Category: short stories

Killing was more than an occupation for Wolf, it was a passion. It was an art that could be refined over time with experience to the perfect point akin to how a whetstone sharpened a blade. To be honest, his name wasn’t actually Wolf, it was Otto, but ‘Otto’ didn’t inspire the same fear and respect in the public’s heart as ‘Wolf’ did. 

Just think about it! ‘Wolf’ inspires thoughts of feral, blood-thirsty beasts tearing hunks of flesh off the bone with no remorse or humanity getting in the way of the gruesome killing sure to come. ‘Otto’, on the other hand, sounds like the son of a potato-farming German peasant (which he most secretly was not). Maybe an argument could be made for Otto being a crazed butcher’s name at best, but no. 

He would never get that first impression of horror when he grunted out “Wolf” when his victims asked in terror for the name of the man about to kill them. Not to mention how the newspapers just ate up how he signed the ‘o’ of Wolf with a paw print, in glistening red ink, of course. 

His taunting letters and his victims’ family members’ tearful statements dominated the front page of most major newspapers in his heyday. They even started giving out warnings at the end of radio programs in his active areas to not invite strangers into their home for fear it was really a ‘Wolf in sheep’s clothing’ they were unwittingly allowing inside.

Even with the warnings in his active areas, which he affectionately referred to as his ‘hunting grounds’, he never had a problem finding a victim. He had even heard his warning playing on the radio, turned down to a whisper when some old dear bustled over to the door to answer his knock. Sometimes he would see the newspapers with printed copies of his boastful, taunting letters opened and lying discarded on the table as they sat him down to offer him a drink. 

No, finding a victim was never a problem for him. He was just that kind of guy when he played the role of Otto, the friendly German immigrant. He just had to flash his charming smile and meld himself into whatever type of person the victim answering the door wanted him to be. He would say whatever he needed to to be invited inside; knowing what to say was part of the art of killing, and he had, in his professional opinion, perfected his art. 

He could claim he had a car breakdown, say he just needed to use the telephone, he was a traveling salesman, imply they won a contest of some kind, or say he was looking for work. He was occasionally unsuccessful, it was true, but that was the joy of the hunt. He would simply try another door, and one thing was guaranteed: On the nights Wolf was on the prowl there would be killing. 

It was true, every waking thought of Wolf’s had to do with the death and dying of his fellow man in some capacity. It was his passion, his art, his professional interest, his very reason for being. For someone who spent so much time and effort on the subject he put shockingly little thought into his own death. He hadn’t really been concerned about it at the time, he simply felt as though he was put on this earth to kill as many as possible for as long as he could. 

The lack of planning on the nature of his own death was a shocking oversight. He realized this as he lay bleeding in an alley, looking up at the fading night’s stars. The sound of sirens was wavering in and out as he began to lose consciousness. His clothing felt damp with the hot blood gushing out of the multiple bullet wounds peppering his chest and abdomen. The year was 1923.

He tried to breathe in a last lungful of cool night’s air but it leaked out of the innumerable holes in his chest, his last breath frothing and bubbling the blood saturating his shirt. There was no pain, that sensation had tapered off a few seconds ago. He waited for the last rush of his life flashing before his eyes he was promised but it never came. 

That disappointed him more than dying, to be honest. He had been looking forward to briefly reliving his favorite kills one last time. Everything faded to black and he felt a sensation of dropping out of his own body. He faintly wondered if he was descending into hell, but couldn’t really bring himself to care in his wounded state. The next thing he knew he was seated in a chair staring back at a figure shrouded in a black hood.

“So are you Death?” Wolf asked the figure before they could speak for themself. 

It wasn’t really a question; he could tell perfectly whom it was that he looked at. He stared at Death openly, not worrying if he would offend the creature. It was not like he had anything to lose anyway. He was already dead. He tried to discern a gender out of the hooded figure but found he could not. Death was neither a man nor a woman, they were just a thing to him. 

“You have given me a fair amount of business, Otto,” Death stated, not answering his question. Wolf felt a pang of annoyance at being addressed by his birth name. 

“It’s actually Wolf,” Wolf said in a tone of confidence. The hooded head cocked to the side as Death considered him. He felt his confidence wavering under Death’s gaze. It was hard to gauge the time as it passed in this strange room but after a length of not speaking he relented. “O-Otto is fine,” he stammered. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?” he asked, grappling for a hint of his prior bravado, trying to put on a casually disinterested expression.

“I hand-pick certain souls out of the chaos of the void, interrupting their cycle of reincarnation to bring them to this room.” 

“So, were the Buddists right after all, then?” Otto asked. 

“None of them were right,” Death responded. Otto looked around the room. The ceiling, walls, and floor were all white. The lack of variance made his eyes start to water a bit, they didn’t have anything to focus on except for Death’s hooded figure before him. 

“So you are a fan of my work, then?” Otto asked with a cocky grin. 

“Few have killed as many as you,” Death stated. “Precious few. I have an offer for you which will allow you to keep killing.” 

“I accept,” Otto said automatically. Death appeared taken aback at this, which pleased Otto immensely. 

“Do you not wish to hear the details?” Death asked, their voice barely a whisper behind that hooded cloak.

“A deal with the Devil is kind of my style, and I get to keep killing? What else is there to be said?” Otto asked, his tone oozing arrogance. 

“I am not the Devil. I am Death. There’s a subtle difference.”

“The difference doesn’t matter to me,” Otto said. 

“Perhaps it doesn’t. I will take an impression of your soul to have for my personal collection. Your reincarnation cycle will be broken. You will never be reborn again and will remain exactly as you are forever more. You will not notice any change in your physical or mental form after the impression is made, now or ever again. You will no longer be free to grow and change. You will reside in my hall until the anniversary of your death, where you will be free to roam the earth unbidden and kill to your heart’s content until the sun rises.” 

“You want to turn me into some sort of mindless, killing servant? Is this supposed to be some sort of punishment?” he asked with a toothy grin, laughing openly in Death’s face. “If it is, it isn’t a very good one. I can’t imagine anything I’d like more than that. It sounds like my own personal heaven.” 

“You will not be mindless. Your mind will be as intact as it is unchanging. Your modus operandi cannot be modified.” 

“Still, I’m not seeing any negatives from my viewpoint. My M.O. has always worked for me before, it made me successful enough to earn a place in your hall.”

“My offer only stands while you remain killing,” Death stated. They held up a hand and a door materialized behind them. 

“That won’t be a problem,” Otto said quickly, but Death continued speaking as if they hadn’t heard him.

“If you cannot bring me at least one soul a year you will no longer be welcome in my hall. I will give you the first soulless year as a sign of goodwill, but after that, on the second soulless year you will have to leave.” 

Otto laughed heartily at this. As he looked back on this conversation in the years to come he realized perhaps this had been a mistake. Perhaps he should have listened to Death more closely. He should have asked some clarifying questions, asked what would have happened if he chose to move on instead, asked if Death’s offer was an illusion of a choice or if he could truly refuse him. Has anyone ever refused Death before? He’d never know because he hadn’t asked. 

He had stood up from the chair that dematerialized the moment his feet supported his weight and walked to the door without another word. He pushed himself through it without another glance back at Death and woke up here, in the Hall of Horror. He wasn’t sure who had christened it thus, or if that was its actual name, or if it even had a formal title, but it’s what everyone called it. By everyone he meant the hall’s other residents. 

