"The tree that would grow to heaven must send its roots to hell."
~Friedrich Nietzsche
Julian screamed until he realized there was no sound. He was falling into a bottomless, soundproof pit. Hell.
He tumbled through endless, unrelenting darkness for what seemed like an eternity. It gave him sufficient time to be tormented by his memories.
Julian's life flashed before his eyes like broken, jagged pieces of glass. The missed chances, broken promises, toxic breakups, and self-sabotage. The last memory was the most horrific, when he drank an entire bottle of white rum and sat down to do a satanic ritual he had picked from the internet. What was he thinking?
"This is it," Julian thought miserably. "I'm falling straight into hell."
What else could a downward plunge after death from alcohol abuse mean? Julian waited for the hot fires from below to consume him, but they were taking their time.
It was his turn to deal with regrets. He should've called his mom more, fixed things with his ex, and not wasted nights on pointless jobs. The hole stretched forever, while its walls whispered brutal judgment during his memory loops.
Bwahahaha! Henhhenhhenh! Was that laughter echoing from the depths? Demons waiting to claim him? The hole was bottoming out. Eternal damnation had arrived. Julian felt he deserved it, so he let go with a sigh.
Crack! Rattle! Grab! Suddenly, a massive hand clamped around his ankle and yanked him sideways. The hellhole walls gave way, flooding him with harsh light.
Julian gasped into consciousness, his eyes snapping open in panic. Feeling returned to his body like a truck collision. His head throbbed agonizingly, his mouth was dry, and his throat tasted like nail polish.
Julian blinked against the sunlight streaming through a dirty, birdcrap-spotted windshield. He was in the back of a rusty van, bouncing over potholes.
His body felt wrong—taller, leaner, straighter. Julian looked at his hands and couldn't recognize the scars and tiny tattoos on them. "What the fuck?" he muttered aloud, rubbing his temples.
"Easy there, Amadeus," said a voice from the front. The driver, a stocky man in a priest's collar, glanced back with concern. Father Ramirez was the name that popped into Julian's mind.
"You passed out for a bit. Is the hangover hitting hard? Will you be okay?"
Amadeus? Was that his name? He sat up straighter, piecing it all together. The lost memories flooded in, strangely not his own.
Julian Amadeus. This body belonged to a young veteran exorcist, twenty-one years old. Until recently, he was the rockstar of the Church. Until the Vatican incident happened, and he lost everything.
Now, disgraced and broken, Julian realized Father Ramirez was waiting for an answer. He groped for words, voice rough. "Yeah... Something like that. Where are we going again?"
The priest sighed, keeping his eyes on the road. "Did you forget already? The drink is killing you, son. Anyway, we're going to a migrant shelter on the edge of town."
Julian turned his head and watched the shabby buildings go by. Ramirez spied Julian through the dashboard mirror. The young man looked troubled, as if he had gotten off a rollercoaster. Was booze his only sin?
"Do I need to repeat everything?" the priest grumbled. "I reckon you were really wasted when I approached you? Suit yourself. What do you remember?"
"Where was I?" Julian asked, squinting against the flashes of sunlight.
Father Ramirez grunted. "Like I told you when I picked you up from that dive bar. The client found your ad in an old newspaper and asked me to reach out to you. What was that cringey ad…? Hole-y guarantee, or your exorcisms are free."
As the priest chuckled, Julian remembered posting that ad when he was running low on money for booze. "Yeah, that's me. But why not get a real exorcist? I don't have a license anymore."
Ramirez licked his lips. "The Church won't touch this one. Migrants aren't exactly on their priority list."
Before Julian could respond, the car came to a stop. Two individuals entered, making themselves comfortable on the passenger seat on either side.
On Julian's right was a pot-bellied man with a thick beard. He nodded curtly. "I'm Miguel."
"And this here is Rosa," he added, jerking a thumb at the woman on the other side. She was middle-aged, her face lined with worry. She clutched a rosary tightly and looked up at Julian with hope.
"We're locals volunteering as caretakers at the shelter. Listen! Things got bad last night. Please help us—"
"Rosa!" Father Ramirez interjected. "Mr. Amadeus has had a long night. Let him be in peace until we reach the shelter."
Rosa crossed herself and looked away. Julian was thankful for the intervention. He needed a break to process his new memories. What kind of life had he lived? One of chasing shadows, banishing demons?
