⚠️ Content Warning
This chapter contains intense spiritual themes, demonic encounters, childhood trauma, and emotional triggers related to abandonment and fear. Reader discretion is advised.
We don't fight ghosts for fun.
We fight because the spiritual realm bleeds into ours, and no one else wants to admit it.
This chapter begins with a child.
But this is no children's story.
Welcome to The Living Scripture: Flame & Breath.
If you're here for glittering magic or chosen ones, you may want to turn back.
But if you're ready to walk through fire, keep reading.
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The little girl crouching before me shouldn't remind me of anything, but she does. Too much. A life I keep locked away in memories that smell of ash and echoes. And I already know what's waiting in the dark.
Her tiny hands grip a pristine white bunny rabbit, fur silky, bow tied neatly under its chin. The kind of toy you only find in boutique shops. The house matches it. Immaculate floors polished until they gleam, furniture set perfectly in place, curtains rich and heavy. The air carries a faint citrus polish undercut with something older, metallic, and wrong. On the surface it looks flawless, but the house listens. The walls lean inward, as if they know secrets they are not supposed to keep.
My best friend Alec is across the room, voice steady into his comms. Calm. Efficient. Keeping the team updated as they hurry to join us.
I kneel, the polished floor cool against my knees, and stroke the bunny's ear.
"What's her name?" I ask softly.
Her head tilts, eyes glued to my hand as though afraid the comfort will vanish.
"Susan," she whispers, slow, drawn out, each syllable deliberate.
"That's a pretty name." My voice gentle. "And yours?"
Her throat works. Her eyes dart toward the half-open door, where shadows pulse faintly. Her lips part again, slower this time, as if saying it invites something closer.
"Aleesha."
The name lingers in the air like a cinematic pause. Her shoulders stiffen, the act of speaking it drawing something unseen toward us. Her small fingers clamp mine. I pull her into my arms. She fits there too well.
"They cannot hurt you," I murmur against her temple. "Not while we are here."
Alec ends his call. He moves without hurry, every step deliberate. He stops at the cracked door and lays his hand on it. The wood swings wide with no sound, no violence, only the weight of his presence flooding in like pressure before a storm.
The air prickles across my skin. He releases a controlled pulse of energy, low and rolling, thunder without sound. To a spirit it is a verdict. To the weaker ones, a death sentence. To the strong, more of a warning: I am here. Behave.
Aleesha gasps. Her grip tightens on my sleeve.
"How did he do that?" she breathes.
I brush hair from her face, coaxing her chin up until her eyes meet mine.
"We will teach you."
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A knock draws us to the lounge. Jacob Grant stands in the doorway, pressed shirt immaculate though his face betrays sleepless nights. His wealth is obvious, yet nothing in his life has prepared him for this kind of war. His shoulders sag under an invisible weight.
Balancing Aleesha on my hip, I meet his gaze. "Do not worry, Mr. Grant. Alec has cleared the spirit for now, but this house will not stay clean unless we finish what has started."
He lowers himself onto the sofa, rubbing his face. A man used to control, suddenly stripped of it. My chest tightens. "Where is Mrs. Grant?"
He answers readily as if expecting the question, "She could not handle Aleesha's uniqueness. Left us a year ago." His voice splinters. "I swore to protect her, but how do you fight what you cannot see?"
Alec enters with the rest of the team. After briefing Mr. Grant, I urge him, "You must trust us. Aleesha needs to see that trust. We are her only hope in surviving this."
Aleesha buries her face into my shoulder. I kiss her hairline, whispering promises she cannot yet believe.
The team assembles. Samuel, priest and steady anchor, oil flask in hand. Samantha, sharp-eyed and calculating. Jamey, loud and irreverent, his jokes covering nerves that never quite leave him. He glances around the lounge, whistling low.
"House looks gorgeous. Shame about the evil squatting under the wallpaper. Makes me want to pee my pants."
"You always joke when you're scared," Samantha mutters.
"Yeah, and you cry girly," Jamey fires back. Samantha wiggles her fist at him, narrowing her eyes.
Alec cuts in without breaking stride. "If Jamey wets himself, you're cleaning it, Samantha."
The banter grates at me. I shift Aleesha on my hip and scowl. "I will make all of you pee your pants if you don't concentrate." That shuts them up quickly enough.
Samantha clears her throat and changes the subject. "Where do you want the gear?"
"Anywhere," Alec replies, tone dry. "Just not where things will go bump in the night."
