In trying to solve the case of a missing teenage girl, the police stumble upon a decades old mystery guarded by a creature made of smoke.

————

The long, narrow peninsula known as Kill Devil's Lair, was a forgotten stretch of rural countryside surrounded by a body of fresh water known as Hutton's Bay. Relatively untouched by civilization and rumored to be haunted by a legendary creature known as the Dim Vrag, it was a place you were wise to stay far away from, unless you wanted to vanish and never be seen again.

Located at the northern tip of the peninsula, about thirty-five miles from the nearest town was the infamous, Kill Devil's Farm. Now little more than 150 acres of overgrown fields pot marked with rusted vehicles, dilapidated wooden structures and mountains of discarded rubble built up over the passing decades, the one hundred and seventy-five-year-old farm was about as obscure a place as one could get from the rest of the world, with only a single county road dead ending at the edge of its gravel driveway.

For those who lived within the shadow of all this, the Mystery of the Missing was an inescapable tale that continued to grow over generations, as did the number of missing people per year and yet the local authorities had seemingly grown accustomed to cases turning cold on their desks.

In all fairness, however, people disappearing into thin air was nothing new in these parts. Local Indian tribes had for centuries told fantastical tales of a demon known as the Smoldering Devil that would take individuals and entire families, never to be seen again. Now that the modern era had finally arrived, with all the technology that came with it, it was only natural for one to think that the Mystery of the Missing would become a thing of the past, but that was not to be the case.

Throughout the twentieth century, the mystery would only continue to grow, oddly enough, because of technology. Not only had it become increasingly harder to explain how so many victims could easily disappear with cameras and other ways to track one's movements virtually everywhere, but the mainstream media had gotten to the point where news of such disappearances could travel further, faster. In later years, with the rise of social media, anybody with an opinion, theory or a remote interest in the mystery could easily go online and further highlight or exploit the tales of the missing to the entire world.

The case that would capture the most attention locally, however, and the one that authorities would finally take seriously enough to do something about, was that of the Porter family. A well-liked husband and wife who mysteriously vanished into thin air, along with their very popular 15-year-old daughter, Mary, while on a trip to take her to play in the state championship soccer game.

Under pressure to get to the bottom of the mystery, the state police launched OPERATION: RECOVERY in an effort to try and find answers to what happened to Mary, her parents and anyone else who went missing in the past. Unsure just where to begin, the governor authorized funding for all counties to take part in the special task force and by the first anniversary of the Porter family disappearance, the investigation was up and running, but meaningful leads of any kind would be frustratingly elusive.

By the sixth month of the Task Force's creation, however, not a single solid piece of evidence had been uncovered, even after thousands of invested man-hours and nearly two million dollars of tax payer money spent. Having investigated hundreds of leads in search of the missing and with nothing positive to show for it, the writing was on the wall, OPERATION: RECOVERY was nearing the end.

Then..., when all seemed hopeless, a miracle occurred.

While out conducting arial surveys on the peninsula using drones to track a rare bird species over the Kill Devil's Farm property, employees from the state's Fish, Game and Wildlife Office, stumbled upon a huge breakthrough in the Porter family case. Their white Ford Explorer, which had also gone missing with them at the time, was unexpectedly found lying on its passenger side in the middle of a cornfield. The license plates on it positively identified its owners, but just how it ended up nearly 94 miles from where the family was last seen was anyone's guess.

Upon this discovery, the authorities in charge of the investigation quickly determined that something more nefarious than first suspected might be going on. After much planning and careful consideration, the decision was made to surveil Kill Devil's Farm from a distance.

Over the course of two weeks, the police quickly set up an extensive round the clock operation, secretly monitoring the activity on the farm. Using multiple spy drones, planes and high-powered cameras to photograph and videotape everything, it wasn't long before the Mystery of the Missing began to unravel. Soon after, vehicles belonging to owners who vanished decades before were now being found scattered across the vast 150 acres of property.

But of all the eyebrow raising things found on the farm from afar, and the one thing that left the authorities scratching their collective heads about, was the shocking discovery of a mysterious black hole in the middle of the cornfields with hundreds of skeletal remains scattered around it. Using drones to get a closer look of this peculiar anomaly, the hole was found to be at least 145 ft in circumference with a undetermined depth. Quite certainly, a sinkhole was the going theory.

And the bones surrounding it....

almost all of them human....

Sixty-seven skulls and counting.

