Back In My Cage [Completed]

Chapter three

Shane was first to enter the basement, taking confident steps and flashing his flashlight around to make out the room, Ryan cowering close behind.

"Holy shit, look at that!" Ryan said, pointing his flashlight to a circle surrounded by a triangle in the middle.

"I'm assuming that's where they summoned the demon, huh?" Shane said, going around and watching the triangle as well as the circle. The writing was old, you could see that, but the marks had burned and jagged the floor making almost all of the drawings still visible.

"Yeah, and it's also here we are going to do the same." A shiver ran through Ryan's spine.

"I've got to say, Ryan, you've become much braver since we began this ghost hunting show." Shane admitted.

"Or more insane." Ryan confessed. A few seconds later bringing forth an object. "Well, let's build our way up" Ryan said as he showed off the spirit box, much to Shane's annoyance.

"They were a group of 8 people who were in this whole ordeal, in which five of them were here in the basement when the demon escaped. It killed them immediately, throwing them at the walls and clawing and tearing them apart, before killing the other three people who were upstairs at the time. It left soon after, the only trace of its existence was the writing and all the work the people had done describing it."

Ryan explained the story seriously with a tint of fear-rooted awe. Shane felt, well, sad thinking about it.

Ryan once again fumbled with the spirit box, now turning it on, and the static noise filled up the whole room.

"Hi, ghosts. My name is Ryan and that's Shane. Is there anyone with us?" Ryan asked. Shane can indeed feel their souls still lingering here, he did in fact just leave after killing them, too upset to deal with them at the time. Now he just hopes they won't make much noise.

Just Shane's luck, the spirit box began chattering almost right away.

"kshzztch- He- Here- shhzt-"

"He's here? shit ehm, who's here?" Ryan questioned again, startled by the fast reply.

"tszch- Away- Please- zzch- Sorry-"

"Are you sorry for what you did? Are you the ones who summoned the demon? Did you hold it captive?" Ryan kept asking. Shane didn't like how talkative they were.

"tzzs- kch- never again- wchh-"

"Go- ksz- away-"

"Don't- skzh- hurt us- tshzz-"

And then,

"Shax"

Both Ryan and Shane's eyes went wide, but Shane quickly tried to scold his face, trying to look more amused at what was happening.

That name though.

Ryan turned off the spirit box. Looking straight at Shane, looking excited and absolutely terrified at the same time.

"Did you hear that!? It talked like crazy and- I can't believe it- the name- at the end, it's- God-"

"Ryan! Take a breath." Shane had walked up and put both his hands firmly on Ryan's shoulders, successfully cutting him off from his rambles. Shane demonstrated taking a big breath in and Ryan followed suit, mimicking Shane's breathing once before regaining his thoughts and continuing.

"That name the spirit said, Shax, is the name of the demon who killed them." Ryan explained, his breathing already starting to become uneven again.

"Well that's interesting, Ryan!" Shane said encouragingly, seemingly non-affected by the gravely of the implications. Ryan gave him a dumbfounded look.

"Well that must mean that the sounds coming from the spirit box really came from the spirits. Which means we literally just spoke to a ghost!"

"Now don't jump to conclusions too fast. All I heard were a bunch of static and a few words jumbled into it. Shax, you said? I heard more like it said Jack's, or even if it said that, it's always just random words." Shane tried to rationalize it. Ryan always feels a bit calmer every time Shane tries to explain it, if just a little bit, because even though he really wants to prove the existence of ghosts, he just gets too scared thinking of it. This didn't feel right though. They spoke somewhat coherently, and he definitely heard them say Shax, he could swear it.

"I have never heard that name ever being spoken in a non-demonic context." Ryan said with conviction, trying to hide his wavering voice.

"Well maybe then it's best for us to just go back upstairs. Don't want to disturb them too much now do we? Or, well, I don't care, but you certainly do." Shane tried, wanting to get out of the basement as quickly as they could.

"No, don't worry, I think it will be okay. I still want to try the summoning." Ryan persisted, much to Shane's displeasure. He sighed, defeated, not seeing any good way out of this. To be fair, it might go okay, afterall; Shane doesn't know what will actually happen since he already is in the summoning room anyway. Shane flickered his flashlight briefly around the room, deep in though, before signing once again. Well let's just do this and hope for the best.