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Description
PROLOUGE

"The passing of these four souls through the realm of eternity..." The preacher goes on, his voice steady, a slow, monotonous tone typically equated with the preacher cliché. Caleb's mind was elsewhere entirely. Standing over the graves of his mother and father, his older sister and younger brother... the world around him fell away. His hands clasped in front of him loosely, hanging level with his hips, he just stares, unable to do much else.

"Through to the shining gates of Heaven..."
Phrases of the funeral sermon slipped in through his consciousness, a melancholy melody to his pained mind, the words in time with the slow thrum of his heart, the whirring of the soft wind around him. The gravestones moved in and out of focus as images began to play out.

Crammed in between his older sister and younger brother in the back of his parent's Subaru, the smiles on their faces as they sang along to the newest radio hit, his sister, Maggie, snapping her fingers with the beat. His brother, Jack, grinned at him, trying to get him to dance along. Caleb had rolled his eyes, laughing at them both.

"Untouched by the Evil One's hand..."

"Come on, Cale. Or are you too cool to dance with us?" Maggie prodded, elbowing him in the side.
"Way too cool." Caleb laughed, rocking back and forth in a move of his own, just to knock his siblings against the doors of the car, chuckling at their groans of protest.

"How much further is the cabin, honey?" Their mother questioned, leaning back to look at the middle son.

"Spurred only by God's hand, his grace..."

"Hang a left up here, pops." Caleb directed, pointing off to the mouth of a long, dirt road. They were nearly there.

"The Holy Father will open these Gates, allow these souls into heaven..."

Nearly missing the turn, his dad spins the wheel quickly, passing over lanes of oncoming traffic. Tires squeal against macadam, a hiss of the breaks signals the attempt at slowing.

"Behind them, these Gates will close, barring evil and sin from entrance..."

Without warning, glass shattered into the vehicle, a horrible screeching sound as metal ground against metal, mangling itself. Screams ring out, something warm spatters across Caleb's face.

"These souls will be taken in by ancestors stretching back over millions of years..."
Dazed, Caleb looks around, panicked and confused. Pain radiates through him, spiking across his skull, his right shoulder, an unbearable heat sweltering around him.

"Warm embraces..."

His head lolling to the right, he sees Maggie staring back at him, her big hazel eyes looking faded, glassy… vacant.

"Mags?" Caleb whispers, his voice hoarse as understanding gradually begins to
sweep over him. "Maggie!?"

"The intermingling of death..."

His parents lay hunched in their seats in front of him, neither moving. Neither airbag had deployed, glass lay shattered around them, the windshield shown as a bloody mess of intermingling scars. The breeze that lilted inside was tainted with a coppery scent... So much blood...

"With a new life..."

Jack groans beside him, a moment later, a panicked cry bursts from his lips.

"A life in Heaven with the Lord and all his children..."

"Caleb!" Jack screams, shaking his older brother, sending another burst of pain throughout his body. Everything speeds up at that point, the flames flooding in through the windows, engulfing the entire car. Jack wails as the fire catches him, licking at his clothes. Caleb’s heart leaps in his throat as he realizes his brother’s leg is pinned between the seat and the door, keeping him from escape. In a frantic attempt to save the younger boy, he smacks at the smoldering material, trying to put it out, only to little avail. Smoke fills the cabin of the car, suffocating them. Managing to stand, Caleb throws an elbow into the skylight, shattering the already damaged glass.

"The light will shine around them, keeping them safe from danger, from fear, sadness."

Jack's cries softened into pained whimpers as Caleb kicks at the door, cracking the interior enough to get his brother loose. "Come on!" Caleb urges the boy, tugging his arm. Adrenaline was pounding through his veins with a dizzying intensity, blocking out the pain that each movement caused him. Pulling himself onto the roof of the flaming SUV, he reaches his hand back in for the kid to take, their fingers just barely touching as the other vehicle, its front end mostly inside of the passenger side of their car, explodes.

"And all will be well, in a blissful eternity..."

Before he realizes what had happened, Caleb is flying through the air, hurled like a ragdoll from the blast. He meets the concrete swiftly, the world spinning into a blur of color, only to fade into darkness.

"Happy and safe, forever more..."

"Amen."