---

It was on the 13th day of the investigation, however, that everything suddenly changed on a dime. Video footage taken from a drone 24 hours earlier, had without a doubt, captured images of Mary Porter still alive and seemingly living alone in a rundown trailer at the end of the farm's long gravel driveway. Now two years older and the first of the Missing to ever be seen again, extracting her from the premises became the number one priority. Finding out what happened to her and her parents and where she had been for the last twenty-four months now held an even greater urgency in possibly solving the rest of the mystery.

---

Beneath the full moon in a starry sky, the night wind gently swept over the farm's massive cornfields, quietly rustling the dew laden leaves in noticeably visible waves as a slow-moving cold front pushed in from the north...

...but it did not come alone.

Traveling low to the ground, using the weather to hide its presence, something unearthly and foreboding moved around each and every cornstalk, bringing with it a creepy silence that slowly gripped the land. Though impossible to see with the naked eye, the nocturnal life that ceased to exist gave away its whereabouts, until nothing but the wind could be heard.

As the living gave way to the dying, a strange whirring hum began to emanate out of the night sky. Almost unnoticeably a dark flat object with four tiny red lights descended down to the ground from above the tree tops. While still several meters in the air, it then began to travel up the gravel driveway, towards a rusted mobile home before finally becoming stationary in front of it.

Beneath the large black drone, a small ball camera suddenly came to life. Rising forward, then swiveling slightly to the right, the lenses quickly zoomed in and out, as the remote-controlled device hovered in place. Focusing on the trailer, the camera panned left along the side of it, searching for signs of someone living there, but there was nothing to be found.

After about a minute, the drone descended even more, stopping to within ten feet of the ground. Then gliding ever so slowly forward, it moved in closer towards a window by the front door. It was about a yard away, when a small spotlight just below the camera suddenly ignited, casting an intense beam of white light down onto the wooden deck. As the drone inched nearer, it maneuvered the beam up the wall until it shown through the glass, illuminating the darkness inside.

While the drone was busy peering into the trailer, the front door to the left of it cracked open just a bit. Then slowly, it opened wider, until the glow of the spotlight revealed the dirty angelic face of a teenage girl.

"Hello?"

Mary softly spoke in a raspy voice to anyone that might be listening, but the loud hum of the rotors drowned her out. After looking hard to the right and then to the left, she side stepped barefoot out onto the wooden deck, covered head to toe in a heavy, filthy, tattered blanket. Wary of the spinning blades, she pushed against the front door of the trailer until it banged against the wooden railing behind it.

For the most part, Mary seemed healthy enough, considering she had been missing for over two years, but her mental and emotional state depended upon the atrocities she had suffer over the duration of her captivity. The girl standing on the deck, out in the dark, however, seemed like a fighter. It was the fire in her eyes that gave her away.

Keeping a watchful eye on the drone as it continued to look in through the window, she repeatedly glanced out into the darkness, seemingly afraid of something out there.

'Who was operating this piece of machinery,' she wondered. Was it the police? A Hunter? Did somebody finally find her after all this time? Most importantly..., was somebody here to rescue her? She could barely contain her fear and excitement.

Suddenly a change in the hum of the rotors quickly caught her attention. Whipping her head around, she spotted the drone backing away from the window and then turn towards her. In an instant, its bright spotlight engulfed her completely, causing her to immediately shield her eyes with her left hand. Seconds later, the drone lowered the beam down at the deck, as if in response to her reaction to the light.

With the spotlight no longer pointed at her, Mary slowly lowered her hand as the drone hovered in front of her nearly five feet away. It was the first time she had ever seen anything like this in her entire life, but she knew what it was. For several seconds they faced each other, motionless, until Mary lowered the blanket off of her head like a hood, revealing her long disheveled black hair underneath.

"My name is Mary Porter," she mouthed clearly into the camera as she spoke loudly over the hum of the rotors, but this time there was no sign of a response from the remotely operated craft. Not sure if she was even heard or seen, Mary quickly moistened the tip of her left index finger with her tongue before pressing it firmly onto the lens, leaving behind her fingerprint.

At that very moment, the spotlight on the drone switched off, immersing Mary back into total darkness again except for the glow of a lone street lamp approximately fifty feet away from the deck. Then without warning, the drone immediately rose up into the night sky, leaving Mary standing there alone watching it go until the four red lights vanished over the treetops.

---

Nearly a mile away, a large black truck parked deep in the woods, lay hidden from view beneath camouflage netting. Standing outside under the cover of darkness, a man in black carefully guided the drone down to the ground through an opening in the treetops.

As soon as the remote vehicle landed and its propellers came to a stop, the man grabbed a mic hanging from his vest and spoke directly into it.

"We have it."

