Into The Abyss

Samantha

I am a body on the floor of my mother’s over-decorated too-large-for-one-person home in the suburbs.

I’m looking at my body on the floor.

Yep.

Nope.

The body’s not possessed anymore, but I’m not in it either and…yeah…I’m about to have a mental breakdown. But I can’t because I have to go and find my kid who has been kidnaped by demons from fucking Hell.

I want to scream.

And rage. And express all the emotions I regularly keep suppressed because if I ever just let out every ounce of anger and sadness, and rage, and frustration at the utter unfairness of being a single parent when the non-custodial parent has excused themselves from participation – let alone responsibility…

But it isn’t productive.

So, I take a deep breath and still the twitching of my muscles. Can ghosts have panic attacks? These aren’t physiological reactions. Therefore, the physical sensations I’m experiencing must be psychosomatic?

“Okay.” I smile a tense predatory grin that I knew reassured no one, least of all me. It’s the grin people at work know as the Samantha’s-about-to-audit-your-department grin. And it usually results in separation without severance packages. “We’ll do this…” I can’t help but hesitate for a second. “…Just like with Baby. I’ll just lay down in my body and line everything up. And it will be fine.”

My Mom’s looking at me with just this look of dread, and horror, and sadness. Her eyes are filled with tears and I can’t handle it. She’s also confused as all get out.

“Wha…what?” She glances between me in my spirit form, my body on the floor, and the dog who has somehow managed to get repossessed in all the chaos. “What does the dog have to do…”

“Oh. Shoot. Mom.” I chuckle for a second and she furrows her brows at me in her grandmotherly way. Her ire is waaayless scary than I remember her being when I had a body. “Baby got desouled? Dis-souled?”

“Dis-con-spirited?” Daniel added helpfully with that voice that was just as smooth as his caramel skin.

“I like – That’s a good one. Dis-con-spirited.” I glance his way with a grateful smile and try not to actually look at him for too long because, yeah. I’ve been all over the inside of his head and mmmm…..I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look him in the eyes without blushing and going weak in the knees.

“And she’s back in her body fine now?” My mother’s shrill voice keeps me grounded as I edge hesitantly toward my vacated not-a-corpse. It’s not a corpse. It’s – I’m still breathing. Heart’s still beating. But for how long?

“Shit!” My mother’s brows raise, and I hear Daniel cough in surprise. “Um. Yeah, Mom. We just got her to lay down inside her body and she kind of jiggled back together.”

“Oh.” It’s possibly the most quiet and thoughtful statement I’ve ever heard her make. Yet I ignore that and step into my empty shell. My feet go through my abdomen without much issue. For some reason, my body doesn’t go through the floor of the house and into the basement the way I went through Daniel’s car. Maybe because it was a building, and buildings didn’t move the way cars did. It was a permanent part of the landscape, not something that traveled over it.

Then I sat down onto my own lap and realized I was facing the wrong way, with my feet pointed into my head and out the top of one shoulder.

“Wrong way.” I chuckled and turned around. Then I was ready to lie down properly. Daniel had arranged me carefully on my back. I just had to feel my way into the proper position.

It was…no. Iwas warm. I could feel my life pulsating around me. Like a warm and kind of gross bath. Pee water. It reminded me of pee. Not at all like possessing Daniel which had just been like putting on a full-body costume. Like wearing clothing that made me stronger, and faster, and allowed me to hear his thoughts.

When I laid my head back into my head, I was surrounded by the pulsating ocean sounds of my heartbeat. Not just a comfortable feeling of strength and hearing someone’s thoughts and reading their mind. It felt wrong compared to possessing someone else.

But I persisted, wiggling around until I felt parts of me aligning. A toe here, an ankle there. Gradually, one joint after another began to mesh their physical and non-physical counterparts. My muscles slip-sliding into place.

God, I wanted to puke.

Bodies suck. My body sucked. I did not like this feeling at all. Which was weird, because until a few hours ago I had really enjoyed living inside of my body stretch mark scars from having a baby and all.

I sat up a little too soon. My physical head trailed behind my non-corporeal head, and they jerked back together with one final crunching snap.

“Okay. Arm me up, Mom. I need to go get my kid back.” I wasn’t sure how I would do it. And I sure as heck had no idea why those things wanted him. He was a good kid so this was a really unexpected development for me. But that was the plan. Follow him and get him back.

“Hey, Sam.” Daniel called hesitantly as he edged further away from me. “How do you plan – ? You know you have that look – ?”

“You don’t have to come with me, Daniel. I have my body back. I can touch things now and fight again.” I knew what I looked like. Like the accounting department was about to bring down the hatchet and report half your management team to the IRS for some kind of fraud. Everyone at work knew I lived for the deep dives of forensic accounting…and maybe a little bit of comeuppance of someone who deserved it getting their notice. Finally, he just ran one of his big hands ruefully through his hair before turning to my mom.

“Load us up, Mom. What do we need to get Caleb back?” Yeah. That was the hottest thing I’d ever heard a man say in my life. I was definitely going to date any guy who was willing to follow me to Hell. This guy was doing it to help me get my kid back.

I might just be willing to marry him.