Three months later

Caleb tried to put his life back together. He tried to go back to work, tried to reconnect with the friends and family that came to him, offering their condolences, but he couldn't. Fighting terrifying images of the crash every night, every time he closed his eyes, left him sleepless and on edge, just wanting to be alone. He couldn't face the others, spouting meaningless words of sympathy, couldn't accept their words as they tried to empathize with him. They knew nothing. You could never pretend to feel this sort of pain unless you actually lived it. It wasn't just a reoccurring night terror created by his imagination, not like the moaning, dilapidated zombies and the blood-thirsty scaled sea serpent he used to dream of in his childhood that kept him up at night, fearing the dark and the deep end of the pool... It was reality.

Soon, Jack Daniels became his only companion. Hard whiskey was his counselor, his confidant. It pulled him into the utter halcyon of numbness, allowing him to muddle through each night. The burn of the liquid scorched the thickness of sorrow that had built up around his heart, covering the organ in its own sort of Novocain. His most recent bottle nearing an end, Caleb sits at the foot of his bed, waiting impatiently for the feeling to overtake him, to allow him a few hours of darkened slumber it promised him.

Eyes half lidded, Caleb’s pulled back into a muted degree of attentiveness as heavy footsteps sound in the hallway outside of his room. In his head, he follows the steps, mapping out their path from the window, his gaze shifting to the door as they come to halt outside of it. Slowly, it creaks open. In a daze, Caleb watches, thinking for sure he must have imagined it. Moments later, an inky, swirling shadow appears, seeming to blow into the room like the smoke of a freshly lit cigarette, causing a throb of desire to pound lightly at the base of his chest.

As Caleb watches, convinced he'd finally slipped over the edge into insanity, the smoke begins to take the shape of a body, first arms, fingertips to shoulders, then the rest fills out, like hot wax being poured into a mold, the head forming last. As he stares, the apparition moves to loom over him, as if it were evaluating him, studying him. He couldn’t make out any features, no discernable qualities. It was merely a spiraling outline of a body, filled in with darkness. There was no broadness or swell of its chest, its hips just as thin, long fingers stretching from its hands. If the creature had a gender, Caleb couldn’t tell.

"I can take your pain away." The words echo around Caleb, deep, almost soothing. Despite everything, he lets out a huff of a laugh.

"Right, sure you can." As if accepting his words as a challenge, the shadow lowers to his height, a spectral hand reaching out to touch his forehead. The touch was firm, despite the lack of substance in the object that pressed against his skin. Almost instantly, Caleb feels the high of release, his body loosening, the tension slipping from his muscles. He could’ve swore he saw a burst of color, like something straight out of a comic book. The ache of his newly formed addictions faded, allowing him to breathe, his lungs filling with sweet, guilt-free air.

The feeling lasted only moments before his emotions were dropped back onto him like an inky black, soaked blanket being slapped over his head. His lungs felt heavy, refusing to
take in more than a shudder of air, his throat burned with desire for alcohol, nicotine. His head, which had felt airless just moments ago, was weighed down with concrete, the same weight that tugged irritatingly at his eyelids. Hot liquid rose in the back of his throat, threatening to spill out.

"W-what did you...How-?" He sputters, unable to reign in his thoughts enough to form a single statement. Everything hurt, his brain, most of all.

A rumbling chuckle reverberates through the air, the voice, as it speaks again, is neither male nor female, but a combination of the two, though none at all. "Do you believe me now?" Breathing quickly, shallow, labored with shock, eyes widened, Caleb nods. He needed the freedom, craved it with all the desperation of a dehydrated man in the thick of the Sahara, a promise of water just over the horizon.

"I can give you everything. All I ask of you is to offer me shelter."

"Please..." Caleb's voice is hardly a whisper, feeble. "Anything..." Tentatively, the shadow reaches out, its fingertips gliding gently over the man's cheek. The thin hairs on the back of Caleb’s neck rise as a shudder runs through him, indistinguishable of fear or pleasure. Its thumb slides to Caleb's lips, parting them as it leans in, as if it were going to kiss him. The man pulls back slightly in protest, pausing as his breath thickens, his eyelids growing heavier.

"Relax... I’ll take it all away, give you a new start…" The shadow whispers while settling closer against the man. Caleb obeys, his eyes fluttering shut against his own volition. Faintly, he feels light touches trailing his sides, his chest. A moan escapes him as his head drops back against the mattress, his consciousness beginning to waver, to fade. A warm breath against his lips is the last thing he feels before everything slips away into a comforting oblivion, the only thing left, is the spectral figure’s voice inside his mind, echoing softly as it melds with him, settling itself inside Caleb's body.

"So much pain...such Malice."