Inside the truck, sitting in front of a computer monitor, another man was watching the final seconds of recorded video of Mary pressing her finger onto the lens, before pausing it. Pressing a button on the console in front of him, a second monitor turned on and a man in uniform appeared on the screen. Leaning in close to the camera, the man asked, "What do you got, Stevenson?"

Stevenson looked at his boss and replied, "I'm sending it over to you now. You're gonna wanna see this." After typing in a few things on the keyboard, he sat back in his chair and continued, "I think we should move at dawn."

---

Carefully making her way off of the deck, Mary stepped down onto the very last wooden plank that bowed under her weight. She had to be cautious. Over the course of her captivity she came to realize that she was on her on when it came to her health and hygiene and the last thing she needed was to step on a nail or get a splinter that could possibly lead to an infection.

Standing motionless on the bottom step, Mary scanned the darkness, searching for anything out of the ordinary. When she was confident that the coast was clear, she took her first step down onto the gravel driveway, doing her best to tuck the bottom ends of the heavy blanket under feet. With each and every step forward painful and arduous, she found herself stumbling many times, causing her to repeatedly drop to all fours, before rising back up to try again.

Moving ever so slowly across the sharp rocks, she struggled to make it over to a rusted water pump on the other side of the driveway which provided her with the only source of fresh water to drink from and bathe with. Sitting directly beneath the beam of a street lamp mounted on a telephone pole directly behind it, every night the pump beckoned to her, a washed in the angelic glow of the only working light on the entire farm, which had also become Mary's only source of comfort through long lonely nights.

Squatting down in front of the water pump, Mary quietly nestled up close to it, still covered by the blanket she had draped over her entire body. Placing her left hand on the handle that jutted out from the side, she was about to push down on it when she suddenly hesitated. Taking another long look around, she glanced to her right, then to her left and even behind, before finally pushing down hard on it.

After a couple of pumps, cold clear water began gushing forth from the pipe and Mary excitedly placed her mouth under the stream to drink her fill. Once her thirst had been satisfied, she worked the handle several more times to splash water on her face, under her arms and down her chest, while still hidden under the blanket.

As she bathed in the flowing water, she failed to notice two red spheres growing in brightness on the edge of the cornfield, in the distance, off to her right. Hovering just above the stalks, side by side, like a pair of eyes, a swirling funnel of grey mist soon began to rise up off the ground, like a mini tornado, until it met the fiery red orbs in the middle. Almost instantly a spinning vortex of smoke appeared behind them, expanding larger and larger in a counter clockwise rotation, until the funnel lifted off of the grass and became part of the Entity. Under the light of the full moon, it began to move from the cornfield as the growing circumference of smoke trailed behind it.

Unaware of what was closing in on her, Mary pumped out more water before placing her head under the stream to wet her shoulder length hair. After getting it totally saturated, she threw her head back, scooped it all together, then draped the entire length of it over the front of her left shoulder. Running her fingers through it to detangle the frayed ends, she closed her eyes as the night wind blew across her skin. It was while she was oblivious to everything around her, that the Entity silently moved up beside her and stopped. Tilting its 'face' towards her, it emitted a low rumbling, purring sound.

Mary instantly turned in terror. Having heard that horrific noise hundreds of times before, she let out a scream a split-second before the Entity smacked her backwards through the air with an invisible force. Landing naked with a thud on the sharp gravel driveway nearly eight feet away, she immediately felt the stinging of many cuts and abrasions from the back of her head to the heels of her feet. Although racked with pain and having had the wind knocked out of her, her only concern was finding the blanket to hide her nakedness from the entity.

Ignoring it as it moved towards her again, she raised her head and spotted the blanket just inches from her left hand. Swiftly rolling over onto her left side, she lunged out with her right hand to grab it, but the monster instantly ripped it from her grasp and threw it behind the pump.

Having nothing to hide behind, she cried out in terror as the twenty-five-foot-long funnel of ash colored smoke moved over top of her slender body. Although it hovered roughly three feet off the ground its entire length, she could still feel its icy cold touch pressing down on her as it slithered its way up to her face. Using its invisible force to grip her by her wrists and ankles, it forced her down onto the gravel, pinning her in place as it lowered its eyes to stare into her face.

For nearly two years since her abduction, this thing had assaulted her body with its grotesque touch at least two to three times a week as if to make clear to her, just who was in charge, but instead of breaking her spirit, it only made her more defiant. Filled with unbridled rage, she looked directly into its eyes and started repeatedly screaming, "I HATE YOU!!"

Purring once again, like it was pleased to hear her so angry, it levitated her upper body up off of the ground about two feet, then turned and carried her back over towards the water pump, forcing her heels to drag across the gravel as it did.

