(POV Shift: First Person)
The moment the "Peacemaker" materialized in my hands, the game changed. The doll, Annabelle, seemed to feel it too. The subtle oppression in Judy's room became an open declaration of war. The doll's head twisted completely with a plastic clack, and from its painted mouth came a whisper that was not a child's, but a legion's.
...Y O U...D O N ' T...B E L O N G...H E R E...
"Funny, I was just about to tell you the same thing," I replied, racking the rifle. The metallic, definitive sound seemed to vibrate the entire house.
And then, all hell broke loose.
It wasn't an attack, it was a coordinated assault. The bedroom door slammed shut. From the hallway, I heard the unmistakable sound of the living room piano, its keys pounded with manic fury, not playing a melody, but a pure, chaotic din. Simultaneously, the sound of metal scraping wood came from downstairs. The samurai.
"Okay, so it's a party," I muttered, my heart racing. "And I'm the piñata."
I aimed the "Peacemaker" at the door. I didn't wait. I fired a short three-round burst. RAT-TAT-TAT. The holy projectiles pulverized the wood, tearing the door from its hinges and revealing the Bride in the hallway, her knife raised. Before she could move, one of the bullets hit her, and she dissolved with a hiss of frustration. The rifle was a beast.
I sprinted out of Judy's room. "Stay in there and don't come out!" I yelled.
The hallway was chaos. The samurai armor clanked heavily up the stairs, its unsheathed katana gleaming with a malevolent light. From the other end of the hallway, the ferryman ghost materialized, his shadowy figure and coin eyes glowing. They were flanking me. They were the boss's minions, designed to wear me down.
"I don't have time for you extras!" I yelled.
I fired a controlled burst at the armor's legs. The consecrated metal didn't penetrate, but the force of the impacts made it stumble and tumble down the stairs with a clatter of metal and ancient curses. I spun and fired at the ferryman. He dissolved into shadows before the bullets hit, only to begin materializing behind me. He was fast.
My HUD flickered with a warning: [WARNING: MULTIPLE HOSTILE ENTITIES. CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL RECOMMENDED.]
"Thanks for the tip, Captain Obvious!" I snapped at the air.
I realized fighting them was a waste of time and precious ammunition. They were puppets. And I needed to get to the puppeteer. The objective hadn't changed: the doll. I had left her in Judy's room. A rookie mistake.
I dashed back into the room, dodging a vase that flew from a side table. The door was open, just as I'd left it. But the bed... it was empty. The doll was gone.
A chill of genuine panic shot through me. "No, no, no! Where...?"
My "Spiritual Spider Sense," a perk I didn't even know I had until that moment, buzzed at the back of my neck. A new notification appeared in my HUD: [DIRECT THREAT BEHIND YOU].
I spun around just in time. The doll, Annabelle, was levitating at face height. Her glass eyes gleamed with Valak's yellow fire. And all around her, a dozen objects from the room—books, lamps, toys—floated in the air, pointing at me. It was a shield of telekinetic debris.
With an inhuman shriek that burst from the doll's mouth, everything flew at me.
(POV Shift: Third Person)
Alex acted purely on gamer instinct. Instead of retreating, he lunged forward, under the barrage of projectiles. He slid across the floor, feeling the wind of objects pass over his head. The room exploded in a chaos of shattered wood and glass.
He rose, now inches from the floating doll. She was the center of the storm. All the house's power was channeled through her. Alex saw his opportunity. She wasn't a manifestation he could dissipate with a shot. She was the physical anchor. Hell's modem.
With a roar of frustration, he dropped the rifle, which clattered to the floor, and lunged at the doll. He grabbed her with both hands. The sensation was like sticking his hands into a nest of electric wasps. A cold, malevolent power surged through his arms, but he didn't let go.
The doll writhed in his hands with unnatural force. It felt like trying to hold down a panther. He grabbed her by her red yarn pigtails, using all his weight to pin her against the floor. The doll thrashed and struggled, her glass eyes burning with pure hatred. The other house spirits, deprived of their conductor, flickered and vanished. The battle had narrowed to this: a boy and a doll on a little girl's bedroom floor.
He had the queen, but the game wasn't over. He knew he couldn't physically destroy her. He knew bullets would only temporarily stop her. He needed a checkmate. He needed the knowledge he didn't possess.
Holding the writhing doll under one arm like a football, he scrambled for the door. "Judy!" he yelled. "I need your phone again! Quick call, I promise!"
A small, trembling hand passed him the phone from under the bed. Alex snatched it, keeping the doll pinned with an improvised wrestling hold. He dialed the last number.
