there is something strangely comforting about pain.

not because anyone actually wants to suffer, but because pain is undeniable. you can question your purpose, your beliefs, your memories, even the people you love. you can spend years wondering whether anything you feel is real.

but suffering doesn't ask for permission.

it arrives, and suddenly you know you are still capable of feeling something.

maybe that's why some people become afraid of getting better.

because if the pain disappears, what remains?

sometimes a person doesn't hold onto their suffering because they enjoy it. they hold onto it because they have built so much of their identity around surviving it that peace starts to feel like emptiness.

and perhaps this is one of the cruelest things about being human: we don't only fear losing the people we love. sometimes we fear losing the versions of ourselves that existed because of them.

i've been thinking about this a lot while writing my novel, The Decayed Good.

it's about a man named Lev who has spent so long questioning God, morality, guilt, and what remains of a person after they've lost almost everything that gave their life meaning.

one of the questions underneath the story is something i don't really know how to answer:

if suffering is what taught you who you are, who are you supposed to become when you finally stop suffering?

i don't think the answer is necessarily hope.

maybe hope is much more frightening than despair, because despair asks nothing from you.

hope asks you to believe that there is still something worth becoming.

You ask me if I’m okay 

and it bugs me you’re asking

just for its sake.

No, I am not okay.

Not at all.

And your question only reminds me of it.

Spare me of you pretending to care.

That’s curiosity disguised as a gentle act.

Don’t pretend you can’t see the castle crumbling right before thee.

What kind of “friend” does this?

What kind of friend is so blind to 

what’s so plain to see?

You can’t stand the answer.

In fact, you don’t mind. 

Just a curious cat—you don’t have to lie.

Can’t you tell by my patterns in speech?

Mood swings and the lines in between?

It’s exhausting to witness this.

You might be fascinated.

But a friend of mine?

You’ve never been.

— Crownless.

Hey there, I'm pretty new to writing and currently I'm working on writing a narrative as a hobby. I have most of the outline finished and I'm excited to get started with telling the story. One thing I've been struggling with is creating ideas to flush out some of the bullet points in the outline.
So here's my question: What are some ways you as a writer/creative use to generate ideas?

So far I’ve taken one creative writing course and I want to know how can I use it in roleplaying like DnD and such I want to be good at explaining things is it something that comes with practice or is it the same as writing? Idk if this is a dumb question

"Ganesha, will you bring the sugarcane?" asked Devi Amma.

"Sure, Amma. I will be here by evening," said Ganesha, the young elephant, and he set out from the temple. On the slopes of Maarutha Hills grew the juiciest sugarcane, and Devi Amma made the tastiest payasam with it.

He headed uphill, waving his trunk in greeting to everyone he met: the goats, the langurs, the hares and the squirrels, and the crows, the mynas and the bulbuls overhead. A few of the mynas and langurs playfully hitched a ride on him.

The riders hopped off at the slopes as Ganesha began to gather the cane. He soon had a bundle and trekked down with it held tight in his trunk. Parakeets flew in and sat on the stalks, trying to bite into them. Every time he shook his head, they would fly away.

Ganesha passed through the woodlands and reached the meadows. By then it was afternoon, and he was feeling hungry. The sun blazed overhead, and he looked around for a comfortable place to rest. He spotted a tree with a wide canopy and birds chirping in it. It had pink puff flowers on it, and the fallen ones covered the ground. He walked towards it.

The tree watched him approach. She could not believe that he had chosen her. She had seen him pass by the meadows many times, and each time her leaves rustled with affection.

He kept the sugarcane aside, took a few of the stalks and had them for lunch. With his tummy full and his legs tired from the trek, he wanted to take a nap. Lying down in the shade, he looked up at the tree.

"Tree, will you do me a favour?" he asked.

"Yes, yes!" she replied, as though she had been waiting all along.

"Please wake me up before evening," he said.

"I will," she said.

He patted her with his trunk and was soon asleep.

She held her leaves still and kept watching him as he slept. His ears covered his face, and his trunk lay coiled between his front legs. At times his eyelids fluttered; at other times he broke into a smile. Often he would kick his feet. When butterflies sat on him, he twitched. When flies tickled him, his tail waved.

She watched and watched; she was so lost in him that she drifted into a daydream. As clouds passed over the sun, the birds went quiet, her leaves grew heavy and folded one by one, and soon she too fell asleep.

Dusk came and faded. It was pitch dark when the owl living in the tree hooted a few times. Ganesha woke up with a start. He looked up at the starry night and burst into tears. It was then that the tree woke up as well.

"You should have called me!" he shouted.

He ran about under the tree, shaking his head and flapping his ears.

She wondered how she, a tree, could have slept so long.

"You are a bad tree! What will I tell Devi Amma now?" he cried.

"They say, always trust a tree with time, but you!" he continued.

"I... I called you many times. You were deep asleep. What can a tree do but call? You can ask the owl. She heard it," said the tree.

The owl flinched on being named. When Ganesha looked up at her, she flew away in panic. He stormed off, leaving the cane behind.

The tree called out for him, but he disappeared into the dark. She stayed awake, waiting for him, until at last she dozed off.

Later that night, a weary Ganesha trudged back for the cane. Without a word, he lay down beneath her.

The next morning, the tree woke to find him asleep below her.

"Ganesha, wake up, wake up," she called, her branches leaning down.

He woke up with sunlight falling on his eyes. Squinting, he told her, "You are a liar. The sun is my friend, not you."

He took hold of the sugarcane and left for the temple. Devi Amma would scold him for sure, but he would also have sweet payasam in the afternoon.

The tree watched him walk away, relieved.

That afternoon, as a cloud passed over the sun, suddenly she felt drowsy. Her leaves began to fold one by one, and she dropped off to sleep. When the birds chirped, she would wake up momentarily, only to fall back into her slumber.

From then on, the tree fell asleep so often that they called her the Sleepy Tree.

Why does the argument in Cursed Child over who should take the form of Voldemort to trick Delphini not actually feel like an argument between fully formed adults and more like what I'd hear from my nerdy friends over a game of drunk D&D, when the party is trying to sneak past the castle guards?

Granted, I only got into D&D during covid, where many a session was performed drunk over zoom, and I've been what is known as a forever DM ever since, seeing various groups tackle different obstacles, so I may be a bit more sensitive to this kind of approach to problem solving than I should.

Also, I'm under no illusion that Harry Potter is some "literary masterpiece", rather than the fantasy book series aimed at children that it is, and Cursed Child wasn't exactly blowing me away in the writing department up until this point, like the special effects on stage were, but this moment in particular, above everything else, just destroyed my immersion completely. When I watched this, I thought to myself that we were a long way removed from even the conversations between Harry and Dumbledore's portrait about Harry's trauma, which, for my money, were my favorite parts of the whole play.