Description
PROLOUGE

"The passing of these four souls through the realm of eternity..." The preacher goes on, his voice steady, a slow, monotonous tone typically equated with the preacher cliché. Caleb's mind was elsewhere entirely. Standing over the graves of his mother and father, his older sister and younger brother... the world around him fell away. His hands clasped in front of him loosely, hanging level with his hips, he just stares, unable to do much else.

"Through to the shining gates of Heaven..."
Phrases of the funeral sermon slipped in through his consciousness, a melancholy melody to his pained mind, the words in time with the slow thrum of his heart, the whirring of the soft wind around him. The gravestones moved in and out of focus as images began to play out.

Crammed in between his older sister and younger brother in the back of his parent's Subaru, the smiles on their faces as they sang along to the newest radio hit, his sister, Maggie, snapping her fingers with the beat. His brother, Jack, grinned at him, trying to get him to dance along. Caleb had rolled his eyes, laughing at them both.

"Untouched by the Evil One's hand..."

"Come on, Cale. Or are you too cool to dance with us?" Maggie prodded, elbowing him in the side.
"Way too cool." Caleb laughed, rocking back and forth in a move of his own, just to knock his siblings against the doors of the car, chuckling at their groans of protest.

"How much further is the cabin, honey?" Their mother questioned, leaning back to look at the middle son.

"Spurred only by God's hand, his grace..."

"Hang a left up here, pops." Caleb directed, pointing off to the mouth of a long, dirt road. They were nearly there.

"The Holy Father will open these Gates, allow these souls into heaven..."

Nearly missing the turn, his dad spins the wheel quickly, passing over lanes of oncoming traffic. Tires squeal against macadam, a hiss of the breaks signals the attempt at slowing.

"Behind them, these Gates will close, barring evil and sin from entrance..."

Without warning, glass shattered into the vehicle, a horrible screeching sound as metal ground against metal, mangling itself. Screams ring out, something warm spatters across Caleb's face.

"These souls will be taken in by ancestors stretching back over millions of years..."
Dazed, Caleb looks around, panicked and confused. Pain radiates through him, spiking across his skull, his right shoulder, an unbearable heat sweltering around him.

"Warm embraces..."

His head lolling to the right, he sees Maggie staring back at him, her big hazel eyes looking faded, glassy… vacant.

"Mags?" Caleb whispers, his voice hoarse as understanding gradually begins to
sweep over him. "Maggie!?"

"The intermingling of death..."

His parents lay hunched in their seats in front of him, neither moving. Neither airbag had deployed, glass lay shattered around them, the windshield shown as a bloody mess of intermingling scars. The breeze that lilted inside was tainted with a coppery scent... So much blood...

"With a new life..."

Jack groans beside him, a moment later, a panicked cry bursts from his lips.

"A life in Heaven with the Lord and all his children..."

"Caleb!" Jack screams, shaking his older brother, sending another burst of pain throughout his body. Everything speeds up at that point, the flames flooding in through the windows, engulfing the entire car. Jack wails as the fire catches him, licking at his clothes. Caleb’s heart leaps in his throat as he realizes his brother’s leg is pinned between the seat and the door, keeping him from escape. In a frantic attempt to save the younger boy, he smacks at the smoldering material, trying to put it out, only to little avail. Smoke fills the cabin of the car, suffocating them. Managing to stand, Caleb throws an elbow into the skylight, shattering the already damaged glass.

"The light will shine around them, keeping them safe from danger, from fear, sadness."

Jack's cries softened into pained whimpers as Caleb kicks at the door, cracking the interior enough to get his brother loose. "Come on!" Caleb urges the boy, tugging his arm. Adrenaline was pounding through his veins with a dizzying intensity, blocking out the pain that each movement caused him. Pulling himself onto the roof of the flaming SUV, he reaches his hand back in for the kid to take, their fingers just barely touching as the other vehicle, its front end mostly inside of the passenger side of their car, explodes.

"And all will be well, in a blissful eternity..."

Before he realizes what had happened, Caleb is flying through the air, hurled like a ragdoll from the blast. He meets the concrete swiftly, the world spinning into a blur of color, only to fade into darkness.

"Happy and safe, forever more..."

"Amen."

