I COULD FEEL the sinister thing probing my mind. It was shutting down good memories, stirring up horrible fears. Toying with my emotions and shoving me toward self-pity.
Then the wretched beast started gibbering at me in piercing blips, communicating with the screech of binary computer code. Fortunately—or maybe unfortunately—whatever brain cells controlled my internal universal translator were still fully functional. I got to hear every ugly thought the unseen fiend shot my way.
“I want to show you something that might be beyond your infantile comprehension,” it said. In translation, the voice sounded as dark and malicious as the spirit behind it. Think Darth Vader, Voldemort, or a window-rattling bass line. “Watch carefully, Daniel. Behold your fate.”
My mind’s eye was overwhelmed with a digitally enhanced 3-D IMAX version of that horrible night in Kansas. Once again, I was a small boy hiding behind a water heater in the basement. Once again, The Prayer came stalking down the steps with its Opus 24/24, hunting me.
“But you never saw what was going on upstairs, did you, Daniel?” rumbled the malevolent voice invading my mind.
Suddenly, the scene shifted. Like a floating camera flying downfield to cover the action in a football game, my mind’s eye flew up the staircase and straight through the cellar door.
I saw something I had never seen before and never want to see again: Both my parents writhing on the ground in unbearable agony and pain.
“Neither one died right away,” gloated the voice. “Oh, no. Where’s the pleasure in that? While you were turning into a tick and fleeing the scene, they were upstairs suffering for a long, long, long time. If I remember correctly, and I always do, your mother actually prayed for death because the end of her miserable little life would have been such a blessing.”
I wished I could close my eyes, cut off this horrendous vision of both my parents twitching on the floor, their mouths open wide as they cried out silent screams. But I couldn’t. The scene was firmly planted in my head by the demon that had taken over my mind and memories. There was no way to pull the plug and shut this horror movie down.
“I was inside their minds, Daniel, just like I’m inside yours right now. This pain you feel? They felt worse. Soon you will, too. You will beg for mercy, and just like your mother you will pray for death.”
And somehow, impossibly, the pain intensified.
The dark presence felt like a giant tumor devouring my brain, pushing it sideways, squashing it up against the hard lining of my skull. It was growing exponentially.
There was no way to stop it. No way to keep my head from exploding.
I knew the dark and awful truth: In a few more seconds, I would be dead.
My soul would be crushed.
Daniel X would cease to exist.