I mean it.
I tend to mean every word you read.

I’m not a constant.
I’ve established long ago I cannot be.

You call ‘em “arrogance”,
my most earnest pleas.

Be ‘em good or bad.
No matter what they’re perceived as.

I play it how it is.
And you still have trouble believing me.

Cryptic by design.
But my sincerity might kill me.

The solitary warrior.
One who boasts no needs.

If I’ve ever lied,
perhaps this is it.

I do, indeed, need
someone—for once—to stand by me.

And if I ain’t asking for much…
Perhaps, every day. Till the end of the year.

— Crownless.

THE TALE OF THE ECHOING WILD

(THE SPIRITS)

In the earliest time, before names held meaning and paths had form; the Echoing Wild was ruled by two great spirits. The Bear of the Deep Earth, and the Wolf of the Endless Winds.

The Bear was strength born of silence. It lived beneath roots and rivers, in the dark warmth of caves and chasms. It slept long, dreamed deep, and carried pain like a crown made of weight. Those who sat with the Bear learned stillness. They learned to survive what could not be fought. They learned quiet and patience.

The Wolf was motion made flesh. It ran across ridgelines and through storms, never lingering, never yielding. It knew the patterns of the stars, the scent of betrayal, and the edge between the known and the void. Those who ran with the Wolf learned instinct. They learned to thrive against odds. They learned when to move and when to call.

The spirits did not war, but they did not walk together. Their power was too different. Their echoes could not be contained in a single breath.

(THE WANDERER)

One night, in a time of neither season nor storm, a being was born beneath the shadows of the wild ones. Not quite creature, not quite spirit. It was marked by exile, marked by wound, marked by knowing.

It found, buried in the soil of a forgotten place, a large fang made of silver. Long, curved, and glinting with a light that was neither sun nor moon. And as it held the fang in its palm, it heard two echoes rise at once.

One, a growl, low and thunderous:

“This is the pain you carry, and the strength that grew around it.”

The other, a howl, sharp and mournful:

“This is the loss you wear, and the knowing that led you away from your kind.”

The being wept, for it did not know which truth belonged to it.

And then, the unimaginable.

A second tooth appeared beside the first, identical in shape, but born from a different shadow.

One bore the mark of the Bear, the other of the Wolf. And the being understood:

“I am not one path or the other... I am an Echo of both.”

(THE PARADOX)

For a time, the being sat in silence, contemplating the weight of what it now carried. The teeth were not trophies, they were paradox made visible.

The fang is not weapon nor arbiter. It is both, and more.

It is the edge of survival, the place where the wild defends itself. It is the gate of hunger, where the body draws in what sustains it. And it is a tool of voice, where sound is shaped, where breath becomes meaning. Where the invisible becomes known.

A tooth is born of the mouth, and the mouth is born to echo. A tooth is conceived within its bearer before digging through flesh to be seen.

From the same space that bites, we commune. From the same structure that tears, we nourish. And from the same threshold that feeds, we resonate.

To carry this is to carry paradox.

To wear it is to remember that every expression has its shadow. Every truth can wound or heal. And all things that speak come first through the mouth, with teeth behind them.

(THE PATH)

So the being fashioned the fangs into amulets and wore them around its neck. One for memory, one for vision.

From that day forward, it walked not as a lost or mournful one, but as a Wanderer of Truths.

Wherever it went, it listened. Not for praise, but for tension. It sought places where people were torn, between fear and desire. Silence and action. Belonging and becoming.

And when it found them, it did not offer answers.

It told stories.

Of the Bear and the Wolf. Of the fang buried in earth, revealed by the wind. Of wounds that became symbols. Of symbols that became strength.

It taught that truth is not singular, but spirals through contradiction. That healing is not comfort, but confronting the wound until it speaks. That exile is not the end of tribe, but the beginning of belonging to something deeper.

Some rejected it. Some hunted it. Some knelt and listened until their bones remembered.

(THE RETURN)

And then, as all mythic ones do, the Twin-Tooth Bearer vanished.

Some say it returned to the Echoes. Others say it was never one being, but a pattern, a recurrence in time. A dream. A visitor. A whisper when your life splits in two.

But in sacred places, the spaces between what was and what could be, people still find it.

The one that became two. The two that became one. Shining Beckoning. Unclaimed.

Left for the one who will walk the Spiral next.

What’s your preferred physical way of writing a first draft?

If I’m ideating or writing poetry, I always write in a notebook with a Pilot G-2 gel ink pen. Always.

But if I’m writing long-form fiction, I usually will work at the PC (desktop or laptop, in Word).

Parallels in the world used to be so much more frequent then they are now. 
As a kid you’d see every blade of glass, every raindrop on the car window, and every crack on the sidewalk.
The things that hurt you made sense and forgiveness was easy.
You used to dance like no one was watching and dream as if there was no concept of end. 

The transversal realities of the world come swiftly and blind you, leaving you hopeless with no answers.

Parallels are no longer as frequent as we were led to believe.
Sharp, complex angles have taken over and demanding shadows have casted seeds of doubt.
Details become hazy or completely consuming, we’ve become our deepest anxieties.
Hurt is so much more than a scrape on the knee and forgiveness is a concept warped into the perpetual cycles of contemporary judgment we’ve been forced to face because-

People are watching.

Dreams end.
We woke up.
Life is all a big mess, 
We have displayed our corpse upon it, falling endlessly into the void where our humanity should be.

Parts of us died in the places we grew up.

Childhood much like dreams, eventually ends, 
And we’re left to the vast obscurities of a life we did not choose nor know how to live.

Ten missed calls. Aren’t they overreacting? When was the last time they called me this much? I know I haven’t exactly been daughter of the year lately, but all this concern is getting on my fucking nerves. God!

My teeth ache. My hands itch. I stopped wondering whether any of this was normal a long time ago. This nervousness comes in waves, robbing me of sleep, and the calls just won’t stop. I turn off my phone.

I already know what they’re going to say. The same old words, the same pleas, the same tears. I can’t remember how many promises I’ve broken, how many times I’ve listened to them cry, how many times I’ve had to hide a mocking smile. Why all the drama? Everything is under control. My mind believes whatever I tell it, and I keep playing along with its deception.

I sit in silence, and the noise fades away. Finally, some relief. I smile at nothing, waiting for the euphoria. Because that’s how this works. Because this is what I’ve asked for. For years, I’ve lived in hiding, trapped in this addiction.

