In the exorcism room

  Deep underground, faced with four naked red walls and a chain of low candlelight in all directions, the sight was perceptibly more hurting than any piercing light in the darkness. This room was known to be a sensual torture to any loose mind. Zun was chained to a wooden pole with both arms tied above her head. Directly below her was a spell symbol marked with a lotus flower engraved into the stone floor. Her wounds were starting to ache. She felt entrapped within layers of complicated emotions her mind had never learned to comprehend, but among all those emotions she could not describe, a constant feeling of humiliation and a desire to run, hide, and disassociate herself with her own face, clung onto her like a shadow.

  No, impossible. I’m not gonna face this ritual. She had already lost count of how many times she had been trying to recall her memory of the scene and the screams she heard in her head.

  I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. I didn’t…. I did. I did it. I hurt Tin. I was possessed. I must cleanse myself. I must be released. She was conflicting with herself again.

  The eruption of thoughts was brought to a halt by the sudden loud laughter of the two gossiping guards in front of the entrance. Zun came back to her senses and looked around herself. She started noticing the chains, the nails, and all the invasive tools laid on a low table in front of her for the energy purification ritual. There was a large incense holder in the centre, and on each side were figures of divine monsters with cow and horse heads in blue and red skins. Amid all the threatening displays, there was a large mirror behind the table that faced directly at her. Seeing herself in this red room from the mirror made her realise she was in real trouble.

  The shiver wouldn’t stop. She started to sweat profusely.

  “No, I can’t take it. Let me out of here! Let me out! You deaf guards!!! Wait, no, hold on a minute. I need to be released, I need to be purified.”

  The two guards heard her shouting and looked at each other. “Well, that’s typical. It’s always like that in the ritual room,” one of them said.

  “Right, except that she wasn’t really possessed at all.”

  “Shush! Keep it low! What if someone overheard you?”

  Zun began to hyperventilate, and her head ached in a spinning motion. Fixing her eyes hard on the mirror in front, she started to trace the figure of a familiar man right where she was supposed to be, tied to the same wooden pole and yelling just like her. In the bizarre situation, his cry became audibly disturbing, and what felt like a hysterical pleading started to seem like he was actually directing his words at her.

  “Don’t give in! You cannot give in. You cannot release. Please!”

  She was perplexed. The more she looked at him, the more she recognised his face. It was that man; the one from her dream. The ghost in her room.

  “Why are you here? What are you doing in this place?!”

  He completely disregard her questions and continued his narrative, “If you give in and set the intention, you are allowing them to violate your soul and let them suck all your energy dry!”

  “What are you talking about? This is just a cleansing ritual, it will just sting a bit.” Zun began to sweat all the while trying not to give in to her panic. “Right?” The word slipped unexpectedly from her lip.

  That man shook his head. “You mustn’t. It was a horrible experience. Never meant to be a pleasant one.” Every bit of his words was stressed with a fluctuating quiver.

  “What do you mean? Why…why are you talking like you know it?” Fear rolled in like rising waves.

  “I was lied to. I was too naive. Forgive me, but this…it didn’t end well.”

  Zun was stunned and left speechless.

  He continued, “You are not at the mercy of the Lord. This organisation has already betrayed the grace of the Lord! It is all a false belief.”

  Zun was dumbfounded by those words. The way he suddenly appeared and attacked the Lord and the exorcist organisation felt so personal; she felt exposed. The Lord symbol necklace that hung around her neck looked pridefully beautiful and unhinged. Zun started to become defensive.

  “Wait…there must be a misunderstanding. The organisation is not perfect, but it has been following the teaching of the Lord and protecting people for decades. I can attest to you because I grew up learning about it!!”

  That man was silent. Zun pressed on, “Maybe they did you wrong, maybe it was a mistake, but the Lord watches over all of us. The Lord can see right from wrong.”

  “Then why doesn’t he tell you right now if this ritual is right or wrong? Ask him right now if this is RIGHT or WRONG?!” His voice started to echo in different pitches, some sounded more aggressive while others moaned faintly.

  “This ritual…this ritual is—”, she was lost in words and immediately felt pathetic, realising she was just trying to defend her own belief and her honour as an Angel, whose only purpose in life was to be like her father.

  “You will always be their pawn, a worthless pawn that amuses the Lord.”

  “No…no…I am here because I was possessed…I was…I was…” Zun started shaking her head as she stared blankly into his eyes.

  “Do you like to play their games? Do you like where they are leading you? Everything is just a lie! Everything!”

  “No…no…cannot be…I was possessed…no…I wasn’t…wait…I was…”

  “Where is your shame? Where is your dignity?! Dig it in your head, The Lord is…never here!”

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  “Shut up…SHUT UP!!!!” Zun started to scream at the top of her voice. “Stop berating me! Stop humiliating me! Stop! I know I am up to no good, but this belief that I hold onto, this peace of mind, who are you to judge it is wrong!! I will find out the truth behind this damned stupid ritual, I will do it myself!!” Hot tears gushed out from her eyes. Her pride was all over the floor.

  Yet that man didn’t receive her outburst too well. Blood tears fell like a cascading waterfall from his eyes. The man started to shiver like a sheep about to be slaughtered, but he shot a bloodshot glare at Zun with such painful eyes filled with nothing but rage.

  “I was never at the mercy of the Lord. I was only a piece of pawn to amuse everyone. Nobody batted an eye. Nobody cared. You can never run away from what hate you. Not even under the pretence of love.” The rawness of his words shocked her. All the truth she hated came bleeding into her ears. Like a snake let loose, his dark emotion found its way into her heart and sewn itself inside. Strangely, it resonated with her.

  Perhaps we are the same.

