“I have the board,” Ivan yelled from the living room. “What do I do?”

With one final check that she really meant to go through with this, Cam opened the bathroom door and stepped out wearing a magnificent crown of flames.

Ivan had the board in one hand, his other reaching for the planchette. He looked up at her and dropped it as he screamed, “Fuck!”

“CHOSEN ONE,” Cam intoned. Her “possessed” voice was mediocre- Seo Jun was the one you wanted for a possession bit- but she trusted the fire to make up for that. “YOU WILL BE REBORN TONIGHT. A NEW AND GLORIOUS EXISTENCE AWAITS YOU. THIS VESSEL-” Cam touched her chest to indicate herself- “WILL GUIDE YOU. LISTEN WELL.”

He knelt by the chest, frozen in place, silent.

“WILL YOU ACCEPT THIS HONOR?”

“I… Y-yes, I accept.” Ivan got himself to his feet and announced a little louder, “I accept.”

“GOOD. WE WILL SEE YOU SOON.” Cam let her body go limp. She didn’t have the training to fall without hurting herself, but took the poor landing in stride. A bruised elbow didn’t mean much in the context of what she had already escaped.

“Are you…?” Ivan stuttered. “Hey. You alive?”

She shuddered and opened her eyes, whispering, “What happened?”

“Your, uh. Your head,” he told her, pointing at his own.

As though just noticing the dwindling fire on her scalp, Cam yelped, gripped her temples, and ran into the bathroom. She turned on the shower to douse the flame. Taking advantage of the chaos, she wiped the remaining gel from her head with a hand towel before Ivan could take notice of it.

“Your hair,” he said from the doorway.

Cam turned to face him, feeling her scalp for any injuries or remaining gel. “It’s gone! How long was I on fire?”

“I don’t know. A minute. Two. You should be fucked up- your whole head was on fire. You don’t even look hurt.”

Confident that she had removed enough evidence of the gel, Cam asked him, “Will you turn on the light?”

He did so. “Holy shit. No burns?”

Cam looked herself over in the mirror. “That was no ordinary fire. What happened, Ivan?”

“You were talking weird. You hear yourself out there?”

“No. It was the spirits.They took advantage of the open door and spoke through me. What did they say to you?”

“Said you were supposed to guide me.”

“I have. I connected you with them. Did I do something wrong? Were they angry with me?”

“No, they said I would be reborn, and you would guide me,” he explained, something like excitement creeping into his voice.

Cam sat on the edge of the bathtub. “I see.”

“You know something about that?”

“They want you to ascend. To reach immortality. I know about it, yes.” Cam made what eye contact she could with the mask. “My father taught me the ritual.”

“What kind of ritual we talking about?”

“You prepare your spirit for the transformation. There are three steps. Expansion, balance, and transgression. You start by learning or experiencing something you never have before, something that changes how you see the world or yourself.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Yeah, we can go ahead and check that one off.”

Cam smirked. “I suppose we can. Next, you reset. Meditate. Do yoga. Listen to classical music. Anything that brings you back to a centered place. You’re practicing your transformation, understand? Practicing how to become someone different without losing your essential self.”

Ivan leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. “That what happens if it goes wrong? I lose myself?”

“You can.”

He scratched his neck, reaching under his mask a little. “You were right about me. Been a shit life. I overcame a lot.”

With a knowing nod, Cam tried to determine from which of her generalizations he’d drawn this specific fact. She’d speculated earlier that he might once have been meek. Perhaps the thing he’d overcome was his own sense of basic human decency.

She inferred, “You’re strong enough for this.”

“Go on. What’s after balance?”

“The final step is transgression.”

Ivan let out a loud, short laugh, rocking in place. “Shit, Cam. Pretty sure we can cross that one off, too.”

At first, Cam assumed he was making fun of her. Then it hit her- his posture, his tone, the genuine mirth in his laugh. Ivan was being friendly. He thought they were friends.

A quarter of an hour ago, he’d been ready to end her life, and now he had the audacity to believe that the two of them were on good enough terms to joke about that.

“Well,” Cam said lightly, “it’s not quite like that. The kind of transgression we’re talking about isn’t against society or God or anything external. It’s against yourself. In order to overcome your current state, you have to be willing to betray it in some way. To do something that goes against your very nature.”

Ivan took this in with an uncomfortably long silence.

“Alright,” he said at last, straightening and grabbing the top of his ski mask. He pulled it off and ran a hand through his tousled black hair. “Let’s get started.”

Cam stood. Seeing his ordinary face, angular and pale, his five o’clock shadow, his arrogant half-smile, and his small, tired eyes, she wanted nothing more than to attack. Elbow him in the nose, claw his eyes, punch his throat until he was a swollen wet lump on her bathroom floor.

Instead, she smiled. “Balance, then. We’re going for a walk.”

“A walk?” He stepped aside to let her out of the room. “Will that do it?”

“Do you like the rain, Ivan?” Cam opened her closet to pull out a pair of hiking boots and ski pants. She pulled the pants on over her shorts to keep her legs dry.

Joining her in the living room, he said, “Doesn’t bother me.”

As she tied her shoes, she asked him- asked herself, really, “Are we committing to this?”

“Already did.”

“Fully?”

“Seen some shit tonight. I’m in. All the way.”

Cam got up, took out her phone, and turned it off. Her movements could potentially be traced via her phone pinging cell towers if she kept it on. The extra minute it would take power it up again might be a matter of life or death, if it came down to that, but Cam agreed:

“I’m in, too. Are those shoes any good?” She nodded at his boots.

“Sure.”

“It’s a long walk.”

Ivan raised an eyebrow, but he affirmed, “They hold up. How long we talking?”

“We should get there…” Cam craned her neck to see the microwave clock, and Ivan followed her line of sight. “Midnight, maybe.” She slipped on a long rain jacket.

“Okay. Real long walk. Eat something first, yeah?”

He spoke in a purely practical tone, but Cam was once again taken aback. She grabbed the shopping bag of snacks she’d bought earlier and shoved it into the backpack she’s meant to take camping, which was already loaded with water bottles.

“Put this in there.” Ivan handed her his mask.

She didn’t like the thought of any stray hairs getting into her bag, leaving evidence behind, but couldn’t think of a reason to refuse. “Anything else?”

“We avoiding or attracting attention tonight?”

“Avoiding.”

“Hat, then.” Ivan stepped by her and plucked a grey beanie from a hook on the inside of the closet door. He’d probably noticed it while lying in wait for her.

She took the hat from him and put it on. “Ditch the gloves.”

“Right.” Ivan slipped them off, tucked them into a pocket on the inside of his jacket, and patted himself down in search of anything else amiss. “We need to close the door?”

Confused, Cam eased the closet door shut with her foot, but realized before she said anything stupid that he was talking about the door between the living and the dead. “No. We wouldn’t usually leave it open, but it will make the ritual easier for us.”

She waved him out the front door. Cam acknowledged the possibility of simply shutting and locking it behind him, but followed him outside without giving it any serious thought.