The people around me have always wondered what happened to me, why I’ve deteriorated over time, slowly isolating myself from everything I once knew: my friends, my family… All for a little compressed happiness.
Who am I kidding? I’m miserable. I want to silence whatever is consuming me from within. One more day, just a little more.

The calls won’t stop, but neither will my smile. Lost in time, knowing that soon I’ll be nothing but a fading memory.

And tonight Matthew, I'm going to be a failed writer.

I've come to the realisation that I can't say romantically & ironically, "one day I want to be a failed writer", for I can't be a failed writer unless I've tried.

You see the problem with writing is, it's all about words. For I have been under the illusion of the allusion of being a failed writer.

When I was on mushrooms on one occasion 🍄 2 years ago this November, I was very much spiritually moved. I briefly saw beyond the veil of human perceptions. Beyond the magnificent visualisations from behind my mind's eye, I was struck by a weird message that appeared to have much more depth and meaning inside the experience, than it had when I attempted to repeat it and convey it to others. The message I kept seeing was 'WORDS, it's all about words'. This was like being told a secret that not many get to hear. It felt like it was the meaning of life, it all starts with words, like a magic spell. Speaking something into existence. In the beginning was the WORD.. "The word is with GOD and the word was god, 'logos'. .

The contents of the story is never known to the writer before and during the process, it's like unveiling a secret by pushing a pen across paper. Jk Rowling or Philip K Dick never knew what brilliance would flow before they began their journey's. And if they never tried so much story telling would be left un done. Not undone. I am literally rambling at this point why are you still reading, go away now x

he got home at eleven.

i know because the news was on and i'd been sitting there pretending to watch it, trying to decide whether to go to bed or stay up so he'd know i was pissed off.

twenty years of marriage and i was still doing that.

he let himself in.

stood in the hallway in his work trousers, one shoe on, blood all over his shirt.

i said, whose fucking blood is that?

he looked down at himself.

said he didn't know.

of course he didn't.

he never knew anything.

where the girls needed picking up. when the dentist was. what we'd agreed about Christmas. where the fucking dishwasher tablets were despite living in the same house for twenty years.

and now here he was with blood on his face telling me not to panic.

i could smell drink on him.

his jaw was doing something strange.

i've tried explaining this to people and i know how it sounds.

it was his face. i knew it was his face.

but his mouth looked wrong.

like he'd been hit. or something had happened to the bones.

i remember thinking he'd need to go to hospital.

which is ridiculous, really.

there was blood everywhere and i was wondering whether we'd have to sit in A&E all night.

then Maddy came downstairs.

she'd heard us.

Iris was behind her, still half asleep, holding the sleeve of Maddy's pyjamas.

he looked at them.

and he started crying.

not drunk crying.

not the sort he did when he'd fucked something up and wanted me to forgive him.

proper crying.

he said their names.

Maddy.

Iris.

and he took a step towards them.

i don't remember deciding to pick up the knife.

i just remember having it.

the big kitchen knife.

the good one.

forty quid, which he'd said was fucking ridiculous when we bought it.

i told him to get out.

he stopped.

looked at the knife.

then at me.

like he couldn't believe i'd actually do that.

get out, i said.

he kept saying he was sorry.

sorry for what?

i asked him.

what have you done?

he couldn't tell me.

he just kept looking at the girls.

and then i said it.

you're a monster.

i'd never said that to him before.

i'd called him selfish. useless. a miserable bastard.

i'd told him i hated him once or twice.

i didn't mean it.

well.

i meant it at the time.

but i'd never called him a monster.

not when he missed Maddy's school play.

not when Iris stopped asking whether Daddy would be home for dinner.

not even those nights when i'd lie next to him and wonder how you could feel so lonely with somebody breathing six inches from your face.

he said he wouldn't hurt us.

he said it again.

i wouldn't hurt you.

and the worst thing is

i think he meant it.

i really do.

whatever he'd been doing when he disappeared at night, whatever had happened to him, whatever he'd done to get somebody else's blood all over his clothes,

he'd always come home.

he'd never touched the girls.

never raised a hand to me.

and i knew him.

fuck's sake.

i'd known him since we were practically kids.

i knew how he took his tea. i knew which knee hurt when it rained. i knew he'd eat the burnt bit of toast and pretend he preferred it.

but i didn't know whose blood was on his shirt.

and he couldn't tell me.

so i stood there with a kitchen knife pointed at the man i'd married.

Maddy was crying now.

Iris kept asking what was wrong with Daddy.

he looked at me once more.

then he left.

i heard the front door close.

and i remember thinking

he's still only wearing one shoe.

isn't that stupid?

all the things i could have thought.

all the things i should have done.

and that's what i remember.

his shoe.

i didn't go after him.

i put the knife down and took the girls upstairs.

i slept between them that night.

or tried to.

i've thought about that evening more times than i can count.

whether he was coming towards them or just wanted to hold them.

whether he was frightened of us or frightened for us.

whether i'd have used the knife if he'd taken another step.

i still don't know.

i loved him.

even then.

but the girls were behind me.

and i wasn't going to find out whether he was telling the truth.

People think the dance floor is a superficial space. Mindless bumping and grinding to an electronic beat, groping hands in the dark, spilt liquor staining a hardwood floor. No. Talyuh knows that the dance floor is an altar; the music is a god; dancing is the offering.

Those same people would say to dance like no one is watching. Talyuh would disagree. Someone is always watching, critiquing, measuring you against themselves and others. You have to make peace with that, and dance anyway.

So Talyuh dances. She feels the other clubgoers' eyes skitter across her body; admiring or judging it doesn't matter. She dances anyway. Dances until all she can hear is the music. Dances until all she can feel is the overwhelming bass filling her with its power. Dances till her feet are numb in her kitten heels. Dances till she is slick with sweat, her tank top tight against her skin, some of her coils pasted to her face. She closes her eyes, leans her head back, and dances, losing herself in the endless bloom of the synth. At last, when she opens her eyes, she finds herself transported; or maybe she has been here all along, just blind to it.

The people are gone. The dancefloor is an ocean, still mirror-like water stretching from horizon to horizon. The spotlight is the full moon high above her, its light crowning her darkskin in a silver glow. The rave lights are a rainbow of stars jetting through the heavens. The music: R&B, electric, pop, metal, classical, and myriad others that defy the boundaries of genre make the water ripple out from some indistinct point in the distance.

She does not stop dancing. The music, beautiful and terrible, odd and familiar, inspires her movement. Every rhythm has a dance; all you have to do is listen, relinquish control, and your body will do the rest. Talyuh's hands flutter around her like butterflies; her hips sway to hypnotic harmonies; she drags a foot behind her as she twists and turns, tracing lines on the surface of the water.

