<hr/><br/><div align="center"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Some time ago</strong></span>...</div><br/><hr/><br/><br/><br/>"Forgive me, father for I have sinned; it has been one week since my last confession." a man stated from within the faint light of the confessional booth. His  voice was uneasy and tensed.<br/><br/>"Go on my son." came a weary, but calm voice from the other side of the booth.<br/><br/>The man was a bit hesitant to continue. His eyes shifting around the confines of the small room, his fingers tapped the wooden window sill. Taking a moment to take a few breaths, he said, "The voices..I've been hearing them again..They won't leave me alone. I..I hit one of my daughters for no apparent reason and choked my wife until she nearly turned purple...Father...I I don't know what to do!" His eyes watered. Pulling his hands away from the window sill, the man placed them in his lap and stared at his palms in disbelief to his own actions.<br/><br/>The man on the other side was quiet for quite some time. The priest recognized the voice of the younger man and felt sorry for him. Instead of telling the man a prayer or a passage from the bible he said instead, "Have you stepped out as I requested?"<br/><br/>The man rubbed at an eye with the palm of his hand and nodded as if the priest could see him, but knowing he could not, he said, "Yes..for a week. When I came back the voices were worse. I'm scared...I'm afraid that I am going to kill my family. Father please...help me!"<br/><br/>The priest looked to the window, but could not see through it. His heart filled with pain at the man's cries, but he could not do much to help him. "I am sorry my son, may god bless you."<br/><br/>Those words nearly killed him to hear. How...why wouldn't the old man help him. He was a priest of god and yet he refused the man's cries for help. Anger swelled in his throat, but there was nothing he could do and that in turn turned to despair. Standing up, the man opened the door and pushed himself forward to exit the booth. He went to walk toward the exit of the church when the priest gripped at his arm. Turning around, he faced the white haired man.<br/><br/><br/>"I wish I could help you..I really do." the priest began. Releasing the man, he pulled out a business card from within his robes at his chest. "Here..I want you to take this card and call this man." he said and handed the man the card.<br/><br/>The man took it and inspected it. The card looked a bit goofy and it was hard for the man to take such a thing seriously, but he put it in his pocket none the less and watched as the priest crept closer and began to speak again.<br/><br/>"He can help you. There is a password you need to know.." he said and patted himself for a pen, but could not find one. Shrugging it off he figured the younger man would remember so he bent forward and whispered such nonsense into his ear.<br/><br/>The younger man looked to the priest once more than glanced at the floor before nodding his head. "Okay..thanks Father." He said and headed out of the church.<br/><br/><div align="center">*****</div><br/>The voices swarmed his head, filled it with hate and anger. The man became dizzy and just as he thought he would loose it once more..he remembered the card the priest had given him a few days ago. Rubbing his temples with his fingertips, he stood leaning against the wall at the bottom of his staircase.<br/><br/>The house was indeed nice and had much history, but no one ever tells you the dark secrets of the older properties. It was only natural that the Realtors were looking for a quick buy and they were quite certain to leave that detail out when the man and his family moved in a year ago. It was clear that this place had a bad omen, but there was nothing the man could do. His family lived paycheck to paycheck and were stuck with this horrible place. The living area was nice with a fireplace, the kitchen spacious, the bedrooms were all located upstairs and though the man was certain the place had to have a basement, he never found the door.<br/><br/>The man cursed quietly beneath his breath at the very memory of buying this house. Gripping onto the railing of the stairs he dragged himself up to the top and down the hall into the master bedroom. His wife sat in the bed, glasses sat on the tip of her nose as she read from a book. Though he loved how thick her hair was with the light brown curls, all he could think about as he looked at her was different ways he could use it to kill her.<br/><br/>He fought the thought off and tried to ignore the constant whispering around him. He managed to sneer at the thought of knowing his family thought the voices were of his own imagination. Bending down near the bed, the man picked up his pants and pulled forth the card. Though he could feel those big brown eyes upon him, he chose to ignore the temptation to look at his wife and instead he walked out of the room and back down the stairs.<br/><br/>"..<em>the gun...get it...get it</em>...." the whisper said before going back into a language the man could not understand. He held himself up by gripping the doorway into the kitchen beside the stairs and took a couple of breaths. His head was filled with pressure and it took all his strength to walk to the counter and pick up the phone. He looked at the card that trembled in his hand and did his best to focus his eyes upon the number.