The Hall of Horror was just that, a long hall lined with rooms each labeled with a placard denoting the name of the killer who resided there. As the hall’s newest resident his room was closest to the door entering the hall from Death’s office. The door dematerialized after he passed through it. He was not pleased to see his placard naming him “Otto” instead of “Wolf” but he wasn’t going to let it upset him. He had a hall to explore, after all.

He did not know when Death founded the hall, or if it had always been here, but there were seemingly endless serial killers from all over history residing here. Initially he thought he must have been granted access to his own personal heaven. For the first time in his life he was surrounded by similar-minded individuals. 

At the beginning he filled his days and nights with interviewing the other residents of the hall, attempting to catalog the killers from all over history both well-known and forgotten. It was nothing short of a miracle in his eyes, to look up to some of these killers his whole life and then be able to actually meet and interact with them. The further down the hall he traveled the older the residents became. 

Most of the killers near the front of the hall seemed to want to do nothing more than boast about their crimes. They were still giddy with Death’s deal, feeling like they cheated the universe into getting to exist after their deaths in some way. It was like having their cake and eating it too, getting to continue on their work in their afterlife. Otto whole-heartedly agreed. 

None of the other residents knew about Wolf’s crimes, of course, as the hall’s newest resident the other killers were all before his time. This was an added bonus, as they were all eager to hear every detail about how he killed. They hadn’t already heard half the story from the newspapers. His first few months in the hall were filled in this manner, oozing excitement and feeling like the luckiest man in the world with the newly appointed killers at the start of the hall. 

Eventually rehashing out old kills with the newer residents got old. You could only hear the same story so many times, after all. This wasn’t a problem, as the hall seemed endless. He worked his way down the hall, knocking on doors and seeing who would answer. Nobody seemed to mill about in the hallway except for the newest ten residents or so. He couldn’t help but notice none of the longer-term residents were quite as enthusiastic as he was about Death’s deal.

Perhaps the novelty had worn off for them, some of them appeared to have been residing in the hall for hundreds of years, after all. Most of the hall’s residents seemed to do little more than sleep in the time off between trips to the mortal world. They would answer his questions when roused, and seemed to get a glimmer in their eyes when revisiting their glory days, but then it was right back to sleep. At a certain point in the hall the residents did not awaken when he knocked, or at least they didn’t open the door, anyway. 

The oldest residents of the hall he did not see except for their one night a year when that door materialized out of nothing to lead them to earth for a night of killing. It only lasted long enough to lead them away and then it reappeared when the night was up to lead them back. You could not pass through to the human world through another killer’s door. He had tried sometime during his second month of residency. 

Yes, time still passed by here in a quantifiable manner. The hall was not timeless. Time continued to move on here the same as it did in the mortal world. The noticeable passage of time was admittedly irksome but did not truly affect him until he had resided in the hall for a few years. There was a calendar in the hall marking off the days as they passed. Eventually he found himself staring at it for hours at a time as if in a trace waiting for that one time a year he could return to earth and feel that fleeting happiness again for one short night. 

By the ten year mark he began truly dreading his existence. At this point, living in the hall was like living in a waking nightmare, if you could even call existing in such a manner ‘living’. His whole life was centered around that one visit to the mortal world a year. He counted the days, hours, and minutes that stood before him and his next visit. While on earth he killed as many as he could, and he started his countdown for his return the moment he got back. 

By the fifty year mark he was starting to feel the appeal of endless sleep but he fought against the urge, forcing himself to stay present in his mind. He didn’t fear the endless sleep exactly but the concept of it deeply disturbed him. He did not like the idea of hibernating between trips to kill.

He tried not to spend a lot of time mentally revisiting his previous trips anymore. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, every year he seemed to be less successful than the last. The world was changing, people were not answering the door when he knocked. They were less friendly when they did open their doors, never inviting him inside or seeming to care about anything he had to say. 

He still managed to bring Death back a handful of souls a year but he had to work twice as hard for half as many. He questioned what was wrong with the world these days. He could only see glimpses of it one night a year, of course, but things had changed so much in the fifty years or so he had been dead. He was still the same, forever unchanging trapped in this loop with his only source of pleasure steadily dwindling. Thankfully something happened around this time to distract him from the horrendous cycle his life had become. 

Several new residents trickled their way to the Hall of Horror. Fresh faces came in in droves as the mortal world went through some sort of serial killer boom. Otto listened to their stories with glee and felt a renewed passion for his work. He was filled with an eagerness he had not felt since the first few years as he waited for his door to materialize. 

The boom quickly fizzled out, however, and with it the new faces. None of them lasted more than ten years before their methods became ineffective and they vanished from the hall without a trace. Hitchhiking, it seemed, was not the golden ticket they had presumed it to be. People stopped picking up the stragglers in the human world, and so the new faces disappeared rapidly as they failed to bring Death souls. 

For the first time, Otto felt true fear in regards to their fate. Not that he actually cared about the new faces who had disappeared, of course, but fear of the same thing that happened to them happening to him. By the sixty year mark, he had only managed to bring Death back two souls. 

By seventy years, he was only managing a soul a year, and struggling for even that. People just weren’t answering their doors, why were they not answering their doors? He just wanted to kill them. It wasn’t even about the art anymore, it was about survival, but still, he could not change his ways. He felt like a caged animal, the dread building within him as he felt his deal with Death coming to a close. The fear he thought he knew before was nothing compared to this. 

The seventy-fifth year was his first soulless year. He stalked the streets until the light of day shined down upon him. He closed his eyes and basked in it, feeling like the rays were the blade of a guillotine slicing his soul in two as he was enveloped by their warmth. Instead of the familiar sensation of being deposited back into the Hall of Horrors, he felt a curious pulling sensation he had only experienced once, exactly seventy-five years before. 

He opened his eyes, and he was back in that room with Death. Nothing had changed in the seventy-five years they had been apart, but that didn’t really surprise him. He hadn’t changed, either. Perhaps Death was as unchanging and stagnant as he himself was. He wrung his hands nervously in his lap as he felt Death’s stare on him. 

“You’re frightened,” Death commented. Otto stilled his hands, but was unable to unclasp them. 

“A trick of yours,” he accused, finally able to verbalize his suspicions. “I was never frightened before, when I was alive. This sensation is new to me, some torture you’ve added to throw me off my game. You’ve cheated on your end of the deal, Death.” 

“You were always frightened,” Death said in a disinterested sort of way. “This is nothing new to you. You cannot lie to Death.” Otto’s chest heaved, but he couldn’t bring himself to argue against Death. 

“So, what now?” Otto asked. 

“I will give you this first year,” Death began, but Otto interrupted. 

“As a sign of goodwill, yeah, yeah, I remember,” he said. “But, what happens after? If I have another soulless year? Does the clock reset eventually, or do I just get thrown back into the chaos of reincarnation, or-” 

“You will no longer be welcome in my hall,” Death stated simply. “You will not be reincarnated, as you are just an impression of a soul. Neither will you cease to exist, for your impression cannot be broken. You are an unchanging imprint of what once was, understand this.” Otto scoffed. 

“I understand it perfectly well,” he said. “If I could just make a few changes, I could bring you more souls. I can pick locks, kick down doors, break windows, I can kill for you. I want to kill for you, it’s just that knocking on doors isn’t working anymore.” 

“You are an unchanging imprint,” Death repeated, and Otto growled at him. Actually growled, like the Wolf he once was. This appeared to amuse Death more than anything else. They raised a hand and the door materialized behind them, same as before, and there was no more discussion to be had on the matter. 