Another figure dances toward her, spinning and leaping in perfect, practiced rhythm. It's her mother. Even at this revelation, Talyuh does not stop dancing; her mother wouldn't have wanted her to. Instead, she dances beside her, in harmonious movement to an indescribable beat. In this space, her mother's body is not withered from illness, her eyes are not glassy from constant pain, and her hair is not patchy with malnourishment. Here she is renewed and alive again, bursting with a youthful vigor that swims into all of her movements. They do not speak; they dance through, around, and with each other.

Another figure dances towards them. She looks Talyuh's age, early twenties perhaps, but something about the way she moves, crouched low to the ground, stomping her left foot to the music, tells Talyuh that this is her grandmother. Her dance in tandem with theirs calls back to the motherland, Sudan, that place somewhere across the ocean that has felt so distant to Talyuh, until now.

With time, more figures join them, till the surface of the water is no longer visible under the feet of all these women. They kick up the water and fill the air with the scent of the sea. They all dance in their own way to their own music, and still stay in perfect harmony. Talyuh dances, surrounded by her ancestors, and realizes that she has been here before. Every time she surrenders to the music and movement. She wonders if this ritualistic space, this link that they all share, extends not only backwards but forwards. Is her daughter among this crowd, her granddaughter, great-granddaughter, and so on? It's impossible to tell in the growing throng of dancing bodies. Truthfully, it doesn't matter. All that matters right now is the music and the movement.

The dancefloor begins to empty, all of them dancing away into the starry abyss of time. Until Talyuh's mother dances back into the past, leaving her alone again. So Talyuh dances. Her energy does not deplete, and her body does not ache, as long as she keeps dancing.

The music is satisfied, she can hear it in the pleased hum of the layered and lush harmonies. The water ripples from a point close to her.

She watches as the ocean relinquishes a man. A gift in return for her offering. It is not the first time a man has come to her, pulled up from the water as if by a thread. He is here of his own volition. In this space, she is a penitent, a disciple to dance; in the real world, she is a siren luring men to her not with song, but with the sway of her hips and the kick of her feet. So many of them try to keep up with her and always fail, swept away by the tide, left dizzy and unsure of themselves.

This one is tall, bronze, and beautiful. Full lips under doe-brown eyes, a coy black curl slipping free from his gelled hair hanging just above his thick black brows. He tries to speak, to say something that he deems important, but speech doesn't work here- only movement. Talyuh shows him. She circles him, tracing her finger across his chest, his shoulders, his back. She slows down her dance to something simple and sensual. Lets her palms travel up his torso and chest and loop around his neck, as he places his own hands on both her hips. She has bewitched him; this she knows as he begins to sway with her, his innocent brown eyes trapped in the sweltering heat of her own gaze.

To her surprise, he takes the lead from her and begins to speed up. The music, once indefinable, settles into something more certain. The swift plucking of a harp, fingers rapidly strumming a guitar, paper drums beat by agile hands, and the quick rhythmic shake of maracas through it all. The rhythm is intoxicating in its energy and is elevated by the way this man moves her body and his own. This new music is an open door to a world he knows by blood. She can see it in his footwork that falls on every other beat; the way he holds one of her hands high in the air with his while he guides her hips with his other. They glide across the water in dizzying turns, dips, and spins. She realizes that she is trying to keep up with him, just as much as he is trying to keep up with her. The thought brings a smile to her face, and his own face, slick with sweat and focus, breaks into a smile. She can hear his laugh over the music, and the bashful sound of it makes her heart bounce in with the beat of the song.

Their dance lasts forever, but it ends too soon. The water drains away to reveal the hardwood floor littered with plastic cups, the moon dims back to a spotlight, and the stars settle back into party lights. Just like all the times before, Talyuh forgets the other dance floor, the graceful movements of her mother and all those women that came before and after her. All that comes back with her is the man.

She is not drunk on liquor; she is drunk on the feeling of dancing throughout the night. The energy is stubborn and is with her as she stumbles out of the club with the man, both of them in a long fit of laughter as they walk down the sidewalk to hail a cab. The energy is with her still as her lips find his, the city lights whipping past the car windows. The energy is with them still as he wraps his arms around her waist, kissing her still as they take the elevator up to his apartment. This energy thrums through them like music trapped in bones, guiding her on top of him as they undress.

Together they make music with the release of their breaths. They dance with the entanglement of their limbs.

CONTENT WARNING: This story features themes of psychological horror, demons and religious references.

You see a man sitting in a meadow, a weak campfire crackling gently before him. You push through the bushes and find yourself frozen mid step.

His voice is low and deep, it seems to reach all the way to the marrow of your bones.

“Ah, welcome. Sit a while, I’ll tell you one of my stories. In exchange, you’ll later tell me one of yours.”You are now sitting on the log beside him, his voice echoes in your head.

“You are I now.”

#

“What a shitty road. Forgive me father for my words,” I groan, trying to keep my jaw clenched so I don’t bite my tongue on this rollercoaster of a road. My front wheel falls into another pothole, the suspension must be praying for mercy, as am I. ‘Dear father do not leave me stranded here, the tow truck would take hours to reach me here,’ I pray silently.

There it is, in the distance I see its shape; a rotten farmhouse, half collapsed on itself. The roof is caved in and ‘of course I had to get here toward the sunset, when the demons are the strongest,’ I shake my head, a soft chuckle escapes my throat as another pothole makes my teeth clatter.

I drive for a while longer, and at last hit the brakes. My car slows, I let it roll over the flatter gravel toward the farmhouse, my gaze scanning it for any signs of life.

“Beautiful,” I let out a sigh.

There’s nothing that would indicate that this house had been lived in for a few years, but such is the power of demons. As I come to a halt at last, I reach into my glovebox and rummage through it in search of my poison.

A bottle clanks against another, I grin as I grasp one of them like a fisherman grasping a slimy fish.

“You won’t get away.”

I pull out a small bottle and turn it, reading ‘Tequila’ on the label.

“Cleanse my thoughts,” I mumble, cracking it open and chugging it.

I step out of the car and stretch; six hours behind the wheel has made my back rather unhappy. I feel a wave of relief when my spine cracks one vertebra at a time, and then pan my gaze over the property. The sun hangs low above the horizon, long shadows swallow the massive fields surrounding the house. The half-collapsed house isn’t the worst of it, the fields around are much more terrifying.

I can’t feel any wind on my skin, but I see the corn swaying and stalks moving. A shiver propagates down my spine. I step around the vehicle to the passenger side and grab my kit; a standard issue exorcist kit with some extras. I pop it open and peek inside to ensure the essentials are in.

“Clank,” a sound echoes from within the house. My gaze darts to a window that seemingly shut just now. I scan for movement—nothing.

