March 18, 2023
With the memories back, I knew what Blake told me about our deaths was true. "No. It can't be. You're… you're lying. No, no, I'm dreaming. It's a nightmare. We can't be dead!"
"Troy, look at this."
He gestured to the nearest wall, covered in grime and graffiti. The white paint chipped off, and holes led way to the other side. I suddenly remembered where we were: St. Bernard Asylum, an almost entirely secluded, abandoned estate.
"Troy!" Blake yelled for my attention. I looked over and saw his arm half-phased into the wall.
"Dude, that's insane!" Like him, I tried, and my arm went right through the wall. Almost like moving through air. And thus, my fears were realized. "But how?"
"Because we're dead, dummy." Blake smacked me on the back of the neck. "That's a neck."
I rubbed the now sore area on my neck. "That was hardly a dumb thing to say, given these circumstances. That was not a neck-able moment."
"You said something dumb. That equals a neck." As were the rules of our silly childish game.
"It's not a neck when we just got killed by a ser… a serial killer." My words dropped like bricks. Flashes entered my head. Like a sharp needle, the painful memories of that moment seemed to become clearer and clearer in my head. "He really did kill us, didn't he?" I looked up at Blake, with horror in my eyes.
"Stabbed us both in the hearts."
Blake patted me on the back, seeing my sadness. I looked down at my chest; nothing. No blood, no wound. His chest was the same, nothing. Our stab wounds were gone.
"So, we're spirits now?" I asked.
"I guess, but I like the word 'ghosts' better," he joked in an effort to lighten the mood.
I didn't find his humor soothing. "Ghosts, spirits! That-- I can't be a ghost or spirit. I-I was supposed to go to heaven. I went to church every weekend, I donated, I… I don't understand."
I choked and began sobbing. Even as a ghost, clear tears rolled down my eyes, though the warm sensation they usually brought was barely there.
"Hey Troy, it's okay. Don't start crying, man. Maybe--" He thought for a moment. "Maybe we could haunt someone. It won't be all bad."
Tears still rained down my eyes. "That's easy for you to say! You were an atheist. You didn't believe in heaven and hell!"
Blake struggled for a good answer. "Sure. But… but now's not the time for an I-told-you-so. We can still make the best with what we have. Come on, let's leave this place and find your little sister. Maybe we could give her a big scare or two."
That's when it hit me. Those words, they brought my family back into my mind. Oh no, my family!
"Jesus, Blake! What about my sister, my brother, my mom, my dad? If I'm dead--" I could hardly think. Instead, my heart was frozen, and my stomach spun in circles. "With me dead--"
I suddenly had the urge to puke. I hunched over to my side and tried to let it all out, but nothing came. Instead, I lay hunched over, gasping.
"Troy?" Blake tried to get my attention back on him. "Troy!"
It took a full minute before I responded. "Bro! What do I even do?"
He shrugged. "I don't think there's anything we can do. I mean, we could leave this place and see your family. I'm sure maybe… maybe it would be good for you."
"Fine." I followed his lead. I was up for anything that meant I could take my mind off this disastrous revelation. "Where are we anyway?"
Blake and I walked through a hallway that led into an office space of sorts. All the furniture was thrown in the corner. Graffiti and destruction covered the walls. Through a gaping crack on one side, I could see the adjacent room. The story was the same in there, too.
"I think we're in the Employee Ward… downstairs," Blake suggested.
"Then there's a back door somewhere around here. Let's find it. I'm sick of this cursed place."
Blake and I left the room and walked down the hall. Eventually, we found our way into the main registry room, where all the patient files and info were kept.
"Hey man, look at this stuff."
He pointed inside to the broken down computers. I phased through the half wall to his side. The computers were busted down, each with glass hanging from the monitors. I reached out my hand to the monitor and felt buzzes of energy enter me.
"Feel this," I told him.
He reached out his hand to another monitor. "Wow! That feels good. It's like I'm eating a delicious candy bar." He fell back into a chair, and it swiveled backwards.
"Holy crap! Did you just see that?" Blake looked at me with excitement in his eyes. He seemed like a kid on a playground.
"How did you do that?" I asked.
"I don't know." He shrugged his shoulders.
I tried the same thing with another chair. I jumped and phased right through the chair on to my butt. The chair seat looked to cut off my head, which looked like it was resting in the seat.
