#HOWEVER he claims that an exorcism could be as small as a single prayer or declaration to leave

[dlnqnt]

this movie was fun trash but i cannot believe they closed the movie on babby's first book report-style epilogue

[wickedsrest-rp-archive]

Name: Roxanne Parker Species: Phoenix Occupation: Employee at Eye of Newt Age: 25 Years Old Played By: Cree Face Claim: Laura Harrier

"What? No, I’m not lonely. I like my ‘me’ time. Especially since other people are so damn disappointing.“

Roxanne hadn’t always been so… strange. Once upon a time, she was the daughter of a preacher and his wife, living a simple existence in Louisiana. She had spent most of her childhood in church pews, listening to her father preach every Sunday to the masses of her small town. St. Francisville wasn’t grand or extraordinary by any means, but it was home. The people there cared about each other and her family’s roots stretched back generations. There wasn’t a single person who didn’t know Pastor Isaiah Parker and his family, if not personally then by reputation.

She herself was a mother’s dream. She was kind, made good grades, had a lot of friends and helped the family out with their church every weekend. Yet for some reason, she always felt a strange disconnect between she and her mom. She knew that she loved her, of course, but there were times when she looked at her and she swore she saw a brush of fear. As if she were waiting for something to happen. Her father brushed it off, asserting that they loved her dearly and she had nothing to worry about. Their love was never something that Rox questioned, merely their honesty. For as much as they loved her, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something that they were hiding from her. It wasn’t until she went snooping through their attic that she finally found the answers she was looking for, in the form of her birth certificate.

Surely, it had to have been a mistake. Roxanne Portland, it stated. The line marked ‘mother’ was correct, but a stranger’s name had been placed where her father’s was supposed to be. She had to have stared at that little piece of paper for hours before she marched down to confront her parents. After filling their usually happy home with screams and tears, her parent’s finally came clean. The man that she had spent her life calling ‘dad’ was not the one she shared blood with. Her real father had disappeared a few months after she was born without a trace. Her mother had met Pastor Parker a year later, and a few months after that, they were married. The Pastor adopted her and treated her as if she were his own daughter. They saw no reason to spoil the life they had built for her over a man who didn’t stick around.

He was touched by the devil, her mother had stated ominously, and Roxanne could only stare at her as if she were crazy. Nothing had been resolved that night, their conversations ending in hateful words and tears. She wished that she could say that she woke up the next morning and her life moved on from that night, but it didn’t. After crying herself to sleep, she awoke with her room in a blaze. She could hear her father outside her door, trying to get in, but it was no use. The house was reduced to ash with Roxanne sitting among it all, naked as the day she was born.

Her father and the fire fighters that had responded were baffled, but not her mother. She simply clutched the cross handing around her neck and started praying. Word of the fire spread through the town, with some calling it a miracle. Not even her father could summon an excuse fit to describe what he had witnessed. An act of God, a fluke of nature- there didn’t seem to be words that would rationalize seeing his daughter survive a fire without a scratch. One day, however, Roxanne woke up in the apartment they had rented and her parents were smiling as if nothing had occurred, as if the last few weeks hadn’t happened. They claimed that they were going to visit the church and invited her along even though they had kept her from services since the ‘incident’, as her mother had come to call it. She wished she had said no, feigned sickness and stayed home. Maybe then her life would have been different.

She didn’t know when she had fallen asleep in the car, but when she came to she was tied to a chair in the middle of the church she had spent her life in. Demon, her parents had called her. Exorcism, they murmured. People she didn’t recognize chanted prayer after prayer with her parents, dousing her in holy water and ignoring her pleas for help. It went on for hours as they tried to ‘exorcise’ the demon they claimed lived in her, just as it lived in her real father. She managed to wiggle free from her rope bindings while they took a break and escaped out the back door, not once looking back. And just like that, she was on her own, avoiding the authorities that her parents’ sent after her and surviving in shelters.

A few months went by and eventually the police gave up searching for her. She received a call at the shelter she was staying in at the time, from a woman named Vera whom she didn’t know, but seemed to know her very, very well. An old friend of your father’s, she said before quickly adding. Your real father. In retrospect, what other choice did she have but to take her up on her offer? She was almost eighteen and by then, even if her parents’ found her, there was no way they could ever drag her back home. And maybe she’d be able to find out who her father was and what exactly she was. With the little money she had, she caught a bus and headed to White Crest, Maine.

Vera was as strange as she thought she would be. To this day, Roxanne can’t truly tell you anything about the woman, but she took care of her. I owe your father one, she had said as if that was a satisfactory explanation, but Roxanne didn’t question her. She told her what she was, gave her a roof over her head and a job in her incredibly strange store. Rox was grateful to her for all that she had done, no matter why she chose to do it. It’s been seven years since she came to White Crest and not a month goes by that something doesn’t surprise her. She usually keeps her distance from people, since controlling her flames is easier said than done with no other’s Phoenix’s to guide her. She hasn’t spoken to her parents’ since the exorcism and she had no plans on ever doing so. She simply wants to discover the part of her life that had been hidden from her and figure out what exactly happened to her father.