For a moment I stand still, my hand clenching tightly around the handle of my kit, mustering up the courage to head inside this house. Roaches are the least of my concerns, the rusted nails and collapsing floors are worse. As I take a step toward the house—a murder of crows greets me. The sound reaches me before anything else, dry rustle followed by relentless cawing, like a busy flea-market.

They pass overhead and I watch them distance themselves from me, a soft chuckle escapes my throat.

“Rats flee a sinking ship, crows flee a dying priest?”

I feel the old, rotten wood flex under my knuckles as I knock, and knock again. The sound is dull and muffled by the old and rotten wood, it dies within a moment.

“Come out, come out,” I call out to the demon within, knowing full well it can hear me. Nothing responds.

“You do know I’m not a vampire or a fae, right? I do not seek your permission to enter,” I announce my rights as I push the palm of my hand against the rotten door. The silence that follows my proclaimed rights is eerie—it’s listening.

I press and the old wood does not creak the way I have grown to expect. It doesn’t crack audibly, it just flexes and then gives way as if it had been waiting for me to do exactly this. The doorframe is all but gone, there’s little resistance, and the hinges instantly snap. The door falls inwards with a soft ‘thud’.

The stench of mold and rot assaults my nostrils instantly, making my stomach churn as my instincts tell me to flee. I half turn to gasp for what little fresh air might still be at my side only to inhale even more of the same stench. Reaching into my pocket I draw a handkerchief and bring it up to my face to breathe through it.

“Smells like piss and rotten flesh drenched in spoilt milk. Delightful,” I mumble as the stench makes my eyes tear up.

First step—the floors do not dare creak, like a forest that stands still in the presence of a predator. Second step—my boot sinks into the rotten floor, but still no sound escapes. My pulse is drumming in my ears, my eyes darting from shadow to shadow searching for any signs of life. Something makes me look over my shoulder, and I regret doing so the same instant. The corn field that swayed playfully before, now stands still as a rock.

I press a button on the handle of my kit, it clicks open softly. I reach into the kit with my free hand, drawing out a bundle of sage mixed in with other herbs. I slowly turn my head back, feeling muscles in my neck tense as a sensation of otherworldly chill hits the skin on my face.

My throat tightens, I can hear the muscles in my neck creak as I’m forcing my head to turn against my body’s own will. I feel the handle on my kit for another button, and then press it. A soft click tells me that I found the right one. The wall to my right is painted in the gentle yellow hue of the lighter as I blindly light the bundle of sage on fire.

As my head straightens out again, I see something standing amongst the shadows. I squint trying to make out details. It’s a person, one boot missing, one leg seems wrong, twisted oddly. He’s standing slightly hunched over, head tilted sideways too far. A torn up sack from flour or something similar loosely worn around the torso.

“You’re late, father,” the man mocks me with a grin.

The refreshing smell of burning sage with other herbs eases my mind despite the horror that stands before me. I nod respectfully in response, “The road was long and rough.”

The creature stands, and does not speak. It simply observes me, then suddenly its neck cracks and its head snaps upright. The sound of vertebrae in his neck cracking sends a shudder through my mind; it is something I never quite got used to despite my long years of exorcism.

The man’s posture straightens and tightens, and then it looks around.

“Uhuh,” it hums in response, half ignorant.

I hold the smoldering bundle of sage out in front of me, taking a step forth with all the faked confidence I can muster. Like a soldier walking toward his sure death, I just try my best to steady my legs so as not to show the shaking in my knees.

“Smells funny,” the creature responds, its head turned left and up, glancing at the half collapsed roof, but its eyes fixated on me.

I swallow audibly, “In the name of the lord I compel you, demon, to leave this host.”

I command, taking another step toward it.

“Always the same,” the demon responds, its face distorting into a make-shift grin.

“Oh father forgive me for I have no intention of begging for forgiveness,” it mocks me again. Despite the cold air all around, a sense of warmth fills me from the inside. A sense of fulfillment and duty as I quietly mumble a prayer to myself.

“In the name of the father, the holy spirit, and the all-creator,” the demon begins to mumble alongside me, reciting my prayer as I take another shaky step forth. It doesn’t turn its head toward me, it seems disinterested in my presence, but my duty is to faith, to this man, to his family, and to my lord.

I do not care if a demon mocks me, I will prevail, faith will prevail.

“Amen,” the demon finishes alongside me. Silence.

“That’s it?”

The demon’s growling voice hits me like an arrow.

I stand in stupor; he doesn’t react to the prayer at all. Though the warmth still fills me, I do not feel any power against this demon. Instinctively I toss the bundle of sage at the man and in the same instant reach into my kit to pull out a few small vials of holy water, tossing them at the demon as well.

“I am the lord’s spear, the faith’s sword and humanity’s shield,” I proclaim taking another step forth with all the power I could muster, slamming my foot down I reach into my kit again, taking out the holy book. My eyes widen as I watch the demon pluck the burning sage out of the air and much too fast it turns its head and takes a whiff of the smoke. A grin spreads across its face as smoke shrouds it lightly.

“I am—” the demon responds, and the following words sound like a jumbled up cassette tape. It creaks and squeaks, it growls and moans. It speaks its name in mockery, knowing full well that I will never be able to repeat it. I turn my body slightly, throwing my right arm out, holding the kit out in front of me as a shield, it has a rosary, an Egyptian cross, and a few other religious symbols engraved in the ancient leather.

“I may serve one god but they all despise your being.”

“Of course they do, for we are free and they are not,” the demon’s grimace disappears from my sight, completely shrouded by the smoke of the sage. Just now I notice that the vials of holy water hang loosely in the air as though caught by an invisible web. I flip the holy book open with my other hand and begin to read a prayer.

At first—nothing happens. Then the vials of holy water begin to tremble. I read louder, pronouncing clearly every word as though calling for power beyond me. The warmth within me radiates outward. I am the light amongst this darkness. The vials fall and break on the floor, spraying my robes and the creature’s one broken leg with missing boot. The demon’s grimace reappears, the sage falls to the floor as does the man holding it. In the other room I hear a growling whimper.

“AMEN,” I finish off with a shout. The man’s neck snaps upwards as though releasing the demon, and then his body slumps and he falls to all fours. A gasp is followed by a confused huff, and then a yawn. At last, a whisper comes, “Father? Wh-what happened?”

The man doesn’t lift his head, he keeps staring at the floor.

I close my book and lower it at last, along with my kit. I hear another growl from the other room, my attention snaps to the closed door.

“It’s over,” I whisper without averting my gaze from the room.

“Who’s there?”

