One Soul Finale

He’d come up with a way, watching the memories he’d found whenever he was alone, which was often considering there were two other souls in Allie’s body. It was day eleven and Allie’s body was beginning to suffer. Her weight had dropped by a hefty amount and she was on a constant supply of a cocktail of medicine designed to keep her organs from failing, as her liver tried to yesterday. Apparently the demon had been speaking of Allie’s maximum potential time left, not her realistic time left.

Asshole.

“Allie,” Peter said to the hanging form trapped within the coils of the demon, which had taken to resting in the guise of a serpentine creature with tentacles. “Allie, I have a proposition for you.”

“What?” She rasped her former golden hue now a minor sparkle radiating from her pale skin. The mindscape was showing how sick she truly was, and a small part of Peter felt guilty for this.

But the threat of Hell’s fire persuaded him further on.

“I entered your body when you played the game when you and your friends called out to me,” Peter said, lifting up her chin. “The only way to be rid of me is to send the demon back through the entrance you made with the spirit board.”

“You… you want me to play with the Ouija board again?” She asked, confused. “Why would you want to go back?”

“You’re dying Allie, even you must know that,” Peter said. “I don’t want to experience death again, especially a slow agonizing one like you’re going to have. The people of this age have ways to keep you alive long after you should have died. If you were to slip into a coma, your parents could keep you connected to life support for decades, leaving you and I in here, trapped with a ravenous demon.”

Peter was lying of course, at least about his fear of death. He would gladly take a coma for sixty years over the Pit.

“I’m going to allow you a measure of control, to speak to the Priests. Tell them the spirit residing within you is willing to let go, so long as it can leave through the spirit board.”

“Oh thank you, Peter!” Allie exclaimed, wincing as the demon seemingly roused from its slumber.

Peter turned to the black python and smiled. “Let her go, just enough so that she can speak to the Priests and not show up as possessed. We’ve struck an accord.”

The python flicked out a slick black tongue but said nothing, merely unraveling several smoky tendrils from around her, leaving one attached to her ankle. Peter moved away and smiled as she closed her eyes and went to the forefront of her mind. When he knew she was busy, he turned to the python.

It had morphed once more into a skull-like visage, glaring at Peter. “So, eager to rejoin the other sinners in the Pit, are we?”

“Oh ye of little faith,” Peter smiled, turning his attention to what Allie was saying. She was arguing with the priests for a chance to use the spirit board with her friends, to send the demon away.

“Purging me from her body will only send me back to Hell… and you back to the Pit. I’ll make sure you never get the chance to leave it again if you do this!” The demon hissed, the tentacles roiling behind it.

“Oh calm down, you’re the one holding all the cards here, remember?” Peter said with a smirk.

An hour later her friends walked into the room, the priests standing in the corner with the doctor, the pot-bellied priest scowling as Stephanie brought the Ouija board out from a duffel bag. They placed it over Allie’s legs while Peter made her twitch and growl. Aubrey looked terrified, which was enough of a response for Peter to smile. His plan would work so long as they had the desire to get rid of the demon.

“Alright,” Allie said, her dim soul floating next to Peter’s within the mindscape. “So what do I do?”

“You just have them recite this phrase,” he replied, pressing two fingers to her forehead, passing the knowledge over with ease. “After the demon and I leave you should start to recover though your memories will be a tad jumbled. I’ve ripped through them looking around for your memories to torture you with.”

“Yeah, thanks for that…” Allie grumbled.

Peter shrugged. “Meh, it’s in my nature. I’m from Hell, remember?”

“So you’re just going to let me send you back? Won’t you both suffer?”

“Me? Oh yes, the Pit is a nightmare of molten lead and naked bodies slithering against each other. The demon,” Peter said, waving a hand at the scowling skull looming behind them, “will likely get punished somehow, but it’s what we deserve. I can live with the situation.”

“Well… thank you for doing this,” Allie said before surging out of the mindscape, taking hold of her body.

Peter smiled, staring at the black tendril still latched to her soul, the strand disappearing in the fog that was Allie’s consciousness. “Don’t thank me yet,” Peter mumbled, watching as the show began.

The orderlies came and released Allie’s arms from the Kevlar restraints, allowing her to sit up and place her hands on the planchette, her fingers resting on it with Stephanie’s and Aubrey’s. Slowly they moved the planchette across the board, the triangle moving in a figure eight pattern, the circle of glass magnifying the letters for the girls to read.

“Alright… demon residing within, what is thy name? Reveal to me in the name of the trinity!” Allie said, causing the priests to perk up.

The skull quivered for a moment seemingly caught off guard by the question. “Ba’agor!” He hissed before slapping a tendril over his toothy maw. Peter smiled, looking back at the foul entity.

“Gotcha!” Peter said before pushing up into Allie’s mind, forcing her back down. Taking control of her body, he spelled out the demon’s name before announcing it.

“Ba’agor… it’s name is Ba’agor!” Peter exclaimed inn Allie’s haggard voice.

The fat priest moved forward, ignoring Stephanie and Aubrey as he pushed past them and up to Allie. Pressing his crucifix against her forehead he shouted.

“Ba’agor! In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I cast you out! Leave this creature of God, allow his water’s to cleanse your foul presence from her body and be polluted by you no longer!”

Peter smiled as he heard the demon wail deep within the mindscape, it’s tendrils lashing out up into the consciousness to try and get a hold of him. Peter stayed put, though and laughed merrily as the fuming-strands receded with a slippery slurp.

“Have fun in Hell for me Ba’agor! And you too Allie, enjoy taking my place!” Peter shouted down at them.

All he heard in reply were tormented screams and howls of pain. Peter felt his new body shudder and allowed himself to lurch forward, his mouth opening wide over the planchette on the spirit board.

Vomiting out tarry black ooze, it spattered all over the board as it carried strings of blood-red tissue through the glass as if it were an opening to another room. Allie’s body vomited for nearly a minute before Peter felt that he was truly alone inside the teenager’s body.

Plopping backward on the bed, he wiped away some ooze from his/her mouth. Allie’s friends were shrieking, having backed away from the bed, while the fat priest looked pleased. The other priest was speaking with the doctor in hushed tones, casting furtive glances over at Peter as he allowed his weakened form to rest.

“How did you do that Allie?” The fat priest asked, shaking his head. “We tried to get the demon to identify itself for nearly a week!”

Peter waved one of his new hands absently on the board. “That was how he came into the world, which was also his exit. When I asked for his name he spoke it clearly in my mind. He was trying to take my soul but we stopped him.”

Fat priest nodded, smiling. “That we did Allie, that we did. You rest now; you’ve been through a harrowing experience. Come on everyone, let the doctors do their work.”

Peter offered a small smile to Allie’s friends as the doctor came over and began checking his body over, first by checking her blood pressure. As he did so, Peter allowed himself a small smile.

The memory he’d seen had been from when Allie was a little girl in Sunday School, with Sister Miriam teaching them about how man was first made. She’d said each body had one soul put in, and when you passed away that soul would either go to Heaven or Hell. Allie had asked what would happen if there were two souls in one body, like in the possession movie.

The nun had sighed. “Allie, in those cases Priests are called in to exorcise the other soul away. Whatever goes into you, it must also leave. So if a demon were to possess you, it would leave the same way and go back to where it belonged.”

That statement had struck a chord with Peter. “Leave the same way…” He muttered with a raspy voice.

The doctor looked at Peter. “Pardon?”

“Oh,” Peter said, blushing. “Sorry, was just thinking to myself.”

Peter smiled internally. The demon came in with one soul, it had to leave with the same thing. But one soul is as good as another, right?