Oddity Specialist: World Of The Occult

by James Courneya

  “How do we know where the center is?”

  “It’s in the cave you found me in.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I caused it.”

  Lucifer looks out with a distant stare. “I don’t know how to reply to that.”

  Neri raises her hand.

  “Uh, yes?”

  “Do they know what’s causing it?”

  Lucifer quickly lets his statement out.

  “She doesn’t need to know that.”

  Quinn feeling slightly bad about it, says.

  “They don’t think the reason matters.”

  “Hmm.”

  “You said earlier it was spreading? How far can it spread?”

  “Probably about the size of the city.”

  “And everyone’s emotions would get connected together then.”

  “Indeed.”

  “How do we deactivate it?”

  “Get me close to the core, I’ll shut it from there.”

  “Okay, I understand.”

  Quinn starts to get up to leave, but is stopped.

  “There’s just one problem left.”

  “That would be?”

  “I don’t think you alone would be enough, to push through the deeper part of the void.”

  Quinn transfers this last statement, Neri then turns to the general direction Quinn was looking at.

  “Question then.”

  Lucifer sits stone-faced.

  “What would happen if I went in as well?”

  He glances to Quinn.

  “The void would stretch itself further, the more people are in it, meaning it would be easier to walk. If you don’t mess up controlling it, then as long as it’s limited to you and one other person, the emotional connection shouldn’t happen. With that said…”

  “Yes?”

  “Oddities have ways of pulling out tricks, in order to survive. It probably won’t be as simple as just walking in.”

  “We don’t have much of a choice, the longer we wait, the harder it’ll be to stop.”

  Neri leaps to her feet.

  “Then let’s take this oddity down.”

  Quinn stands up, keeping himself calm.

  “Then shall we head off?”

  Heading back to the invisible line, the three get ready to walk back in.

  “We need to get through here, before anyone else walks by.”

  Feeling a bit of pressure, Quinn tries focusing in and erasing that emotion. He takes a step in.

  The other two walk in as well and they start heading to the cave. Neri, while walking, is heavily concentrating on each step.

  “Every step, I can feel it getting harder to walk.”

  “Really? I can’t tell that much of a difference.”

  Lucifer, while examining his watch, says.

  “That’s because you aren’t observant enough.”

  Neri looks over to where Lucifer is standing, giving a quizzical look.

  “Yeah, that seems about right.”

  Lucifer turns around with a surprised expression.

  “Can you-”

  “No, I can’t see or hear you; but I can vaguely feel the slightest bit of emotion coming from you and also Quinn.”

  Lucifer turns to the boy.

  “Do a better job concealing those emotions of yours.”

  “I’ll try.”

  When they get to the cave entrance, they feel an immense amount of force pushing out of the cave.

  “It’ll just be like walking through a wind tunnel.”

  “I’ve not done that before, but it sounds simple enough.”

  As they step into the cave, both Quinn and Neri can feel a massive amount of pressure pushing onto their heads. Feeling as if their brains have been pushed out of their ears, things go blank, as the two of their conscious collide at high speed. In unison, they both think. “What’s happening?”

  Events flash by, halting on a particular sensation. Simultaneously, the thought is had. “Where am I?”

  Two long dark tunnels, have visions of a green open field at the end, each having their own angle of the field. Soon, the left tunnel light becomes blinding and overpowers the right one. Both of them think. “Oh, that’s right, on that day I- @#$%^& (01101101 01100101 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101101) had felt absolutely hopeless.”

  Sorry, but I, your trustworthy narrator, am giving my spot over to the boy, once again. I shall return soon though and my whimsical stylings shall gracefully take you on another wonderful trip, once more.