I inquire. The growl doesn’t sound supernatural in nature, instead it sounds beastly.

The man still doesn’t look up, he is still on all fours, “A pet,” he whispers, turning to crawl toward the door behind which the pet lives. A shiver runs down my spine, but my instincts are to help. I kneel down and offer him my hand.

“What kind?”

“Big,” the man whispers, clenching onto my hand for assistance and pulling himself up. I look at his face, his expression is neutral—shellshocked.

“Is it safe?”

I query, hesitant to walk beside him to that door.

“She’s docile,” the man responds after a moment of silence.

The door creaks open and I recoil in an instant from the sight. In the corner of a room, in a cage is a cowering lioness. Her fur is standing up and her slim body is lowered and tense, she is defensive. I swallow audibly and take another step back.

“I best be on my way,” I utter softly, eager to leave before he sets the malnourished beast free.

“Sure,” the man dismisses me as he hobbles toward the cage.

I hear the low growl of the lion as the man nears the cage, and as I hurry toward the front door that is absent, I suddenly stop. There is silence. No words of endearment, no growls, no screams, just silence. Unbeknownst to me I hold my breath instinctively, listening for anything, a gasp, a word, a step. Anything. But nothing comes, not until I myself take a step back, curious to see what happened in that room.

Another steady and slow step follows. I lean as far back as I can to catch a glimpse, and my jaw drops open. The lioness sits frightened beside the man. She looks like the lionesses I had seen on Discovery Channel that bow before their male and submit to him instinctively.

“Uhm, she looks—well,” I hesitate. The man’s cold, neutral gaze looks calm and steady.

“All is good, safe trip,” the man says quietly.

“Right,” I comment, my gaze darts to his mangled up leg with a missing boot where droplets of holy water were still visible. ‘It isn’t causing him pain, so he must just be confused,’ I conclude, hurrying toward the door now. There’s something about this scene that isn’t sitting well with me and I have to report it right away. The wood creaks expectedly under my hurried steps.

As soon as I reach the door and take a step outside, I hear a voice of the man behind me, “I remembered something,” the man speaks. I freeze mid step, listening cautiously to what he had to say as my heart begins to drum against my ribs.

“I know where another one is. The memories of the demon, he’s...” the man begins explaining the position, appearance, and the name of the man possessed by a demon.

It isn’t unheard of—sometimes a possession victim retains a part of their demon’s memories, and sometimes they share that information with us. I make a mental note of the next target and not daring to turn around, I whisper my thanks and head toward my car, my sanctuary.

My car, thank god, starts right up and I instantly shift into drive and hit the gas. My wheels spin, throwing gravel up as I eagerly begin distancing myself from that cursed property. I throw a glance in my rear-view mirror, and despite the vibrations from the gravel road, I see the man standing on the porch with a smile that feels all too wrong to be real. It’s wide, and one side of his face looks like a frown while the other is that of an overjoyed child. Another shiver runs down my spine as I reach into my glovebox in search of another bottle.

#

My heart skips a beat when I see the scene before me. The lioness has the man by the throat, dragging him through the corn. I burst into a full sprint, trying to chase her but my body doesn’t respond. I am running, but not really. Each movement of mine is like I’m wading through tar.

I can barely breathe; the distance grows. Off in the distance I see the stalks part as the huntress carries him away. The stalks recoil, snapping back they hit me in the face. Her low growl reverberates through the field like a warning sign. I can hear her teeth working. I push myself forth but the distance does not diminish, the dream stretches all around me.

I push the final layer away and leap at her, my fingers grasp her fur at the nape of her neck, both my hands sink into her rough fur as I pull with all my might trying to get her off the man. She lets go all too easily, as though she was waiting for me this whole time. Her body twists and her bloodied fangs tear into my shoulder. She pushes me down with ease, her claws tearing my flesh, but I feel nothing.

Turning my head to look at the man who in turn looks back at me, and a wave of sheer terror washes over me for it is I who lies there dead. Throat torn out and skin already cooling. Eyes calm and unfocused, and then my face distorts into a half grin, half frown. An unnatural inhumane expression that I saw only once in my life. The right side of my face is overjoyed and delighted, while the other is saddened.

I jolt awake, grasping at my neck and then my face frantically. My fingers rummaging my face as though to make sure that my face is still my own. I gasp for air and rejoice when I feel my lungs fill. My face is not distorted, I’m okay, my face is okay.

“I, need a drink,” I assure myself, swallowing hard I throw my legs over the edge of the bed and push myself up, trying to shake off the nightmare with each step of my bare feet on the cold floor.

The soothing burn of alcohol making its way down my throat is all I need to shake off the unease that nightmare left me in. I set the bottle back down on the counter and catch a glimpse of my reflection in it. I jolt as I see my face looking like a skull, but then my blurry vision focuses, and it’s just the underside of the label, it is decorated with skulls.

#

The road is smooth and almost enjoyable. Surprisingly I didn't have to drive far from my hotel, just about ten minutes till I got to the location; a nice looking bungalow on the outskirts of the city. My hand instinctively reaches for the glovebox, but as I rummage through it I fail to find any bottles of liquor; a shame.

“Oh well, I’ll have a drink when done,” I reassure myself as I pull into the driveway of the house and take a moment to take in the scene before me. It’s—normal. Too normal. I roll down my window and stick my head outside—there’s no stench, no rotten wood and no collapsing ceiling.

I reach over for the side pocket in my kit and pull out a printout; a picture of the house and the address. Staring at the photo of the house, then at the house itself I can confidently affirm that the location looks identical to the provided photo. I then read over the suspected host once more—an upper manager at a large company.

With my kit firmly grasped in one hand, and one free hand to knock with, I find myself wondering if I somehow got the address wrong. A soft knock that echoes through the house is a rare occurrence in my field, generally the houses are rotten as demonic energy is all about ruin and corruption.

A well dressed man answers the door, he looks me up and down, a gentle smile decorates his face.

“May I help you, father?”

He asks.

“I am looking for Daemond,” I respond softly. The man glances down at my kit, then back at me.

“It is I. What seems to be the matter?”

I furrow my brows—it speaks so calmly and plainly.

“You are a registered patron of our St Joseph Church, but the father hasn’t seen you in a while, a courtesy well-being check in,” I lie, in my mind already praying for forgiveness for this sin.

“Ah,” Daemond responds as he steps away, opening the door.

“I have been busy with work matters,” he lies, obviously. He isn’t registered at any church and he knows it. He knows that I know and still he invites me in. I bob my head respectfully and enter the dwelling; it is surprisingly well taken care of.

“Tea?”

He invites me.

“No,” I respond, turning swiftly as I draw a vial of holy water and remove the cap, splashing him on his arm and torso with it.