The seventy-sixth year was a turbulent one. Otto refused to leave his room, much like the other old souls in the Hall of Horrors, which he supposed he kind of was now. Occasionally a new face would knock on his door, but he refused to answer their call. The only thing on his mind was killing and fear and killing and fear, on a constant repeat. His mind flickered from homicide to panic like flipping from one page to another in a newspaper. When it all boiled down, perhaps those two emotions were all that he was really composed of. 

He managed to kill two that year, and he wished bitterly that he would get some sort of credit for the extra soul he gave Death. He wondered, faintly, why he ever did more than the single soul minimum required. Why was he doing Death any favors by delivering extra souls? What had Death ever done for him, besides curse him with this endless cycle of panic and killing? 

He obtained a false sense of security from the double-homicide the year prior, and was much more relaxed in his seventy-seventh year when his feet hit the ground of the human world. He faintly noticed a newspaper crumbled in a bin labeling the year as 2000. He might have been more interested in that, but it was time to get the job done. 

He knocked on door after door until he felt like his knuckles would bleed from pounding against wood, but nobody would answer his call. The hours ticked by much too fast, like grains of sand pouring through an hourglass and he began to lose hope. He raced the sun, wanting to tear the throats out of the early morning passersby on the street like an animal but was frustratingly unable to, the strange magic of Death’s deal inhibiting him. 

He needed them to answer the door, that was his unchanging M.O., but damn these people! They ignored his knocks or would not welcome him inside. It was like they didn’t want to be killed. If only they could experience an ounce of the fear filling his body with every passing hour they would understand. It wasn’t personal, he just didn’t want to know what happened when he was no longer welcomed inside Death’s hall. 

His eyes fell upon a house, an unsuspecting two-story colonial. His mouth was curiously dry as he noted the rising sun on the horizon. He approached the home, his hands balled into fists long before he made it to the door. He knocked and waited. 

He saw the silhouette of a woman behind the curtain-drawn window and he licked his teeth. He wanted so badly to kick the window in and close his hands around her throat but he was unable, trapped to perform the same song and dance he had been for the last seventy-seven years. 

He knocked again, more urgently this time (or as urgently as he could), but she did not come to the door. He peered through the window, finding a small gap in the curtain he could glance through. He could do no more than glance, as he occasionally peeped while still alive, but never took the offensive in finding a kill like he craved to do today. Death’s deal was so binding he could not go against it even to save himself. 

He saw the woman holding something up to her ear and recognized it from what he had seen other humans use in recent trips to the human world. A telephone! Some sort of portable talking device! Why, this one wasn’t even tethered to the wall! Could she even hear his knock? With the way her lips were moving as she partook in what was clearly an animated conversation he doubted it. 

He attempted to pound the door again, his foot itching to kick it in. He saw her silhouette pause and the telephone lower a fraction of an inch as her head inclined to the door. He hit the door with as much force as he could muster, feeling like he was putting all his strength behind the blow but it only translated to his fist politely rapping the door. 

For a fraction of a second the woman looked as if she would answer his knock, but then she chose to raise the telephone back to her ear instead, and thus sealed his fate. The sun rose on his back and he couldn’t even turn to feel its rays against his face for one last fleeting moment before he was kicked out of Death’s hall. If he could have, he would have cried, but instead he felt an existential fear so all-consuming it smashed every other possible emotion flat against the sides of his head. 

He felt the now-familiar sensation of falling out of his body, and everything went black for a moment. He landed on his feet somewhere new, somewhere foreign, but the blackness surrounding him continued. His eyes were shut tight, and he was afraid to open them. He sucked in vast lungfuls of air (truth be told, he wasn’t even sure he still needed air, but the habit of breathing was hard to break, even after being dead for so much longer than he was ever alive) and waited for his impression of a heart to slow its rapid beating. 

His mind whirled as it tried to anticipate where he could be. He was horrified to face whatever hell awaited him outside of Death’s hall. Too horrified to even look, so he stood there with his eyes shut tight for an indeterminate amount of time, for once he opened his eyes and comprehended where he was, he would know his fate. Once he knew his fate it would be forever, and so, he couldn’t bring himself to look.  

He would have likely stood there with his eyes glued shut for a week or more (he could still, even here, wherever here was, and even in his horror, feel the inescapable passage of time), but a voice sounded, and the words were so confusing, so out of place, that his eyes flew open so he could stare incredulously at the person who spoke them. 

“Look friends, we’ve got another one! This one is kind of strange, do you think the drop sort of scrambled his brains a bit and we should just throw him on the pile now or- Oh! There we go, he’s opening his eyes, hello, new friend!” a very large, very round man standing before him stated jovially. Otto glared at him, his chipper tone offensive to him, and then felt as he was pulled into a crushing hug.

“What the hell?” Otto snarled, trying to flail his arms to claw at the large, round man like the wolf he was, but he was held too tightly to permit such movements. 

“No need to be like that, we’re all friends here,” the large, round man chortled. “Well, the ones who aren’t scrambled, at least.” The strange man released him, and Otto was too shocked to attack him as he looked around. 

The hall he was in was devoid of anything but a collection of chairs arranged in a circular pattern. Each chair was occupied by a human, if such a term could even be used to describe the occupants. They seemed… off. Some were tearful, sniffling messes, some had depressive, blank-slates for faces, and some had manic smiles, eerily similar to the one on the large, round man’s face as he observed Otto. 

“Great, isn’t it?” the large, round man said, his smile growing ever more. “You came just in time for group discussion, lucky you. I’m Clankers, by the way.” 

“Clankers?” Otto asked with a deepening frown. 

“Yeah, it’s what the kids called me when I was alive. Clankers the Clown! Also, when I killed, it was the noise my weapon made when I…” Clanker’s smile faltered for a moment, but he hitched it back up so fast Otto thought perhaps he had imagined its absence. “Anyway, my name is Clankers. Why don’t you have a seat, we’re just getting started.” 

Otto eyed two empty chairs in the arrangement. He looked around again. The walls, ceiling, and floor were seemingly empty.

“No rooms?” Otto asked, and Clankers waved off his question with a smile. 

“We don’t have those here, we have nothing here but each other. So, we’re together all the time, always. Well, except for the pile.” Together all the time? Stuck in a blank hall forever with nothing but his fellow man? 

“Is this hell?” Otto asked, and Clankers gave a good-natured belly laugh. 

“No, no, not hell! We’re all just like you, killers on the other side of Death’s deal. We failed to pull through on our end, and we wound up here, just like you. We’re all here, in the same boat! There’s no shame in failure. It’s one of the many topics we discuss in our group discussion sessions, which we are late for,” Clankers said with a little wink, tapping a fictional watch on his wrist. “We run a pretty tight schedule down here, you should know.” 

“A tight schedule?” Otto asked, feeling too shocked to do much more than repeat Clankers’ words back to him like a parrot. 

“Of course, our schedule is the only thing that keeps us from getting scrambled,” he said, his eyes twitching slightly as he hitched up his smile. “After group discussion we split off into pairs, half of us are the killers and half the us are the victims, and then we switch! We can’t actually harm each other, but it really helps us relive our glory days. Let’s sit down, our friends are waiting for us.” 

“I’m not sitting down,” Otto said defiantly. This had to be some sort of sick joke, this was like a sad support group for failed killers! He didn’t belong here, he wasn’t like them. He just needed another chance. 

“Well, it’s a bit early for you to join the pile, but, if you insist, it’s right this way,” Clankers said, wrapping an arm around Otto’s shoulders and steering him toward a door he hadn’t previously noticed.  

