Inner Demons

Hangry with a Hangover

The straw dug into his back, piercing through his suit jacket as if the individual strands had intentionally tracked down the weak spots in his clothing. Someday he had to replace the straw bed with a foam one. No, that could not be right. He had traded an exorcism for a proper bed five years ago. Elijah's eyes snapped open, only to be greeted by a canopy of trees. That umbrella-wielding bastard!

He leapt to his feet, but a piercing headache forced him down again. Right, he had been drinking. It had been so long since he had come across so much alcohol that he had forgotten about the existence of hangovers. Eventually the carpet of pine needles – not straws as he had assumed – caused Elijah enough discomfort that he stood up again and faced the full force of the hangover.

Headache or not, he had to find a road. Only criminals traveled via forest. Elijah examined his surroundings, blinking to clear the remnants of sleep from his eyes. There was a clear path, most likely carved by that devil Lindsey's lumbering gait, but Elijah had no idea which way he had come and which way he had gone. Then he looked down at the dirt coating the back of his formerly pristine suit, which matched perfectly with the dragging marks leading into the forest behind him. Lindsey had dragged him here, which meant the path without dragging marks was the direction Lindsey had gone.

If only he had the ability to curse people in addition to exorcising them, then he could easily extract revenge upon that bastard in the yellow raincoat for mistreating the leader of the new world. Elijah decided to at least attempt to explain his predicament, "Heavenly Lord, I humbly ask you for a favor. There are scum in this world that wish to prevent me from achieving my divine purpose, and I wish to be able to smite them. However, I know that you have already blessed me, so if you just smite Lindsey yourself, that would be fine too. Amen."

Only the wind rustling the branches overhead responded to his plea for help. Elijah knew, however, that God sometimes acted in mysterious ways. Lindsey may have fallen into a river and drowned, the water filling his lungs slowly to give him the briefest delusion of having a chance to make it out before he died. Or he could have been possessed then murdered by that little Asian girl as she fought for her life. Or, even better, the little girl could have realized Elijah's divine purpose and killed Lindsey to avenge the embarrassment that he had caused.

Increasingly violent daydreams of Lindsey's death kept Elijah entertained as he followed the insolent bastard's path through the brush. Eventually, he came to a highway, which left him with the decision to either keep following the highway or take one of the exits. What would Lindsey do? He was certainly guilty of sloth, which meant he had likely taken the first exit. If Elijah was wrong, all he had to do was ask one of the locals if they had seen a man clad in the most garishly clashing clothing possible. If they had seen no such person, he could still exorcise someone in exchange for a clean change of clothes and fresh food.

Elijah attempted to brush the dirt off of his clothes, then took the exit for Louisville. 

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I know it's short, but ya boi Elijah isn't in the mood for complex actions at the moment. The chapters will get longer.