Blake broke out in laughter. "Troy, you look like your head's about to be served on a dinner plate." He cleared his throat for an impression. "Sir Washington Irving, we have a special for you tonight. A rare delicacy, a head… on a plate. Enjoy." He continued to laugh.
I seemed to catch his disease and chuckled at his joke. After a good few seconds of laughing at me, Blake got up from his chair.
"Come on, Troy. Let's go find the exit. I think it was down that hall."
"I think you're right." I remembered from the map we had.
Blake led the way in the dark, or at least I remembered the asylum being dark; now it looked lit. Somehow as spirits, we could just see. I couldn't wrap my head around it. It wasn't night vision or a bright light; just clarity.
As we walked farther into the hall, unlike the past areas we'd visited, the Employee Ward was further destroyed. The walls had almost crumbled away, and the rooms had more graffiti on top of graffiti. Each piece of furniture had cobwebs layered with more cobwebs and enough dust to make a sandcastle.
"Here it is." Blake pointed at the emergency door. "Ladies first," he mocked me.
"You're a jerk," I pointed out to him.
"I know."
Regardless, I took a few steps until I was next to the door. I could see the morning light rising in the sky, filling it with a blend of red and orange colors. I reached out my hand into the sun's rays, and my heart sank when I couldn't feel its warmth.
"Come on, Troy. Let's not take all day!" Blake yelled.
I walked forward.
Clunk.
My head bounced off the door, and I fell backward. "What? I can't go through!"
"Sure you can. Here, watch me." He walked to the door, bounced off, and fell on top of me. "What the--? That doesn't make sense."
We stared at the door for a moment as if it were a sun on ice.
"Spirits can't leave the place where they died," I heard a terrifying voice boom from behind us. Its hot, demonic tone burned my eardrums. I cringed and clutched my ears in pain. "But spirits can feel pain from other spirits!" the voice continued.
Blake got up and reached out his hand to help me up. His eyes were fixed on the thing that stood behind us. I looked to where his gaze was. My stomach held burning coals, and my heart was on a tightrope, despite having neither of those organs. What stood before us was nothing short of a creature from hell. As if a twisted play on nature, the beast had a head resembling a mix of a vampire bat, dog-like creature, and goat. The tops of its horns had flames emanating from it like a hose. The hooved feet on the creature had strange symbols on them. Gold earrings were pinched into its earlobes. All the beast wore was some cloth to cover its loins and mummified bandages wrapped throughout his body. The monster was a predator: Two rows of teeth sharper than steak knives, a nose the size of a baked potato, skin colored a sallow green, and spikes on his neck and shoulders. But the eyes, those yellow ovals, were the worst. Two glowing beams, endless and evil.
We froze. I couldn't see anything other than those eyes. My trance broke as the creature smiled.
"New prey. You both will be fun."
"Prey?" Blake asked.
"You two spirits are in my part of the asylum now. The Employee Ward is off limits to all spirits. Any foolish spirit who tries to test me will be damned to the abyss!" The creature laughed, and I felt his chuckle shake my very soul.
I stammered out, "Monster-thing-sir. We, ah, didn't know. Can you give us a, uh… pass?" I almost mumbled the last word in fear of his response.
"Zoxzat must punish those who enter his home." He grinned.
"You're Zoxzat?" Blake asked, seeming to overcome the majority of his fear. I, however, was shaking in place.
"Yes. You will just call me The Wolf. Understand, spirit?"
"Yes, Wolf," Blake answered.
"Not Wolf. The Wolf!"
"Yes, The Wolf." Blake nodded with a respect I've never seen him give anyone.
The creature's yellow eyes flared a bright blaze. He was intrigued.
"What's your name?" it asked Blake.
"Blake."
"Aahhh, Blake… I see. You and your friend just bought yourselves two tickets out of being one with the abyss. Although, The Wolf must still cast a punishment on you two."
The Wolf whipped his hands in our direction, and as he did, my soul, my very being was forced back into the wall. Blake was knocked beside me. The Wolf held us against the wall with his mind, using his arms as some type of funnel to force his magic upon us.
If I could pee at that moment, I probably would have. The Wolf stared at us with those eyes of terror and mumbled some words I couldn't understand. As he finished, I was suddenly shocked. A sharp bolt of lightning zapped through my soul. Another and another came, until all my energy was drained from my being. Only then did he release us to the ground.
The Wolf left us there, and we didn't hesitate. Inch by inch, we crawled out of the Employee Ward and into the reception area of the asylum, the first area we'd seen when we entered the front doors. We lay down for a long recovery.