It's been 10 years since her last possession, and Anna is resigned to her fate. 

She thought of the supposed 'blessings' she was meant to receive after being chosen to be an angelic vessel - by her friends, her family, the matrons at the nunnery, and other angelic vessels who gave interviews and travelled the world spreading the message. God knows she's watched enough sinners-turned-saints preach the word of God following an angelic possession. 

She moved to the fridge to retrieve an ice-pack for her aching knee, and spent a few minutes contemplating what exactly she could do next. 

Her ex-husband would be stopping by later, to drop off the last of her things. After losing her faith, she found that she could no longer truly respect someone so willfully deluded, and he could no longer truly love someone who, in his eyes, was soulless. (He did try to love her, the way God commands us to "love everyone", but he couldn't maintain the facade. He's happy to continue loving her from afar, away from her distasteful lack of belief). 

The house was quiet, and sparsely furnished. The 1-bedroom apartment held little, enough for her to survive. Ever since she lost the use of her legs, she found that most furniture was not made for her - and was often uncomfortable, and would take up entirely too much space. 

The couch existed primarily as a space for her visitors to sit; the bedroom contained a bed and an exercise machine to help maintain her strength, and little else. 

The kitchen was mostly bare; most cabinets and the fridge were moved down to make it easier to access. She found herself eating less and less post-possession, and her fridge held little more than a few frozen meals that she would buy, and packaged meals donated by the church. 

She realised that her pension more than covered her daily expenses, but she found little use for the money. The few family members she had remaining would visit her, and she would leave the apartment for a mandated 1-hour session with her physiotherapist every week, and for a daily 'sunlight session'; apart from that, this apartment was her world. 

The only thing brimming in her apartment was her bookshelf; her shelves were doubly stacked with books, the back row propped up on empty tissue boxes so you could see all the titles, and there were a few books stacked near her bed, precariously balanced on the bedside table. Reading was one of the few pleasures she would indulge in, and preferred the lure of fantasy. 

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

On calm, sunny days like this - when her brother would visit after work, and when the street was quiet enough to hear the chirping birds - she would often think of the first time she was possessed. 

Far from being an unpleasant memory, she remembers little of the actual possession, the physical and mental trauma sealed away in her mind. 

She was just 12 when it first happened - the youngest possession in recorded history. Her father, an engineer, was concerned of the long-term effects a possession would have on her growing body; her mother, however, was ecstatic. 

The possession lasted a little less than 48 hours. She remembers waking up that night unreasonably early, attracted by a distant light in the night sky. She remembers going down, leaving the house and walking towards the empty fields; a bright flash, a deafening, all-encompassing, bone-vibrating *whine* and suddenly - 

The neighbours' house is in flames. The neighbours were 2 miles away. Other houses were burned to the ground, and ash - human, animal, wood - floated in the air. She lay, collapsed, surrounded by broken bodies and burnt remains. 

The firefighters found her first, an angelic mark burned onto her left forearm, the skin of her heels and calves singed off, her hair burned up to the root (her hair never grew quite right after that, and she's kept it short ever since). 

She was lucky to make a (mostly) full recovery. Her mother tells her what happened, of the 48 hours of love and forgiveness; how she flew to neighbouring regions to heal the sick and the dying, preach the word of God, and resupplied empty grain silos and low food supplies. Her mother does not mention the hours of vengeance, of heavenly fire raining down on houses of sin, of neighbours being burned alive for reasons only God will know. She doesn't think about this, much. Her mother doesn't, either. 

The time she spent in the hospital after her possession was hellish; the skin on her legs burned and her skull felt raw. Most of all, she was tired. She slept constantly, and was fed via an IV drip for over a week. Slowly, slowly, she recovered her strength. It took a few weeks for her to relearn to walk, to train the weakened muscles in her legs to support her own weight. Her ribs were cracked and took months to heal, but she was given the green light and was allowed to go home just 2 weeks later.

She recovered quickly, and her faith then was strong.