The hangover was gradually lifting. He leaned back as the rattling van hit another bump, making him want to throw up. "So this is off-the-books, huh?" he asked after fighting back vomit.
Father Ramirez frowned in the rearview mirror. "You will get paid like I explained. Whatever we can scrape together from donations. But saving a soul's worth more than gold, right?"
Julian snorted, but on the inside, he had no idea how to perform an exorcism, if that is what these people wanted. He glanced out the window at the crumbling cityscape. The buildings were tagged with occult symbols. Wards and seals protected the homes and establishments from the supernatural, which was not a secret in this world.
The van jerked to a stop outside a squat, weathered building—the migrant shelter. The legal citizens of Salem opposed immigration vehemently, but there wasn't enough police force to stave them off.
The shelter had a chain-link fence sagging around it, and strange graffiti covered its walls. As Julian looked upon the building, every cell in his body urged him to run away.
Faint uneasy whispers reached his ears on the wind, in tongues he couldn't place. It felt natural, though. He had done this before.
"Let's get inside," Father Ramirez said, killing the engine. "Before it gets dark."
They pushed through creaky doors into a series of dimly lit halls, illuminated by flickering bulbs. The shelter smelled of damp concrete and mold. Refugees huddled in corners, their eyes wide in hunger or disease.
"Here on the ground floor are the fresh arrivals from the border. We move them to a higher floor whenever there's a vacancy."
A woman in a hijab murmured prayers, rocking a child, and looked up at Julian with teary eyes. "Bismillah Rahman Rahim."
Julian felt a tug at his heart as if he could relive her pain for a second. He looked away. Father Ramirez scowled at the Arabic words as if they were curses. "Never mind them. Let's go to the kitchens on the second floor."
"It started here," he said quietly as they entered a hall that resembled a kitchen from the medieval era. However, the area had been cleared this morning.
Miguel pointed at the central hearth. "It's over there."
Ramirez crossed himself. "The boys... God rest their souls."
Rosa broke into tears and looked away.
Julian himself froze at the sight that made his bile rise. The central hearth gaped like a mouth, and from the chimney above, limbs dangled. Pale arms and legs, which looked like they belonged to young boys.
They were stuffed into the chamber with brute force from below. Their bodies were crammed impossibly tight, with heads bunched up and eyes vacant. Dried blood streaked the bricks, but it was essentially a neat affair.
"Who... Who did this?" Julian whispered, his stomach churning.
Rosa covered her mouth. "We found them this morning. The boys probably escaped their dormitories and were playing here last night. Then we heard screams. By the time we got here..."
Miguel shook his head. "No human could've done it. Lifted them like that, shoved them in. Four of us tried to pull them out earlier, but failed. We left it for you to see."
"Have the cops been informed?"
All three of them shook their heads. The migrant shelter was protected by neither law nor the Church. However, the corrupt officials often arrived seeking bribes to overlook the immigrant population.
"Did you find anybody else around?"
Father Ramirez crossed himself. "No, just the girl."
As the priest mentioned her, the whispers intensified in Julian's ears, swirling around the room like a condensed storm. Hebrew laments, Koranic warnings, and pagan chants. What was this spiritual confusion? Why couldn't he focus?
"Show me the girl," he said, trying to steady himself.
They moved to the second floor, walking down the corridor to the last room. Migrants gathered around as Julia walked among Ramirez, Miguel, and Rosa.
The room was barricaded with chairs, which they removed quickly. As the door opened, a cold gust of wind laden with voices escaped.
Julian peeked from the crack. Inside, on a cot, lay a girl glad in a pink frock. "That's Aisha. She was the only one found near the boys. It took half a dozen men to subdue her."
"Aisha is just sixteen," Rosa chimed in. "How could she be possessed?"
Julia walked inside and gandered a look. The girl was beautiful even in torment. Matted dark hair with pale olive skin. Restraints tied her wrists and ankles to the bed frame. She looked heavily drugged. A nurse had given her injections.
Aisha thrashed weakly with eyes rolled back, muttering strange words in Arabic.
"She's been like this since dawn," Father Ramirez explained. "Speaking in tongues that we don't understand. Her superhuman strength earlier is telltale. She broke a man's arm like a twig. The girl is clearly possessed."
As soon as the priest was done speaking, Aisha's head snapped toward Julian, her eyes focusing on him unnaturally. "Amadeus!" she hissed, the voice echoing like a chorus from hell. "You took your time climbing out of the hole! I've been waiting for you!"