  “There is a prayer that goes…feel the love of the Lord in your heart. May your tears dry and the sun shine through your scars.”

  That man was taken aback by her chant.

  “This”, she whispered, “...is what I pray for you every night. I don’t know about your life, and maybe you don’t believe in wishful thinking, but I find peace in these words, and I meant to share them with you every time I hear you cry.”

  It seemed to calm him down.

  “Whether it’s pretense or not, everything starts with a belief, right? I might never learn until I see it for myself…” Zun cast her face down as if ashamed. “...and if that’s the case, will you wish me all the best?”

  The ghost was suddenly untied from the position. One step at a time, he slowly closed the distance between the two of them until he reached the boundary of the mirror and touched the surface from within with his bloody palm. “This is my advice to you. Be careful what you wish for.”

  Outside the exorcism room

  The two Angel guards were laughing loudly.

  “Seriously, I might not be a gourmet, but I can tell when a food is bad.”

  “Exactly! It kept getting stuck between my teeth. Honestly, I just can’t with these sticky desserts. I was only trying them because I heard it was Captain Koi’s favourite or something.”

  “Wait, what did you just say?”

  Their conversation stopped abruptly upon the arrival of the ritual master. They saluted and moved aside. Roger gave them a nod and opened the door. In front of him, Zun was sitting motionless on the ground, tied to a pole.

  “What? She’s asleep!” Roger sighed and closed the door behind him. “Lazy woman”.

  He sprinkled holy water on all the holy candles placed in every corner of the room before arriving in front of her with a holy wand in his hand.

  “This is gonna be another long day”, he murmured as he bent down and pressed the tip of the wand on her forehead, but as he chanted the first few lines of his spell, his ritual got abruptly interrupted when Zun lunged forward in a frenzy and bit into his scalp, pulling his head like a wild dog clamping onto its foe. “Arghhhh!!!”, Roger screamed and shoved her away, nearly missing a chunk of his hair.

  “What kind of teeth do you have??!! You vile bit*h! No better than SH*T! How dare you bite my head?!!!” He touched his head and saw stains of blood along with several strands of bitten hair.

  “YOUUUU!!!” Just as he was about to attack her, the two guards jumped in to stop him.

  “Let me go! You bit*H! How dare you bite my head!!” He hit one of the guards and tried to free himself.

  “Master Roger, please! Captain Koi ordered not to hit her. It might risk causing unwanted consequences.”

  Roger pushed the guards away and stopped to take a few breaths. They watched him and let go of their grips, but this action proved wrong. He quickly took this chance and threw his wand at her before seizing her again. “You know how we beat dogs when they are naughty!”

  Zun kicked Roger while yelling at him, “Pig! What? Did I insult you?”

  Roger got more enraged. He pulled her hair and slammed her brutally on the wooden pole a few times until it left a few bloodstains to his satisfaction. Roger continued with an arrogant smile on his face, “Now, let me get one of those teeth off as well!”.

  As he tried to pull her jaw open, the two guards rushed forward and pulled him away once again. Roger looked pleased nonetheless and finally gave in. “This is what you get for biting off my hair!” He took out a neatly folded cloth from his pocket and pressed it on his scalp. “I need to get treatment! I need to get treatment right away!” He then turned around and strode out of the room.

  Zun looked down and tilted her head to the side. There is a wide smug on her face. The guards looked at her suspiciously.

  “Is that a smile on your face? Are you crazy… don’t tell me you are rea-... still possessed?”

  “Let’s leave her aside. Like father, like daughter.” Another guard replied.

  The room grew silent almost suddenly, as if there was no conflict just a few minutes earlier.

  What’s so valuable about those strands? Tasted like it had never been washed. Zun looked up and motioned with her jaw.

  She moved her fingers behind her head to feel where the bloodstain on the pole was and started drawing a stick figure with it. Feeling her own blood made her realised she was hit pretty hard, but she shrugged it off. As she completed the final stroke of the stick figure, Zun recited a few phrases in ancient words. The vision of the ghost and his writing in the mirror flashed in her mind. Her throat and the stick figure started glowing.

  In the dark room

  “Who is that demon?!!! Who is HE?!!! Tell me the name of that freaking demon!!!”, Koi was shouting at the top of his voice. It was followed by the skin-slashing sound of the whip. “I am not stopping until I get a satisfying answer.”

  The clown couldn’t comprehend the action of this Captain; the willingness of him to hurt an innocent child just to get information out of him was insane. The whipping continued for a few minutes until Tin’s physical condition showed visible life-threatening signs. His eyes went white, and he drifted out of consciousness.

  “He is not looking good….” Whispers could be heard among some of the worried Angels.

  “He needs emergency support immediately,” a medical Angel on standby stepped forward hurriedly to check the boy’s condition.

  “I’m afraid the damage might be too much for the body to handle,” Chan said with a concerned face. He avoided Koi’s glances with the hope of preventing any stutter and continued. “Of course it is essential to get the information of the demon, bu—but if we continue like this Tin will only become a fragile vessel and won’t be able to sustain the presence of the Clown inside him. Both of them might die. This won’t lead to a desirable result for us. Would you suggest healing him for now?”

  “Sure, if you insist. Maybe you know more than I.” Koi’s anger seemed to be directed at Chan now. “Why don’t I leave this to you, Mr. know-it-all? I will give you an hour to figure out the demon’s identity and his goal. I have no time to waste, so remember to not present me with a disappointing result!”

  “Th—that’s…”, Chan sweated.

  “Is that an objection?”

  “No, Captain. Your wish is my command.”

  “Sounds good. I will look forward to it. Don’t force me to make you the next host.” With that warning, Koi left the room.

  Chan turned around, almost cursing himself before looking at Tin again. “Heal this boy fast.”