  It was a school trip, that a few students where on. We were spending some time on a camp ground. This was the day for our class before leaving and when also when the year below had shown up. We were cleaning up before we left and I had opted to head off on my own, to handle an area. I liked the idea of having a bit of time to myself, before leaving. This was the first mistake I had made that day, the second was stopping. Walking past one of the cabins where people would be staying, the open door didn’t catch my eye. We had left the door open plenty of times; but this time, it seemed like a few things had been dragged outside. Peeking in, I saw that things looked off, inside the building. I had gotten a bit closer and looked inside. To my surprise, the whole place was wrecked.

  “Hey, what are you doing?”

  Three girls had come by.

  “Uh.”

  I point at the room. Soon, one of the girls goes off to get the teacher.

  “You aren’t going anywhere.”

  And one of the other two was keeping me there. The long, brown haired teacher, arrives at the scene. She looks over the mess, with an angry panic. She then starts questing me. At this point, I’m a slightly put off by the hostile tone; but it’s not like there is any reason for them to actually think I did it. She then starts texting and calling other group leaders. Afterwards, the teacher speaks.

  “I was the last to leave here, fifteen minutes ago. In that time, only a handful of people were unaccounted for.”

  She looks at the small group. The main girl speaks up.

  “It couldn’t have been us; we were together the whole time.”

  “Yeah, we were just taking our time getting back.”

  The main girl then points at Quinn.

  “And when we got here, this dude was skulking around.”

  “I wasn’t; like I said, I just had finished cleaning up.”

  “All by yourself? Yeah right, you probably went off on your own, to come here and steal the girl’s stuff.”

  I could feel a great deal of agitation build up, at this point; but I had tried to stay cool. That was until, I had glanced at the teacher. “Why are you looking at me like that? As if what they’re saying is true?”

  Bap, bap, bap, bap.

  Having been looking at the ground, I slowly look up to where the noise was coming from. Seeing a soccer ball being juggled, by a person in soccer attire, who walks closer. As I scan up and the sun shines in my eyes once more, I see another girl, who I don’t know. Her purplish hair is in a ponytail and her violet eyes overlook the entire scene unfolding.

  “It seems like, you need help figuring something out.”

  Her eyes dart around the area, taking in every detail of her surroundings.

  “Something messed up the cabin and they think it might be you guys, because you were off on your own, messing around.”

  “Ah, sorry Neri, we lost track of time.”

  For some reason, they seem unsurprised by this immediate deduction, of what’s happening. Though at this moment, I’m not focused on that either. All I feel is this pit of desperation in my stomach. Unknowingly, I look up to the girl who had just arrived, searching, hoping for help. Though, I don’t expect anything. “It seems like you didn’t do it.”

  For a moment, it feels like the world pauses. Neri looks into the room.

  “Nothing but food was taken from in here.”

  The teacher, surprised, asks.

  “What makes you say that?” />
  “It’s clear looking at it.”

  She stops juggling the ball, slamming it into the ground, below her foot.

  “More than that, if you look around you can find small pieces of hair, left in here.”

  She walks in and grabs a piece of hair next to the door way.

  “If you look closely, you can tell it isn’t human hair.”

  The teacher, even more confused.

  “What are you-”

  “It seems like whoever did this, was a furry creature, rather than any human.”

  The teacher then takes the hair and with an animated facial expression, shouts.

  “Ah, they must have broken in here and done this. That makes sense. I’m glad we managed to sort this whole thing out.”

  Without having much time, to even think about what’s going on, I feel the source of pain lift off of my heart. The teacher heads off, to tell everyone else what happened.

  “Uh, sorry.”

  “No problem.”

  The girl who had accused me had given a curt apologize and immediately started heading off, with the other two short behind her.

  “We shouldn’t be even later, to practice.”

  “Good girls.”

  I turn to the girl, who had bailed me out.

  “t-Thank you.”

  “Hm? Oh, no problem.”

  “I can’t believe you figured it out so easily.”

  “Oh that, no that wasn’t as impressive as it seemed. I mean, I already had the answer going in, after all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I knew it couldn’t be any of you, so if it wasn’t a person, the answer was obvious. I just looked out, to see what was taken and checked for clues. It was really quite simple.”

