Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27007772-20150602054247

Prologue
Joseph Kaufman knelled before the statue of mother Mary, grasping a rosary in his hand. He'd stayed a few minutes after Sunday service for a special prayer. In his silent

prayer, he'd considered the events just over a year and a month ago. The cold winter tormented him with memories of his time in that cement prison with Natalie and Jackson. The focus of the prayer, though, was Natalie herself. She'd been scarred more so than himself. He found God and set his life back on course with his faith, meanwhile, she tried to end her own.

She'd moved out of her old house to the other side of town into an apartment after begging her parents, and visiting doctors for mental checkups. She'd constantly been on pills.

Downers, uppers, doesn't matter. She'd taken them at some point. At first he assumed the light at the end of the tunnel was that Natalie and himself were not charged with the disappearance of Jackson, and were unable to be placed directly as murderers. A few years of active probation and being on a watch list seemed easier, but not for Natalie.

One part of his silent prayer was capitalized. He prayed that the damned tunnel he'd almost been burred in had been collapsed and closed forever, and that the Tormentor had been forever sealed, or dead, within it. He hated to wish death to anything with his new found faith, but having lived only 15 years of his life before the Tormentor showed up was no way to start a life.

Finishing his prayer, Joseph stood off of his knees and opened his eyes, tilting his head to the statue. He turned around and placed the rosary around his neck as a necklace, walking for the church door. As he walked passed the preacher, he nodded his head and spoke modestly.

"Thank you for the extra time, father."

The preacher nodded back and smiled, opening the door for him. The air that rushed around him gave a slight chill. Hardly being spring, the temperature had not completely escalated yet. In fact, snow was still on the ground, though it was melting in most areas.

He walked into the parking lot right outside the church while putting on his thick overcoat. He was just happy he wouldn't have to wear the damned thing much longer. The soft inside made his arms itch while he wore short sleeve shirts, such as the blue dress shirt he wore to the church.

He made his way to a silver and gray car. It wasn't anything fancy, but a pre-owned car is all he could have hoped for, recently getting his licenses. When he got in the car he moved his hands down his face, before placing them on the steering wheel. It had been nearly 2 months since he last visited Natalie in her new home.Her condition and hostility towards to location of her old house convinced her parents to rent an apartment, whilst renting out the old house to get some more money on the side.

Putting his foot on the gas, he left the church, and started driving towards the apartment complex in lower Tutelo, thankfully away from Jackson's house, and the entry path of Cook Forest. The only part of the forest the complex was near, was the tourist path. Good thing it was just as close to the town hospital as it was to the forest.

Joseph started drifting off whilst driving, refocusing to stop himself from swerving off of the road. Jackson's old home was a hollow mess at this point. Every time he would think of that forsaken house, he would notice his mind pulling tricks on him. Maybe he was the one who needed medication, not Natalie. Forsaken? More like foreclosed. After his disappearance, Jackson's mother and father moved into Philadelphia to help cope.

After a few minitues of driving, he pulled his car into an empty parking lot outside of a brick and tile apartment.

Hell Awaits
Stepping outside of his car, he closed the door with one hand while taking a deep breath, placing his hand over the rosary necklace. All he could think about was what Natalie's condition would be once he entered. At least she was living in a complex, where multiple people were around to help her if something went south.

Red brick, black tile roofing, wooden door with a window in the center, it was a pretty basic setup. Three floors, with two apartments on each floor. Natalie was on the second floor, to the immediate left of the stairwell. Pushing on the door, the twisting stairs were right in front of him.

It wasn't very long before he reached the top of the steps, though the echo of the cement stairs through the building forced him to cringe at some old memories. One foot off of the first set of steps out of two, he spun to his left and knocked on the door. When no one opened the door, he knocked louder and harder. Eventually lightly banging on the door, he was surprised no one from the other apartments came out to yell at him.

Just as he started to get a bit worried, the doorknob turned, and the door opened. Then, he saw her. Natalie was holding the door open for him. He walked into the apartment and hugged her.

"Joseph, I didn't think you would come today!" She said rather softly.

"I told you I'd come check up on you ever week from now. How's it all going? You doing well?" he questioned.

"Pills are a bitch, Joseph. But it's better with them than without. Downers kill your mood right away."

She pulled away from the hug, holding her right arm. When she noticed Joseph giving her an odd look, she signaled him to follow her, taking him into the living room, away from the entry that doubled as a kitchen. An old television with a cup sitting on it, new looking brown couch, white panel closet to hold cloths and other gear, she'd moved into a fairly nice place. He sat down on the couch, looking at the TV, whilst talking to Natalie.

