Page 25 of Devil Inside

Look at it. His skin. What marvelous scars. All the fissures where his flesh was torn open, stitched back together. Stapled and healed in an uneven tapestry of tissue.

What happened to this man?

His body is a topographical map of agony. We chart our course across his skin, taking a journey through every injury, every contusion, until we have visited the entirety of his pain.This is the exact map that we need to abandon our world. To guide us from one world to the next.

To hell and back,he said. We believe him. We see where he has been.

Home.

I want to explore more. Need to see more of Jordan. Go deeper. Further into him. I want to plunge all the way to the bottom.Down, down, down...The very core of his being.

He crossed over. He must have. There’s no question of it now. He lost a shard of himself beyond and gained something else altogether. Something...fresh.

He brought back death.

hangover from hell

Jordan

Hands all over me. They grab hold of my arms, my legs, eager to pull me down. They’re wrapping themselves around my waist and yanking me under; an undertow of flesh.

I can’t see who any of these hands belong to. There’s too many, all of them reaching out from the shadows below. The absolute darkness of it all creates this bottomless feeling.

I’m at sea. I must be. But it’s not water.

It’s... skin.

I’m thrashing over a roiling knot of sweaty limbs, countless clasping hands, millions of fingers desperate to dig in, grab hold of something, anything fresh—me—and pull under.

I shouldn’t be here.

That simple chill of a thought flits through my head and I immediately begin to kick, bucking againstevery lastone of these clasping hands.

There’s too many. All of them burrow their fingernails into my skin. I wriggle out from their grip, simply rolling over this endless sea of limbs.

I’m going to drown.

It’s such a crystalline notion, so clear in my mind: Once I’ve plunged under, once I’m pulled below and lost amongst the rest of them, I’m nevergoing to escape. I’ll be just like them, whoever these lost souls are, just another clawing, clasping hand, lost in this abyss.

One more drop of water in a sea of lost souls.

I can’t escape. There’s no vessel, no ship, nothing beyond this rippling ocean of skin, flesh as far as the eye can see. Shadows beyond that. An endless stretch of pitch-black.

I can’t stay afloat. Not for much longer. I can already feel the loss of buoyancy, slipping under this surface of skin for a second—I’m getting tugged under again—then bursting back through and gasping for air, trying desperately to swim, keep my head above.

I call out for help, shout at the top of my lungs, but who can hear me?

Just let go, I think. Give in. But right when I’m about to succumb to it all and sink, someone—something—answers back. Their voice cuts through the darkness...

“What adorable morsel is this?”

I heard it. I know I heard it.

The voice carries across the gulf of my dream as I’m dragged back into waking.

Where have I heard that voice before?

Who is it?