An early-case

{This ending is part of the Finish the Story Contest, the 22nd contest so far. Click here to see the contest… The prompt was crafted by @raj808 this week... Ending music pair: "Through Time and Space (Main Theme Remix)" by Gario (A Hat in Time B-Side OST).}

Banner done by @f3nix.

The Prompt

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 Ending by @theironfelix

Ticking noises was all I heard for those moments, timepieces start flooding the arena and disorientating both of us as they struck heavily on the ground. The worst was the cross-shaped explosion they emitted that ruptured our senses every time they 'sploded. More for the dæmon than me - for it cowers at the white mist's borders.

But this interference of time pieces seemed rather arbitrary, like the dæmon hath no control over the weaponization of them, yet they flow in recklessly. This couldn't be this type of a case, early-case corrections hadn't been taught to me, yet I'm expected to unscrew this monstrosity?

But the stream cleared, now a perfect chance to strike at the mind of the dæmon and annihilate the kernel. So I pulled out my spike ready to lodge at the dæmon. Yet as I was about to go in for the subduing take-down, it chucks a timepiece at my face and I explode backwards. Though I sustained the injuries, the disorientation was very present.

The dæmon then played self-mimicry, and the already disjointed perception of mine was filled with only it everywhere. But it would stop as another stream poured in, hitting several times the dæmon and forcing it to cower again; now the clue was mocking my sincere confusion, but I pressed onwards.

I collected the falling timepieces and clustered them to one pile to be able to chuck at the dæmon whence the stream ended. Upon ending, I chucked the cluster at it as soon as I saw it still cowering on the border. Hitting the dæmon and hearing it yelp, the mist dispersed and the dæmon decayed away; leaving only my client's pre-dæmon form.

I went over to scan my client, clean as a copper ingot. Concerning the nature of businessman in Bangkok, I proceeded to slap my client’s face so hard that they could’ve bled. After coughing erratically and pressing his hand on his face, he asked if that’s par with procedures and I stated ‘twas, but really ‘twas for fun.

He gave me the money I requested, assigned a few favors to me and helped me defenestrate the dæmon corpse to the streets and let the suicidal bikers grind the rotting corpse up. I then shaked his hand and moved back unto the streets as I whistled for a cab to pull over. Waiting for the suicidal bikers to pass by, I lunged towards the taxi as the driver opened the door up and I managed to close it before the next stream of them passed by me. Catching my breathe, I told my driver to drive me back to my place; once the driver noticed I relaxed, they began to ask how the case went.

"Another day, different dæmon but same shtick. However, an early-invader I suppose; guess we're going to see a new wave of dæmons now..."

Cited Posts:

@f3nix - "Finish the Story Contest: Week 22"

Cited Images:

@f3nix - "Official Storyteller banner"