"So you've been on track?"

"Checkups when I have to, sleep is on track. Everything's good, Joseph. Just relax."

"That's great, Natalie. I'm proud of you, you know. I'm not trying to hassle or bother you."

"I know" She said, smiling. "Just relax, Joseph. Everything is fine."

He leaned back on the couch as she sat right beside him. The glare of the sun shined on the TV and into his eyes. When he pulled his hand up to cover them, Natalie reached behind her and closed the blinds, removing the problem. He gave a little smile and lowered his hand again. The glare still made it through the blinds, but it was hardly noticeable except when looking directly at them. Just then, there was a knock at the apartment door. Natalie looked over to Joseph.

"Did you bring anyone with you?"

"No, I promise, I didn't. Maybe it's one of your mother's friends?"

"I've been alone all day. I'll be home alone until my dad gets home tomorrow morning. I'm not expecting anyone, that's why I told you Sundays were the best for you to come over."

Joseph inched his way up as the knocking got louder. The silence was broken when a the other side of the door gave way to a voice.

"Let me in, please."

The voice was that of a grown man. It was calm, polite, and over all formal. Joseph looked back at Natalie, who shared his confusion, before turning the doorknob. Without further hesitation, he opened the door. Looking through the expanding crack as it opened, he noticed what would later be confirmed. No one was on the other side at all.

Emptiness, and off lights that were on when he came into the apartment. He closed the dark outside away, and turned to Natalie.

"Must have been a prank. No one is on the other side." He said, rather distracted.

Just as Natalie was preparing to speak, he heard something from the room next to the living room. Natalie's bedroom.

"Thank you."

Natalie jumped up from the couch and backed away from the room, never taking her eyes off of it. Stepping away from the door and towards the exit, Joseph's eyes snapped unto the

blinds. No source of light at all. It wasn't just that the blinds had muffled the sun's light, but the light was seemingly completely gone. Joseph began to shiver in his place, as Natalie attempted to pull him closer towards the exit.

The cup on the television crashed on the ground, furthering Joseph's panic. The thought of shattered glass, along with the noise, had always been a fear of his. Deciding the temptation of knowledge overpowered his fears, he rushed to the window. Simply grabbing the blind by the bottom and lifting them, he noticed the moon was at full position. Even stranger, all cars in the parking lot were gone, excluding his own.

Natalie spun around and tried to go for the exit, but the lights all shattered, triggering Joseph's phobia further. The door creaked open in front of Natalie. The other side wasn't empty this time, with a silhouette of another person, slightly taller than her but shorter than Joseph, was standing on the other side.

Natalie turned back around and ran for her bedroom, pulling on Joseph to follow. Entering the room, the closed the door and locked it, practically diving under the bed. With no other options that his rushed brain could this off, he stood with his back pressed against the wall, to the right of the door. He hoped that if the door was opened, he wouldn't be seen because the door would cover him. The small lamp on her wardrobe hadn't busted, but instead flicked on. Joseph reached towards the wardrobe slowly in hopes of putting it in front of the door, but a continued scratching noise forced him to stop.

When the noise came to a stop, he tilted his head to the door, only to notice something moving at the bottom of his vision. Looking down, he saw what appeared to be 4 red strings with hooks tied to the ends of them moving as if they were worms. Natalie took a double take and slid back further from the edge of the bed.

The worm like threads moved up the door. When they reached the top, they placed the hooks so they would stab into the door, and dragged them back down to the bottom. After doing this once, they tried again. One reached unto the latch lock, and the rest moved over to hook on to the lock as well. Once they all found their place, they pulled together downward.

The pop noise of the lock and the flinging of the screws rung in both of their ears, as the lock fell to the ground. The door pushed open, and Natalie's view of Joseph disappeared behind the opening door. When the door stooped, Joseph had completely gone away from her view.

Someone stepped through the doorway, and the worm like threads revealed what they were- veins of some sort, maybe a tendon. They came from two slashes on each forearm of the person, right below the elbow. Yellow fat hung on them lightly and scarcely. The seemed so thin that the wind itself could most likely have moved them.He wore torn, rotted boots that matched the destroyed clothing he was wearing. A hoodie that had the color nearly completely faded, jeans that had been browned until the point the fabric was disconnecting, and a rusted metal mask.

