text: [Themes: horror, supernatural, action]
  
  "So what are you, then?" the woman asks. Her buddies shift around expectantly.
  
  > say "The nether lords of another realm."
  She looks askance at you. "That's really hard to believe. Do you have any evidence?" They're definitely practicing witchcraft with that book, you figure. If they believe the lie long enough to even ask, they can surely be made to leave. Kess speaks up.
  
  "We opened the portal," he says. "Now we've come back to use it. Are you volunteering to be part of our work? We could use a few upstart witches." He stares as though the verbal transaction has bored him already.
  
  She stays silent, wanting to dismiss the claim but afraid of the consequences. She works towards a response. "Sorry, but we were really hoping to use it and for a fairly quick thing, so would you mind we do that?" After a second thought, she adds "after you, if it's short, we hope." Her companions move around, agitated.
  
  > say "No."
  She believes the lie well enough to stay her feet, but the jacket-wearing guy starts rotating a knife. He looks like he's willing to get involved in some havoc.
  
  "Fuck this, you're not nether lords, and there's no such thing," he calls out. He points the knife threateningly at you, ten feet away.
  
  > say "BEGONE! M'yuh sha takyeh, gos ney'sa raktur..."
  You swing your arms wide, angling down your hands to point fingers at your audience, and shout. You flip your eyes up, obscuring the pupils, and begin muttering gibberish, hoping the presentation bears effect. The group begins to backpedal out of the bunker, and you increase your voice to compensate. They turn and bolt.
  
  The sound of rubber on concrete fades soon enough, and you step back into the room with Kess. "They're either waiting at the entrance or a short distance away," you mention.
  
  "Oh, absolutely." He draws in some air. "Any time you're ready then, Viktor. Stand about two feet from the portal."
  
  You walk over to its effervescing surface. Kess produces a sewing needle that he must've filched before leaving the house. He instructs you to open your hand. The needle dips in, under the skin, and emerges with a crimson droplet balanced at the end.
  
  "Now touch it to the portal and exhale your little puppet."
  
  As you do so, the wisps are drawn to the blood, and begin to eddy ominously around the pin. Stanley fights again, predictably weak despite his striving, as you breathe out. The wisps swirl in, to your throat and clutch at something unreal, or not quite of the same material as the world, withdrawing it, and Stanley's presence dulls away to nothing. Kess follows suit.
  
  It's a strange feeling to own a body again, as the owner rather than the intruder. It's pretty evil, you acknowledge, that you sent Stanley to the Otherside when you fear it yourself. On the other hand, it's just survival, and you shelve the remorse, happy to return to the flitting world once more.
  
  No witches greet you as you leave the compound, and you part ways with Kess. The transgressions of that night get you labeled the prime suspect for murder, forcing you to flee to other areas. You make friends again, getting caught up in the world of boating, among other simplicities you've forgotten you enjoy. You have to move now and then to evade notice from officials who might connect you to the past, but you manage to escape dicey situations. You pay Kess now and then through a cryptocurrency account he directed you to use, keeping your end of the bargain.
  
  Thirty years pass, and you've grown fond of living. It's more peaceful than your original life, which is difficult to remember among your new, competing memories. Time keeps flowing onward, putting wrinkles on your face and pain in your joints. Looking back, having just turned eighty, is a funny feeling. It doesn't feel like much time passed at all. Still, a thought nips at the surface of your mind, suggesting you need to move onto a new host. Only, your life has been a little different this time around. It has been peaceful, and you think it would sting you a little more now, knowing how good life can be, to take another's.
  
  > find a host and live again
  Still, the thought of death is haunting. You tell your friends that you're going on vacation, mellow at the thought of leaving them behind, and get into your vehicle. You begin to make your way back, old now, to that same bunker near the beach, where you expect to find the portal on Halloween. Even if the murder case is cold, flight security makes you nervous, and you find it's still a pleasant drive across country.
  
  Halloween rolls around, and you check out of the hotel. You hand the hotel card, a pin, and your keys to the reception clerk, touching the back of his hand and transferring over. Your old body falls, aged and lifeless, on the opposite side of the desk. The man has few superstitions, and his mind is easily dominated. You excuse yourself from work, and the day carries on.
  
  Clouds ride in on a rain front in the late afternoon. You get on course to Hyacinth Beach, a little over an hour away, driving through bouts of rain under a clouded sky. There are more buildings in the neighborhood around the beach. Some of the oldest ones have been scrubbed away, making room for the future. The bunker itself, dim under a clouded sky, is etched with the slow passing of time. Additional cracks spider across the walls, filled with peeking moss.
  
  You walk into the room, expecting to see nothing. There it is, a quivering hole to nowhere, passively violating all expeditions of science. The host squirms at its sight, but can't escape. The needle prods flesh, and the host is exhumed from your lungs, only to be snuffed by the hungry emptiness before you.
  
  It's unfortunate, but it's survival.