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Before I drift off, I think I’m going to see Malon again when I close my eyes. I don’t know if I want to see him. But sleep itself comes and nothing happens. It’s mercifully empty and black, and when I wake up, I feel rested.
Not well rested.
Like I just had a nap that barely worked–but fuck, it felt like a little bit of respite. When I wake up, the room smells like lemon-scented cleaner. It’s dark outside. I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep for, but it must’ve been ages.
I can hear the soft hum of a TV coming from a different room. As my gaze flits around the room, I see the silhouettes of the exorcists sitting around the bed, backlit by the electric light over the coffee station in the hotel room.
Rei reads something on his phone for a second, until he realizes I’m awake. When he does, he straightens up and his brow furrows. Luke’s head is bowed, I’m pretty sure he’s praying. Misha leans back on the chair. He plays with a silver ring on his index fingers, looking up at the ceiling as he does.
“Hi,“ Rei says. “How are you doing?“
Both Misha and Luke sit upright when they hear him.
I swallow, my mouth dry. I lick my lips. They’re as dry as my mouth is. My tongue feels like sandpaper. “I’m so tired,“ I say. “How long have I been asleep for?“
“About nine hours,“ Misha says.
“And was I just…did I only sleep?“
“Yes,“ Luke says. “We decided to stop. You weren’t reacting well and we were worried about hurting you…“
“We’re figuring out how to change our approach,“ Misha says. “People who have gone through an exorcism already are more vulnerable to a second one, and you were clearly in pain.“
“We need to know how much your body will tolerate before we keep going,“ Rei says, then takes his glasses off and pinches the bridge of his nose. God, he looks like shit. They all look terrible. “Obviously, your body couldn’t tolerate what we were putting it through. You need to eat.“
“I’m not hungry,“ I say.
“Then you need to drink something,“ Rei says. “You need your strength back.“
I sit up. I’m so lightheaded it takes me a few seconds to straighten up. I look down at my body, and my eyes widen when I realize that my arms are covered in scratches. Scratches from the window I had to break so I wouldn’t drown.
What the fuck?
Maybe it wasn’t a dream after all. “What happened?“ I ask, my voice shaky.
“Standard possession,“ Luke says. “The exorcism was a little more difficult than we anticipated. I think the infection might be worse than we realized.“
“No,“ I reply, my head throbbing. “No more exorcisms. There’s something I need to talk to you about…all of you.“
“Okay,“ Rei says. “We can talk. First, let’s eat.“
MISHA
We sit around the bed in Rei’s room, eating cheese pizza on hotel napkins. This isn’t a normal kind of hotel dinner. Trine is barely talking. We’re all worried about her but I don’t think questioning her is going to do us any good.
She’ll speak when she’s ready. She’s shaken.
Obviously. Things are weird as fuck for her right now. She can try to describe what she’s going through, but unless I’m possessed myself–and that’s an experience I don’t want to have–then I guess I’ll never know.
Every time I close my eyes, I can see her floating behind my eyelids, her skin breaking open. The fact that I couldn’t have done anything to stop it makes me feel nauseous. I would hurl myself in front of a moving train for this woman, but there’s no train when the injury is coming from inside her body.
How are we supposed to help her if everything we do to help her just hurts?
I know I’m supposed to think about the future, about what not having the exorcism will do to her in the long term, but she’s still having to go through a level of terror and pain I don’t think anybody deserves to go through.
She finishes her food and wipes her hand on the napkin. She tosses it over my shoulder. It lands next to the trash in a crumbled up little ball.
“So when I went to the crisis center,“ she says softly. “I met this counselor and he said I needed to start keeping a dream journal, but you guys remember the dreams I told you about?“