The mask covered the man, and when Natalie saw it, she almost screamed. She was forced to bite her bottom lip as hard as possible to not give away her location as she watched the veins and hooks retracted back into the arms of the man.His neck had a red, terribly stitched line from ear to ear. Joseph was no less confused at this than Natalie, up until the point where the man spun completely around and smacked

the door with his right hand, forcing it closed, and looking Joseph directly in the eyes. In the eye sockets of the mask were two deep eyes, each with a broken iris. They rested behind bars which mimicked prison bars, and they had found their focus on him.

The man's mask had the entire mouth covered, but hardly muffled the snapping sound coming from behind the mask. Directly following was something which reminded Joseph of tearing Velcro, as he watched the bottom jaw of the man drop even lower than the bottom of the mask. The jaw looked as if it had been broken and torn off, excluding some threads holding it on at this point. The exposed ligaments twirled and moves as if they were their own life forms.

Even with the dangling bottom jaw, he seemed to work some works out, which gave an echo, even though the room was not large or empty enough to do so. He spoke in a very calm, tired sounding voice.

"Finally, Joseph."

The lamp's light burst just as he finished his sentence, and he returned to a silhouette. Natalie could see his vague shape lift its right hand and start to stretch out each finger.

Welcome to Hell
The two black figures merged, as one fell down to the ground. It became apparent that Joseph had pushed down the man out of instinct, but this didn't end with a simple shove. When the man hit the ground, he began to lift himself up immediately, letting out a furious, rather angry yell, like a child whom had just had his favorite toy taken away.

Natalie sprung up from the bed as Joseph opened the door which now had no lock, and they both consecutively bolted out of the room and through the living room, Joseph hardly remembering the layout of the room. He smashed against a square object, knocking it over. Yet again he was met with the horrid sound of broken glass from what he assumed was the television, forcing him to shutting as he ran around it, and through the kitchen area.

The creaking sound of the door let very little light it as Natalie opened the door in front of him, only natural light from the moon coming through the window even attempted to help light up the dark hallway.

He and Natalie were close enough that they could see eachother in the darkness, as they ran down the twisting stairs. Natalie ran into the exit door and ended up smacking her face against it, before stepping back and opening it correctly. Following behind her, they ran out of the building, into the oddly warm spring night. Joseph closed the door behind him, as he speed walked to the car. Natalie wasn't as patient, and bolted ahead to it.

She paused at the car door, jittering and shaking in her place. As Joseph arrived, she put her hands on his shoulders, forcing him to look her in her eyes as she spoke.

"Jackson! That was Jackson!"

"No! It's impossible! It's just another trick. A doppelganger from that creature in the trap door!" he retorted, surprisingly aggressively.

"We locked it away, Joseph. It should be dead by now down there!"

Joseph didn't wait any longer as he pulled away from her hands, looking for his car key. Strangely, only two keys were on the loop. His car key, and an unidentified glittering silver key.

"What the-" he began to question, as Natalie interrupted him.

"Joseph! Hurry up!" she yelled pointing to her hotel window. Even in the night sky it was apparent that the man with the mask was looking at them through the window, pressing up against it.

He rushed the key into the car door's lock and turned it, unlocking it and pulling it open. Reaching around to the door behind the driver's seat, he pulled the locking mechanism up as well. Natalie opened it and sat in the bad, whilst he got in the driver's seat. Taking his key and putting in the ignition, the car started. He sped out of the parking lot and drove back to where he came from.

Natalie was obviously in a state of ill thought as she looked around frantically for any signs of movement in the houses they drove passed. Nothing. No lights were on, and no one was outside. She'd forgot her phone at her house, but thankfully Joseph had never taken his out of his pocket. He pulled it out with his right hand, as she climbed into the passenger's seat.

"Where are we going?" she asked between deep breaths.

"We are going to stop at my place, grab anything we can to help us, and then leave this damned town." said Joseph, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

"10:36 pm. Sunday worship does not end at 10:36 at night. We really need to leave as fast as possible."

"What about our families?" she retorted.

"We will call them every once in a while until they pick up, and we can tell them about the situation."

His sour, yet stern tone put Natalie at unrest, even giving her chills. As they drove around the bend, every house had its lights off, just as dark as the outside. All except one that Natalie caught out of the side of her eye while they drove past the cooks forest entrance.

Jackson's old home was as bright as it had ever been, nearly glowing in the night. Joseph didn't even have to look before he sped up. With each tree to his right looking like it was a person from his confused vision, he could hardly stand having to look forward at the road the whole time.

After what felt like an hour of speeding, the pair had arrived at Joseph's house, which was away from the forest, in their favor. The tan and brown paint reflected brilliantly in the moonlight, with a stone and gravel walkway leading up to the front door. As expected, all windows seemed to point to the insides being dark.

