Page 28 of Devil Inside

How long have I been inside this prison of skin? How many years, living in a room with rotting linoleum floors? A flattened mattress. A window with the thinnest wire filaments woven throughout the glass.

I can’t get out. Can’t escape. This is worse than eternity. This is purgatory of the body. The slowest decay. How it itches. The disintegration. I can feel it, cell by cell.

Do you know how lonesome it is to be inside a body nobody wants to touch? To feel everything but not have anything to feel?

To live within skin that nobody wants to see? I might as well be invisible...

I don’t exist.

Help me.

Help...

That itch is everywhere now. A burning sensation I can never scratch. It grows and spreads and I have no way of reaching it, until I feel like I’m on fire. Covered in ants. All of them are chewing through this body, slowly gnawing the flesh away, burning through.

Let me out, let me out, let me—

—out.

We wake in his bed with a start. A gasp escapes our mouth, and we worry we might wake our new friend.

So rare for us to sleep. Let our guard down, like this. The dream only finds us when we drift off in our vessel. Such a rarity for us on so many levels. First—to sleep. Then—to dream.

Amazing, isn’t it? Dreaming? Your subconscious screaming at you while you rest? It’s not for us. For me.Dreaming.We won’t let that ever happen again.

Jordan’s still out. Good. Let him rest. He won’t wake as we slip out.

What is he?We can sense it, even now. There’s something inside him, buried deep...

Something darker.

We shouldn’t be here. Time to say goodbye, Jordan. Last night was fun and all, but...

Time to go. Bid farewell to this flesh. Our skin is too tight.

We need out.Now.

We climb out of bed, then hesitate at the sight of ourselves.

Jordan has a mirror hanging on the far wall. It’s small, just a portal into our reflection, but it seizes our attention all the same. We can’t help but lose ourselves.

Look at our skin. This body we’re in.

Cara. Our host. We pinch at her flesh. Feel the sensation all over. The warmth of the bed slowly fading, dissipating. The goose bumps it leaves behind.

Could we stay here? In bed, with Jordan? Just for a little bit longer?

The itch. There it is, growing. Intensifying. It’s climbing up our shoulders now, rising. We need to leave. Now. Before this body becomes unbearable and we begin to burn.

Gotta go

go

go

The morning light finds us. Blinds us. We wince, almost hiss, at its seething heat. We close our eyes and feel the singe against our skin.

Jordan offered us quite a ride, but we shouldn’t have stayed. Already we feel the itch. Our dream still lingers, those infinitesimal flecks of it crawling across our skin.