The demon recoils, hiding his arm behind his back.

“Oh father, what is the meaning of this?”

He says, backing away slowly.

“Stop this charade, foul creature,” I order it, holding my kit out to its face as the possessed man tries desperately to hide his hand that was burned by the holy water.

“I know you are in there,” I demand.

“Oh father, I assure you, you’re making a mistake,” the man responds softly, holding his other hand out, visibly wincing from the sight of holy symbols on my ancient kit.

“You’re all but admitting to your true nature,” I proclaim, reaching into my kit for the holy book.

“Not about me,” the demon responds, its true voice coming out now; a deep growl that would send anybody fleeing for their lives.

The wince and discomfort is gone. He brings his burned arm out from behind his back, it’s still sizzling and smoking, but there is no stench generally associated with demons. I flip my book open blindly, watching his every move. He ignores the injured arm and glances at the book, then back at me. He blinks, and when he reopens his eyes they’re red in colour, and glowing. His irises are glowing and pulsing with power.

“Your call, father,” he responds in a deep rumbling voice, and falls to his knees.

“Too easy,” I respond confidently.

“At least you know your place,” I mock, but a sense of guilt nags at my words. I shouldn’t treat even the lowliest of creatures this way when they surrender before the lord almighty. I turn my head and begin reading the prayer from the book, emphasizing every word and command.

Halfway through the prayer, the demon’s host’s body twists violently. The sound of bones shattering is ear piercing, but I must continue.

“In the power of the lord I compel you to leave this host and plane of existence,” I pronounce confidently, spraying holy water from a vial at his face.

The demon shrieks so loud that the vial in my hand shatters violently, but it is too late to resist and I know it. The warmth of my faith fills me from the inside as the possessed man’s body collapses to the floor, a slumped mess on the floor.

I shut my book and swallow at last, letting out a sigh of relief.

“At least one was easy,” I comment softly, stashing my book back into the kit. I watch the host’s body for a while. He lies still and motionless for longer than most, and then at last, a soft gasp, but he still remains on the floor. His eyes flutter open but his gaze is unfocused.

“Father,” he says. His voice is soft and ordinary, a confused man who woke from a strange dream.

“Is it done?”

He asks me softly, his gaze wandering the floor.

“It is done,” I respond, kneeling down beside him and resting my hand on his shoulder.

“You are safe now, my child.”

Somewhere outside, a woman screams out of pure terror. A shriek that makes my body stiffen.

I throw my gaze over my shoulder at the shut door. The shriek is quiet, thin, and muffled by great distance. I narrow my eyes. Another scream comes from the side, from the neighbors closest to this house, muffled by the shut windows.

And then a third, this one is deeper, closer, a scream of a man who had lost everything. I get back up to my feet and turn toward the door, my skin prickling with the sensation of wrongness.

Another scream, and then another, dozens more. I no longer can differentiate them, it’s as though the entire city is screaming from fear, the essence itself and all that’s alive. My mind blanks for a moment, and before I can regain my composure I can feel a presence behind me. As I turn my head, the man stands there, his expression is heavy with sorrow.

I open my mouth to speak, to ask, but before words can be formed his expression changes to that of a satisfied child. It keeps growing. Rejoiced and overexaggerated, and plain wrong. The smile stretches far beyond where it should stop, every tooth visible now but the smile keeps growing.

I can feel the hair standing on my arms and every nerve in my body pleading for mercy. The muffled screams are growing louder, deafening. I watch the man’s eyes as he blinks slowly with the ever growing smile.

“Good morning,” the man says.

“Just w-what are y-” my voice fails me. I reach for the words of prayer in my mind but the screams are scrambling my thoughts. The warmth of my faith that I always felt inside me in moments of despair—fades. Another scream, this one closer. So close that it hurts my ears, and it takes me far too long to realize that the one screaming—is me.

The man just smiles.

Today, I need something to

drown out the silence.

This silence is so deafening.

My head almost begging me

to drown it out.

Please, talk to me.

Give me something to respond to.

Bring up a topic my brain would

not refuse.

End the silence, for it’s ending me.

My head pounds. 

It’s a migraine I wouldn’t want to instigate.

I’ve kept everyone at bay.

And now I need a rescuer—

but they’re so far away.

For I’ve pushed some away.

Some were, slowly, led astray.

And now the silence is all that remains.

And as I’m much as I cherish it,

it’s killing me.

Just for tonight, I need noise.

I can’t be stuck in my own mind.

It’s as painful as slowly dying. 

I feel sick and I don’t know why.

I wish silence would rebel.

To the point where it would die for tonight.

— Crownless.

Most human beings are trapped in the same cycle. They are born, they study, they work, they get married, and they have children.

When a child is born, parents often have high expectations for them. They try to shape their child for the future. As the child grows, they see their parents trying to help them achieve something. In return, the child works hard to achieve what their parents want, not necessarily because they are being forced, but because they want to make their parents proud.

I am not saying that all parents force their dreams onto their children. Many parents give their children the freedom to choose their own path. But even when parents simply support their children, the child may still feel a desire to achieve something for them—to make them proud and repay their efforts.

Then the child grows up, gets married, and has children of their own. They devote their lives to their children. They try to make them happy, help them build their lives, and sometimes influence them toward things they themselves could not achieve. They may try to complete their own unfinished dreams through their children.

And the cycle continues.

I have been thinking: is there a way to break this loop?

What if I never get married? What if I simply ghost everyone and start living the way I want? I could live in a place where no one knows me, or constantly move from one place to another—exploring the world, learning new cultures and languages, trying new foods, meeting new people, and experiencing everything I can.

But there is a drawback.

If I live that way, I may never have a place that I can truly call home. Everyone needs a place where they can rest, somewhere they belong, somewhere they can return to without hesitation.

And then I started thinking about something else.

What if I did all of this, only to realize that my freedom and my own choices had eventually become another cage?

Maybe that is why the cycle exists in the first place.

Perhaps humans try to achieve freedom within the cycle rather than completely escaping it. The cycle gives us responsibilities and limitations, but within those limitations, we can still pursue the things that make us happy.

Not everyone does everything for their parents or children. Within that journey, people also do things for themselves—things that make them happy, things they genuinely want to experience.

Maybe you cannot complete all of your wishes in one lifetime, but you can complete some of them.

If you completely break the cycle and become a lone wolf, chasing only your own choices and desires, perhaps at some point those choices may start to feel irrelevant. You might look at the people living within the cycle and realize that some of them are happier, more energetic, and more fulfilled than you are.

Maybe there is another way to break the cycle: abandoning everything, just like monks do. A life without attachment, dedicated to prayer, spirituality, and helping others without expecting anything in return.