He parked the car outside of the house, at the edge of the walkway. It took a second for the two to stand up and exit the car. Joseph kept his phone with him and made a phone call, entering a surprisingly short phone number while Natalie left her door open after exiting. When he closed the car door behind him, he tightened his grip on the phone. After a few seconds, he put it back in his pocket.

"Well, emergency services didn't answer. If you've got another plan than that one, please say it now." he said, placing his face in his hand and leaning over the top of the car.

It was just then that he noticed the shape carved in on his car's roof, scratched in like someone had deeply keyed the car. The same exact shape of the bronze mask he had run into in the forest, right before the Tormentor always appeared.

The Lord Cometh
Joseph immediately began to inch away, practically hopping up and down like a rabbit.

"Natalie, get in the house." he barked, seemingly in shock.

"Alone?" she questioned.

Her question was answered when Joseph jogged past her and towards the door, feet hitting the stone walkway with a loud shock wave. Nearly sprinting towards his house, Natalie

saw him simply open the door. She caught up to him and ran inside, as he closed the door behind her, locking it.

"What was all that about?" she questioned, in a fatigued state, even though they had only ran a rather short distance.

"The thing on my car looked exactly like that little mask piece from the forest!" he answered, ecstatic and checking windows. He continued.

"When we checked out your apartment window we were looking down at the car. We would have noticed, even in the dark." He zoned out for a second, before snapping back with another question.

"You leave your front door unlocked every morning?"

"I didn't. I swear I didn't. When I got to it, the door just opened. I wasn't thinking straight, but I promise I locked it."

Joseph peered outside the window, and his senses seemed to return to him.

"We're going to leave the lights off so nothing can see we are here. You've been here enough that I hope you remember the layout of my house. I'm going to get a knife in the

kitchen. Upstairs my father has a pistol for self defense. We get in the car again, with protection, and get out of here like we said before."

Without giving any chance of retaliation, he pulled away from his whisper and began creeping through his house, lights off, with Natalie close behind him. The only noise being their feet hitting the floor, they carried on through the short hallway.

The kitchen was certainly not a far distance, as they reached it almost immediately. Before the kitchen doorway, which ironically no door stood, were two carpeted stairs. with one leading to the second floor, and one leading to the basement. Natalie stopped before these stairs, but Joseph didn't.

Carrying on through the doorway, he reached around the bend to touch the knife holder. With many knives there, he grabbed the very top. The 8 inch kitchen knife was the biggest they had, and the bonus size was the easiest factor in his choice. Grabbing it, he put it in his left hand, as he grabbed another for Natalie. The next biggest was the 6 inch knife, which they owned two of. he grabbed it with his right hand before he turned around and walked back to the staircase.

Both staying silent, he handed her the 6 inch blade and place his knife back in his right hand. Natalie was looking down the staircase to the basement, before Joseph pulled her arm to angle her to the stairs going up. He knew how stupid and useless it would be to go down there in a time like this.

Gripping the knife as hard as he could, he began climbing the stairs to the second floor of his house, followed by his friend. The rough blue carpet dragged under their shoes, creating something similar to a Velcro sound. The staircase turned to the right twice sharply, before they reached the next floor.

The colder air of the higher level rushed their skin almost immediately. The two were hardly able to see each other in the darkness of the hallway, but it was visible enough for them to stay together. Going left two doors down, they were stopped by a noise as they walked passed the first door.

The room was Joseph's own room, and from the other side of the door sounded a very unnerving distraction. A very deep, guttural, gurgling sound swept from under the door, as they both held firmly to their knives. Walking backwards, Joseph slowly crept into his parent's room and behind digging through the top drawer of the wardrobe. A great big window on the other side of the king sized bed allowed entry to the moonlight which provided at least a little aid.

By pulling up a line of fabric, he released a heavy metallic echo. He reached for it immediately, and pulled up his father's pistol. It was always loaded with a few shots in case of emergency, though the exact number of bullets slipped his mind. The pistol was a .380 subcompact, which fit very comfortably in one hand. The hammer had already been drawn. His father did not mess around when it came to his families safety. He went to exit the room when Natalie stumbled her way in.

Holding her mouth to keep her quiet, she pointed to show what was bothering her. Hardly visible at all, the shapes of the threads coming from under the door. They crawled their way through the door cracks and swung around, as if hoping to grab something on the other side. Joseph pointed the pistol forward with both hands on the grip.

Suddenly, the door opened with a loud swing. The door hit the wall to its side, creating a thud. The guttural sounds now so clear they were almost vomit inducing, the figure of a man stumbled outside of the room. He walked as if he had just fallen off a building and broken his arms and legs, all crooked but yet stiff.

