Finish the Story Contest - WEEK #22 my Entry

Astral Echoes
Rain bounces off the frying pan streets, dowsing the city’s mid-morning swelter. Bangkok on a Monday screams its frenetic cadence into my sleep-stained head as I leave my apartment for the breakfast of kings. A hastily wolfed helping of Khao Neow Moo Ping and I’m on my way. This meeting is important for my continued livelihood. A prominent business man is convinced he’s beset by demons. 'Fung shui gone wrong', the words of his PA echo in my memory as I hail a tuk tuk and jump in.

“Sa wat dee”. I greet the driver as I scramble into the cramped cabin.

It is advisable to enter your tuk tuk promptly as the never ending stream of scooters can sweep you out and away at a moment’s notice. I’ve seen a tuk tuk's door taken off by one of these suicidal bikers before now.

“Sathon Nuea road please.” Pulling off into traffic, I find myself staring into the frantic smog choked kaleidoscope that is Bangkok. Five lanes of traffic jostle for position as scooters whiz between them, reckless of traffic lights, wobbling with giggling teenage passengers stacked three apiece. The salt-singed smell of frying shrimp and coconut oil mingles with diesel fumes as I sit back into the sticky red foe leather and consider what I know about this particular clients Astral footprint!

A room bathed in a dull indigo with a bed by the wall pulsing with ethereal light. A book sits half open on the bedside cabinet, pages twitching in the gentle flow of my aura. Light envelops this scene, green through to red as my aura shifts with the pulse of the indigo ether. I drift over the open book, a single word jumps out of the page like a lightning bolt ‘FATHER’. It seems to echo in my mind like a scream. I glance to my left and my adversary is still moving through the treacle I’ve set in front of him. I still can’t tell whether he’s human! The impossibly wide smile, desperate and hollow speaks to me of one possessed. A soul lost in the astral, then found by one of Them.

BANG, I spin as the wardrobe door slams open and closed over and over. The noise echoes through me as an icy wind spills from the flapping doors. The indigo glow subsides to a dull shimmer as the room darkens and I turn back to my advisory.

He is there right before me. Mouth impossibly wide the teeth icicles and his breath covers me in the stagnant smell of the swamp as my bones numb and my knees give way. I choke as my breath sticks in my throat and the scene fades to night.

“What are the symptoms Mr Xioin?" His pallid face twitches as I stare into sunken eyes, unblinking, pupils wide. "How do these daemons manifest?”

“The night is where they reside. Between dream and waking. Sometimes I wake from a dream only to be enveloped by a strange light. After, I walk in the wakening world, around my apartment and... everything is enlivened." He breathes in short gasps as he talks. "It’s as if everything has a soul, the lamp, my leather chair even the books call out there stories, words that wash through me like fire." His head dips and rests in the palm of his hands. "There is no rest”

“Go on...” I lower my voice as I watch his body shivering in the pain of memory.

“Then there are the dreams that seem to be reflections of my life. I'm working at the company, except it’s like I’m looking over my own shoulder as someone else performs my daily routine. I’m convinced I’m awake until I actually wake and it feels as if I’ve never slept at all." He stares into my eyes, pupils contracting back to a normal size for the first time since I’ve been here. "Can you help me?”

My heart strains against my chest as I struggle to close my third eye, a dull ache in the center of my forehead. He smiles like a clown, an open wound across his face, mocking me. White mists swirl around us as a landscape forms in the astral firmament, his mind superimposing a tapestry in the space between dimensions. I look around searching for any clue to his nature. Any clue that will help me to defeat him.
The landscape starts remind me of something. I strain my mind, this field that house yes in that picture before I open my third eye. “FATHER” screams in my mind again. Could it be was his father take by one of Them? I struggle but mange to close my third eye and wake in the room with Mr. Xioin. He opens his eyes and looks at me confused I walk to the picture on the way a house a field a boy on a porch. I ask him where this is and who the boy is? “Why that’s me at our old house outside the city many years ago now” I hear as I think. FATHER… “So how is your farther?” I ask. “Well he has been gone a long time now in fact last time I saw him was at the house.
That’s it. I tell Mr. Xioin I him to come with me. We sit down and I open my third eye again. The landscape is clear now we are at the house. I see a man now on the porch alone. I hear Mr. Xioin whisper “father?” Then I see it lurking around the cord of the house one of Them. I can’t stop it only watch as we see it enter the man who struggles before a unnatural smile cross his face and he begins to wander off into the woods. In the window I see a face the boy, you saw it. You screamed out FATHER as he left.
The landscape fades and my adversary returns that smile even wider than before. I put forth another trap of treacle just to by a moment. I turn to Mr. Xioin and send him away it takes some energy but I have the key I needed I would not be banished again. I turn as his breath starts to cover me once again but I stand drop long enough to say it “Xu you will stop” I drift back as the smile starts to fade and for a moment I see that man hidden there. “Fight it with me, save your son” In that shell I see eyes that light for a second with a powerful glow. My mind struggles to pull them apart it is more work than I though this Them is strong. THEY ARE MINE screams in my head and my eye begins to close. No not anymore I think as I focus harder pushing harder with my mind a break and one form becomes two. I quickly show Xu the way into the lights he is gone at last to rest. I turn back the Them knows it has lost and begins to hide. I reach out with my mind and banish as far as I can into the astral plan before it fades to black.
When I awake Mr. Xioin is fast asleep. I will call him tomorrow. I head back out on the streets tired and ready for my own bed.