Death. What happens after it? What lies beneath the surface?
Poor Arielle Daniels stumbled through dangerous hoops to figure this out. She wakes in a new place--the Void--and discovers that what waits after death are layers, dimensions, and sadly...
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"We went way overboard."
Arielle glared at her nails, wondering why blood hadn't lodged beneath them. She'd sliced them down Benny's back so hard, she was shocked she hadn't taken off chunks of his flesh. Tremors skidded down her spine as she imagined the pain he must have felt.
She hadn't meant to be so harsh, but the ghost had apparently planned otherwise.
"We didn't." The specter-girl clapped her hands, brushing them off, washing them clean of her actions. She dismissed her violence with a shrug and a snap of her fingers.
Disturbing.
Arielle couldn't get over it. "But that was ridiculous. And a bit too traumatizing for me, more so for him. Poor guy. Was it necessary to scratch so deep?"
She'd spent one second relishing in the sensation of touching actual skin, but moments later she was cringing, acid coating her tongue as she watched Benny's flesh tear apart and sepia-toned blood gush out of the wounds she'd caused.
Shaking, she meandered to the living room, away from the scene of her crime—two crimes, in truth. Her death, and her attack on Benny. She couldn't bear to float there and remember what she'd done, what the ghost made her do.
"Fine, maybe I got carried away," said the ghost, flowing in behind Arielle. She shuffled over to the curtains and peered outside. "But they're leaving, which was the point, no?" She chuckled as headlights blasted through the window, showcasing her pallid complexion and the quirk of her lips. "And that chick will not come back, ever. She's the one who gives Benny permission to be here, so if she denies... we're safe."
As the ghost moved away from the glass and let the drapes slide into place, Arielle froze, fixed on her eyes. They were still rimmed with real, vivid red, standing out in the sea of faded colors Arielle was growing accustomed to. She recalled how, mere moments before, the girl had transformed into someone, something else. As if possessed by rage and determined to petrify, to devour. She didn't look like a ghost, but like a demon.
Benny had mentioned the word demonic several times on his way out. Was he right? Were demons a thing, and this ghost was lying about them? Could this ghost... be one of them? Arielle hated to admit it, but it would have made sense. From what she'd seen in Ghost Adventures, and even in fictional shows, demons lied. They tricked you into trusting them, then took over your body or misled you or harmed you. The ghost... had done all three of those things in less than twenty-four hours.
And the way her image had flickered in and out of tune, like a channel losing signal, had sent Arielle through a surge of odd memories. She remembered a girl floating in front of a red door, shifting, blurring, disappearing, then returning. She remembered a white dress, baggy eyes, wet floors, and lots of red. And she remembered ominous warnings and writings on mirrors and messages in blood.
The bully? Is she still here?
Maybe that malicious ghost—that she still couldn't remember the name of—was a demon. And maybe that demon had sensed this ghost's anger and used it to drift into her—a demon possessing a ghost? Was that possible?—and blare another round of eerie alarms directed at Arielle. Maybe this potential demon didn't want Arielle to find out too much, and manipulated the ghost into cautioning her.