He turned his body towards the two, as they both backed into the bed. All hopes of being undiscovered went down the drain as the bedroom light came on without warning as he stared at them. Shambling towards them, his breathing escalated.

"Jackson, stop!" yelled Joseph, pointing the gun straight at his head.

With a pop, Jackson's jaw cracked back into place, and began to speak. He seemed hardly able to force any words out, as they were hardly understandable. His choppy gurgle broke each word apart.

"Survivors no longer" Jackson said as his jaw dropped back to where it was, but his decayed cheeks still mimicking a dreadful smile.

He raised his arm up, as the bloody hunters that were his veins and tendons split above him, their metal hooks swaying. Joseph took no time in his choice as he fired a shot straight into Jackson's forehead, right above the right eye.

The mask seemed to withstand the hit, though it did gain a new hole. The back of Jackson's skull, however, shattered with the shot. The end of his head fell outwards in its very own explosion, sending red fluid all over the floor and wall behind him. Joseph, unprepared for the shot, fell unto the bed behind him. Jackson's body fell to it's knees, head tilted towards the ground.

Both Natalie and Joseph watched in confusion as the head tilted back up, and the corpse stood from its knees immediately. Natalie jumped over the bed, back against the window, and Joseph crawled away. With a cracked laughter the hooked threads came swinging down, hitting the bed, but hardly missing Joseph.

He reached the other side of the bed as he stood with Natalie, and raised the gun again. One more shot echoed as Jackson recoiled back, having been hit in the shoulder. Clear as day, a yellow and brown mixture poured from the wound and dripped unto the floor, with a texture like puss.

The recoil of this shot sent Joseph's shoulder against the window, creating a large crack across it. The window was a few inches taller than either him or Natalie, though it was also about two feet off the ground. When Jackson leaped on the bed and looked both in the eyes, all that ran through their heads was survival.

Grabbing on to Joseph, Natalie braced Joseph and propelled him backwards with her, straight through the window.

They Always Lose
The shattering sound is the only noise that made it through the adrenaline. After the silence was only the cracking sound of his back, and her hitting the ground next to him with a solid thud. They'd only fallen out the second story window, but the hit was devastating to take straight to his back.

The pain shot up his entire body. He was hardly able to roll over to see the pistol to his side. Reaching over, he grabbed it and sluggishly raised it to the window. His vision was blurry, and his aim was anything but steady. They had fallen into the backyard, which had unfortunately been home to a pebble style walkway.

The motion lights in the backyard had lighten up. They gave enough of a light to see that Jackson was still standing on the second story, looking down at them through the shattered window. His figure was only hardly shown, but it was clear enough to see him extend his hand outward.

His hand was clutched, but now open. The light reflected on something he had dropped downwards on the two, as he turned around and walked away from the window. Joseph slid his body away from it as Natalie kicked herself in the opposite direction. Dead in the center of the two rang a very familiar metallic *ting*.

Only bouncing once off the ground, the torturous sight of the small, palm sized metal face shined in the light of the motion light. Its bronze glittered all over, except areas now covered in a solid black stain.An awkward, adrenaline fueled silence was kicking in, until Natalie did what she had been dreaming of doing since this icon first found its way in to their lives. Grabbing it, the motion lights died, and all was black.

She had finally been able to hold the cursed item of light bronze. Picking it up, it must have only weighed a few ounces at maximum. Standing up whilst holding it, the motion lights began to trigger again, shining even more light on her. By crushing her hands over it, the bronze face had folded on itself. Twisting to distort it even further, she threw it as hard as possible back to the window.

It flew in, which wasn't surprising since it was a very large window, but didn't make the clicking noise of metal. Thinking it must have simply hit the bed, she turned to Joseph, who himself was smiling. Every time this object showed up, something else showed up. Both were treating this as if it was a small victory in its own.

Joseph stayed on the ground. He was looking up at Natalie, until some sort of a noise caused them both to cover their ears and close their eyes. The sound was very metallic, as if two sharp blades were scrapping each other. The loudness itself mimicked only that of a siren.

As he opened his eyes, he noticed from the side of his vision, something large was falling. The motion lights busted, leaving the moon as the only existing source of light. Landing directly on top of him, he felt as if several sharpened daggers had pressed up against the outside of his shirt.