Character Facts:

Personality: Loyal, clever, sanctimonious, temperamental, cautious, compassionate, aimless, critical

The only thing that Roxanne feels comfortable doing with her abilities is popping popcorn, but she’s managed to burn the last few bags she tried it on.

Yes, she occasionally sneezes fireballs. No, she doesn’t think it’s funny.

The years she has spent working at Eye of Newt has made her fairly skilled at identifying some supernatural artifacts. She’s not an expert by any means, but more than likely she knows whether something is real or not.

She started growing feathers last year and she completely flipped out. Since then, dealing with them is a part of her normal grooming routine, much to the chagrin of her roommate.

[alternativewinxcontinuity]

Sailor Moon Sailor Moon Z A survivor of the Dark Kingdom gets revenge by means of a Zombie Apocalypse. Merging of Classic Anime and Manga canons.

When Metaria's dark cloud swarmed over the world, Indicolite was undercover in the CDC, trying to find a way to use her favourite bacterial agents as agents for the Dark Kingdom.

While the bodies started dropping around her, drained and overwhelmed by Materia's presence, Indicolite sat at her desk sipping tea, revelling in the feel of the great ruler's dark energy.

When the purifying essence of the Silver Crystal swept over the world, the origin point too far to hurt her, but erasing Metaria, Indicolite shrieked and screamed, and destroyed her teacup, her computer, her chair, and the face of an assistant.

She erased the footage from the cameras and claimed they'd been attacked during the darkness.

After everything had settled down, almost a week later, Indicolite made her way the Dark Kingdom's headquarters at D-point in the North Pole. There was no trace of any other denizen of the Kingdom, the entire area felt almost Holy in its cleanliness. It made her sick to her stomach.

What she did find however, was equipment left of from the various schemes of the four generals, tools and schematics.

Indicolite wasn't one for sentimentality, but any excuse for vengeance would do.

First, she'd need energy.

Unlike the generals, she didn't go to Japan, went everywhere else in fact, and didn't drain people to unconsciousness. She set up small drains in the metropolitan cities of the world, skimming off the millions of people who walked around unaware.

Unlike Beryl, Indicolite didn't need all the energy in an instant, she was happy to wait for the big haul; after all, she still had work to do. Using the resources of the CDC and their various contacts Indicolite set about creating her masterpiece, augmented by the relics of the Dark Kingdom, but something was missing, some piece that would allow her creation to not only work, but defend against the power of the Senshi.

She needed more data on them.

With that in mind, she did what she'd told herself she wouldn't do until it was too late to be stopped: Indicolite went to Tokyo.

She stayed out of sight, didn't take any energy, didn't attack anyone, she merely tracked down the interesting energy sources until she found the five girls who matched the Senshi's description. She followed them, studied them, scanned them for days. But she couldn't figure out how to take one without alerting the others.

Then her scanning equipment blipped.

It turned out, their were eight Senshi in the Tokyo area. Of the other three, two of them seemed to be dating, but the third was almost always alone. The little dark haired girl was sickly, rarely left the house, and it appeared the other Senshi knew nothing about her.

Indicolite killed the girl's guardian, made it look like an accident, and took off with the child, days before anyone knew anything had happened.

The child was to scared to fight back, didn't even know what was happening most of the time. When Indicolite realised which Senshi she'd grabbed, and what her powers were, the Dark Kingdom witch decided it was Fate.

With the Power of the Senshi of Saturn, not only could Indicolite protect her creation from Sailor Moon's healing spells, she could infuse it with so much more magic, an endless cycle of it.

Her laughter was manic, as she imagined the soon to come death, destruction and panic.

Only after vaccinating herself and Saturn did she release the virus, in aerosol canisters through the major cities of the world, including Japan. She waited four days before activating it. Then she sat back and watched the world burn.

Ami was the first Senshi to know about the attack. Her mother called in the early hours of the morning panicked.

“Ami? Oh God, Ami, are you safe!?”

“I'm fine, why are you whispering?”

“They're everywhere, Ami I want you to stay inside, lock the door and stay inside. I'm safe for now but I need you to promise me! I need you to be safe”

“I- Mum, what's going on, who is everywhere?”

“I don't know, they won't die, they're eating people! It's not like before, they're actually eating people! MH!”

“Mum?”

“They're outside the room.”

“Hang on mum, I'll come get you.”

“NO!” The stage whisper was followed but a gasp and silence.

“Mum?”

“I think they heard me. Please just be safe. I love you so much.”

The line went dead. Ami dropped the phone.

Rei was the second to find out. She woke early for morning prayer, to find Yuiichiro had become a flesh eating monster. An early morning jogger who stopped by on their way home every morning was dead in front of him, throat gone and blood still cooling as he ate.

She and her grandpa tried exorcism for an hour. When Yuiichiro's meal woke up and tried to eat them, Rei put an arrow through its eye, followed by Yuiichiro's.

The Police never arrived.

Usagi, Minako and Makoto found out at about the same time. Minako was receiving a call from Rei, Makoto was getting one from Ami, and Usagi's dad was leaving the house.