(POV Shift: First Person)
"Ed! Lorraine!" I shouted into the phone as soon as they answered. "I have her! I have the doll! But I can't hold her for long! I need the admin command! The name! The true name of the thing using her!"
"It's not that simple, Alex!" Lorraine's voice came through, filled with urgency. "She's not a demon with a single name like Valak. She's a conduit. You have to perform a rite of separation and confinement!"
The doll began to thrash more violently. Her small rag hands felt like steel. She headbutted me in the chin.
"F***!" I exclaimed, struggling to hold her down. I heard Ed on the other end of the line. "Alex! What's that noise?! Are you okay?!"
I slammed the doll's head against the doorframe. The dull thud of plastic against wood echoed. "Hold still!" I hissed at the infernal toy. Then, I turned back to the phone. "Sorry, my... uh... emotional baggage was getting away. The rite! Tell me!"
"Listen closely, Alex!" Lorraine said, her voice turning firm, that of a professional in her element. "You have to speak with authority. You have to command her. Repeat after me. In Latin."
She began to recite. Words that sounded ancient, powerful. I did my best to repeat them, my high school Latin nonexistent.
"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus..." I recited, my voice trembling.
The doll began to vibrate in my hands, a low, furious hum. The room temperature plummeted.
"...omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii..."
"Lorraine, I don't think this is enough!" I gasped. "I can feel Valak pushing through her! He's using his power to resist!"
There was a pause on the other end. Then, Ed's voice, rock steady. "Then don't contain him. Open the door. The door to his own house. Lorraine, the Rite of Final Consignment."
"Ed, no!" Lorraine protested. "It's too dangerous! We've never done it!"
"He can handle it!" Ed insisted. A strange pang of pride shot through me. "Alex, listen! I'm putting it on speaker! Repeat after us! With authority!"
I placed the phone on the floor and activated the speaker. Lorraine's voice, now joined by Ed's, filled the room.
"Adiuro te, serpens antique! Per nomen Dei vivi, et veri! Regredere ad originem tuam! Ostium inferni, tibi pando!" (I adjure you, ancient serpent! By the name of the living and true God! Return to your origin! The gate of hell, I open to you!)
I repeated the words, but my voice mingled with theirs, and something more. The power of the System, of the god, flowed through me, amplifying the ritual. The last phrase, "Ostium inferni, tibi pando!" was not a whisper. It was a thunderclap.
The air in front of me tore open.
(POV Shift: Third Person)
The tearing was not subtle. It was a violent wound in reality. Space folded in on itself, opening like a jagged maw to reveal a nightmarish landscape of fire, brimstone, and red skies. A suffocating heat and the sound of millions of suffering souls poured from the portal. Alex had opened a direct window to hell in a little girl's room in Connecticut.
The Annabelle doll went still in his hands, its power now focused not on fighting him, but on resisting the pull of the abyss.
Alex wasted no time. With the doll still tucked under one arm like a football, he crouched and grabbed something he had bought from the shop. A roll of industrial duct tape. With feverish speed, he tore off several long strips. Then he pulled out the three "Lux Aeterna" grenades.
In an act of profanity and tactical genius, he taped the three grenades to the doll's torso, creating a holy suicide vest. The doll, with the three silver grenades taped to its white dress, looked like an absurd, terrible offering.
"You know what? I always wanted to try these things out," Alex said to the doll.
With his thumbs, he pressed the activation buttons on all three grenades. They began to glow with a pure white light, emitting a high-pitched hum that increased in intensity.
"Return to sender, bitch!" Alex yelled.
And with a throw that would have made a quarterback proud, he hurled the bomb-doll directly into the heart of the infernal portal.
Annabelle flew through the air, a small white-clad figure with three miniature suns taped to her chest. She crossed the threshold and disappeared into the nightmarish landscape.
A second later, the grenades detonated. There was no sound. Only an explosion of pure white light on the other side of the portal, so intense it silenced the fires and screams of hell for an instant.
Then, with an implosive force, the portal slammed shut, collapsing with a sound like reverse thunder. It left behind only the smell of ozone and victory.
Silence returned to the house. This time, it was a silence of peace. Of truth.
Alex stood there, in the middle of the shattered room, gasping, covered in sweat and grime. He had done the impossible. Twice.
He looked at the phone on the floor, from which the confused, frightened voices of the Warrens still emanated. He picked it up.
"Tech support," he said, his voice hoarse with exhaustion. "I believe your virus problem has been... permanently eliminated. The bill will be in the mail." And he hung up.