The shape and sound were enough to piece together what this was. Raising its right hand, the Tormentor made its new arrival obvious by sticking the claws deep through his biceps and in to the ground, pining him in pain. Attempting to scream out, a red mist floated from his mouth, and left with the wind. No sound left his throat no matter how hard he tried. The sharp, yet rugged pain was almost enough to make him pass out on its own.

He saw Natalie run down the side of the house to where he knew the car was. Even in his rush and freight, he couldn't blame her. When the Tormentor's horrible mouth opened, the stench of strong chlorine and horribly mixed wine filled his senses. In a split second he knew he had lost his year long fight. The Tormentor bit down on Joseph's neck, and the terribly long, sharp teeth made any breathing impossible. As his life rushed out of the new found holes with his blood, he could easily see even in the darkness that the Tormentor's eyes had altered after the bite, now resembling a black void with several white specs.

His eyes began to roll back in to his head with a sharp wet pain, and memories ran through his mind faster than he could even remember them all. Vision cutting out, all was forgotten.

Personal Pandemonium
Joseph awoke to the feeling of a cold, shivering floor brushing against him. Even through his blue dress shirt, he felt the pressure of the hard floor. As he opened his eyes he saw nothing but darkness, with selective light in the form of candles roughly 10 feet away. The candles burnt red and sat on a table of sorts, whilst the light made clear that a figure of a man was standing on the other side of the table, facing away.

No walls in any direction, Joseph lifted his head to look down. There was nothing beneath him. Darkness and void stretching in every general direction except forward. As he perched his body upwards to gain his balance, the being on the other side of the table turned around very ruggedly.

A skull of a goat for a head, antlers with at least 10 points each grew off of the head. The figure looked to be wearing a black ceremonial robe, that only stuck out from the void because of the red design that flaunted itself proudly on the right shoulder.

The same bronze face that had just been destroyed, had been resting peacefully on this figure's robes. Joseph instantly stiffened, as he watched this new being calmly look at him. His mind now a mess of confused and dreaded thoughts, the goat skull spoke in a very echoed yet dastardly voice, sounding as if the reaper himself was inside of the body.

"Yes, you are deceased. No, I will not murder and fall the deceased. Indeed, there is a way out. It is certainly not running into the abyss around you. Your wounds have disappeared completely due to the use of my power, even off of your real corpse. The bronze face is a mark of tribute or sacrifice to the Tormentor, and I wear it in an act of blasphemy against the foul being. The carving on your car door was a warning that Jackson and his master were near."

Joseph stepped towards the figure, still in a phase of pure fear and adrenaline. He was hardly able to speak back. He curled his fists very sternly as he spoke to handle the situation, to the point he was discomforting his own hands. He began to whisper his favorite bible passages under his throat as he inched his way forward.

"The lord is good, a str-stronghold in the day of trouble. and he knows tho-"

"Out of all faiths, how can you assure yourself that yours is correct? Do you not notice your place in hell, in deep Malebolge?"

"Hell?" he questioned, shivering in his shoes.

"Hell, heaven, the illusion does not hold a light to the truth. You are property."

"Who are you? Can you e-explain to me what is happening?"

"A simple name would be Mendes. You are currently in your own mind. You could state that this was both orchestrated, and reductive. When the being you have dubbed the Tormentor fell you by use of its claws, your quantum mind collapsed upon itself. You are currently in the confines of your own mind, Joseph."

He pressed his hands even harder, which caused his fingernails to shake side to side in their place.

"Why is my mind empty?"

"Unfortunately for you, your story does not end with your killing. You have a chance, that I will gift. I will return you to your corpse, which Natalie has placed in the back of your car. After noticing the Tormentor and Jackson had disappeared after your murder, made obvious by Jackson simply she returned to your body for the keys.

She is hoping to reach a doctor with your body at this very time. Your mind is empty, because after death, all life becomes property to the Tormentor. He will torture everything both physically and psychologically for all of existence. When you are born, you are already owned property, feeding in to his lust. "

"What is the Tormentor, and what did it due to Jackson?" His tone was horrified, and his mind was clogged.

"To put it in a way your could grasp, if the universe was a dream, the Tormentor would be lucid. I would be the electricity playing the show. Jackson had occasionally seen the Tormentor in his life, and struck a deal with the being to bring you, the target, and Natalie, the birther, to him. Jackson would impregnate Natalie to spread the Tormentor's seed, which is now inside of him from this deal. You would be murdered, as the Tormentor knows exactly what would happen if I had reached you in death. It had planned to simply kill you and use Jackon's will to thwart my influence by slaughtering you again."

"Why me? What is so special about me? Why does the Tormentor want its seed to spread? If the Tormentor is so smart, how did you find me in death anyways?"

