Rosie sat in the corner of the blood-soaked motel room, her back pressed against the peeling paint, as she scratched at the plaster with the shard of broken mirror. Each weak movement sent a fresh ripple of pain through her twisted body, muscles still sore and screaming from being bent into monstrous contortions that no one’s body was ever meant to endure. While Kyle had been unconscious, Rosie had endeavored to fight the thing inside her. But it was so slippery. Her reasoning was sound, but her arguments fell on deaf ears. It wanted her to release it. But how? She had tried to talk to it by looking in the mirror, but her fist had shot out and shattered it. She had tried to seize control of her body, but the struggle was fruitless and resulted in excruciating pain as her limbs stretched and stiffened, twisted and pulled into impossible angles, making her joints scream, and her muscles stretch and tear. The shard slipped from her fingers now, bouncing into the carpet and sticking upright like a knife.

The air was heavy, the room thick and warm with the metallic stench of old blood and the oppressive weight of something other. The broken body of Kyle lay sprawled on the bed like a grotesque centerpiece, the suckling pig at the center of the table. His limbs lay unnaturally askew, and his chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths. The bleeding had stopped hours ago, but he hadn’t moved and he hadn’t spoken. Rosie knew he wouldn’t last much longer. Not without help.

Inside, she was trapped. Her mind was a shattered, desolate landscape, a wreckage of broken thoughts and jagged memories. She cowered in a corner of her own consciousness, arms wrapped around her knees, trying to make herself small, trying not to be noticed. The angry spirit that had taken her body -that thing- still raged through her like a storm, a whirlwind of fury and power that slammed against the walls of her psyche, shaking loose what little remained of her sense of self.

The voice came in fragments, garbled and alien, words that weren’t words crashing into her mind like wrecking balls. Sometimes it sounded almost human, almost understandable, but just as quickly it would warp and twist into something incomprehensible, a snarling cacophony that made her ears ring and her stomach churn.

Still, Rosie listened. She didn’t know why - maybe it was instinct, or desperation, or some tiny flicker of hope that if she could understand what it was saying, she could find a way to fight back. Or maybe it was the fear that if she didn’t listen, she would be swallowed whole, erased completely by the entity that had made her body its home.

Every once in a while, amidst the roaring chaos, a single sound or symbol would rise to the surface, clear and sharp, like a razor through a film of smoke. She would seize on it, grasping at it with what little strength she had left, and inscribe it onto the wall of her mind, carving it into the imagined plaster with trembling fingers. The symbols didn’t make sense, not to her, but they felt important, like pieces of a puzzle that she didn’t know how to solve.

And in the motel room, her body echoed her actions.

Her trembling hand scratched the foreign symbols into the wall with the shard of mirror, her movements automatic, mechanical, as if her mind were trying to communicate with her body through the fog of possession. The lines were jagged, uneven, and barely legible, but they carried otherworldly energy that made her fingers tingle a little as she carved them.

She knew that the spirit was still there, still howling in its rage, too consumed by its own fury to notice her quiet defiance. But she did not remember that she had done this once before. She had written a call for help on a receipt after she had helped the old manager with her groceries. It was a prayer for someone to help a woman named Faith Lawrence. That day, the spirit had been consumed with her. She had never met anyone named Faith in her life, and the feeling of hatred and malevolence that surrounded that repeated name made her glad that she wasn’t Faith. She had been listening to the spirits her whole life. She and her family practiced a religion in which it was common for spirits to reach out and help the people who asked for it. As a little girl, she and her sister would pretend that the Orishas had given them information to pass on and they needed to tell someone or another. It was a silly kids' game based on family traditions. However, in those traditions, a spirit had to be invited by a priest. She was no priest, and she had not asked for this…this invasion.

Now, she felt a need to tell someone again. The spirit was within her and didn’t seem to be able to leave. It wanted something that she didn’t know how to give it. It had forced her to beat her boyfriend half to death while she watched, trapped inside her own mind. It wanted her to break a bond. But she didn’t understand, and the rage that her ignorance caused made the spirit hurt her badly. It was as if it had gained control over the parts of her brain that felt pain and, in its frustration, would randomly slap at the controls, causing excruciating headaches, stabbing internal cramps, soreness in joints and muscles, throbbing, burning, or agony of every sort. This was an evil spirit.

Kyle shuttered slightly and shifted on the bed. Rosie watched and listened.

Ava sensed that the time was near. Kyle’s withdrawal symptoms were at their peak and an infection was beginning to set into the muscles of his shoulder, causing a raging fever. The man had been through physical pain and shock, terror, and longing, and now seemed to be wishing for death.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

What do you think death will do for you Kyle?

She sent the thought into the slowly spinning and moaning consciousness that had once been Kyle Daniels. He had managed to use his legs to scoot himself to the edge of the bed and reach for the bag of drugs that he had hidden there. Of course, she had moved them out of his reach.

Finding nothing under the bed, Kyle had raged. He had yelled obscenities and screamed incoherent threats. He had cried for his loss and begged for someone to come and help him. And throughout, Ava had watched and waited. Now was the time to begin again. But she had to move quickly. He was in danger now on the edge of both understanding and losing everything.

What do you think death will do for you?

She asked again, from inside his weakened mind.

Kyle parted his lips as if to answer. But his throat was raw, and so he thought back at her instead. A pitiful tiny thought of releasing his grip on this world and its pain, disappointments, and longing. A small vision of freedom.