Clankers threw the door open, and the room at first appeared to be full of nothing but concentrated blackness, too dark for his eyes to comprehend. He scooched closer to the room, peering inside to get a look. Clankers shoved him, and his feet teetered on the threshold, and he found that it was a clean drop. This room had no floor, and he was at the precipice of falling inside. He would fall, too, if Clankers didn’t still have a firm hold on the back of his shirt. 

Looking directly down into the dark pit of the room he saw, and he wished he didn’t, the pile. Bodies upon bodies entangled in layers so deep he couldn’t tell where one person started or another began. Horribly, he found he recognized a few faces at the top of the pile. Faces that had disappeared from the Hall of Horror before him. The pile was largely unmoving, but there was a bit of squirming here or there and Otto realized in terror that the people, or impressions, rather, were still alive. 

“Hi Otto,” a sad voice said, and Otto recognized the mouth that spoke it. It had been a hitchhiker killer that had only lasted five years in the hall. The man lifted a hand to wave up pathetically, his hand emerging from the pile smashed between two unfamiliar, grimacing faces. 

Otto’s arms windmilled as Clankers let him lean further into the room, his feet slipping slightly on the clean drop of the threshold. Just as he was sure he would fall into the pile, Clankers pulled him back. Otto twisted and clung to him, his heart galloping wildly in his chest, and Clankers gave him another wide smile. 

“Group discussion?” Clankers asked. 

Otto looked from the empty chair in the arrangement to the pile. The failed killers were looking over at him expectantly, with their tearful and blank and manic eyes. It was like they were all phases of the same illness that ended… with the pile. He looked around this blank, empty hall and realized that this was the true Hall of Horror.

“Paranormal Investigations Incorporated,” Mark recited, picking up the phone. “Yes, we are accepting new cases.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and grabbed a yellow notepad. “Mhm,” he mumbled, his pencil zooming across the page. “The plunger did what exactly? Ah, okay. That is unfortunate.” 

He jotted down a few more notes, nodding even though the hysterical woman on the other end of the phone couldn’t see him. “I think I’ve got the general idea.” he cringed. “Oof, even the cutlery?” he shook his head sympathetically and tore the paper off the notepad. “Well, I apologize, Miss, but I assure you we hear this all the time and would be happy to help. I’ll get your case to the boss right away and we’ll go from there. Have a blessed day.” 

He set the phone down on the receiver with a click and sighed. Calls like this were becoming all the more frequent and they weren’t exactly sure why. There was a creak as a door opened behind his desk. 

“Another one?” a woman’s voice gently asked. He turned around to see Stormy. Her hair was longer than when they were young but still retained its auburn sheen. She wore it in a loose bun on the top of her head. She was holding two steaming mugs. 

“Third one today,” Mark said, waving his hand at a stack of scattered paperwork across his desk. He accepted the mug from Stormy. He took a sip and grimaced at the taste. Stormy smiled sadly.

“Sorry,” she said, throwing herself into a plush armchair across from his desk with a sigh. He watched her cross her legs, black fabric clinging to her skin. He had long ago accepted that Stormy would never be interested in him in that way. However, he wasn’t blind and it was free to look. “The sugar has been setting her off lately. I need to find a new brand.” 

“What do you mean?” he asked, confused. Stormy shrugged.

“I guess sugar is made with charred animal bones. She said she could feel the fire or something like that? The souls of the burned, something something,” Stormy shook her head. “She wasn’t entirely making sense.” Mark rolled his eyes.

“Haunted sugar,” Mark mumbled, sipping his bitter tea. “You can’t protect her from everything, you know?” Stormy smiled.

“I can try,” she said simply. There seemed to be a direct relationship between Willow’s sensitivities and the cases that piled up on Mark’s desk. The more paranormal activity in the area the more Willow couldn’t tolerate certain things.

Stormy had woken up in the middle of the night to Willow thrashing around in bed next to her, screaming as if she were being burned. It took several minutes for Stormy to get any information out of Willow as to what was upsetting her. Willow wailed things that made no sense, guttural screams and dead languages erupting from her mouth as she tore at the bedsheets and kicked. 

When Stormy had finally gotten it out of Willow that the souls of the charred animals in the sugar bag were burning her, the whole bag went soaring out the window. These events were becoming far too common in their home. Stormy knew things were getting worse for Willow but she didn’t know how to help her besides just removing whatever was bothering her from the household and trying to shelter her from anything she could. 

Stormy’s ears pricked up as she heard creaking in the distance. Willow was coming down the stairs that separated their flat from their business. 

“I understand you feel that way, but that doesn’t mean you can follow him around and terrorize his new wife,” Willow’s voice came from the stairwell. The door creaked open and she entered the room, their small terrier Biscuit content in her arms. Willow paid little mind to Mark and Stormy as she walked to the desk, distracted by her conversation. 

Biscuit struggled in Willow’s arms when he saw Stormy and Willow sat him down on the hardwood floor without much thought. Biscuit happily jumped into Stormy’s lap and she held him close. He licked her face, his tongue cool against her skin. He was curiously frozen in time, as young and spunky as he was the day Willow resurrected him from the Otherside all those years ago. 

“I hear what you’re saying but you don’t hear what I’m saying,” Willow continued on, speaking to someone that nobody else in the room could see or hear. The phone rang, Biscuit’s ears perking up at the sound. 

“Paranormal Investigations Incorporated, this is Mark,” Mark said, grabbing his yellow notepad. 

“That commitment he made to you ended when you died, unfortunately,” Willow said, looking exasperated.

“You’d like to speak to Willow? I’ll have to take a message,” Mark said sheepishly, looking over at Willow who was still lost in her conversation. “No, no, she’s here, she’s just busy conversing with the dead at the moment.” He scribbled down a few notes and tore the paper off the notepad. “Have a blessed day.” He placed the phone down. 

“Pushing his wife in the pool? Possessing the toaster? What you did with that raccoon was just disturbing,” Willow looked irritated as she listened to the spirit’s response, which no one else in the room could hear. A look of shock and outrage played across her face. “That’s it, you’re done. No, I don’t want to hear it. I gave you multiple chances.”

Willow twitched her head to the side and turned her back on the spirit, walking to Mark’s desk to grab the stack of papers he had prepared for her. 

“I assume that would have been a lot more impressive if we had been able to see it,” Mark said dryly. Willow looked surprised, as if she had just realized Mark and Stormy were in the room. 

“I just pushed her down to the Underside,” Willow said simply. The Underside was a new plane Willow had discovered she could open portals to a few years ago. When Stormy had asked her what it was like there Willow simply stated she didn’t want to talk about it. 

“What will happen to her down there?” Stormy asked, scratching Biscuit behind the ears. Willow shrugged.

“I’m not entirely sure. I can’t hear them anymore once they’re there. She was too dangerous to send back to the Otherside. She’s proven she can get out and she’s powerful enough to influence things on this side. She’ll probably kill her husband if I let her go unchecked.” Stormy nodded sadly. 

It still rang true that humans became weird and warped when they went to the Otherside. However, Willow could understand their intentions better now than when they were teens and even converse with them. Most of them she had been able to get through to, but there were always a few a year who were just too stubborn. 

“The barrier to the Otherside has been growing thinner for years, but lately it’s just been,” Willow paused, thinking of the right word.

“Out of control?” Mark supplied, motioning to the disastrous state of his desk. 

“Not the words I was looking for, but sure,” Willow agreed dryly. She scooped up a handful of papers off Mark’s desk and rounded a corner without another word. 

“She’s a ray of sunshine,” Mark commented. Stormy sighed.

