The art was merely a reflection of me, of my soul, my darkness. I shook my head to focus and looked into myself.

Usually, my visualizations changed somewhat with each visit, but it hadn’t this time. My reservoir was still a pool, but it wasn’t the same pond of calm invisible energy. It had transformed into a muddled, dirty black.

An occasional bubble floated to the surface and popped as if the energy was a brew in a witch’s cauldron. I wanted to reach out and touch it, but there was a wrongness to it. That jetski-loofah-atari guy must have tainted my energy somehow.

A distant scream that made my shoulders tense came from the roiling pond and I recoiled, then a pull brought me back to reality.

I turned to see Al’s rage-filled face, as she picked me up by the front of my shirt. She lifted me and my back slid up the wall as I rose into the air until my feet no longer touched the floor.

“What did you do to Jesse?” she asked in a low threatening voice.

“Al. It’s me,” I replied with difficulty.

“Bullshit,” she said.

“Language,” I said tugging at my collar and she eyed me curiously. “Al, it’s me. I promise.”

“I don’t believe you,” she spat.

“Listen. I’ll tell you what happened, and if you’re not satisfied, please don’t kill me,” I pleaded with a weak smile. She waited a long moment, then slowly lowered me to the floor. Her eyes were stuck to me as she cautiously stepped back. She gestured for me to sit on the couch, but kept me within pouncing distance. I hesitantly sat where she motioned.

“So…” I said clearing my throat. “As I was saying, I tell Bucket a little about my situation and he decides to take advantage of my talents.” I went into a completely accurate accounting of my experience in jail without embellishing at all.

“No...” Dale reached out to try to comfort me, but I shied away.

“Don’t. Let me finish,” I said sadly. With a dramatic sniff to hold back tears, I collected myself. “It may have been a masterful strike, but there was a silver lining. It made me immune to poison. So, while the demons melted, I survived and the beautiful nurse was saved. She tried to kiss me, but I stopped her. I didn’t want to get her hopes up; I had to let her go, so I said, ‘I’m sorry Henrietta, my friends are in trouble, and they need me.’ I couldn’t bear to see the tears running down her cheeks as I walked away. Moved by my pain, the guards released me. And even though I was overcome by weariness, I walked, and they watched as I disappeared into the sunset.

“I shed the shackles of captivity, but I couldn’t escape the chains of reality. After so many trials, I finally succumbed to exhaustion.”

“Wow,” Dale said clapping.

“Thank you,” I said. “It was a truly harrowing experience, but somehow, I survived.”

“That’s not what happened,” Al said.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “That’s exactly what happened.”

“No, it’s not,” she said. “You were in jail for all of a few hours. Let me tell you what actually happened: You got attacked because you said something stupid. You got injured and ran away screaming. You called me because you couldn’t handle it and said something stupid. They found you and you were forced to stall, hoping I’d come save you, but your stupid plan didn’t work, and you got injured again because you said something stupid. Somehow you got lucky and escaped. Then, I picked you up off the street and here we are.”

I pouted. “That is not what happened.”

“No, that sounds much more likely than whatever you said,” Shawn agreed.

“Actually, that does make a lot more sense,” Dale added. I glowered.

“Shut up, Dale.”

“Well, at least you convinced me that you’re still yourself,” Al said with a sigh. “Nobody would come up with such an elaborate, and obviously fake, story besides you.”

“I take offense to that.”

“You would,” Al replied. “More to the point, can you fix whatever happened to you?”

I shrugged.

“Does that mean you can’t heal my face?!” Shawn exclaimed desperately.

“I think you look better this way,” I said to what looked like an expression of constipation. It was hard to tell by the way he looked and not just because his face was swollen. “Speaking of your face, how did you manage to screw up watching a teenage girl?”

“Yeah,” Dale asked. “I was wondering about that.” Shawn looked back and forth between us, most likely because he was going to be embarrassed by the stupid words that were about to spew from his face.

“Some woman knocked on the door of your apartment,” Shawn said. He continued, but mid-sentence he focused on me. “She was pretty cute, and I thought she’d come to see me, but she said she was your sister.” My heart dropped into my stomach, and Al spun toward him.

“You talked to Selena?” I asked eagerly. “What did she say?”

“I— hmm… I don’t remember, but I got the impression she was trustworthy, so I went for a walk.” I stared at him incredulously.

“She was there and you just went for a walk?”

“Well, yeah. And I was a little disappointed that she was gone when I got back, but at least Cara was happy to see me.” He squinted as if trying to remember. “But then she was gone too and Dale came back. I nodded to him—then… I was in the lobby.”

We considered Shawn for a moment, each of us with different expressions.

“Wow. Great story…” Dale said.

“My sister was there and you went for a walk…” I said. “I hate you so much.”

Cara sat up and groaned, clutching her head. Al was about to knock her out again, but I held a stump out to stop her. I didn’t want to believe Shawn’s claim about Selena, but if Cara knew her somehow, I had to know.

I stepped forward to look directly into Cara’s eyes. They were the silver gray of the metal art that showed me my true nature. She shot back in alarm. I smiled at her.

“Hey Cara, I think I have a way to help you with your little demon problem.”

She appraised me curiously. I grabbed her hand.

“Come with me,” I said but didn’t pull her to her feet to guide her anywhere. Instead, I dragged her consciousness with me into her soul.

For me, going into a mindspace was like walking into a building, a place like any other. The threshold was like a door. Even if I’d lost my ability to heal, this was my real power. Having pulled Poison into my soul, I was confident I could do the same with anyone else. I took Cara to the place inside her soul where Jascia resided. As I remembered, it was a dark rocky room that looked more like it belonged to a cult than someone’s home, even if she was a demon.

Jascia sat on the steps leading to her stone throne. She moved slowly, as if it pained her to do so. It was almost like she had a hangover, with her head in one hand covering her eyes, as if the lights of the dim cave were too bright and she was nursing a headache. Cara surveyed the scene with confusion, trying to take it all in.

“Hey Jascia!” I shouted. She put her hands up to shield herself from the noise. “I want to introduce you to someone.” I pulled Cara in front of me. She looked shell-shocked by the scene and the monster in front of her.

“What do you want?” Jascia asked weakly. Her hands dropped so she could see me and my guest. Her eyes shot open in alarm when she saw Cara. “Is that—?”

“Yeah, it’s Cara.” They both stared at each other in disbelief. “I’m here to broker a deal.”