“Ah, mister Tanaka, good morning, you're looking a little unwell, rough night?” Ikuko, standing at the door watching her husband leave, shrieked when their friendly neighbour Mr Tanaka attacked. Her children where behind her in an instant.

“Get back inside!” She didn't know if she was screaming to the children or to her husband. From further up the street, more of their neighbours came walking along the road, a few of them even looked like they'd been mauled by something. Her husband was managing to fend of Mr Tanaka, who looked like he was trying to eat Kenji, until the deranged neighbour wrenched his briefcase from his grip. Her husband fell backwards, a flash of blonde streaked past her, and before she knew what she was seeing, Usagi used their Burglar-Bat to smack Mr Tanaka in the face so hard he was struck to the ground, his head hitting with a loud crack.

“Daddy, you need to get up.” With his daughter's help he managed to get to his feet and back inside. They locked the door and added a chair to wedge it shut. The table went on its side against the glass sliding doors as the other neighbours began converging on the house.

Their phone rang, Usagi was beside it, answering before the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Usako! Are you alright? Have you been bitten? Are they even there yet?”

“Yes, no, yes. Mamo-chan, what's going on?”

“I don't know, I went for a jog-” a grunt of exertion came over the phone, “and they were just everywhere, I saw the police trying to fight them earlier, they only seemed to stay dead when they got shot in the head.”

Usagi called for her brother.

“Shingo, talk to Mamo-chan a sec I need to check something.”

“Hello?”

“Hi, Shingo ri-” another short shout of exertion, Shingo thought he heard something heavy hit the ground.

“Sorry about that, the way back to my apartment is swarming with these things, I'm going to try to make it to your place. I noticed they're attracted to sound; and don't let them bite you, I saw someone die from a bite earlier. It was only a small one. Just stay inside and stay safe. Tell Usako I love her.”

Before Shingo could say anything, there came the sound of fighting from the speaker, it moved away. This 'Mamo-chan' must have been calling from a pay phone, Shingo realised, hanging up.

“Shingo! Why'd you hang up?”

“Sorry sis, guy said he had to move, he's going to try to make it here, the way to his apartment is swarmed.” Shingo related the massage he'd been left. Then took a second look at his now devastated sister.

“You went upstairs to put on a new brooch?” Their parents sidled up to them.

“What's going on, who was on the phone?”

“Mamo-chan called, he said the police were fighting those people, but they only died when they got shot in the head. Mr Tanaka hasn't gotten up yet.”

“He said people died from a single bite too,” Shingo added, “and they're attracted to sound. He's on his way here. And Usagi decided to take a break from protecting our home from crazy people to put on a new brooch!”

The glass doors broke, the horde of - whatever the heck they were – toppling over the table and into the house.

“You three get upstairs!” The command in Usagi's voice shocked her family. “Now!” They moved, about halfway up the stairs they heard her call out again.

“Moon Crystal Power, Make up!” They turned just in time to see Usagi covered in a bright light for an instant before Sailor Moon was suddenly standing where Usagi had been.

“Moon Healing Escalation!” The wand that had appeared in her hand let of a burst of energy, it washed over the pile of infected trying to stand, but did nothing.

With her free hand Sailor moon tugged off her tiara.

“Moon Tiara Stardust! Moon Healing Escalation!”

While the Tiara doused the group, the wand sent another wave of energy over them.

“Sailor Moon!” The trio on the stairs turned to the new intruder, but found only their cat. Which began talking. “Sailor Moon, I'm sorry but you can't help these people, the Crescent Moon Wand would have healed them if it could. The only thing you can do now is grant them a merciful send off.”

Sailor Moon looked ready to cry, or throw up and she caught her tiara.

“Moon Tiara Activation!” Her hand waved through the air, directing the flying weapon in the compact space of the house.

The phone rang a second time as the last body dropped.

Sailor Moon answered.

“Hello?”

“Usagi! Usagi they are strange people attacking the store, but they don't seem to be interested in the jewellery. They keep coming after Mama and me.”

“Did either of you get bit?”

“No.”

“Okay, lock yourselves in somewhere, I'm going to come get you. Don't get bitten and stay quiet, if you can, aim for the head, it's the only way we know to stop them so far. I'm coming to get you Naru, just hold on.”

“I will. Usagi, they're coming, I have to go.”

“Be safe.” Usagi's last words were answered by the dial tone.

“You're Sailor Moon?” Shingo asked incredulous, their parents still hadn't recovered from the shock.

“Yeah, surprised me too when I first found out. Look, from the sounds of things, this is happening all over Tokyo, possibly all over Japan, and right now, I'm the only Sailor Senshi with powers that will be of any use against these things.

“Just when I thought we were done fighting... right focus. Luna, I need the wands for the others, and communicators for more than just the five of us. Mum, dad, Shingo: get what food you can, we're going to barricade upstairs until we come up with a better plan.”

The family of four collected what they could and hauled it upstairs, Luna disappeared back into Usagi's room.