“Just overworked,” Stormy said. “There has to be something we can do to help her,” she gave an over casual shrug of her shoulders, her face an innocent mask. Mark looked at her suspiciously. “Maybe we could take some work off her hands.”

“How long exactly have you been planning this? That’s a horrible idea, considering things went so well last time we meddled in the Otherside. In case you forgot, my dead mom tried to eat me.” 

“I’m not talking about that. I’m just talking about lightening her workload a little bit. Like, here,” Stormy pulled a paper off Mark’s desk at random. “This is perfect,” she said, skimming over Mark’s scrawl. 

“Absolutely not, Willow would kill me if I didn’t talk you out of this.” Stormy’s facade of innocence fell.

“You can’t talk me out of this,” she said honestly. “I’ve been thinking about taking a bigger role in the investigations for a while now so it isn’t all on Willow. I think maybe all the extra paranormal activity is negatively impacting her aura.” 

“Maybe her negative aura is causing the extra paranormal activity,” Mark suggested. Stormy froze for a moment, considering this. 

“Well, that’s actually a really good point,” Stormy admitted. “All the more reason for us to take cases. I’ve been working with her for years, Mark. I can do this.” 

“I’ve been working with her for years too, Stormy. We can’t see, speak to, or banish spirits.” Stormy rolled her eyes. 

“Willow doesn’t even do any of that most of the time. Look at this case,” Stormy held up the paper and read. “Possessed matchsticks? Really, Mark? This would be a waste of Willow’s time. I make the herbal blend Willow would use to seal away the spirit anyways. It can’t be that strong if it can only possess a box of matchsticks. We just take the matchsticks and tie them in a box of purified herbs, and bury the box in the yard with a salt circle. It’ll be easy, twenty minutes, tops.” Mark didn’t look convinced.

“There’s no way I’m going along with this,” he said. Stormy huffed. “Besides, don’t you think I have something better to do with my evening than spirit chasing with you?” 

“Honestly, I don’t think you do,” Stormy said. Mark ignored that. “I’m heading straight to this location at six o’clock after we close. It’ll be an in and out job, I’ll just seal the matchsticks away in a herbal box and that’ll be that. Are you coming or not?” Mark kept a neutral expression, checking the clock.

“I suppose my tv show doesn’t start until eight. I guess I can go with you to make sure you don’t get yourself killed.” Stormy clapped her hands together, beaming at him.

“Oh, thank you Mark!” she sighed. Mark ignored her, tidying up his desk. He would have much rather spent the evening taking Stormy out to a nice dinner where she confessed her undying attraction to him but he supposed he would take whatever he got from her. 

Six o’clock came without much incident. Stormy locked up the front door, the paper with the case information in hand. She smirked at Mark, who stood under the recently illuminated streetlights with his hands in his pockets, looking guilty. She strode over and took his arm.

“Don’t pout,” she said. He spared her a glance. 

“What does Willow think you’re doing this evening?” he asked. Stormy sighed. 

“She won’t even notice I’m gone, trust me. She habitually works until well past my bedtime. I usually don’t even see her in the evenings. I packed everything we should need in my bag.” Mark grunted in acknowledgement. Stormy sighed. “Don’t be that way, Mark. I’m glad you wanted to come along.”

“I just don’t have anything better to do,” he said with a shrug. “So, where is this place again?” Stormy consulted the sheet of paper.

“On the corner of Marlow and Eighth,” Stormy read. “Brick house.”

They walked in silence for a time. Marlow Avenue wasn’t that far of a walk. The cement sidewalk turned into laid red brick as they walked into the more historic part of town. The sun was setting fast, inversely causing their shadows to grow, warping and stretching out on the path ahead. 

The brick home on the corner of Marlow and Eighth was unassuming and modest, nearly identical to the other homes on the street. Stormy and Mark walked up the wooden steps leading to the front door and Stormy knocked.

“Hello?” inquired an elderly woman, opening the door a sliver. She had short, curly hair, a pair of glasses propped up on the top of her head. She squinted at them, her blue eyes cloudy with cataracts. 

“Hi, I’m Stormy and this is Mark,” Mark held up a hand in greeting. “We’re from Paranormal Investigations Incorporated regarding the… er,” she double checked the paper. “The matchstick issue.” 

“Oh, aren’t you two such lovely kids,” the elderly woman said, fully opening the door and ushering them in. “How sweet, checking on an old woman like me.”

Stormy and Mark exchanged a look. Mark shrugged and walked inside, his hands buried deep in his pockets. Stormy followed, holding her bag in front of her, fiddling with the strap holding it closed absentmindedly. 

The interior of the home looked exactly as one would expect an older woman’s home to look. Yellowed wallpaper that might have been fashionable fifty years ago decorated the walls and there was an overabundance of knick knacks on every available surface. The elderly woman led them into a sitting room full of furniture decorated with floral patterns. Stormy sat on the floral sofa and opened her bag. 

“Are we able to get a few more details before you lead us to the possessed item?” Stormy asked, laying the paper with the case information on a coffee table and grabbing a pen from her bag. The elderly woman smiled at her, and Stormy noticed the woman also had a pair of glasses on a chain around her neck. 

“Oh, of course dear,” the woman said. “Can I make you kids a cup of tea first?” 

“No thank you,” Stormy said. “I’d just like to resolve this issue for you as quickly as possible, I don’t want to take up your whole evening.” 

“Having such a lovely young couple over is the most excitement this old lady has gotten in some time,” the elderly woman said. Stormy and Mark shared a look. “How many children do you two have?”

“We only work together, we’re not a couple,” Stormy said quickly. 

“Oh sure,” the woman said with a wink. 

“No, but, like, really,” Stormy began, but Mark cut her off.

“I need a cigarette,” he stated, turning towards the door. “Just grab me when you’re ready to seal off the matchsticks.” Stormy rolled her eyes as he retreated from the uncomfortable conversation. 

“Don’t worry dear,” the elderly woman said, sitting down on the floral sofa next to Stormy. “He’ll come around eventually,” the woman nodded wisely. “He’ll confess his feelings for you one day.” 

“Er, right,” Stormy said, grimacing at the thought. She faintly heard the door shut as Mark stepped outside. “Back to the paperwork, can you give me a few more details about what exactly the matchsticks did? When did your issue start? Also, I apologize but I can’t remember what you said your name was.” 

“Oh yes dear, the matchsticks. They aren’t used a lot, so I can’t say when it happened exactly. Just small movements at first, just one or two matchsticks moving in the box at a time. Before long it was the whole box, just vibrating and moving, dragging across the bottom of the junk drawer.”

Stormy jotted down a few notes, her eyebrows knit together. The sitting room was uncomfortably warm and stuffy, which was making it a bit hard to concentrate. She hadn’t quite noticed it before Mark stepped out, but it was getting harder to ignore. She felt a drop of cool sweat running down the back of her neck. 

“So the box was moving around in the drawer, and that got your attention?” Stormy clarified. “And I’m sorry, ma’am, what did you say your name was? I just need it for the case file.”

“No, that wasn’t enough to get her attention. The matchsticks started sparking on their own and the kitchen smoke alarm went off. That’s what prompted the phone call to your agency. She was too scared to open the drawer, but not scared enough to leave the house, apparently.”

“Why are you talking in third person?” Stormy asked, feeling very uncomfortable. 

The elderly woman laughed. It took Stormy a fraction of a second to notice how sharp her teeth were. Stormy tried to jerk away from the woman, to get away from her as quickly as possible as her mind registered what was going on. She felt bound as if by invisible ropes, stuck on the floral couch. 

