Vespertine

Chapter Six

Rows and rows of buildings zoomed by before me, melting into a single fuzzy imagery that filled both my gaze and my mind with the same blurry confusion.

Inside the cab I had booked after receiving the call, was complete silence, save the low folk song humming from the built-in radio.

The driver was surprisingly the same middle-aged bald man who had brought me to the estate the first time.

Possession.

Of course, I knew that such things existed. After all, before I had found my soulmate, I had been a magnet for the dead. A piece of cake they wanted to possess, and even attempted to get a piece of, every night.

But now, upon reflection, it seemed that after meeting Adam, my days were somehow filled with peace. I had strangely not seen a single demon or soul in weeks.

I felt conflicted. Of course, my third eye was open and I could communicate with the other side, but that did not mean there was anything more to that ability. It was like a professor of anatomy and physiology, but that did not mean they could perform surgeries. I was just as useless as everyone else was. Why was I being called again?

"Madam, we are here."

Indeed we were.

The taxi stopped right in front of the girl's dormitory building.

A lift of my head had me meeting the wide panicked eyes of the girls standing outside, probably too afraid of what was happening inside the dormitory building at that moment.

In contrast to the situation, the sun glared down at everyone brightly.

I don't know why but this struck an ominous feeling in my chest. The world could be bright and unseemingly normal...even happy... and yet inside tall buildings, inside four-walled rooms, something wretched could be occurring. Completely the opposite of normal.

"Nia, can you help us please?"

A girl stepped forward, she had tear stains running down her face, and a large red welt on her left cheek.

"Yes, we...we know we didn't treat you well. But-but can you take back the curse please?" Another girl began to blabber quickly and pleadingly.

She stopped and suddenly reached forward to grab my hand, her eyes lowered and she whispered miserably, "We've not been able to sleep for days."

"Please, girl!" An American accent shot through the other quiet crowd, and a sandy-toned girl with a bonnet still on her head stepped forward, "Every night, it fucks her! Over and over again! Lately, she's been screaming and crying. It's like someone's dying."

The hairs on the back of my neck began tingling and I fought back the shudder that itched to bubble out of me.

This was the first time I saw something like that outside of the four-cornered television screens. Of such psychotic aggression, such crazed possession, and the hellish actions of the dead.

I had once heard someone say somewhere... or perhaps I had read it in a forum online... that the stories behind fiction had to come out of somewhere, somewhere in reality. Today I believed that to be true. No matter how unrealistic an aspect of fiction seemed, it must have come out of reality in some capacity. One way or the other.

"Let me clarify this for those that are misguided. I am not a witch. I can not cast a spell or curse of any nature. I am..." I stopped, noting that there were some girls I knew to be purely human, "— more sensitive to things than you all. Because of this, things you all may not be able to see, always loiter around me and demand I fulfill their unfinished wishes. I'm here at the warden's request. I am here to help but I am just as clueless as you all are, ok? "