Diaries of the Dead

25 | Tragic Beginnings

unedited. 

25 | T r a g i c   B e g i n n i n g s 

   Death by fire.

   Death by ice.

   Death by human desire.

   And death by vice.

  All of these seemed normal and painful in their own way. After all, death was a painful thing. If it wasn’t by the actual death, then it was because of the trauma it caused others. But Jessica never expected to die like this. She could imagine how painful being stabbed would be, but this pain was different from anything else.

   She felt as though her body was being torn apart from the inside-out. As a ghost, she wasn’t able to feel anything, so this came as a very unpleasant surprise. The matter she was composed of was becoming loose, ripping away from their tight bonds. It wasn’t long before she lost a leg, all the particles dissolving into the air.

  Loud screams erupted from Jessica as her body began to crumble into small pieces, making her become an unrecognizable gathering of colored specks floating in the air. She was no longer able to speak or move, after all her mouth and limbs had disintegrated into dust. Her mind was still intact though, her thoughts still hanging heavily in the air. She knew that whatever was happening to her had to have been caused by the woman standing just a few feet away from Aiden. The situation reminded her of what Steven warned her about.

    Disappearing.

   She wouldn’t go to heaven or hell. She would just become nonexistent. Her consciousness wouldn’t linger, she’ll just be dead for good.

   The house continued to shake, growing more vigorous by the second. The chaos that had unleashed itself on the house – along with the various items whipping around violently in the air – had successfully sent Aiden flying across the foyer and against one of the walls. He slid down to the floor and rolled onto his stomach, groaning in agony.

   He slowly rose to his feet, his joints cracking in the process. Wind circled around him, threatening to throw him against the wall again, but he willed himself to stay grounded. He caught a glance at what had become of Jessica. Tiny fragments of her body permeated the air, dancing around aimlessly. A string of profanities sat at the tip of his tongue as he fought against the strong wind and moved towards the source of the chaos; the woman.

   He had never seen her before, but he knew what she was. He was familiar with too many horror books and movies to not know what she was doing. She even babbled about there being evil spirits in the house. Typical exorcist talk. But what Aiden couldn’t process was how the exorcist could have known about Jessica. Perhaps she had a ghost tracker, as silly as it may have sounded.

   Once Aiden approached the woman, he slammed his hands down on her shoulders in an attempt to snap her out of her trance, but it was no use. She didn’t seem to be the least bit affected by the contact. So he shook her again, this time more violently.

    Nothing.

   A look at Jessica’s vanishing apparatus confirmed the theory that with each passing second, she was slipping into the oblivion. He never expected their relationship to go this far, but he would do anything to keep Jessica from not getting the happy ending she deserved.

  Beads of sweat gathered along his brow as he struggled to get the exorcist to stop. “Please,” he pleaded, shaking her shoulders. Tears welled in his eyes but he refused to let them fall. “Please stop doing this!”

   The sound of a bullet slicing through the air at an unbelievable speed filled the room. A second later, the exorcist went down. 

    The piercing noise sounded again but this time, Aiden went down.