Once the barricade was in place Ikuko asked her daughter “What now?” Sailor Moon looked at her.

“I don't...”

“You said 'we're going to barricade upstairs,' but I heard you promise Naru you'd go get her. How will we defend ourselves without you?”

“I've managed to summon some old Moon Kingdom guns, they should work, and they're quiet compared to modern firearms.” The family flinched, they'd been trying to repress the memory of the cat talking.

“Thanks Luna, you four take care of yourselves, I'll call in an hour to let you know I'm okay.”

“Be safe.”

“No! I forbid you to leave this house young lady, it's not safe out there!”

“I know daddy, that's why I have to go. I love you all so much.”

Sailor Moon ducked into her bedroom with Luna, scooping the new wands and communicators into a backpack.

“Luna's going to stay, to show us how to use the guns right?” Shingo asked from the door.

“I am,” the mautian replied.

“So who's going to watch your back? You said the other Senshi didn't have the power right now.”

“That's what the wands are for, I'm going to give them their powers back. I know it's complicated-”

“You should pin your hair up.”

“Huh?”

“The... zombies, or whatever they are, might grab it. You should out it up like you do for the bath.”

“Ah you're right, I guess I never thought about it like that, the monsters we used to fight never really grabbed my hair before.”

Sailor Moon landed on Makoto's balcony, tapping the glass quietly. The curtain didn't even rustle. She tried opening the sliding door. It wasn't locked. There was a note on the table, boxed lunches in the fridge and cupboard.

'Gone to get Motoki.'

She ran into Sailor V half way to the arcade.

“Minako!”

“Usagi, I'm so glad you're alright, how are you transformed though?”

“How are you transformed? I've got new gear from Luna, I have a pen and wand for you.” Sailor moon rummaged through the bag until she found the pen for Venus and her new communicator. “Here.”

“Thanks, I wasn't sure how much longer the V compact was going to last, hold Artemis a sec?” The white mautian looked put out at being handled like luggage.

“Oh! The new wand has a new phrase, it's 'star power' now.”

“Got it, Venus Star Power, Make Up!” An instant later Sailor Venus was there.

“I need to find the others, I have gear for them too.”

“I've already spoken to Rei... she had to kill Yuiichiro this morning, he was eating someone and exorcism didn't work and his victim woke up from the dead. I knew I'd have to fight monsters, but these are full on zombies.”

“It gets worse, my Crescent Moon wand can't heal them.”

“Oh Usagi.”

“Do you think Rei can hold out a little longer?”

“Yeah, she said she and her grandpa are just standing at the top of the stairs and shooting anyone who comes up. Any one who is a zombie anyway. They've had a few survivors so far, but this thing is all over Tokyo.”

“Makoto went to find Motoki, if he was already at work he may have headed down to the control room.”

“I can head over there and check, that's where we were going, Artemis wanted to see if he could figure out what's going on. The Dark Kingdom is gone, and this happened way to sudden to be natural.”

“Then I'll get Ami, and we'll head over to Rei. Here, take these to Makoto.”

“Be careful princess.”

“You too Venus.”

Ami was waiting on the Balcony, watching the hordes move about, when Sailor Moon landed.

“My mother was at the hospital when this broke out, she managed to call me a few hours ago.”

“We'll look for her, but not yet. I have new gear for you, but we need to get to the temple to help Rei, she has a group of survivors. Venus is dropping Artemis off at the Control room and heading out to find Makoto, who went looking for Motoki.”

“What? I told her not too! It's too dangerous without our powers!”

“I know, but if anyone could, it's Makoto, and when we find her, you can give her a stern talking to.”

“Let me get the medical supplies and some food, and I want to leave a note for my mother just in case.”

“Alright.”

Rei whirled and fired an arrow into the walking dead-thing that had managed to sneak through the forest around the shrine. She cursed all the zombie movies who'd said zombies were slow, these things moved at normal human speeds, some of them even moved faster.

She turned back to the stairs, grasping at her quiver, only to meet empty air.

“Grandpa, I need more arrows.”

The man was silent, she glanced over, he shook his head, they were out of arrows. She'd have to make another trip down the stairs to pull arrows from corpses. One of the survivors screamed, Rei spun, alarmed, more zombies were emerging from the forest.

“Moon Tiara Activation!”

A golden disk of light swept through the undead, cutting their heads in half.

“Sorry we're late, I had to pack supplies,” Sailor mercury explained, dropping down beside the priestess.

“Just in time,” Rei waved off her apology, “that was my last arrow,” she pointed to the corpse she'd downed a moment ago.

Then she gave a pointed look at Mercury's outfit and her own.

“Sailor Moon bought new wands and communicators from Luna, we just heard from Artemis in the Control Room, he and Venus have found Makoto and Motoki. Mamoru showed up at Usagi's a few minutes ago. Venus and Jupiter are on their way over to us, the boys are going to ready the Control Room for guests. Once we have your survivors safe we're going to the hospital for my mother, then Osa-P for Naru and her mother.”

“What about Usagi and Minako's families?”