<br/><br/>Wiping sweat from his forehead, the man glanced back behind him to the upper corner of the wall and the doorway of the kitchen. He was not sure if his eyes were playing tricks on him or if he was really seeing black smoke manifest itself. He averted his eyes quickly and dialed the numbers of the phone in a panic. His heart seemed to freeze in his anxiety and fear.<em>Please...please answer the phone</em>.. he thought to himself.<br/><br/>After the second ring a male voice appeared on the other line, "Devil May Cry.."<br/><br/>"Please...I need help..it's goi--" the man began but was interupted by the man on the other end. "Sorry, we closed at nine."<br/><br/>Before the man could say anything else, the phone buzzed a unending tone and he realized that the person he had called just hung up on him. He removed the phone from his ear and stared at it for a moment before he remembered the manifestation behind him. Slamming the phone back on it's platform, the man whirled around.<br/><br/>The smoke was no longer there, the voices were no longer clouding his skull, but his heart still raced. Turning back around, the man opened up a cupboard and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. He thought about grabbing a shot glass, but there wasn't enough time. The man undid the cap and quickly took a swig.<br/><br/>There was just enough time to make a sour face when a woman from behind him spoke, "What are you doing? It's late..come to bed."<br/><br/>The man looked back at her and then turned his attention back to the whiskey. He did not respond to her and did not hear her footsteps creek as she went back up the stairs. Sighing, he grabbed himself a glass and went to the doorway into the living area. He found a spot on the couch and placed his glass on the coffee table in front of himself. His eyes stayed transfixed on the cold embers of the fireplace in front of him, but he managed to pour himself a double shot without spilling.<br/><br/>Maybe he was crazy as his family had said. It could have been stress from the bills he constantly struggled to get paid. His thoughts were faint and it had felt like a mere minute had passed, but as his eyes gazed up at the clock on the wall, he realized it had already been nearly two and a half hours since he had sat down. Looking back to his bottle, it was nearly finished, but his eyes did not cease there for they wandered down to his shot glass and then stopped at a gun that was not there before, perfectly placed beside his empty glass. The man took the last bit of the whiskey straight from the bottle then with ease, picked up the gun as he stood up.<br/><br/><div align="center">*****</div><br/>He was confused, lost for a moment of what was happening around him. The voices at first made no sense, but as he slowly became more aware, the man realized he was standing in his bedroom beside his bed. A group of cops gathered at the entrance of the door, guns pointed at his general direction. Their voices were muffled at first, but soon became quite clear.<br/><br/>"Sir! Put down the gun! If I have to repeat myself a final time I will open fire!" a kneeling cop repeated to him. The man looked at the other cops and then looked at the gun in his hand at his side. As he became more alert he then dared to looked to the bed and to his horror there laid the corpses of his wife and youngest daughter in a red mess. The man began to tremble, his eyes began to water.<em>Oh god..what have I done?</em><br/><br/>"Sir!" the cop said and cocked his gun before pointing it back at the man.<br/><br/>The man looked back to the cop and eyed his gun again. The whispers coming back to him.<em>The gun..shoot it</em>.. they told him among the unknown words. He looked to the cops and then spotted the very familiar smoke at the corner of his room. Against his temptation, he lifted his gun toward the corner, but he was too weak to shoot at it. Pulling together the rest of his strength the man lifted the gun higher and pointed it at his own head. "Forgive me, father for I have sinned."<br/><br/>He pulled the trigger and the last he heard was the whispers in his head.<br/><br/><hr/><br/><div align="center"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Present</strong></span>...</div><br/><hr/><br/>There sat a grand house that could not be sold. As time passed, the paint chipped and the wood slowly began to rot. The green grass dried up and the front windows smashed in by reckless teenagers. The slightest of breezes made the house creek and groan. Not many dared to come too close to such a place with such a foul history and soon even the truth became exaggerated.<br/><br/>The bad spirits seemly became dormant if not gone away, but some have stated to have seen things move across the broken windows. The history kept everyone away, but every so often a brave soul would venture to this place in hopes of finding something paranormal and it was days like these that stirred that of which should not.<br/><br/>Months soon turned to years and a spirit grew restless within the house. The darker presence laid asleep within the confines of the basement, but two other spirits wandered the rest of the house. There wasn't much to do and soon these two spirits were turning upon each other. One was only ten inches in height and though seemingly small, this one had in fact been the seed of most of the history of the house, even though nearly all the credit was given to the one that resided in the basement. The other spirit was even smaller, only reaching a mere three inches, and by no means did this one have any sort of respect by the taller one for it was only a tool for the presence in the basement.