Sunshine really, really doesn't feel okay. She's really — she's really upset. It throbs in her chest and poisons her mind and God, she can't get away from it, she can't get away from any of it. How did she go from being a normal, haunted (as normal as that can be) teenage girl to — to being a cultist?

And now she has to decide whether or not she wants to be sacrificed or have a demon-possessed mother for the rest of her life. Good options, right? Ugh. Why couldn't Kat have just sacrificed her when she was a young child?

Maybe she should write down the pros and cons of each option.

Sunshine grits her teeth. She's annoyed. Part — part of a cult? Really? That's what her life has come to? A cult? A demon? Seriously.

Oh. Victoria's test — it'll apparently help Sunshine face the truth of the situation. As if it isn't horrible enough. She's gonna try and give her mother the test as soon as possible, whenever she really can.

She's a little comforted that shit like this really exists, so perhaps she's not the only one with a possessed mom.

Sigh. She really needs the medium back. She believes Alistair now — maybe he'll come back by, or give her some words of wisdom and share advice on what to do. Unlike LeMaster.

Yeah. That's a good idea. She should call him.

Sunshine purses her lips and flips out her phone, dialing the number. The ring muffles the speakers and tingles her senses and she grunts. She'll be pretty annoyed if he doesn't pick up. She wonders if he'll know it's her calling.

A woman's voice splutters through. "Hello?"

She perks. "Hi! Is... Alistair there?"

There's a drawn silence before the woman speaks again. Her voice breaks. "No. Alistair is not, here, um —" The woman crackles through the phone, voice low, raspy, and dripping with emotion. "..who is this..?"

"Sunshine," she answers, biting the inside of her cheek.

"Oh, Sunshine, um —" The woman breathes in and cries out. "I'm sorry, I don't know how to tell you this but.. Alistair... passed away yesterday."

Blood. It runs in her ears, pushing away any other thoughts. It drowns Sunshine in a pit of darkness that she can't seem to crawl her way out of. Her eyes widen and she chokes. "He — he what?"

A sniff. "Alistair's gone. He — he said that, that all of the hauntings you had told him about, and everything he had seen with you, it — it was just, it was just too much."

Sunshine begins to shake.

"I've actually never seen him like that," the woman croaks. "He — he couldn't sleep, so he started taking sleeping pills because he was having nightmares, and.." The woman sobs. "He took too many. And, he, he's gone now."

Sunshine tries to return a heartfelt apology but she keeps speaking. "And I must tell you, you, you need to be careful, that's what he said, that you need to be careful. Please please be careful."

She doesn't have an answer. Any words die down in her throat. Sunshine closes her eyes and pinches her nose, gasping in. "I — I'm sorry, I have to go, I'm sorry for your loss, I — goodbye."

She hangs up the phone and the beep rumbles in her ears. A horrible, sickening feeling wrenches itself between her chest and grasps at her heart with curled, bony fingers. Sunshine cries out and falls to her knees, hands flattening over the carpet. The darkness consumes her mind and tears her open. Blood welts from her skin and she pierces her palms with her nails and sobs and sobs and sobs.

He died. He died. He died. He died. Because of her. Because Sunshine had convinced him to come. Because Sunshine hadn't believed him and had let all of this happen. It's all her fault.

Everything is too much right now. She can't breathe. Her lungs ache with each breath and the oxygen is hardly filtering through her chapped lips. Sunshine drops the phone and drags herself forward, head falling on her arms. She curls up and the tears flow freely down her cheeks. Her gaze is blurry, clouded and everything looks like painted streaks along her vision.

"No," she moans, knocking herself in the head with her fist. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It's all because of you. You let this happen. What — how — how did this happen? How did I let this happen? God, I can't believe Alistair is dead. He's dead. I let it happen. I should've done something sooner. I should have.

Sunshine — she hasn't cried this hard in a long, long time. Everything is consuming her up and any hope is spit out and crushed. Her mother is practically gone. Might as well be dead. She's not close enough to Victoria to feel any comfort from the woman. She — she doesn't have anyone. Her father — what if, what if that man at the house had been him? What if Sunshine's own dad had tried to kill her?

It hurts. It burns her heart and smolders it like crackling embers. She reminisces on her childhood. Of her old home, before all of this happened, back to when she awas little. Running through the green fields, honey sunlight pooling down on her, shattering the sky with beams of light. The shadows hadn't consumed her then. She'd been happy. Now it's all a facade. A mask. She can't worry her viewers any more than they already are. She has to keep this to herself for as long as she possible can.

Losing her mother like this — it's taken its toll. Sunshine can't see the familiar, humorous reflection in her mom's eyes anymore. They're blank and dark, like something sinister swirls below. Maybe something does. Kat hasn't been okay for weeks. Sunshine's tried her best to deny it, but — but she can't anymore. It's time she faces the truth and bites the bullet. Victoria is right. She has to save her mother, the house, herself. Sunshine can't go on like this. Not with the fear, with the strangling agony, with the anger and the rage bubbling deep underneath her chest.

She needs to bring her mother back. She needs things to go back to normal. Maybe the only way to do that is with this test. With this sacrifice. If Victoria can keep the demon away, then everything will be okay. Right? She — she really hopes so. But even if not, Sunshine has to try. She must. It's her last hope.

It's time to open her eyes.
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Two days later. Two days pass with thinking and wondering and brooding. She's a little embarrassed she lost herself like that when she found out that Alistair died, but she.. she's okay now. She's doing better, somehow. Getting all of those emotions out — it helped. It's helping. Maybe crying isn't so bad after all.