  Huh.

  “How did you know it wasn’t any of us, though?”

  “That’s also really simple.”

  She looks at the girls walking away.

  “They might be a bunch of idiots, but there my idiots. So, of course I’m going to trust my team.”

  She then turns back to me with a big smile.

  “And you had told me really directly, that you didn’t do it.”

  We sit in silence for a moment. Wanting to break silence I speak, but as I do, so does she.

  “I just wish the teacher had kept the door shut.” | “Teach should really be more careful.”

  We both look at each other. “That’s how we met.”

  Snapping back to reality, the two exit their daze. Both breathing heavily, they look at each other.

  “What happened to you two?”

  Lucifer doesn’t get a reply, instead Quinn and Neri just give each other a knowing look. Understanding they had both seen the same events unfold and that this probably won’t be the last time it happens, they push deeper in.

  “Fine, don’t tell me.”

  Every few steps, a new memory flashes through both their minds. Each one being an event they both experienced. “I’m getting both of our perspectives, though it seems to focus in on one of them at a time. Most likely, the one who was feeling the most emotion, at that moment in time.”

  Quinn starts to feel off, as both of them realize their minds and thoughts are synchronizing. “Calm down.”

  “Just a little bit more.”

  “Yeah, this isn’t even hard.”

  Both them keep walking, as they get closer, they see the core. An almost black hole type of object, but instead of sucking in light, it’s ejecting out color. “It’s uncomfortable to be synced like this. Though, we haven’t thought about anything we wouldn’t want the other to know yet- Oh no.”

  “If she finds” | “He’ll find”

  “out that I-”

  The events of this morning, begin to play. Things from Quinn’s perspective, staying mostly unchanged. As soon as the text is received, it switches to Neri’s. Her excitement thinking about what the new potential adventure could be, is enough to completely take over the focus, of the void connection. She thinks over potential possibilities on her own, eagerly awaiting Quinn’s arrival. That excitement quickly goes out the window, when he explains what’s been happening with him. A burst of emotion consumes Quinn. Feeling like he is drowning, being kept down by the weight of resentfulness. “What is this feeling? I don’t understand.”

  That is, until another one of the girl’s thoughts, enters his head. “Why him?”

  That’s when it clicks into place. “Oh, this is jealousy. Mixed with a bit of contempt and anger.”

  Thoughts of. “Why does he have these powers?”

  And. “Why doesn’t he appreciate them?”

  Keep swelling around, each one stacking up inside of the boy, until he snaps.

  “What do you mean?!”

  Quinn yells out at Neri, who has an incredibly distraught, apologetic look. However, Quinn’s own emotions have swirled out and have been shared with the girl. Both of them are mad now.

  “It means what I thought. It’s not fair you got gifted these powers and I didn’t.”

  “Powers? This is a curse! Do you even begin to understand the pain these have brought me?!”

  Memories of people getting hurt, the severe guilt that he had felt in each of those moment, all inject themselves into the girl. These, mixed with her strong sense of pride, cause a ripple of sorrow to paralyzes the two of them.

  “You two get yourselves together.”

  Neither are able to function properly, as each other’s emotions cause adverse effects on each other’s mental states.

  “Quinn, think about your mother.”

  Lucifer stands in front the boy, staring directly into his eyes. “What?”

  As the flash of confusion allows for this request to be done, for an incredibly brief moment, the man’s plan has been set underway. An image begins to form, respect, admiration, love all directed at a figure Quinn can’t place, exactly. This soon subsides and the thoughts on what had been happening, return. “We have to do something.”

  Once more, both think in unison. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know I shouldn’t feel this way, about what happened.”

  “No, I shouldn’t have snapped at you. You can’t control how you feel and I understand how you view things is different than how I do.”