“I greatly dislike being old,” the woman said, holding out a wrinkled hand and grimacing at it. “This body simply won’t work. Yours, on the other hand, would do nicely.” 

“Y-Y-You,” Stormy stuttered out, attempting to thrash around but unable to move her body. “You’re the spirit that was possessing the matchsticks?” 

“You’re not very bright, are you?” the woman eyed her over as if assessing a potential purchase. “At least it was easy to separate you two. I thought that idiot boy would cause more problems.” 

“Why did you have to separate us?” Stormy asked, trying to buy time for Mark to come back inside.

“Well, I’m not strong enough yet to fully restrain two humans, but I’ll get there, don’t worry.” 

The woman smiled at Stormy, her eyes flashing crimson for a moment before Stormy felt like she was punched in the chest. Impossibly fast, the woman was on top of her and she could feel the spirit forcing its way out of the old woman’s body and into her own. It felt like too much air was being forced into her lungs, her head throbbed with pain as an intense pressure built inside her body. 

Stormy realized the invisible ropes that had bound her were gone and she threw her arms up instinctively, attempting to throw the possessed woman off her. Her arms were cumbersome and awkward to maneuver, as if her muscles were working against her. Her head throbbed excruciatingly and she cried out, her vision blurring from the pain. 

Stormy faintly heard the door slam open but couldn’t register what that meant through her paralyzing pain. She heard Mark yelling something but she couldn’t understand what. She faintly registered the woman’s weight being pulled off her. This did nothing to stop the crushing internal pain as it felt like something was filling her body, smashing everything to the side to make room.

She tried to open her eyes but her vision was blurred and watery with tears. She saw the outline of a ceiling fan and vaguely wondered how she had ended up on the floor. Mark grabbed her shoulders and shook her. His lips were moving but she couldn’t hear a thing. His face came in and out of focus as her head lolled on her neck. 

She felt him lift her off the ground and everything went black. 

Words couldn’t describe the chill that went down Mark’s spine when he first heard Stormy cry out from the other side of the door. He dropped his cigarette and grabbed the doorknob, fumbling with it frantically before realizing that it was locked. A wave of dread washed over him and he threw his shoulder into the door with all his weight until it gave way, slamming open. 

The previously inconspicuous house had a heavy negative aura and was well over a hundred degrees of stifling heat as he ran down the hall to the sitting room. Condensation had accumulated on the dated wallpaper, the thick drops disturbingly trailing upwards towards the ceiling where murky puddles lay suspended over his head. 

He threw open the door to the sitting room and what he saw burned its way into his mind in a way that he knew no amount of unhealthy coping mechanisms would ever help him forget. Stormy laid on the carpet splayed out on her back, some unearthly creature on top of her, crushing the life out of her.

The creature was mostly mouth, with long, razor sharp fangs dripping saliva. Beady red eyes were barely visible on either side of its face. It had four crude limbs covered in blistered, blackened flesh. It straddled Stormy’s limp body and dug its claws into her, slicing without visibly injuring her. He watched in terror as it clawed its way into her chest. 

Mark reacted without thinking, running towards the creature and grabbing it around the middle, pulling it off Stormy and throwing it into the corner of the room. He watched in disbelief as the creature lost contact with Stormy and melted back into the limp form of the elderly woman. She hit the wall and crumpled to the floor unmoving. 

Mark observed her warily, watching closely for any sign of movement. She looked so unlike the elderly woman who had welcomed them into her home. Her flesh was grey and rancid, festering open wounds covering most of her skin. She looked like a bloated, rotting corpse. Mark glanced around the room, seeing for the first time how filthy the room was. Everything was coated in a thin layer of dust and there were dried blood splatters over the furniture. 

Clearly the spirit was a lot stronger than any of them had thought. Not only had it possessed the old woman but it could also completely alter their perception of their surroundings. Willow would have been able to see through the spirit’s charade immediately but of course she wasn’t there. The woman remained unmoving and Mark figured the spirit must be gone if he could see everything clearly again.

Mark swore in frustration, kneeling down next to Stormy’s limp form. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her, trying to wake her up. Her body was completely flaccid.

“Wake up!” he demanded, giving her another firm shake. Her eyelids fluttered open momentarily and her eyes held an unfocused gaze with the ceiling before shutting again. 

Mark’s hands burned where he held her shoulders and he let go with a start. He observed his red palms in confusion. He held a hand to Stormy’s forehead and quickly withdrew it, letting out a pained hiss. She was burning up, her flesh hotter than any human’s had the right to be. Touching her forehead was like touching a metal pot on the stove. 

“I have to get you home,” Mark said, looking around frantically for something to wrap her in. He knew he wouldn’t be able to carry her the whole way back without a barrier between their bodies, she was too hot. He settled on a throw blanket that laid forgotten draped on the back of a floral armchair. 

Mark threw the blanket haphazardly over Stormy and lifted her up, heaving her limp body over his shoulder unceremoniously. He ran out of the house, the cool evening air hitting him like a wall. The house had been suffocatingly hot and it was a relief to be outside, even with Stormy in his arms like solidified flames. 

He felt the skin of his arms and shoulder burning despite the multiple layers between himself and Stormy, but the sensation didn’t fully register in his panic. He couldn’t formulate full thoughts or ideas, just a vague idea of what he needed to do next. 

He was thoroughly out of breath when he made it back to the agency. His football days were long behind him and he clearly wasn’t as fast on his feet as he was in his prime. He fumbled with the doorknob, unable to get it to turn. Now that he wasn’t running he was becoming more aware of the searing pain from holding Stormy’s scorching hot body. Half-formulated thoughts kept bubbling to the surface of his mind that she had to be dead but he forced them down.

“It’s locked,” he groaned, remembering Stormy locking up after they closed. He groped desperately at her pockets with his free hand, trying to feel which one held the key. He felt the key’s outline in her back pocket and pulled it out. The key singed his hand and his first instinct was to drop it but he forced himself to hold onto it long enough to shove the key in the lock and turn it. 

The door swung open and Mark ran inside, taking the stairs up to the flat where Stormy and Willow lived above the agency two at a time. He spared a glance at Willow’s office as he bolted down the hall and saw her sitting at the desk, looking up in confusion.

“Help!” he yelled as ran by. Acting purely out of instinct he kicked the door to their bathroom open and as carefully as he could laid Stormy down in the bathtub. His shoulder throbbed with pain as blood rushed to the numb skin. Mark couldn’t help but cry out in pain as the full extent of his injuries became apparent. He glanced down at his hands and saw how blistered and reddened the skin stretching across his palms had become. Stormy had burned him. 

“What happened?” Willow asked, rushing into the bathroom right behind him. Mark’s brain was slow to respond, he opened his mouth but words didn’t come out. Willow pushed him away easily and reached a hand out to touch Stormy’s slack body. 

“Don’t,” Mark managed to say, his voice hoarse. Willow looked at him with concern. “She’ll burn you,” he said, holding out his blistered palms as proof. Willow observed him for a moment without speaking. He looked away, uncomfortable with the way her dark eyes felt like they were drilling into his soul. 

Willow carefully placed a hand on Stormy’s forehead before quickly withdrawing it with a hiss.

“She’s dead,” Mark moaned, tears leaking down his face. Willow silently examined Stormy’s limp body while Mark wept. 

“She’s not dead,” Willow finally said, eerily calm. “But she will be soon if we don’t cool her down.” She grabbed the handle of the faucet and turned it to the coldest setting, pausing briefly before turning it on to look up at Mark. “She isn’t going to like this.” 