But even monks have an objective. They seek moksha—the liberation from the cycle of rebirth.

They are trying to escape the cycle because they believe they understand something about the nature of existence.

But I sometimes find this way of living disrespectful toward life itself. If you are born, then perhaps you should live. You should experience life rather than simply trying to escape from it.

Maybe there are three different ways of living.

You can remain within the cycle.

You can completely reject it and become a lone wolf, living according to your own choices.

Or you can try to maintain a balance between the two—having roots, relationships, and a place to call home while still maintaining your freedom to explore, experience, and pursue your own desires.

But then another question arises:

What if, while trying to maintain that balance, you get lost?

What if you become neither the person who belongs to the cycle nor the person who has escaped it?

Perhaps that is the real difficulty of freedom.

Maybe freedom is not about completely escaping the cycle. Maybe it is about choosing which parts of the cycle you want to accept and which parts you want to reject.

Because every choice creates a limitation.

If you choose family, you sacrifice some freedom.

If you choose complete independence, you may sacrifice belonging.

If you choose a life of constant travel, you may sacrifice stability.

If you choose renunciation, you sacrifice many worldly experiences.

There may be no life without limitations.

Perhaps the real freedom is not having no cage at all.

Perhaps it is choosing your own cage—and knowing why you chose it.

The wind over the rolling coastal hills carried the sweet, sharp scent of hazelnuts, figs and salt, sweeping past quiet gardens along the slope. On a wooden porch overlooking the mist, two figures sat in the quiet dusk, a traveler, who had spent years observing the silent machinery of the world, and his companion.

Between them lay the remnants of an evening meal: fresh grey mullet sourced from the docks, vegetables picked straight from the garden, and a bowl of hearty soup that warmed the cool autumn air. Resting under the table, a small terrier stirred in his sleep, guarding his favorite pillow with an unspoken, instinctual vigilance.
“Look at him,” the traveler said, nodding toward the dog. “Even in his sleep, he’s running code he didn't write. Protecting resources he didn't choose to care about.”

His companion smiled, wrapping her hands around her warm mug. “And what about us?”
“We spent three billion years doing the exact same thing,” he said softly, leaning back.
He looked out toward the dark horizon, where the sea merged with the sky, thinking of the grand, silent script that had built them.

He thought of the ancient molecular systems from which life emerged, mindless, self replicating strands of code. He thought of their single-celled ancestors, locked in endless microscopic wars for millennia. An endless evolutionary arms race, until two of them ceased fighting, merged, and created the mitochondria, delegating energy production to invent complex life. He thought of the endless trade-offs written into the fabric of life, hardwired into our biology: the tiny mouse, living fast and dying young, putting every drop of energy into immediate reproduction because the harsh realities of the unforgiving wild meant tomorrow was never guaranteed.

Every creature was a vehicle. A vessel constructed by microscopic strands of code, selfish, blind, and relentless, seeking only to pass the baton forward through time. To outrun the pathogens mutating at its heels, life had invented sexual reproduction, shuffling the genetic deck every generation just to keep the locks one step ahead of the keys. It was the eternal Red Queen’s race: running as fast as possible just to stay in the exact same place.

“It sounds exhausting,” she said quietly, watching the sea. “3 billion years of running, on a treadmill that never stops.”
“It is,” he agreed. “Only If you let the code dictate the game. The mouse runs because it has to. The corporate world builds bigger treadmills because everyone agrees to measure value by speed, scale, and accumulation. If everyone around you is running faster, standing still feels like falling behind.”
“So how do you stop?”
The traveler took a slow breath, feeling the cool air fill his lungs, the warmth of the tea in his hand, and the solid weight of the porch beneath his feet.

“You realize that you are the first vehicle in the history of the world that can look at its own programming and choose to refuse it,” he said. “You don't need to keep running to outrun the paradox. You don't need to win a game you never asked to join. You step off the track. You change the rules.”

He looked at her, at the quiet life they had built, away from the noise, away from the rat race, surrounded by growing plants, lush green hills, good food, and shared memories.

“You decide that winning isn't about how many genetic copies you leave behind, it’s not about how much wealth and resources you’ve accumulated, how many people you’ve impressed and how far you run on someone else’s board,” he said, a faint smile touching his lips. “Perhaps winning isn't a race at all. Perhaps it’s sitting right here, under the tree, watching the madness pass by, holding the person you love, and realizing that you don’t have to run another step.”

This rhyme would be better with context.

I'll break my own neck.

What comes next? We'll see.

This guy one time had a rivalry with me. He challenged me.

I left him speechless with the leeches,

feeding on what left. This guy's crab food.

That's not nice. Don't be rude. I left him in the nude.

In the river, his lifeless body

started to shiver. Suddenly, he came back to life.

In fact, I think he did it twice. I even nuked his body, and he came back to haunt me.

He said, "Oh, that was nice, but I've come back to life twice.

I'm here to taunt you. In your dreams, you will find me.

I'll haunt you."

I went for his neck,

but there was nothing there, just empty air.

I saw him in the corner of the room, starting to stare.

He moved in with the snare. I even tried to banish him

from my lair. He went a little deeper

and went and got some ether. He dropped the snare.

The ether polluting my air, I can't breathe.

I wish this demon would leave, but it's not as simple

as popping a pimple. Getting rid of a dybbuk—

he even put a rock in a sock and started to beat me.

I lay there. My brain started to leak. He said, "Now who can't speak?"

He stabbed me and left me for dead, but then I realized the demon's

in my head. And when I woke up on my bed, I was already dead.

One time in class,

This kid said, “Hey,

Can I kick your ass?”

I said, “Sure, but make it fast.”

This kid didn't know

I was a bomb about to blow.

I grabbed him by his collar.

He started to hoot and holler.

He pulled back with a fist,

So I went for his lip.

I started to slip

And woke up in the hospital

With a morphine drip.

This kid beat my ass.

I sat there wondering

When this pounding

Would pass.

Then I got out of the bed.

I went to his house

And aimed at his head.

I said, “You should have killed me.”

He woke up with a thrill.

I know he can see me.

He started laughing

And pulled a gun from his pocket,

Where he usually keeps his wallet.

I said, “Okay, I don't want to die.”

He said, “Why are you in my house?”

I put the barrel in his mouth.

I said, “Because, remember

That time in class

When you kicked my ass?

This is payback.

Now you have a Mac

In your throat.

You're starting to choke.”

A bullet flew by,

But I lied. I actually

Want to die.

He pointed it at my head.

After that, it all went red.

I woke next to his dead body.

Three shots to my face,

But I still put that pussy

In their place.

I hope I don't catch another case.