<br/><br/>With such distaste in one another, the taller one created a game of cat and mouse so to speak. This spirit was female and she was quite deceiving in more than one way. Her features were that of something that could easily be mistaken as innocent. Though she resembled a reptile with angelic wings, she was indeed a demon of greed and foul play. She did not like the smaller spirit reaching only three inches. It wasn't that fact that he was a fairy, but he was dirty and was quite the snitch. Musashi always dreamed of taking the energy they had received from humans for herself, but that damned fairy always made it impossible. She was no match for the one that stayed down below and having to give up the negative energy was preventing any such hopes in taking over.<br/><br/>When the years had passed and the spirit beneath Musashi's paws began to fall into a slumber, she decided it was time for a change. Who would stop her from taking over now? And so began her game with the fairy.<br/><br/>He was fast, but Musashi was smart and always blocked his way to get to the master of the house. It took a long time before the cat was finally able to take down the rat, and how good it felt. The demon had laughed herself mad as she clutched the fairy's corpse in her grubby paws. His blood running over her white scales and oozing down upon the floor beneath her. Now with the snitch out of the way and the master still fast asleep, it was time for Musashi to escape the nest.<br/><br/>Perhaps in her paranoia of the master finding the corpse caused her to keep the fairy's body. Perhaps it was a prize she felt she had won; a trophy to keep in triumph of being able to finally be free of the clutches of her master. For whatever the true reason was, Musashi never released the body of her enemy and kept it close as she casually wobbled on hind legs to the staircase. Standing at the wall beneath them, she reached up at it and with a small claw, she traced the groove of one of the wooden planks. As her hand moved down, a faint glow followed her trail until Musashi touched the floor. The glow brightened and the wall began to move aside revealing a small passage way, it's entrance reaching four feet.<br/><br/>The demon looked around and then stared at the corpse in her hands. Quickly she placed the body into her mouth and swallowed it whole. Returning to her natural position on all fours, the demon silently entered the dark passage. Almost immediately she was greeted with stairs that led down. Taking her time, She began her decent downward and the entrance behind her shut to leave her in complete darkness. Musashi knew of this place all too well and could find her way around without the use of her eyes and in knowing so, she closed them to prevent the eerie glow of her eyes to be seen. She was sneaking after all and did not wish to wake the one within this dark and rather moist place.<br/><br/>Stretching out her wings, Musashi stood on hind legs and lightly gave herself a push off the stairs to glide across the room. Though she did run straight into the wall, this did not surprise her and she allowed herself to fall the rest of the way down. Luckily she was prepared and did have her hands out in front of herself, otherwise the noise might have woken up her master. Slightly opening an eye, the creature looked around a moment then darted to the corner of the room toward a pile of rubble. Feeling her way up the pile of stones and brick, she maneuvered her way past the wall and into a small area. Here she could open her eyes without being seen.<br/><br/>Musashi gazed at the soft dirt before her and circled around it several times before creeping toward the center. Her paw dug lightly at the small hole before she allowed her head to push past the aperture<br/>. Closing her eyes and dislocating her shoulders, she forced herself deeper into the ground until nothing was left in the open. It wasn't long before the dirt had eroded away and musashi's head was greeted by a familiar heat. As she opened her green eyes, the demon was nearly blinded by a brilliant orange light. Wiggling and clawing at the rock that surrounded her midsection, Musashi fell and landed roughly on the hardened ground before her.<br/><br/>Her ears twitched and her nose tingled as she quickly relocated her shoulders and sat up. She looked up to where she had fallen and then to her surroundings. It was a long time since she last visited her birthplace. The demon had fallen out from the side of a cliff and the ground that she felt beneath her was warm and cracked. Smoke seeped through the many cracks in the rock around her and fire rose up to touch the black sky only to fail and fall back down. Musashi would take note of this spot for a time she would need to go back through the way she came, but for now..it was time to remember why she left in the first place.<br/><br/>Stretching her arms out across the ground she lifted her hind legs, her long tail rising as far as it would go. As she stood back on all fours she regurgitated the corpse she had swallowed earlier and stared at it in awe. Placing the fairy's midsection into her mouth she lowered her body and scurried across the plain to explore this forgotten part of her early life.