  “Even with that being the case-”

  “There is still something-

  “We both want to do-”

  “In this moment.”

  They both start pushing in towards the core. “We’re almost there, just don’t think. Just don’t think. Just don’t think.”

  Pushing with all his might, Quinn takes one more step. When he does this, Lucifer walks up to the core, grasping it. “It feels like the void is collapsing.”

  The two look at each other and as colors illuminate the cave, Neri gives out a bright smile. Quinn’s heart skips a beat. “Uh-oh.”

  As if on que, the void collapses in on itself and then scatters. Quinn, feeling his emotions are his own, can also feel a sense of immense anxiety. “Did she, feel that, last part.”

  Neri, unflinching, raises her arm for a fist bump.

  “We did it!”

  “y-Yeah.”

  Quinn returns the fist bump. “It… Doesn’t seem like she did. Right? Oh, god… This will keep me up at night, until the day I die.”

  “Hm?”

  Quinn looks over to Lucifer, who is staring up at nothing in particular, with a melancholic look.

  “You okay?”

  “… I am the king of despair, waiting for none existence to take me away, fueled only by the thought revenge. All in all, I’m the same as I ever have been.”

  For a moment, Quinn wonders. “Did the void space truly close? Because I swear, for a moment, I could still feel his sadness.”

  Chapter 10: Partners

  “Hm.”

  Having answered the door bell, Quinn is staring blankly down at the thing, standing in his doorway.

  “Uh, hello.”

  Standing t
here was a three-foot-tall, red man, in a suit. A wide round head, with long thin, pultruding ears, rectangular, lateral pupils inside amber irises and slits where his nose should be. The man looks to the side of Quinn and speaks.

  “I see you’ve been better.”

  “I could say the same to you.”

  Lucifer is looking down at the little man.

  “Why yes, you could.”

  The demon walks right into Quinn’s house.

  “Uh.”

  “I knew I’d find you here, you always wound up back here.”

  “And you came all this way, to visit little old me?”

  “Stop trying to play this off, L̴̢̟̱͖͇̘͈͔͒̑̃̍̕͜ͅǘ̶̧̢̡̺̼͍̼̦̟̉̉̊̾̐̈̓́ͅc̵̨͓̳̱̞̟̫̙̦̾̉̔̈̀͒̈́̌̿͝î̵̝͈̺̗̆͋͗͆f̵͓̰͕̻͙̀͛͂̅̓͋̀͋̏̕ͅe̷̩̦̝̥͊͌̑̒̚͜ř̷̡̝͎͖͖̩̉̂͆̆͘.”

  “Yes well, it is what I do. Can’t fault me for it.”

  “ᖻᓍᑘᖇ ᖽᐸᓰᘉ.”

  Quinn looks down at the little demon.

  “Excuse me, but can we quickly move out of here and while I’m at it, can we keep the conversation in English, please?”

  The demon looks away from Quinn, back to Lucifer.

  “What’s wrong with this retainer of yours?”

  “I haven’t got around to training him properly, yet. You’ll have to excuse his rowdy behavior.”

  “Hm.”

  Quinn leads the demon to his room. “I hope no one can see this thing.”

  “Sir, do you have any idea, what hell has been like since you left? It’s been a disaster, far worse than usual.”

  “Sounds like a good thing for hell.”

  “It is an administrative nightmare down there. I swear, if I have to deal with one more early morning uprising, I’m going to kill something.”

  “An awfully challenging thing to do, while in hell.”

  “I’d figure it out.”

  “Always an innovator.”

  “I come here, thinking I was going to find you slacking off as usual; but to my udder dismay, it was far more unreasonable of a thing then I could have ever imagined. How did you go and lose your power?”

  “You know, this and that happened. Whoops, there goes my power and I’m on the verge of nonexistence. Typical thing as you know.”

  “Typical? Maybe for an imp or a cambion. But for the ruler of the underworld? This level of absurdity is far across the line!”