In the material world, the bodies of myself and Grayson laid seemingly asleep in the hospital waiting room. Our consciousness however was in the soulscape of the comatose kid who was possessed by the demon, named Hayden.

Even though the demon left his body and was destroyed by me a fragment still remained, not unlike a parasite in the soulscape. The process of possession is traumatic enough to cause the body to shut down. The demon leaves fragments, memories of itself which spread and infect the person, eventually overwriting their soul and causing them to awake from their coma changed, a demon themselves.

That was why we were there. The demonic fragment had to be found, and destroyed.

“Where are we.” I asked.

“Hayden’s room I think.” Grayson said. “I’ve never been in here but…” He pushed open the door. “Yeah I recognize the house.”

“I’m surprised you can tell these houses apart.” I said as we continued through it. “They all look the same to me. So how well do you know this kid?”

“Honestly I don’t.” He said. “We used to hang out as kids but then Aunt Catherine decided to keep us away from him. Now I still see him at homeschool class but like, we never discuss anything deeper than video games.”

“What happened that caused your Aunt to keep you apart?” I said.

“Well he tricked my sister into thinking our parents’ ghosts were in the basement.” He said.

“And what happened?” I said.

“Nothing.” He said. “Well I mean she thought she saw something but she was really young when it happened.”

“Interesting.”

“What’s interesting?”

“Nothing.” I said. It probably was too, but it couldn’t hurt to look into it.

Every room in the house was devoid of any sign of life. Everything was untouched, in pristine condition. Perfect. Perfection sounds ideal on paper but once you find something completely perfect it becomes unnerving. The lack of flaws becomes a flaw in itself, as the human brain tries to process how something so ideal it doesn’t seem real, is real.

A photo album was sitting on the table. Thus far the only thing I’d found seemingly out of place. I picked it up. Inside were pictures of Hayden, his sister, presumably his parents. Hayden was smiling in most of the photos from when he was a young child. As he gets older he smiles less in them and there start to be seemingly less pictures of him.

“Is that normal?” Grayson pointed at the window. The “sky” was a perfect pitch black, similar to in the Other Side.

“It is normal for demons.” I said. “We should try the basement.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Just a feeling.”

The stairway to the basement was a tight corridor lit with only a single bulb, its harsh yellow light tinting the wooden stairs. Immediately the vibe was different. The stainless house giving way to a rustic underworld.

The claustrophobic descent finally gave way into a labyrinth of shelves filled with tools, toys, and heirlooms buried and long forgotten amidst the mass of acquired “stuff”. The lighting was even worse down here, just enough that you could see the outline of everything in the room, but not enough that you could make out specifics.

My suspicion was correct. This was a place marked by death.

Navigating the labyrinth, one could feel eyes watching them, omnipresent, but always just outside of peripheral vision. No matter how much one searched, they could never be found. Always seeing, but never seen. That was the true horror.

Clang! Something fell on the floor behind me. Instinctively I turned around as fast as my body would allow. Behind us, standing in front of the stairway back up. Hayden.

Or so it appeared.