“The Tsukinos are barricaded in with Mamoru and Luna, they have weapons and food, Minako said her parents were locked in their panic room when she left, so they're all safe for now.”

Sailor Moon, who'd been talking to survivors, appeared by Rei's side.

“Didn't want to try the Crescent Moon Wand?” Rei asked, cranky from the horrific morning she'd had, the memory of Yuiichiro's dead face, with her arrow sticking out, swimming behind her eyes.

“I did,” the princess defended, “twice. It doesn't work on this. Luna and Artemis said it might be because it's a virus and not magical in origin.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.”

“No, Ami told me what happened to...” The pair silently looked away from each other, before wrapping one another in a tight hug.

“Whatever this is, we'll get through it, together.”

[the-magnus-archives-archiver]

Confession

Case: 0113005

Name: Father Edwin Burroughs Subject: His claimed demonic possession Date: May 30th, 2011 Recorded by: Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London

Thank you for coming. I know that this can’t have been easy to arrange and I appreciate the opportunity to make my statement. The Prison Service probably didn’t make it easy for you. They’re understandably hesitant to give anyone extended access to me in case I get violent, but I’m very glad they made an exception for you. At least, assuming that you’re real. I hope you’re real but maybe it’s that hope that’s being used against me in a cruel joke. Or maybe the joke would be that I would let that doubt cost me my only chance to tell my story. Either way, I choose to make my statement and if you’re not real then hopefully no harm done.

We’ll get to the cannibalism, of course, but first I just want to provide some context. I don’t know how much you work with the Church in your Institute. You may be surprised that a man of the cloth such as myself, however far from grace I may have fallen, would enlist the aid of an organisation dedicated to studying the paranormal. Well, to be honest, it’s generally kept quiet, but the Catholic Church is not against belief in the supernatural outside of the official doctrine. Demons, ghosts, black magic... It’s generally up to the individual how much they believe in these things, and I believe that very much of what you research is real. Dangerous, but real. I’ve always seen the Devil’s work as a very tangible thing, and those priests who might speak of them as metaphor or symbol are, I fear, often placing themselves and their parishioners in a position of peril. Sorry, this is becoming a homily. It’s just been some time since I’ve had a chance to express myself like this; I almost don’t care if it is on one of Its phantasms.

So it was only natural, I suppose, that it was relatively early in my vocation as a priest that I trained as an exorcist. It’s not something all that special really, every diocese should have a trained exorcist available, or failing that a bishop can do it, but nine times out of ten the duties of an exorcist are to recommend a good psychiatrist, doctor or substance abuse program, and bishops don’t usually have time for that. I was an exorcist for the Diocese of Oxford when this all happened. I trained as a Jesuit, so I was used to moving about a lot, but I was at Oxford from about 2005 right through to my arrest in 2009. There were two exorcists in the diocese, myself and an old Augustinian by the name of Father Harrogate. I would ask as a favour that you not follow up with him; he plays no part in what happened to me and would, I think, be upset by any reminder of my actions.

In my time I have performed just over one hundred exorcisms, with varying degrees of success. It was relatively rare that it felt like much more than a blessing or a prayer. It still helped in most cases, but as one of the most common types of possession is not The Exorcist-style of speaking in a demonic tongue and floating off the bed, but rather that of an unnatural depression, it was often hard to be sure. It is difficult to say how many were devout believers who came to us with a very natural depression, and simply preferred to look to the Church than to counselling or medicine. Even those were helped to some degree, I believe, even if only as a placebo. On a few occasions, though I did encounter things that served to firm up my belief in the Devil and my faith in my Lo– my L– I’m sorry, It won’t let me say the words. It won’t let me pray either, but I hope I will not be judged too harshly for it on the final day.

As I was saying, there were times when I felt things pushing back. I was once cursed at in Sumerian by a young man who was utterly illiterate, and had the names of my childhood pets thrown at me by an old Jamaican man. I will admit that there were times that I have been very afraid of what I was trying to remove, but I always had faith in Je– I always had faith. None of it prepared me for what happened on Bullingdon Road, though. That was something else entirely.

I was doing some work at the Catholic chaplaincy in St Aldate’s, generally trying to help the spiritual well-being of the students who came to us, when Father Singh, one of the other priests working there, came to me. He said he had a student from St. Hughes asking after an exorcism, and wanted to refer her to me. I told him of course and he set up a meeting between us. The student’s name was Bethany O’Connor, and much of what she told me was under the seal of confession, something I will not break even now, so suffice it to say she believed that she was no longer in control of her own mind.

Even as we talked, she spent much of her time looking around or staring into my eyes with what I can only describe as pointed suspicion. Bethany told me that her will was still her own but she could no longer trust her senses, and had found herself doing much that she did not understand.

I remember one moment very clearly, in our second meeting I believe. We were taking a walk around the botanical gardens, as she said it calmed her when talking of her problem. She reached into her bag, took out what appeared to be a small slab of stone, slate, I think, and started to lift it to her mouth as if to eat it. I asked her what she was doing, and she stopped, looked at the rock she held in her hand, and threw it away before bursting into tears. She told me that it felt like something was in her head, changing what she saw and felt and thought. I asked when this had started, and she told me it was after she had moved out of her college halls and into a house on Bullingdon Road with her friends. I suggested that perhaps it had something to do with the stresses of entering second year, but she insisted it was something to do with the house. Finally, after several discussions, I agreed to look over the house and perform a small blessing in case there was anything wrong with the place, spiritually speaking.

