Dad drove while I tried not to stare at the holy water sloshing around in its bottle between us. Today is my first job as his exorcist assistant, and I keep telling myself to breathe normally. He used to be just "Dad," but ever since he became a father at Saint Mary's, people whisper his name like he carries fire in his pockets. The cathedral is known for handling demonic trouble. I grew up around it, but starting the job feels different from watching it.
We're heading to a client who says something in his house won't leave him alone. He sounded shaken on the phone. Dad said that fear has a tone you can't fake, and this man had it.
The road feels too quiet. I keep checking the rearview mirror even though nothing is back there. I wrote all this in the car so my hands would stop trembling, but they still are.
First day. First case. No turning back now.
We pulled up to a small beige house with a porch swing that didn't move, even with the wind pushing at it. John Walkins met us at the door. He looked worn out, like he had not slept in a week. He lives here with his wife, their three-year-old daughter, and a dog named Lucy.
Inside, he told us everything at once. It started with Lucy. She would growl at empty corners, then bark like she was warning someone we could not see. John brushed it off at first. Dogs hear things we don't, so he didn't think much of it.
Then objects began shifting on their own when he was at work. A kitchen chair out of place. A toy car parked in the hallway when no one had touched it. His wife called him nearly every day.
The worst part was their daughter. She started waking from naps in full panic. His wife said that whenever she went into the room to calm her, their daughter screamed harder until she backed out and stood where the little girl couldn't see her. As if someone else was in the room with them. As if the fear wasn't directed at the mother, but at what might be standing behind her.
I wrote all of this while Dad listened. The house felt too tense for daylight. Even Lucy watched the hallway like she expected something to step out.
I don't know what we'll find here. But Dad says patterns like these matter, and we are already seeing too many of them.
John led us down a narrow hallway. It bent at a tight corner, almost like the house didn't want anyone moving through it. Their daughter's room came before the parents' bedroom. Dad stopped there and looked at me.
"Go in first," he said. "Tell me what you feel."
So I did.
At first the room looked normal. Small bed with pink sheets. Stuffed animals lined up on a shelf. A few toys on the floor. Anyone else would have said it was peaceful.
But I closed my eyes.
And the world changed.
The darkness behind my eyelids filled with what regular eyes never catch. Scribbles streaked across the walls, like a child had drawn in a rush, except I knew no real crayon had touched the paint. Shapes formed in black, heavy strokes. Something about them felt familiar, but I couldn't place why. Not yet.
Then I heard a thud.
My eyes snapped open. My head turned before I could think.
A small figure stood near the far wall. Pale. Blurred around the edges. The size of a child but not shaped like it was supposed to be. It watched me with a face that didn't move, like it was waiting to see whether I could really see it.
My chest tightened. I didn't speak. I didn't breathe.
Because on my first day, in the first house, I was already staring at something no one had warned me would look this alive.
He looked terrified.
Not the wild kind of fear, but the quiet kind. The kind that settles in a child's body when he has been scared for too long. I didn't think. I just stepped closer and reached out like I would to any kid who looked that lost.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
His head lifted a little. His voice shook. "You… you can see me?"
"Yeah," I said. "I can."
He raised his hand, slow and unsure, like he expected it to pass straight through me. When his fingers brushed mine, he gasped. His eyes widened with something that wasn't fear anymore. More like disbelief.
"I can touch you," he whispered. It sounded like a confession.
He kept staring at our hands like no one had ever stayed solid for him before. The room felt colder, but not because of him. More like something else in the house noticed the moment we connected.
I kept my voice steady. "Why are you here? How did you end up in this room? What are you trying to do?"
He didn't look away. He held my hand tighter, like he was afraid I might vanish.
And then he opened his mouth to answer.
His voice cracked as he spoke, caught between fear and a strange kind of relief.
"The thing in here killed me," he said. "But he isn't here anymore. I think he left. Or went somewhere else." His eyes brightened like he was almost happy to be telling someone, anyone, after so long.
I felt the cold tighten around my arms. "Who did?" I asked.
He shook his head. "He was my imaginary friend. At first." His fingers twitched around mine. "We played together. He said he liked my house. But then he started saying he would take me away from my parents. He said they didn't need me anymore."
The boy blinked hard, like he was fighting through fog inside his own mind.
"Then I started forgetting things. My toys. My mom's voice. Even my own name sometimes." His eyes unfocused for a moment. "It was like he was inside my head, pushing me out."
My stomach dropped. Possession in a child hits fast and cruel.
"And then?" I asked quietly.
"I woke up," he said. "But I wasn't in my body. I was watching it. My dad was crying, and there were priests around me. They were trying to call me back, but I couldn't move. I couldn't even talk."
He looked straight at me.
"So I stayed here. I didn't know where else to go. No one ever heard me." He squeezed my hand like it proved something. "Until you."
The air behind me shifted, as if the narrow hallway had just exhaled. Something old. Something remembering.
And I realized the boy wasn't the only one who knew I could see him.
I didn't know what else to do, so I relied on the one thing Mom ever taught me that Dad never talks about. She said there are doors you can open with the right words. Paths for the lost. For good souls, the way rises. For the twisted ones, it drops.
I whispered the incantation under my breath. The room dimmed, then brightened in a soft flare. The air folded, almost like a curtain pulling back, and a doorway appeared behind the boy. It wasn't a shape you could build. More like an opening that felt right.
He looked at it with wide eyes, then looked back at me. I held his hand one last time.
"Before you go," I said, "tell me your name."
"My name is Elen," he said. "I'm ten."
Elen. A kid who never got to grow older than fear.
"You're not lost anymore," I told him.
He nodded, stepped toward the light, and the doorway swallowed him gently. No screams. No shadows. Just a quiet release, like the room let out a breath it had been holding for years.
When the door faded, the air settled.
My first day wasn't an exorcism. It was guiding a boy who never had anyone to guide him.
And I think this is the part of the job no one warned me about.
I wrote down the details so I don't forget them.
Name: Elen
Age: 10
Type: Poltergeist
Nature: Pure
Path: Heaven
Not all poltergeists are monsters. Some are just kids who got trapped in the dark. Elen was one of them.
I hope he made it all the way.