"Not funny," Samantha mutters, though her mouth twitches.
Samuel kneels before Aleesha, dipping his fingers into oil. His voice is kind, steady. "Do not worry, little one. It will not hurt." He anoints her brow, the scent of oil rising faintly. The air hums in answer.
Aleesha finally whispers, "Will this keep them away?"
Samuel smiles gently. "It will keep them from touching you. The rest we will handle."
I stroke her hair. "Uncle Alec and I will be resting for a bit. Do not worry if we do not respond. Just listen to Uncle Samuel, Aunt Sam, and Uncle Jamey pray to God for help."
She nods with fierce bravery. "I will not be scared. Not anymore."
"Good girl."
Meditation takes us. Our bodies slump, but our spirits rise. The air of the astral realm is thicker, edges sharper, the scent of ash and iron scratching my throat.
The first residue hits instantly, clinging to corners like mildew.
"It is always the same," I mutter to Alec. "Perfect homes. Perfect families. Then the veil tears, and the world pretends it is not happening."
His eyes narrow. "Denial is the devil's favorite prayer."
He phases ahead without another word.
A shadow bolts up the stairs. White lightning cracks above, glass-bright and final. One down.
Another skitters across the wall, claws scratching plaster like nails dragged on glass. It freezes as I rise level with it, eye to absence.
If spirits could feel fear, this one does. Its form trembles, smoke pretending at humanity.
I seize its face. My fingers burn with everything I am. No flash, no flare. Just pressure. Collapse.
It shrieks without sound, crumbling into ash that falls like black snow.
Alec appears beside me, calm, unreadable, smiling like he knows something I do not.
Then the house inhales.
The air distorts. Polished walls ripple as if they were water. Chandeliers sway though no breeze stirs. The elegant curtains twitch like lungs drawing a breath. Every perfect corner groans as though it had been waiting for this moment.
There it is. The warning. The silence that howls beneath the skin.
We hover, weightless, the veil between worlds stretched taut. The final spirit has not shown itself, but it is here. Aleesha's safety hangs by a thread worn thin.
Fear is the true summons. It is a lighthouse for darkness. And tonight, the beam shines bright.
We all started like Aleesha. Small. Fragile. Alone. Until something dark tried to make us its home, and we said no.
Back in the lounge, I know the team feels it too. Jamey's voice cuts the silence, forced and shaky. "I hate it when things go quiet. Quiet is when things crawl out and say boo."
Samantha swats him again. "You are insufferable."
"Yeah, but I am pretty," Jamey shoots back. His grin is too wide, his eyes too sharp. Humor is his armor, and we all know it.
I do not laugh. The air has turned heavy, and Aleesha shifts restlessly in Samuel's lap.
The growl erupts. It rattles the pristine walls, shakes crystal chandeliers. Too deep, too layered to be human. The scent arrives with it, sulfur and rot sliding under the polish of lemon and pine.
My stomach twists. I double over and retch black smoke. It pours out, hissing, curling into the air like poison. The taste is ash and blood.
Alec stares, eyes flashing alarm. "Max. What is that?"
"The thing that tried to live inside me."
The humor dies in my throat. Memories crash: dark halls, sage smoke, gravel whispers. A growl that haunted my crib. I know this sound. I always knew it.
The entity strikes. Force, not hands, yanks me through the air like I am being rewritten too fast for the world to keep up. My limbs drag behind. Walls buckle, ceiling bends low. The house that gleamed now groans, perfect surfaces straining against corruption.
I fracture. Flicker. Scatter.
Alec is both near and far, his voice drowned in static. My chest burns. My spirit tears apart.
Then, stillness.
Not from the demon. From something else.
Warmth presses into me. Not a shield, not power. Just presence. A hand unseen against the core of me. One word hums through marrow: Breathe.
My form snaps back. Shaken. Not healed. But enough.
The darkness is not gone. It watches. Waits. And it whispers through the perfect, trembling house a single promise: Run.
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What you have seen is only the surface. The Living Scripture is not just ink. It is memory, judgment, and fire carved into flesh. Every decree will cost Max something she cannot yet name.
Ahead, the battles will not just be against spirits that growl in the dark. They will be against betrayal, heartbreak, and the weight of a love that burns brighter than death itself. Even the protectors can falter, and sometimes, the good become the ruin.
If Chapter 1 is the spark, Chapter 2 is the blaze. Step through and see what happens when Heaven rewrites the rules through human hands.