Daniel

Name: Daniel

Day/Time: Friday, 4:13AM

Current state of mind: Annoyed as fuck

What are you wearing? Jeans and a black Henley

What are you listening to? Hells Bells by AC/DC

What are you drinking? Bourbon

Where are you? In my room

What’s up, I’m Daniel and I’m here to talk about how you idiot humans fucked up my night. Before you get on my ass about introductions or giving you a spiel about myself, I don’t do that. My personal life is none of your business. Which is why I’m gonna skip this intro bullshit and go straight into story time.

Here’s the thing, my night wasn’t going bad. In fact, it was going great. I had a movie date with my favorite bottle of bourbon. Too bad I didn’t get a chance to drink any of it. Before I could even hit play on the remote and watch The Bourne Identity, Nick called my ass down to his office. My night was officially fucked. It’s just the way things go around here. You don’t get called down by the Witch King on your night off just for shits and giggles.

Naturally, I was right. Nick sent me, Luke, and Holly out to Lost Souls. Lost Souls is a forest on the outskirts of town that’s haunted by a small group of vengeful witch spirits who happen to be murder-happy. They get a kick out of possessing humans and killing them. It’s their thing. Halloween is like Christmas for them with the dumb shit human ghost hunters going out to investigate the place.

Normally we don’t give a damn about humans and we’d leave them to their own devices. But missing and dead humans draw attention. Attention that no one in the supernatural community wants or needs—at least, no one in their right minds. But the humans didn’t get the memo. Each year they come out to those damned woods. Each year their curiosity gets the best of them. And you know what they say about curiosity killing the cat—or in this case, humans.

So, the three of us headed out to Lost Souls to hunt down the imbeciles and prevent them from getting possessed and killed. Because none of us had anything better to do than to chase down some rumored ghost hunters who were planning on camping out in the woods. Because visiting the haunted hell hole wasn’t good enough for the human dumbasses. They had to sleep there too, in the freezing cold, like morons.

We got there after midnight or so, and you could feel the malevolent energy in the air. The three of us got our hustle on and tore through the woods till we hit the clearing. And man, talk about your supernatural shit show. Those humans were beating the shit out of each other—well, technically the dead witches possessing them were doing the beat down. And I’m not gonna lie, it was satisfying to watch. If I were alone and hadn’t cared about the fallout, I would’ve let the humans kill each other. Yeah, I’m an asshole, but so are those humans for disrespecting the dead and using them for their fifteen minutes of fame.

Let’s just say, the humans were lucky I wasn’t alone. They were lucky I wasn’t in the mood to make up some bullshit cover story about how five braindead college students ended up brutally murdered in the woods. I hate cover stories almost as much as I hate humans. It would’ve ended as a lose-lose situation for me. And it’s not like Holly or Luke would’ve let me stand around and twiddle my thumbs while they did all the work. And it’s not like I’d let them get all the action. Where’s the fun in that?

We were outnumbered. Normally, it wouldn’t have been a problem, we could just compel them to do and remember whatever we wanted. Unfortunately for us, they were all possessed. We can’t compel humans while they’re possessed by dead witches—at least not by our usual methods. That’s where Holly came in.

She’s got a knack for communicating with the dead, and the spirits seem to listen to her, for the most part. Though, this murderous lot takes some extra convincing as they tend to run on the stubborn side. They’re not exactly fond of releasing their human prey, and it’s not like Holly can bribe them with chocolate and cheese fries or whatever the fuck. It takes some serious magical juice and persuasion on her part. Thankfully, she’s good at what she does and so are we.

While Holly worked her magic, Luke and I had the displeasure of keeping those human idiots from killing themselves, which was harder than it seemed. Subduing five possessed humans is no simple task. Thankfully, we were able to put two down for naptime, while another one knocked herself out with a tree branch. That left us with two humans who were hellbent on killing each other and anyone else in sight, including us.

Holly’s spell was taking longer than usual, and it was draining her. Can’t say I was surprised given how thin the veil was between our worlds. The thinner the veil, the more powerful the spirits and the more power it takes to release them from their human hosts. She needed help and if we lost one human, then it was a sacrifice I was willing to make. I’d rather lose a hundred humans than lose one of ours. Fuck the fallout. I was about a second away from snapping one of their necks, when Holly’s spell broke the spirits’ hold over them. She took herself down in the process, but she got the job done.

Ryan and Rissa arrived as backup and helped us with the “clean up.” We worked our magic on the humans, altered their memories, and compelled them to never come back. We confiscated their electronics, and the girl ended up getting treated for a concussion at the local hospital.

Holly woke up once we got home and then headed straight to bed with Ryan’s help. Luke’s down in the tech room destroying all traces of the electronic evidence we collected from Lost Souls. And I’m finally getting to enjoy my bourbon. I’ve fucking earned it.

I’m gonna leave you humans with some advice. You want ghost stories? Read them. Watch some scary movies or TV shows, and I’m not talking about the reality shit, because that’s what got us here tonight.

I don’t want to spend another holiday tracking and saving you human idiots. I want to spend it with my friends. I want to spend it honoring the dead, like they deserve. I want to spend tomorrow night eating, drinking, and chilling by the bonfire. So, do me a favor—hell, do all of us a favor and leave the dead alone. They’re not here for your entertainment. You come to my town and fuck with them, you get to meet me, which will be unfortunate for you.

Have a comment? Keep it to yourself.

Daniel