FFM 2016 #30 - From The Inside Looking Out

A mixture like smoke and tar and mould entered her mouth and rushed down in to her lungs. Rumbling shook her insides like a plate compactor running between her liver and stomach. She blacked out and became lost in a body was no longer hers.

It was months before it surfaced, though. Months before it gave the outside world a clue that not all was right with Elise. Somehow it learned her habits, her mannerisms, every idiosyncrasy it could. It had taken over and absorbed her, creating a convincing marionette show with Elise as the star puppet.

Eventually it began to slip. Elise's characteristic empathy was the first thing to go. Then her social life, especially anything to do with church. She went from raising money for the local homeless shelter to lowering men's' pants for “her” pleasure. Distraught parents chalked up what they knew about to teenage hormones. The others chalked everything else up to bad parenting. Elise, she was only a spectator to the train wreck her life was becoming.

When the disappearances began, no one connected the dots. It was just cats and small dogs in rural farm country. But after Elise's cousin disappeared, and then her younger sister, gazes began to shift from coyotes to the once golden teenage girl. The girl who knew she was so lost she would never shine again.

An old biddy from down the street began a petition to get a priest in to the home. Enough was enough and the town wanted the evil removed from their town. From somewhere deep inside herself, Elise was both elated and terrified of what might happen. As it pushed her further down, it let her know which was the right one.


A mixture of blood and flesh and bone exploded and dripped down the walls. Violence shook the house like grenades from the living room where Elise's parents, a priest and whatever Elise had become once stood. She blacked out, for once wishing to be lost in the body that was no longer hers.

Only three bodies were recovered from the house before it was demolished and the town tried to forget. No one ever went looking for Elise after that day.

Not even Elise.