Mark understood what this meant and moved to the head of the bathtub, hovering his burned hands above Stormy’s shoulders. He could feel the heat radiating off her body, irritating his throbbing hands. A lone tear drop rolled off his cheek and landed on Stormy’s neck, sizzling on contact and vaporizing in a small wisp of steam. 

Stormy’s face was slack, her body completely limp and relaxed as if she were sleeping. He thought she looked so beautiful lying there against the white porcelain and wished he had found one moment to tell her over the years how much he loved her. He knew he would be immediately shot down of course but he regretted it all the same. A creek sounded as Willow turned the faucet on. 

Water sprayed out from the shower head. The moment the first few drops hit Stormy Mark knew there was going to be a problem. Her slack face contracted as if in pain and she curled in on herself, her movements jerky and uncoordinated as she tried to get away. The stream of water hissed against her skin, steam filling the bathroom. 

Stormy opened her mouth and let out a bloodcurdling scream, the pitch climbing until it hit a crescendo humans should not be capable of. Mark blindly forced Stormy’s body down with his burned hands, trying to keep her in the stream of the showerhead. He couldn’t see anything for a few moments due to all the steam. 

“Why is she like this?” he choked out, struggling to hold Stormy down as she wiggled and fought to get away from the water. She was cool enough to touch now but her skin still burned as if she had a fever. 

“A fire spirit seems to have infested her body,” Willow’s voice sounded from the corner of the bathroom. Mark couldn’t spare her a glance as he fought with Stormy’s flailing limbs. He was sure his hands should have been in agony from the burns but he was so engrossed in his task the pain was pushed to the back of his mind, barely noticeable. “She’ll run out of energy soon.” 

True to Willow’s word Stormy slowly stopped fighting, gradually going limp again. Mark didn’t let go of her shoulders, unsure if she would start flailing again. The cold water beat against her skin, soaking her clothes and hair as it cooled her down. 

“Is it safe to let go?” he finally asked. 

“Should be,” Willow said. “Just make sure she’s propped up, she’ll aspirate the water if you let her.” Mark pulled Stormy up and repositioned her. He rested her head on the side of the porcelain tub and slumped one of her arms over the side to hold her up. The water sprayed the side of her torso, her clothes soaked to her skin. He felt like that was a reasonably safe position to leave her in for the time being. 

“Will she get too cold?” Mark asked, tearing his eyes away from Stormy to look at Willow. Willow was sitting on the tile floor of the bathroom, her eyes closed as if in intense concentration. 

“No, the colder the better, it weakens the fire spirit. I need it to be as weak as possible before I try to extract it from her. I’m trying to focus my energy before I attempt it so I don’t kill her. Tell me exactly what happened Mark, it may help.” Willow’s tone was as calm and even as if they were speaking about the weather, not her partner’s life. 

Mark felt uncomfortable as he tried to find the words to explain what happened. Willow didn’t open her eyes to look at him which he appreciated. He felt unbearably guilty for not trying harder to talk Stormy out of her plan. It would have been so much harder to speak if Willow was giving him her full attention. 

“Stormy told me she felt like you were working too much and, uh, wanted to help you out by taking some of the work off your plate. She wanted to go on a simple case so you didn’t have to.” Willow’s eyes opened, her dark iris’s focusing on him for a moment, a look of irritation on her face.

“That’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard,” Willow said before closing her eyes again. “Please continue.” 

“I tried to talk her out of it but she said she’d just go alone if I didn’t go with her and I wanted to keep an eye on her,” he rambled on awkwardly. “Stormy had grabbed a random file off my desk, it was a possessed box of matchsticks. She felt like it was small enough that we could handle it without bothering you.” Mark relayed briefly what happened in the old woman’s home. 

“So then I heard Stormy scream and I ran back in but the house wasn’t the same. It was hot and gross and the old lady was really a monster or something, I-I don’t know, you know I’m not good at this stuff.”

“It’s okay,” Willow breathed. “Try to focus.” Mark noticed his hands were shaking and tried to stop them by clasping them together, but his burns hurt. He took a steadying breath.

“I ran back into the sitting room and Stormy was on the ground and this thing was on top of her k-k-kind of digging into her? There was no blood or anything b-but I could see it slicing and burrowing, I don’t know how to explain it. I threw it off her and it turned back into the old lady but she, uh. She wasn’t right,” his voice tapered off, disturbing thoughts swirling around his mind. 

“Dead?” Willow inquired. Mark shook his head, remembering the woman’s grey, rotten flesh.

“She looked like she had died a long time ago,” Mark said. Willow nodded.

“She probably had, I don’t think a human could live more than an hour sharing a body with a fire spirit.” Mark quickly looked over at Stormy to confirm she was still breathing. She was.

“Is this a powerful spirit, then?” he asked. 

“Powerful enough to trick you two and kill an old woman,” Willow said with a shrug. Mark grimaced.

“I’m sorry Willow, this is all my fault. I should have tried harder to talk her out of it.” 

“No, it’s my fault Mark. I, I should have been there, I’m never there for her,” Willow abruptly stopped talking. “I can’t think about this right now, I need to focus. I’m going to be out of my body for a while, just take care of Stormy for me.” 

“Well, wait, you need to tell me what to do,” Mark said quickly. “I’m not Stormy, I can’t read your mind.” 

“Stormy can’t read my mind, she just knows me really well,” Willow felt annoyed at the thought of having to explain herself. It was such a waste of time. Stormy always just knew what she needed or required minimal instruction. “I’m going to try to drag the spirit infesting Stormy’s body to the Underside, but I don’t know exactly how I’ll do it yet. I can’t feel the fire spirit’s identity as a separate being from Stormy here. I need to bring us both to the Otherside where I believe the lines will be less blurred, separate them, and go from there.” Mark gave her a blank stare. 

“But like, what do you want me to do, specifically?” he asked. Willow shook her head. 

“Just take care of our bodies until we are back, okay? I’m dragging the fire spirit to the Otherside with Stormy’s spirit so she should be safe to get out of the water. Just put her in bed and keep her warm, she should be harmless.” 

“Okay, babysitting, got it,” Mark said. Part of him wished he could take a more involved role in Stormy’s rescue but another, much louder part of him was thankful it was out of his hands. 

Without saying another word Willow put a hand to the ground and formed a swirling black hole with ease. A portal to the Otherside. She had gotten much better at falling through to the Otherside over the years. She grasped Stormy’s hand that was hanging over the edge of the bathtub with her hand that wasn’t maintaining the portal. Mark saw the moment it happened. 

A faded, hazy outline seemed to detach from Willow and fall through the swirling portal to the Otherside. Stormy’s outline followed, pulled from her body by Willow’s hand. Mark saw a flash of red for a second as what must have been the fire spirit followed, clinging to Stormy. It was too bright to focus on and blackness danced across his vision. It was like looking directly at the sun; too intense to process. 

Willow fell forward, her body going limp as the portal closed. Mark caught her and eased her on the floor. The sound of the water running continued to reverberate off the bathroom walls and the air still felt humid with the dissipating steam. Everything was the same as it had been a few moments before but something was undeniably missing from the room. Stormy and Willow’s spirits were gone and the space they had previously occupied was indescribably vast. Mark felt uneasy. 

He stood up and shut off the faucet, the stream of cold water ceasing with a creak. Stormy and Willow lay unmoving and he observed them for a silent moment. Their hands had fallen apart when Willow fell forward. Their fingers were a few inches apart, Stormy’s dangling over the side of the tub and Willow’s outstretched on the ground. 