Now, she's decided that she's going to give her mother the test. Like, right now. This is her last hope. And if her mother isn't possessed then Sunshine will really be more worried.

But without LeMaster here, and with the medium.. dead.. there's no one else to go to. She has to trust Victoria. She must.

"Hey mom," she calls, perched in one of the living room chairs with her hair tied back, a white bow in her tangled. "Will you come here?"

Her mother walks out of the kitchen, wearing a long-sleeved blue shirt and jeans. "Hm?"

"Well, there's this like, game thing that we learned in school and I thought it'd be fun to try." Sunshine looks up as Kat swishes her arms around.

"A game thing?" she asks dubiously.

"Yeah," Sunshine chirps.

"What do I have to do?" Her mother's voice seems lighter than usual. Maybe she's fine. Maybe Sunshine is overreacting to the situation.

Or maybe she's not.

"Just, umm —" She slides paper and a pen towards Kat. "Write on this piece of paper."

"Write, what do I write, a love letter?" Sunshine chuckles but can't ignore the weird vibes she's getting from her mother right now. Like this — like she's not being truthful, or real, or like the demon only comes out when it wants to. Maybe it hasn't truly shown itself yet.

"No," Sunshine says, "it's like a — a game, like.."

"Like MASH?"

"Yeah, like MASH, sure." She purses her lips.

"Am I gonna find out who my husband is?" Kat grins.

"Yeah," Sunshine laughs. "Okay, you ready?"

"I'm tired of being alone~"

She raises a brow. "Are you ready now?"

"Oh, yes." Kat perches the pen between her fingers and lifts her hand over the paper in wait.

"Okay, so the first line is — just try to write the whole thing. It's — it's easy.." Sunshine bites her lip, unsure if she should say it. Will her mother believe — or, or will the demon believe this is actually a 'school game'?

Kat scoffs. "Yeah, how hard can it be? Alright, what am I writing?"

"To this world's end," she begins, blinking down at her phone and the lines she's reading from the possession test.

"Is this gonna be Latin or something?" Kat begins to write.

"No." Sunshine rolls her eyes, but feels like a rock is sinking into her belly. Anticipation and — and fear.

"Okay," her mother quips when she's finished writing the first sentence.

"Next line.."

"Mhm."

"I am me and me alone."

Her mother is silent for a moment. "So, I just.. write that right here?"

"Yeah." Sunshine watches Kat intently, eyes trailed on her hand. She laughs to play it off, hoping her mother is just being dumb. "Really easy."

"Waiting for the complicated part, okay." Kat begins writing in larger lettering. "I.. what is it?"

"I am me." She narrows her gaze. "And me alone."

Her mother writes slower and slower, and the words seem to jutter off the page. Since when has Kat had such — such large handwriting? "Okay.."

"And the last — err, there's two more, sorry — next one is With faith.." Sunshine glances up at her mother's stare, a confused expression but.. it's laced with something darker. Something knowing.

"Kay, what?"

"It's just With faith, Mom."

"Okay." Her mother looks down and her hands curl around the pen tightly. She presses down on the paper with the entire force of her hand. The letters become shaky and largely curl outward. It's almost like she can't write it. Kat keeps ripping her hand off of the page and hesitating, before returning to writing the sentence.

Sunshine's afraid the paper's gonna tear in half.

Her mother breathes out and pulls the pen closer. "Okay, what?"

"It's — it's the same thing, Mom. With faith." Her voice shakes and her throat begins to burn. Sunshine forces the tears down. "You can do it."

Her mother sighs. "It — it's like a, a joke?"

"No." Sunshine forces herself to chuckle. "You're fine. It's just part of it."

Kat places her other hand on her wrist, twisting the bones underneath cruelly.

"Mom.." Sunshine stares at the pen that's being forcefully slammed down on the paper. She can hardly write.

"I don't understand," Kat whispers in a soft, raspy breath. She is able to finish the words, but her hand is trembling and her knuckles are turning white. Veins are popping out from her clenched arms. It's scary. Terrifying.

"And the last line," Sunshine murmurs tentatively, "is I cast out all who possess me."

Kat's hand begins to shake violently, tremors running up and down her flesh.

"Mom?" She blinks up at Kat. Unless, unless this isn't Kat anymore. This could be the demon to, the demon she's talking to right now. Sunshine repeats the sentence, the final one, and prays her mother can finish it. She loses most of her hope when Kat's 'I' slides downward and off the page.

Her mother drops the pen and holds her wrist close to her chest, breathing harshly. "Mom. Finish." Her voice is hard, but Sunshine is pleading. She needs her mother to do this.

"No." Kat's voice comes out small.

"Mom."

Her mother runs her hands down her pants and rubs her palms together.

"Mom. Mom, you can do it." She laughs nervously.

"I can't." Her words are croaky and Sunshine, she, she can't even hear her mother in there. It's not her mother. It's not.

"Mom, yes you can." A desperate edge slithers into her words.

"I think I.." Kat chokes on the air. "I think you have to write it." She pushes the paper away.

"Mom, I can't. You have to finish."

"I don't think I can." Her mother jumps up and rushes around the table, back to the kitchen and to the foot of the stairs. "I'm sorry."

"Mom!" Sunshine watches as Kat walks away, footsteps receding into the distance. She slowly reaches for the paper and pulls it forward, eyes watery. The sentences — they just, you can see that she struggled, you can see the way the pen pressed and the way her hand slipped with each word.

She cries.

well. now we know who's possessed