"You are the spawn of what the Tormentor, and most religions would call, Diabolum. The evil force that has come to destroy the good. I have been in a conflict with the Tormentor for ages, in which it had always overpowered me. All solid matter exists because of at least one more matter particle than anti-matter at the creation of your universe.

I, being what it calls Diabolum, am what you are the spawn of. You have not literally spawned from me in a physical way, but you have been destined for this death forever. The plan that had succeeded on its part, is that when you died the first time, the death I was originally referring to, it had acquired Jackson. After your first resurrection, it had slit his throat and made him into what he is now."

"My first death?"

"When you had apparently fainted when the Tormentor revealed its purpose. It had called you Pueri Diabolum. In reality, your consciousness had collapsed upon itself, and Natalie was alone in that room with Jackson, in the first attempt to impregnate her. You do not remember a thing from that period of time, due to me being blocked off from contacting you."

"How were you blocked off?"

He began to shiver, and his eyes began to water, as he was unable to handle his new found information. Mendes touched his own head with his right hand, brushing under the right eye hole.

"This head was not always a skull. There is an entire pantheon of beings, of which the Tormentor is unfortunately on top of. This simple disfiguration into one of your Earthly

creature's remains has lead your own kind to murder at the sight of me. My figure a blasphemy, the knights of Templar, whom gifted me my newest name of Mendes, were all burnt. For the following of my lessons. Towns have been burned and sieges, for my information is not that of Jehovah."

"Was the voice asking to enter Natalie's apartment Jackson or the Tormentor?"

"Neither." Answered Mendes, quite sternly. "It was myself asking for entry, so that I could break the glass ans such, causing you to exit faster and safer due to phobia abuse.

"Are you and the Tormentor extraterrestrial?"

"We are not of your Earth, so by classification, indeed. We have existed non-physically for many cycles of the universe, but this is the time in which one must fall. Enki, the first name your race gave the Tormentor, worshiped him as a god. This worship of his intelligence, even though he is still physically a primal and corrupted creature, shows that his greater power reflects even in your race.

All other races of the universe have acted the same, and those who didn't were exterminated swiftly. Those like yours, he enjoys pushing and influencing until you either destroy yourself, or he simply feels like moving on. The other beings of the pantheon, are simply mortal beings of different races, that have reached complete enlightenment. As a Christian, you follow one of these many pantheon members."

Jackson sat in shock and awe as he attempted to process all of this. As if his entire life's faith had been destroyed.

"I'm ready for the choice details." He uttered, sighing in complete belief in Mendes, whom he had only just paired with.

"You may return you Earth one more time. You will help remove Jackson from the image, weakening the plan Anu has against you."

"Anu?"

"Another name your people have given him. He is both the light and the dark, but not the balance between the two. He acts in pure evil, but his motives are in pure love. With the pain and misery he feeds off of being emitted from your race, he learns in order to teach the next. Your species was taught in its years of early civilization in this same way. He has merged his lustful, sadistic heart, with the cycle of nature he has lead too. Texts of holiness can be attributed to the enlightened and their confrontations with Enki himself."

"I have made my choice." Jackson rushed in a fast breath.

His now apparent bone fingers clicking and scraping together from his robes, he awaited an answer.

"I'll go. I'll save Natalie, I'll complete what you say I am meant to."

A clear slime-like substance leaked from Mendes' jaws. The muscle and tendons holding the bottom jaw to the top had tilted up in a failed attempt to smile. Without any more useless talk, he brushed his hand over the candles, putting out their light.

No Going Back
Joseph came back into consciousness to the sound of metallic clicking. He was in the back seat of his car, laying across all three back seats. As he sat up, he felt around himself, and focused his attention to the front seat.

Natalie was working the key side to side, but it was obvious she didn't quite know how to work a car. She was breathing heavily and had tears streaming down her face. Joseph reached over to help her with the keys, but when she say his hand beside her face, she screamed as loud as she could, and hit his hand away with a reflex.

She looked him dead in the eyes, when he questioned her.

"How long was I gone?" he asked in a worried tone.

She extended her right hand towards him, with all five fingers extended. He continued.

"Natalie, listen to me. We have ourselves in a very deep situation here. We have to leave as fast as we can. None of this should be happened to us."

This is when Natalie realized his bite mark on his neck was completely gone, and even the tooth holes in the collar had disappeared. Even the blood was gone from his body. Looking at him confusingly, and even suspiciously. She pulled something out of her pocket she had recovered from beside his body when she dragged him to the car. The pistol he had fallen out of the window with.

