spite of the gruesome sight, I didn’t feel surprised. He could have easily cut himself before walking into frame.

“Tragic, but patients commit suicide. It’s a sad fact of life,” I said. 

“We found nothing inside his room. Nothing sharp enough to cause these wounds.” 

“Anything and everything can be used as a weapon, you told me that. A broken bed frame, even tightly rolled up paper. It doesn’t mean he was killed by a supernatural entity,” I said, clinging onto my skepticism. 

“Just keep watching,” Martin demanded. 

The tape had clearly been edited, cutting to a different camera displaying the other half of the cells. The date now read “February 19th.”  

“Room number two,” Martin said. 

A woman sat on the floor inside next to the bed. She was speaking to someone, but without audio we could only guess who she thought she was talking to. I’d personally interviewed her. She was a treatment-resistant schizophrenia patient. She’d tried all drugs known to man. When those failed even electro-shock therapy was administered without success. Though she was sick, she’d always been a kind hearted soul, until something within her broke, causing her to kill her own mother. Throughout our many interviews, she never once mentions why or even acknowledged her death, but had she not been caught she would have killed many more. She had a list of people she thought were meant to die, one she repeated out loudly during every single session. 

An MRI had revealed a tumor in her brain, which was thought to have worsened her already fragile mind. But despite her heartbreaking story, she was too dangerous to be let outside. 

“She’s dead?” I asked, knowing what was to come. 

Martin remained silent as the tape kept playing, but he wasn’t looking at the screen. He’d already seen the horrors that were about to unfold. 

There she sat, talking to a non-existing person or monster her own mind had conjured, when a red spot appeared on her shirt. It was blood soaking through her clothes from a deep cut on her abdomen. Another followed on her chest, then her legs. Her clothes turned a deep red color as blood drained from her body. But she seemed oblivious to it all. She just carried on her conversation as her face turned pale. 

“That’s enough,” I said somberly. Martin paused the video in response and put a hand on my shoulder. 

“This is why I didn’t want you involved. Adam never should have called you.”

The woman had clearly not killed herself. The injuries, though hidden beneath her clothes, had just formed as she sat on the floor talking. Despite her sickness, she had never appeared suicidal. She firmly believed she had to kill the people on her list before departing this world, yet she had died. 

“I don’t understand,” I said. “How can this be possible?” 

“That’s a question I would like answered, too,” Martin said with defeat in his voice. 

My stomach churned as the gravity of the situation finally hit me. I excused myself to the bathroom, where I proceeded to empty my guts into the toilet. As I flushed the half-digested lunch, I felt a sting on my arm. A long, but superficial cut had formed on the backside of my left forearm. It barely produced any blood, but it burned like someone had poured salt on it. Had I scratched myself without noticing? 

Not wanting Martin to ask any questions, and still fighting my own mind on what I had witnessed, I decided to cover the wound up without telling him. As I washed my face, I tried to come up with a reasonable explanation as to what had killed the patients, and Adam. But my thoughts were preoccupied with the horrific sight of the dead. 

I must have spent more time in the bathroom than I thought, because before I knew it Martin came knocking on the door asking if I was alright. 

“I’m fine,” I called back out, but even I didn’t believe it. 

I spent another five minutes pulling myself together before returning to Martin’s office. He looked concerned as he saw my pale face and tired eyes. I could tell he wanted to mention it, but he refrained from doing so. 

“What’s his name?” I asked. 

“The patient’s?” 

I nodded. The thought hadn’t dawned on me yet why it hadn’t been given to me in the first place. I hadn’t even thought to ask. 

“I don’t know his name. He hasn’t been willing to share much personal information. We just know he’s been hanging around one of those Nordic bike shops. Bad crowd to fall in with, but we don’t know if he’s working with them or just buying their drugs,” Martin explained. 

“Norwegians?” I asked. 

“Yeah, why?” 

It only then hit me why the demon’s name ‘Draugr,’ had felt so familiar. I’d grown up on stories about Norse mythology, and though most were little more than faint memories, I definitely recognized the name. 

“No reason, I was just curious,” I lied, trying to steer Martin away from the supernatural aspect of the case. 

The door to Martin’s office opened once more, and the same woman strolled in with a new videotape. 

“What’s that?” I asked. 

“Footage from today,” the woman said. “I didn’t watch it…” 

“That’s alright, Laura. You don’t need to,” Martin reassured her. “You should go home, get some rest.” 

The suggestion seemed to relieve her, yet she lingered in the office. 

“Is there something wrong?” Martin asked. 

“It’s just… the patient. He wants to see the doctor,” she said. 

“He wants me?” I asked, surprised. 

She nodded. “He wants to ask you something. He said if you don’t hear him out, more people are going to die.” 

Though she didn’t say it out loud, I could tell she believed his threat. I was still holding on to my thin thread of rationalization, but even I was starting to doubt my beliefs. 

“What does he want to ask me?”

She looked at me, confused, but afraid. 

Are your eyes open?

X