Three months later

Caleb tried to put his life back together. He tried to go back to work, tried to reconnect with the friends and family that came to him, offering their condolences, but he couldn't. Fighting terrifying images of the crash every night, every time he closed his eyes, left him sleepless and on edge, just wanting to be alone. He couldn't face the others, spouting meaningless words of sympathy, couldn't accept their words as they tried to empathize with him. They knew nothing. You could never pretend to feel this sort of pain unless you actually lived it. It wasn't just a reoccurring night terror created by his imagination, not like the moaning, dilapidated zombies and the blood-thirsty scaled sea serpent he used to dream of in his childhood that kept him up at night, fearing the dark and the deep end of the pool... It was reality.

Soon, Jack Daniels became his only companion. Hard whiskey was his counselor, his confidant. It pulled him into the utter halcyon of numbness, allowing him to muddle through each night. The burn of the liquid scorched the thickness of sorrow that had built up around his heart, covering the organ in its own sort of Novocain. His most recent bottle nearing an end, Caleb sits at the foot of his bed, waiting impatiently for the feeling to overtake him, to allow him a few hours of darkened slumber it promised him.

Eyes half lidded, Caleb’s pulled back into a muted degree of attentiveness as heavy footsteps sound in the hallway outside of his room. In his head, he follows the steps, mapping out their path from the window, his gaze shifting to the door as they come to halt outside of it. Slowly, it creaks open. In a daze, Caleb watches, thinking for sure he must have imagined it. Moments later, an inky, swirling shadow appears, seeming to blow into the room like the smoke of a freshly lit cigarette, causing a throb of desire to pound lightly at the base of his chest.

As Caleb watches, convinced he'd finally slipped over the edge into insanity, the smoke begins to take the shape of a body, first arms, fingertips to shoulders, then the rest fills out, like hot wax being poured into a mold, the head forming last. As he stares, the apparition moves to loom over him, as if it were evaluating him, studying him. He couldn’t make out any features, no discernable qualities. It was merely a spiraling outline of a body, filled in with darkness. There was no broadness or swell of its chest, its hips just as thin, long fingers stretching from its hands. If the creature had a gender, Caleb couldn’t tell.

"I can take your pain away." The words echo around Caleb, deep, almost soothing. Despite everything, he lets out a huff of a laugh.

"Right, sure you can." As if accepting his words as a challenge, the shadow lowers to his height, a spectral hand reaching out to touch his forehead. The touch was firm, despite the lack of substance in the object that pressed against his skin. Almost instantly, Caleb feels the high of release, his body loosening, the tension slipping from his muscles. He could’ve swore he saw a burst of color, like something straight out of a comic book. The ache of his newly formed addictions faded, allowing him to breathe, his lungs filling with sweet, guilt-free air.

The feeling lasted only moments before his emotions were dropped back onto him like an inky black, soaked blanket being slapped over his head. His lungs felt heavy, refusing to
take in more than a shudder of air, his throat burned with desire for alcohol, nicotine. His head, which had felt airless just moments ago, was weighed down with concrete, the same weight that tugged irritatingly at his eyelids. Hot liquid rose in the back of his throat, threatening to spill out.

"W-what did you...How-?" He sputters, unable to reign in his thoughts enough to form a single statement. Everything hurt, his brain, most of all.

A rumbling chuckle reverberates through the air, the voice, as it speaks again, is neither male nor female, but a combination of the two, though none at all. "Do you believe me now?" Breathing quickly, shallow, labored with shock, eyes widened, Caleb nods. He needed the freedom, craved it with all the desperation of a dehydrated man in the thick of the Sahara, a promise of water just over the horizon.

"I can give you everything. All I ask of you is to offer me shelter."

"Please..." Caleb's voice is hardly a whisper, feeble. "Anything..." Tentatively, the shadow reaches out, its fingertips gliding gently over the man's cheek. The thin hairs on the back of Caleb’s neck rise as a shudder runs through him, indistinguishable of fear or pleasure. Its thumb slides to Caleb's lips, parting them as it leans in, as if it were going to kiss him. The man pulls back slightly in protest, pausing as his breath thickens, his eyelids growing heavier.

"Relax... I’ll take it all away, give you a new start…" The shadow whispers while settling closer against the man. Caleb obeys, his eyes fluttering shut against his own volition. Faintly, he feels light touches trailing his sides, his chest. A moan escapes him as his head drops back against the mattress, his consciousness beginning to waver, to fade. A warm breath against his lips is the last thing he feels before everything slips away into a comforting oblivion, the only thing left, is the spectral figure’s voice inside his mind, echoing softly as it melds with him, settling itself inside Caleb's body.

"So much pain...such Malice."