It was a cold morning in December, near the end of Michaelmas term, when I visited 89 Bullingdon Road. It was an old house, though not so old as to be unusual in that part of Oxford, and had clearly once been a small family house, now partitioned by the lettings agency to house as many students as possible. Bethany told me that there were six of them living there at the time. I went around the house, looking for signs of anything amiss but found nothing that seemed out of the ordinary. Bethany kept asking me if I “felt any evil” in the house, and I tried to explain to her that priests unfortunately don’t have the power to simply sense the presence of evil. I didn’t realise how unfortunate that was, at least not until we got her room. It was on the first floor at the back of the house, and was a long, thin bedroom, easily the biggest. It was adorned in typical student fashion with movie posters and flat-pack bookshelves, but my attention was immediately taken by a large patch of wall where the wallpaper had been crudely hacked away to reveal the bare brickwork underneath. Written there, in faded blue paint, was a single word: Mentis.

I’d been out of seminary for some years at this point, and had never been one for the Latin Mass, but I still knew the word for ‘mind’. My immediate assumption was that Bethany had painted it in some sort of mania, but looking closer I saw that the paint was far too old to have been done since she moved in. It looked more as though it had been painted on the wall and then covered up with layers of wallpaper over the years, until finally being unearthed by stripping it away. What was slightly more concerning, was that watching Bethany pace around the room, following my gaze with some confusion, was that she didn’t seem able to see it. When I asked her what the word on the wall meant to her, she looked at me as though I was talking nonsense.

I didn’t seem like there was much more to be gained there at that point, so I performed a short blessing over the place, took some photographs and told Bethany that I would have to come back later once I’d looked into a few things. She seemed disappointed there wasn’t anything more immediate that I was doing, but didn’t try to argue. And so I left what would turn out to be my first visit to the house on Bullingdon Road, calling Father Singh to arrange a meeting the next day where we could discuss whether to attempt a full exorcism.

It was at that meeting that I got the call from the hospital. Bethany had been admitted with severe facial lacerations and was asking to see me immediately. I made my way to the John Radcliffe as soon as I was able and was surprised to see two police officers standing near her bed. I was met by Anne Willett, the nurse who Bethany had asked to call me. I knew Annie a bit already, as she’d attended the church where I ministered and I recognised her from the congregation. She explained to me that Bethany had apparently attempted to attack one of her housemates with a kitchen knife, and in the ensuing struggle ended up falling head first into a full-length mirror, cutting herself very badly.

I was, to put it mildly, somewhat taken aback. This was such an escalation from what Bethany had described before, and I was starting to fear that if I didn’t manage to do something the poor girl would most likely end up locked away somewhere. Annie was convinced that an exorcism was the only way, and so finally, I agreed to do so. I had already got permission from the Bishop, but that was before Bethany’s hospitalisation, and I would have preferred to discuss it with him. Still, it was clear she was getting worse and I decided to take a risk and try it anyway. It was a stupid risk to take. I was cocky and complacent, full of spiritual pride and an eagerness to test my faith against whatever was inside of Bethany’s soul, not even considering that I might be risking it. Still, I have paid dearly for my hubris.

We waited until the police had taken their statements and left, and then I set up and began the exorcism. It went... unusually. There was no resistance from Bethany, almost no reaction at all, and in many parts of the ceremony where in my experience there was usually a response either from the demon, or at least the victim, there was instead just... silence, as she stared at me with a look, almost seemed like pity. Annie just stood in the corner, watching and clearly eager to help, despite the fear I saw in her eyes. At last, Bethany locked eyes with me and slowly shook her head. “I’m so sorry,” she said, “It wants your faith.”

Without warning she began to convulse. Thrashing in obvious pain. I tried to continue the ritual, but the doctors pushed passed me, desperately trying to help Bethany as blood began to pour from her mouth where she had bitten into her tongue. In the end they couldn’t save her. Brain haemorrhage, they said, probably from the blow to head when she hit the mirror and they just hadn’t spotted it.

I was asked to leave in no uncertain terms, and the doctors made it very clear that I may not have been the one that hit her in the head, but they held me very much accountable for her death. I was also given a very thorough dressing down by my Bishop, who told me to take a step back and leave the exorcisms to Father Harrogate for some time. Annie almost got suspended over the matter, but in the end was spared further disciplinary action, as she had been simply passing on the wishes of the patient.

And for a couple of years that was it. I felt a great deal of guilt over my involvement with Bethany’s death, and I started to drink more than I had before. I was never, I think, in danger of becoming an alcoholic, as most of the priests I worked with had done work with substance abusers – not to mention the fact that priests are certainly not immune to alcoholism – and would have picked up on the warning signs. But they did express concern over the occasional disappearance of bottles of sacramental wine. At the time I was sure it wasn’t me. I preferred scotch and the Muscatel wine they bought had never really been to my taste, but looking back I can’t really be sure what I was drinking. I know it’s something of a jump from unwittingly stealing holy wine to my later crimes, but I’m trying my best to fit this into a relatively coherent narrative.