“Yeeeeessssssss,” she sighed into his mind. “You will be separated from your physical self.”

Do you believe that this is possible? That you can experience freedom? That there will be something left to feel it? Do you understand that this is real?

Kyle hesitated, “yes,” he said with his mouth, although no sound escaped through his cracked lips that were caked with dried snot, saliva, and blood.

Kyle, you are a product of your experiences and your actions. You are not to blame for the pain and suffering you have been given by life. But, the Eternal gave you free will to do good or evil, and you have chosen evil. Do you understand?

“I have chosen evil,” Kyle’s eyes welled with tears. “I know, I’m sorry.”

You have no time for regret now Kyle. You will die soon.

Kyle didn’t move. Didn’t blink. But a single tear, pure and perfect spilled over his cheek and into his grime-caked hair.

“I wish I could die high,” Kyle thought.

Silence.

In his peripheral vision, something moved.

“Please, No, oh please, don’t hurt me anymore,” Kyle began to blubber.

You were almost there Kyle. [dissapointment]

Rosie crawled towards him on her hands and knees, dragging her black and swollen ankle behind her. Her head was hanging and swung slightly as if only her arms and legs were being controlled. As she drew closer to the foot of the bed and rounded the corner to come up on his side, he heard small sniffles. She was crying quietly.

For the first time in his life, Kyle thought of what it must be like for another person to suffer. Her small, pitiful sobs tore at his heart. He wanted this to stop. He wanted his and Rosie’s pain to stop. As she neared Kyle’s dangling hand, Rosie began to cry louder and lifted her head to look at him. Her beautiful face had become puffy, blotchy, and tear-streaked. He could see her fine cheekbones more clearly than he ever had before and realized that he had been starving her. Starving her by withholding food, yes, but also refusing to love her, to care for her, or even see her as a person. Her bloodshot eyes focused on his.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she lifted his hand. She froze there for a moment. And when she began to move again, Kyle saw her eyes change from the gorgeous chocolate brown that he had always admired to moldy mud, to olive, and then to a shimmering deep green. The grip on his wrist tightened, and he instinctually tried to pull his hand away. Her head dipped down, and he heard the crunch before the pain slapped him with white fire at the end of his middle finger. He screamed out again into the stinking stale air of the motel room as the Rosie thing opened her mouth and then clamped down again while tilting her head to place the next joint between her back teeth like a wolf, gnawing on the exposed rib of a carcass.

Kyle panicked. She was eating his fingers! He had felt the tip of his finger against the back of her throat before the sensation had been replaced by searing hot pain as the last nerve stretched and snapped. He writhed and shook and spasmodically jerked at his hand, but it made no difference. He was caught in a trap, and he was fighting against a superhuman strength. He may as well have been trying to lift a boulder with his one good arm.

Blood spilled from the corners of Rosie’s mouth as she bit down again, crushing the end of his pointer finger with her molars and nearly severing the middle knuckle of his middle finger with her incisors. Kyle screamed at the new blinding pain from his hand and wrestled with Rosie, who was sitting on the floor at the side of the bed, clamped onto his wrist with both of her hands and serenely devouring his fingers. Kyle was strong in his panic and was able to shift Rosie from left to right, but her teeth were firmly closed on his mangled digits, and her entire body just shifted to and fro with his desperate flailing movements. With each jerk away from Rosie came an equal and opposite tug from Rosie’s mouth, her neck muscles standing out as the tendons in her jaw worked, flexing and chewing.

Finally, like a turtle on his back, Kyle gritted his teeth and lifted his leg with the intention of getting himself turned over so that he could kick out at Rosie’s head. His legs were unharmed so far, and he could use them to lever her face away as he pulled his hand towards himself. He pulled and pulled with his right arm and spun his lower body so that he was jack-knifed on his right side again. One more tug would have put him in position to smash Rosie in the face with his size nine. But then he was released, his mangled hand missing the entire middle and half of his right pointer finger shot past his vision, streaming blood in pumping spurts. He grabbed at it with his left hand and wrapped it in the front of his shirt.

Kyle looked at Rosie, who continued to chew on the remains of his fingers. Her eyes were malevolent and fathomless, like green tide pools with only black emptiness at the bottom. Kyle imagined his fingers sliding down her beautiful throat and into her acid-filled stomach as she swallowed and licked her lips. Kyle was astonished at the strength it must have taken to chew human bone and raw flesh like that, and he realized that the entity in control could make them do anything. It could make them hurt each other. It could probably make them hurt themselves as well. Kyle cradled his hand on his stomach and thought about what it had said. You are not your body. And the pieces began to slide together. A tiny inkling of a thought seemed to make sense in that moment. Rosie had said that she was sorry. She was still in there somewhere, and she felt regret. Rosie felt regret. Kyle understood the difference between physical feelings and emotions and sensed that there was more…if he could just wrap his head around…something. You are not your body.

“Yeah? Well, no shit!” Kyle shouted into the half-dark room. “You can do whatever you like to me, but you can’t make me feel anything! Rosie either! We got our own stuff inside, some kinda soul or some shit. And you can’t touch that. Can you, you fuckin’ hag?” Kyle looked over at Rosie. “Rosie? Baby, I know you’re in there,” Kyle shouted at her in desperation.

Rosie slumped to the floor with a thump as her head hit the carpet. She had been released as well, but for how long?

Silence.