"How do I know you aren't just coming back like Jackson?" she said with a surprising lack of emotion. It was still very clear she was distressed.

"You won't believe it at all! I met a figure who called himself Mendes! He says he can help us survive, and fight the Tormentor off for good!" he refuted.

She pointed the pistol at his head, right between his eyes. She kept a straight face as well as she could, but tears had only increased in quantity.

"You don't know how to drive, your middle name is May, I promised to make sure you were on schedule with your pills even when you said you were fine, and I once had you tell me that you still had hope Jackson would come out alive and fixed, regardless of the fact we slammed the trap door on him" he continued in a rushed voice.

She looked shocked, but lowered the gun. She opened the door and stepped outside of the car, allowing Joseph to shuffle his way to the driver's seat, while she switched to the passenger's seat. He started the car, and they closed the doors as softly as they could.

She went to go put the pistol in her pocket, when he grabbed her arm. When she turned her head towards him, their eyes were locked again. Hers still in confusion, but his in a dark happiness.

"I know how we can finish this all" he justified.

"..How?"

As he was about to speak, Mendes' familiar voice filled his head. His vision went dark, and his hearing, excluding Mendes' voice, became a solid high pitch ring.

''Return to the trap door. Go to the room Jackson once tried to kill Natalie inside of. Face your trials in your worst fears, and set yourself free from fate.''

As if he was daydreaming, he came back to reality to Natalie pushing his arm to straighten him up. His ears bleeding profoundly, the dark liquid streams breached the inside of his shirt.

"We need to go back to the door."

"No! Get me out of this town, Joseph! You promised me we would be safe!"

He grabbed her shoulders.

"And we will be! We have to go face a trail, and we will be set free from our fate! This is our only ticket!"

"How do you even know that Mendes' is even real? You were dead, you could have been hallucinating for all you know!"

"Do you have a better option?" he harassed, as he grabbed the pistol from her hands forcefully. taking the clip out of the pistol, he checked for bullets. None were inside of the gun. Pulling back the top of the pistol, no shells flew out.

"I wouldn't have shot you. The pistol has been out of bullets since you used them. I found it empty. If you were a servant of that demon, you wouldn't have defended yourself. You would have killed me, and I would have rather died by you than any of our other options" she said shyly, looking outside of her window.

Resting his hands on the steering wheel, he looked out of the windshield and laid his foot on the gas.

"I want to finish this. We have to be ready to beat our own fates, here. We can outlive this.."

She simply looked at him and nodded. He started driving back south, beside the forest. The heat of the moment had both of their hearts racing at speeds they had never encountered before in both fear and adrenaline.

They had already encountered trees due to the speeding of the car. If no one seemed to be around in the world to save them, who could they possibly hurt by speeding? The trees casted shadows over their car that broke only between leaf layers, to cast the dark sky over them.

No birds, no bugs, no people, and no wind to break up the silence. The only noise other than the altered breathing of the pair in their near panicked state, was the engine of the car.

"Did he tell you anything?"

She broke the silence so suddenly it caught Joseph off guard.

"He told me a lot of things, that I don't know if I could even describe it to you."

"We are about to do the scariest thing in history, and return to the place that almost had us killed. Please, Joseph."

He thought about telling her about how Mendes stated all human lives were the Tormentor's property to torture forever after their death, and how the Tormentor had even taught ancient humans with knowledge it had earned through this same method. Instead, he only told her what he needed to, so that she would remain as calm as possible, but hopefully have enough courage to go through with this.

He especially didn't want to tell her why Jackson had tried to rape her a year ago. How she was supposed to be the host of the evil seed of such a beast would surely ruin her.

"The Tormentor goes by many, more literal names. For instance, Enki and Anu. It also isn't from Earth."

"Where is it from, then?"

Paying more attention to the road, they saw Jackson's house. Natalie covered her eyes with her left hand and tilted her head to the right, outside of her window again. The car turned left, down a dirt road straight in to cooks forest. It was only a minutes drive from here.

"As long as the universe has existed, so has Enki and Mendes. They are like the personifications of literal concepts. The Tormentor is both good and evil, but Mendes is the balance between the two."

She let out a shocked sigh, and attempted to grasp the idea the best she could. The car came to a stop. To both sides of the road was overgrown brush, bush, and trees. The forest was thick and underused on this path, creating a natural canopy over them.

Natalie was whispering something under her breath, presumably a prayer. When she was done, the two both stepped out of the car and closed the doors behind them. Looking dead to the right, the primary entrance was still visible. The trapdoor had hardly any brush growing on it. 