Apart from that, the years passed uneventfully, and I was starting to feel like I’d put the whole affair behind me. Until I got a call from Annie. She said that a gentleman had been admitted to the John Radcliffe after having something of a scare in a house up on Hill Top Road. I explained to her that I wasn’t performing exorcisms at the moment, and said she should talk to Father Harrogate. She assured me it wouldn’t need a full exorcism, and if I did we could bring him in, but she didn’t know or trust Father Harrogate, but just wanted my opinion. Finally, after a lot of pestering, I agreed to pay a visit to the house.

It was late when I got there, and starting to get very cold. The whole affair was starting to bring back some less than pleasant memories of my arrival at Bullingdon Road all those years ago. I was also a bit annoyed at Annie for not mentioning that the house was still under construction, not only making it unlikely to be the haunt of demons or spirits, but also meaning that the coat I had brought along would be somewhat inadequate against the chill in a house without windows. I knocked on the door and one of the builders opened it. I forget his name, I’m afraid, something Polish I think, or maybe Czech? He seemed confused at first as to why I was there, but I explained and it turned out he was the one that had been treated by Annie at the hospital. She had not mentioned the builder’s possible schizophrenia to me, but I began to fear that this may be a waste of time. Still, I had a look around and asked the builder questions about the place. He certainly did have an interesting story, but I was unsure of how much of it I believed.

Eventually, I decided that I’d seen enough and that there didn’t seem to be any malicious presence here. The builder was looking at me in such as way as to make me hesitant to tell him that, so I decided I would at least give the place a quick prayer or blessing. I asked him to wait outside, though. Something in his manner was a bit off-putting and I felt uncomfortable with him watching me like a hawk, as though I were about to vanish at any moment.

He headed into the back garden, and I was alone in the house. I moved into the hallway and began to pray, praying for protection and sprinkling holy water around from a flask I carry on me in these situations. As I spoke the words I felt something... alarming. I was starting to grow very hot, as though the room was heating up very rapidly. I looked around for the source of the heat, but the radiators hadn’t been installed yet and I couldn’t see anything else that might be warming the room. It continued, though, and soon I was sweating through my shirt. I began to cough, and I could smell smoke, even though I couldn’t see any or any fire, for that matter.

I fell to one knee and choked back a scream as I felt my skin began to crackle and burn. I began to pray again for protection, not for the place this time, but for me. As I did, I felt... something answer me. And yet, I cannot stress this enough: what answered was not G– God. It wasn’t Him. Something else answered my call for protection. I felt my lips move. They made no sound that I could hear, but I felt them form every syllable. “I am not for you. I am marked.”

The heat slowed in its increase but it did not stop. My mouth continued to speak for me, when I heard the sound of a car engine outside and a great crash. Instantly, the feeling was gone, as though it were never there, and looking out, I saw the builder had managed to uproot a tree from the back garden. I sat there for a while catching my breath, and when he came back inside, I told him I had completed the prayers and excused myself quickly. It was the first time I had experienced– 

Archivist Notes:

Unfortunately, this statement as it stands is incomplete and stops at this point. It does not appear to be the actual end of the document, so I have hopes that the rest is simply misfiled somewhere else in the archives. If this is the case, I will record and add that part when it is found, either by myself or, given the scale of the Archive’s mismanagement, by my successor when I pass away from old age. With this in mind, all but the most preliminary of investigations into this statement are being put on hold until the rest is found. Most of the details do appear to be correct and match the statement given by Mr. Ivo Lensik in 2007. We did find Father Burroughs’ arrest record, though, and I am very curious to see how the events recounted here could have led to the incident in 2009, wherein he apparently murdered two first year university students following Sunday Mass, and then peeled off and ate most of their skin.

*statement continued in 0113005-B (MAG 20)

Source: Official Transcript and Podcast (MAG 19 Confession)

[wickedsrest-rp-archive]

Name: Seth Moore Species: Human Occupation: Server at Jay’s Bagels  Age: 20 Years Old Played By: Lay Face Claim: Lu Han

“Sorry, but I can only count on myself.”

Before the sacrifice, Seth thought he had a normal childhood. He got average grades, made plenty of friends, and got in the occasional fight. His mother and father had a passion for books about dark rituals and demons. 

He couldn’t remember exactly how the night went, or what led up to it. There was a feverish, hazy film over his senses, as if he was hallucinating, or sleepwalking. His eyes were shut, but he could feel his body moving down the stairs to the basement. Hands wrapped around his arms to guide him to lay down, and something about them made his skin crawl.  

When he opened his eyes, he was face-to-face with a demon. Their gleeful gaze was fixed on his, and their mouth was curved into a too-wide smile, teeth like needles behind their lips. 