Mark sighed. He was sore. His physical peak was on the high school football field fifteen years ago. It had been a steady downhill slide since graduation. A combination of his thirties and long hours at a desk job had left him relatively deconditioned. He awkwardly grabbed Willow under her arms and dragged her to her bedroom. 

Mark’s hands hurt, so he tried to put most of her weight on his forearms. It was manageable. He lifted her up and placed her in what he assumed was a comfortable position on the bed. It was his first time in Stormy and Willow’s shared bedroom and it left him with an uneasy feeling he didn’t want to address. He went back to the bathroom. 

He found towels in a linen closet to attempt to dry Stormy off with. She was soaked, her skin pale and cold to the touch. Her lips had a bluish hue and he worried the rapid fluctuations in temperature would cause her some sort of permanent damage. 

He pulled her out of the tub as carefully as possible and rested her on the bathroom floor. He softly patted the towel on Stormy’s face, drying her off as gently as he could. He didn’t know how to dry her hair so he settled for wrapping a towel loosely around her head. Her clothes were dripping, forming small puddles on the tile floor. He pulled off her shoes and socks but stopped at that. 

While trying to towel off her soaked clothes he realized she was shivering. He knelt beside her and put an arm under her shoulders and the other behind her knees, picking her up. She continued to shiver and he held her close, her body contouring to his. 

He walked her to her bedroom leaving a path of water drops from the bathroom. The contact would have been satisfying had she been occupying her body but it was really about as intimate as moving furniture. It was as meaningless for him as it was for her. He laid her next to Willow. 

Mark found a basket of throw blankets and piled them on Stormy, trying to insulate her as best as he could so she could warm up. He sat on the ground and sighed, prepared to wait it out. He heard a rustling in the closet and turned his head to the noise. Biscuit, Stormy and Willow’s undead terrier cautiously walked out of the closet where he had been hiding from the noise and commotion. 

Biscuit looked scared. Mark held out a hand and Biscuit came to him. His fur was cool to the touch but he felt like any other wiry-haired dog otherwise. Mark allowed Biscuit to climb in his lap and scratched him absentmindedly behind the ears as he waited for Stormy and Willow to wake up.

“Stormy, wake up.” Stormy sighed, she was resting so well. She really didn’t want to wake up. She could register through her sleep that the voice was Willow’s, however, so she forced her eyes open to see what Willow needed. She worried about her every time she closed her eyes. 

Stormy realized her head was in Willow’s lap. She was lying on the ground, which was odd. Willow’s perfect face looked down at her in concern. Stormy immediately recognized the hazy, glowing outlines and translucent center of Willow’s body and knew what that meant. 

“We’re in the Otherside?” Stormy asked, looking beyond Willow. They were in a glade surrounded by thick fog. The foyer, as Willow had once said, to the Otherside. 

“Yes,” Willow said. She ran her fingers through Stormy’s hair, the strands trying to float up and away from Stormy’s head, unburdened by the gravity of their home world. “You’ve been infected by a fire spirit.” 

Stormy looked down, observing her own semi-translucent body. “Oh,” she said, seeing a red glowing in her chest. Memories came flooding back to her.

“I got most of it out but that one piece I can’t separate from you. It’s too close to your heart.” Willow continued to run her fingers through Stormy’s hair. Stormy still felt sleepy, and the affection was soothing. She had trouble focusing on why that was a problem. 

“That’s fine, Willow. I know you did your best,” Stormy said dismissively. She sighed, cuddling closer to Willow, who tensed up. “Let’s stay here awhile. I forgot how nice it is when nothing is trying to eat us.”

“Stormy, I don’t think you understand what is going on,” Willow said quietly. “You are permanently fused, I don’t know of any way to separate you from this piece of spirit.” 

“Does that mean I can’t go home? I don’t have to stay here, do I?” Stormy asked. Willow’s hand stopped. 

“I don’t know how big of an effect it will have on you until we get your spirit back into your body. I don’t know if your body can even host two spirits.” Stormy frowned. 

“If I have to stay here, will you visit me sometimes?” Stormy asked. Willow looked down at her with an incredulous expression. “Just when you have time,” Stormy quickly clarified. 

“Stormy,” Willow said slowly. “If you had to stay here, I would stay here too. I thought that was obvious.” Stormy smiled. 

“Thanks Willow,” she said. 

“Let’s get back to our bodies and see if we even have to worry about it. The piece of fire spirit still inside you is small, maybe you’ll be okay. I’ll pull us back here if your body can’t handle it, okay?” 

“Okay,” Stormy agreed. She closed her eyes and felt herself fall back to Earth. Going through the portal was as uncomfortable as ever, but the sensation was somewhat dulled by her exhaustion. 

She was lying in bed, her clothes wet and clinging to her skin. She sat up quickly, blankets that had been piled on top of her falling off and onto the floor. The moon was full and shining in the window. She saw Mark, sitting on the floor, fast asleep with Biscuit in his lap. He was leaning against the wall, looking as though he may fall over at any moment. 

“How do you feel?” Willow asked. Stormy hadn’t even noticed Willow sitting next to her. She had trouble prying her eyes off Mark. The thought of consuming his spirit in fire was on her mind, but easily ignored. 

“I kind of want to kill Mark,” she answered honestly. “But I’m pretty sure that’s just the fire spirit.” Willow nodded, pressing her hand on Stormy’s forehead.

“The fire spirit was malevolent, you may have some lingering feelings like that. Are you going to act on it?” Stormy thought for a moment. 

“Nah, I can ignore it,” she finally said. Willow smiled. 

“You’re warm, but it should be okay. Your body will probably just run a fever at baseline. It’s nothing like you were before. This is manageable.” 

Stormy threw her arms around Willow and pulled her close. “I’m so sorry I made all this trouble,” Stormy said. Willow shook her head. 

“No, I’m sorry I didn’t appreciate you,” Willow said. “I promise to spend more time with you. I don’t want to lose you.” Stormy pressed her lips to Willow’s. Stormy’s skin was hot, but not uncomfortable. Willow ran her hands down Stormy’s back, feeling the new sensation of heated skin and deciding she could get used to it.

“I see you two are back,” Mark’s voice came from the corner of the room. He had woken up and was pointedly not looking at them, a blank expression on his face. “I trust all went well, I’ll see myself out.” 

“Oh, Mark,” Stormy said, untangling herself from Willow and turning to face him. “I want to thank you for everything-” Mark stood up and began to walk out of the room. 

“No, it’s okay, I’m just going to leave,” Mark said quickly. Stormy looked at him, her face confused.

“Don’t you want to hear about what happened?” she asked. 

“Fill me in tomorrow,” he said briskly, shutting the door behind him. Stormy stared at the door. 

“What do you think that was all about?” Stormy asked. Willow shrugged. 

“No idea,” Willow said. Stormy smiled and threw her arms around Willow again. 

The next day at work, Mark didn’t want to talk about the night prior. Stormy made a new discovery, however. 

“Hey, look Mark!” Stormy exclaimed, holding up a box of matchsticks. He looked up from his desk, a bored expression on his face. Stormy struck a match, a little fire blazing at the end of the matchstick. She picked the flame off the top of the match and held it in her hand. “The fire doesn’t hurt me! It actually feels kind of good, isn’t that amazing?”

She tossed the little ball of flame from one hand to the other. The ball of flame slipped out of her hand and landed on his desk. A piece of paperwork caught fire, which Mark immediately put out by pouring out his cup of bitter tea on it. “Amazing,” he agreed flatly. “Now I have two freaks to deal with.”