Tension hung in the air like over-reduced soup, the humidity and lack of ventilation choking and unbearable. They were gathered in the kitchen in pin-drop silence without the noise of the raging storm, each of them lost in their own thoughts.
Matthias leaned on the kitchen counter, picking at the hard skin on his thumb under the table. It was a necessary distraction to keep himself from asking a third time what transpired inside the girl's room. He had tried and failed twice, first with Adelaide, and then again with the Padre - shot down hard with a glare both times. He knew better than try again.
His eyes darted around the room, stopping only when they landed at the pitiful couple huddled together in the corner. The woman's eyes were red and puffy from crying, her body hunched like a doll laid down by the wall, lifeless and drawn to the floor. He watched the man rub his wife's back with one hand, the other grasping tightly on her arm. They both looked deprived of sleep, hopelessness masking their faces. Which was most likely the case, he thought, another pang of sympathy nudging at him. Whatever they saw when they entered their daughter's room, couldn't have been good. Especially if nobody wanted to talk about it.
The boy glanced at the girl sitting to his right. Her eyes were downcast, the small fire from the candle lighting her otherwise blank stare. There was an unusual darkness in them he couldn't identify and his pulse quickened at the disturbing assumptions forming in his mind. Had she done something she shouldn't have? Were the demons whispering to her bad thoughts?
As if she could hear the wheels turning in his head, Adelaide spared him a quick glance, her lips forming a hard set line. The events of a few minutes ago kept coming back to her in blinding flashes. There was a constant turning in her stomach, making her want to spill its non-existent contents on the floor. An unrhythmic pounding in her ears tangled with the accursed whispers in her head that wouldn't let her have a single straight thought.
She glanced at her companions' faces discreetly and the sickened feeling heightened. The priest had looked at her moments before with wide eyes and a distorted expression that made her cringe. What she did must've come a great shock to the old man. But that was quickly replaced by a deep set frown and pointed words he obviously bit back. The very same look was directed at the table as the older man clasped his hands tightly before him.
The boy, Gabriel the Padre had called him, was more transparent with the glares he'd been throwing at her like sharpened knives. She didn't need try to figure out how he felt, his balled fists and clenched jaw did much of the telling. He was angry, as he should be. Even she was angry at herself.
Beside her, her friend kept glancing at her with slightly glistening eyes, and she struggled not to return his gaze. He had the same look always etched on his features whenever he knew something was amiss and she wouldn't tell him. At least he didn't know what she'd done, a small comfort that did nothing to make her feel better. She wished he wouldn't though. She didn't deserve the sympathy. Not after what she did.
"What are you?" Adelaide's brows furrowed deeply, her forehead creasing.
"Wouldn't you like to know." The way it snickered threatened to flick a dangerous switch in her head, her heart a firecracker in her chest.
She glared at the despicable thing. "I demand you tell me what you are demon." A rebellion spark in her thoughts and she gritted her teeth.
The thing's laugh bounced off the walls in a resonating echo. Saliva dripped down the girl's too-widely opened mouth.
"Demand you say," it said once it's regained some composure. "Do you hear yourself, woman? What makes you think you can demand anything from me?" It laughed again. "There is nothing you can get from me, even if you beg for it!" The girl strained against the restraints, the bedpost creaking from the force. "Though I might consider if you ask me politely. You know, 'pretty please, with sugar on top'?" It winked at her.
YOU ARE READING
Incarnated
Horror"It is from sin that we were cursed, and from repentance that we were made." --xx-- Adelaide comes from a family of exorcists who has the unusual ability to use their own bodies as temporary vessels to contain demons prior to their banishment back t...