Father and mother were barking orders, but instead of telling it to let him go, they wanted it to hurry up and put him on the alter (since when did they have an alter down here?). He must’ve fought (or did it let him go?), because the next thing he knew, he was running, his raw feet stinging as he raced down the street. 

Seth made it to the bus stop before the adrenaline wore off. 

Watching his neighborhood disappear into the pitch black, Seth assumed that was the end. He’d gotten away from all the bad things, and he’d settle somewhere a few towns over and find someplace to stay. He knew that some company out there would hire someone his age, so he’d have a source of income. He might even be able to go to school. 

Instead of being terrified (that would come when it sank in several days later), it felt like a dream, or a prank that ended with his daring escape. His parents liked to test him, to see how he’d react to certain things, and this might be another situation like that. Part of him was waiting for them to call and take it all back. 

They did reach out and tell him to come back, but there was a desperate, angry edge to them, like he’d just tramped across their game of monopoly. Against his better judgement, he ignored them.

He landed a job at a greasy fast food joint, and an elderly manager of a motel let him stay for free because he was young and desperate. He had his phone removed from his parent’s plan and paid for a new one. He told his friends what happened, but none of them believed him. 

It sucked, and he was always hungry, miserable, isolated, and oddly homesick (or, he was nostalgic for the way things were before, when he was just a normal kid). But he was alive, at least. Slowly, the events of that night began to fade. This was his life now.

However, when a few months had passed, the demon found him. He remembered feeling a bit foggy and feverish when he fell asleep. His dreams were filled with snatches of sunlight in the distance and the nagging sense that he had somewhere very important to be. 

When he woke, he was standing in front of his first-story window. His hands were flat against the glass, halted in the middle of struggling to open it. The clear surface was spotted with marks shaped like his face, like he’d tried to jump out headfirst. 

And there was someone out there. A tall figure waited right outside, close enough to touch, their face shadowed by the dim lights. He saw glowing red eyes and a sadistic, sharp grin, pulled straight out of his nightmares. 

Seth’s scream  could’ve woken the dead. He snatched his wallet and shoes as he fled to the lobby. Unwilling to risk going outside, he asked the concerned manager to call him a taxi, and paced like a trapped animal until the driver appeared. 

That time, he went to the next state, going to a remote town so small it was nearly impossible to find on a map. Yet, the demon showed up there. He tried a bustling metropolis, and found himself chased from there too. 

Years passed like that. He ran, and it followed. He didn’t know if it was tracking his blood or his bank account or his cell phones or what, but it just wouldn’t stop. He sought out blessings and prayers and exorcisms from all kinds of religions, which did nothing. He went to fortune tellers and miracle workers and magic practitioners. He scoured the internet for methods to keep it away, sampled every anti-demon herb and oil and old wives cure. It still dogged him. 

White Crest was as far as this latest bus would go. The seediest of motels offered cheap enough rate, so he reluctantly offered up some cash and was awarded a room. 

It became clear immediately that this place was unlike any he’d been to before. There were shops with monster parts, bars for magic-users, museums with haunted artifacts: it almost made him think this place would be different from all the others. He couldn’t hope anymore, but there was an inkling it held something or someone that could get rid of the demon for good. 

Seth was tired of merely surviving. He felt like he’d been on the run for a hundred years; the loneliness, the missed nights of rest, and learned paranoia weighed heavily on him. He couldn’t go somewhere else again. 

The fight between him and it required a loser in order to end, and he intended to provide that, here, on his terms. Either he’d vanquish the demon or it’d eat him. But he was going to stay in White Crest.

Character Facts:

Personality: Hardworking, perceptive, resourceful, paranoid, guarded, flighty

Seth looks older than he is. His years running from place to place have hardened him, and malnutrition through his growth stages has left him rather short and thin in the face. 

Seth knows how to pick locks, hotwire a car, hack into a bank account (but only because his parents hadn’t changed their password after he went on the run), and pickpocket. He’s also an old hand at keeping hidden from potential threats (ie, the cops, security guards, or anyone else with eyes). He’s not currently wanted for anything, but has a long history of petty crime. A guy has to eat, right? 

Seth hasn’t gone to school since the night of the sacrifice sometime in Junior year. He doesn’t have a GED and isn’t interested in getting one as of now. But he also doesn’t like to admit that he doesn’t have one. 

He has bad insomnia. He tries to put off sleeping for as long as he can, because as soon as he drifts off, the demon sends him nightmares, or tries to chat with him. He usually doesn’t sleepwalk unless it’s really got a hold on him, but just in case, he usually makes sure his door and windows are locked, and hides anything sharp. 

He has a weird relationship with the demon. It’s been the single constant in his life since he left home, more than his parents, or a job, or a place. Sometimes it’d call a truce, declare that it didn’t want to continue their game of cat and mouse, so they’d go out to have some food, or watch a movie. He knows it’s probably just a technique to get him to lower his guard, and he’s in fight or flight mode for the entire time it’s near. But that demon is the only one he’s certain he won’t leave behind the next time he has to run, and it’s never made a nasty move during a truce. There’s something comforting about it.