Being unable to move because of its supernatural hold on her, didn't stop Mary from trying to break free of its grip whenever it assaulted her and tonight was no exception. Cursing endless obscenities at it at the top of her lungs was her only way of fighting back and the hate she expressed when she did only helped her to get through each and every ordeal that she suffered.

When it got her back to the water pump, it dropped her down into the mud puddle she created when she tried to wash off. As she laid there on her back in several inches of water, still held down by its invisible force, it sadistically twisted her head to the right until her mouth and nose went below the surface. In doing so, it essentially shut her up and for a terrifying few seconds, Mary thought it had finally decided to kill her. Unable to break free, she felt her life slipping away until it released its hold and backed off of her.

Choking and gasping for air, she barely noticed the Entity dissipating into nothing right in front of her, leaving her once again an emotional wreck afterwards. Rolling over onto her right side, still lying in the puddle, she curled up into a fetal position and wept.

---

Dawn.

Flying high above the treetops that bordered the farm's entrance, the drone from several hours earlier was returning once

again as the spear tip to an active rescue operation, but it wasn't coming alone.

Hovering over the trailer at the end of the gravel driveway, it remained several hundred feet in the air to give those back at the command center a bird's eye view of the action on the ground as it happened live. With its camera pointed straight down, it zoomed in on the trailer below and immediately located a body lying under a blanket, outside on the wooden deck.

Wrapped up tight in her tattered blanket to stay warm, Mary was awakened from her slumber by the approach of a very loud vehicle coming up the driveway. The rumbling of its engines shattering the silence of such a quiet location gave away its arrival long before it ever came into view.

Wincing in pain, she sat up on the wooden deck, just in time to see a dark gray armored vehicle appearing from behind a wall of trees. As it came into view, she could hear its tires crushing the gravel beneath its weight as it came up the long driveway towards the trailer until it stopped in front of her about twenty feet away.

Not sure what to think, Mary barely had time to make eye contact with the driver when she noticed the back doors suddenly swing open on both sides and a dozen men dressed head to toe in body armor started rushing out with weapons at the ready. Fanning out evenly on both sides, the SWAT members quickly fell into a 'V' shape formation with the front of the armored vehicle acting as point.

Nervous by what she was seeing happening in front of her, Mary struggled to get up on her sore feet, but when the first two men outside the armored vehicle hurriedly rushed up the steps towards her, she panicked and backed up against the railing.

"What are you doing?! What are you doing?!" She cried out.

Without saying a word, each man marched up to her, grabbed her by the wrists and began pulling her off of the deck against her will. Fighting them every step of the way, while trying to keep the blanket wrapped around herself, she twisted and kicked at them screaming at them to let her go.

"Get outta here!!! It's gonna kill you!!!"

In their struggle to bring her down the steps, she slipped from their grasp when the bottom one broke under the weight of all three and she fell face first into the gravel driveway. As both officers stumbled off in opposite directions, Mary found herself once again naked on the ground, crying out in pain. Even though both sides of her body were now cut up by the sharp stones, she still kept trying to warn the men to save themselves.

"Go away!! It's gonna kill you!!"

Recovering from the stumble off of the steps, Officer John Simone, found himself momentarily startled by the girl lying naked on the ground in front of him. This scenario wasn't in the training manual and it caught him and everyone else off guard. Not wanting her to suffer anymore humiliation than she already had, he immediately slung his weapon back over his shoulder and glanced at his partner.

"The blanket."

Bending down on one knee, he quickly scooped the bloodied teenage girl up in his arms and held onto her tight as he lifted her up off the ground. Far from a damsel in distress, she punched and kicked at him, screaming at the top of her lungs, "Let go of me! It's gonna kill you! It's gonna kill all of you!!!"

Fighting to hold onto her as she squirmed to get down, he reassured her, "Miss, we're here to rescue you. Not to hurt you."

At that moment, the other officer threw the blanket over Mary, but she just continued shouting statements that weren't making any sense to him.

"It won't let me leave here!" She warned him. "Let me go!!"

Focusing all of his attention on getting her to safety as he hurried down the driver's side of the armored vehicle, he failed to notice a thin layer of smoke sweeping across the ground from every direction as it converged under it. He was halfway to the rear when a loud BANG exploded from the center of the vehicle, terrifying everyone around it.

Instinctively jumping away from the noise, John spun around with Mary still in his arms, just in time to see the surreal image of an unknown force violently crushing the armored car from the top down, until it was nothing but a mangled heap of twisted metal. Before anyone had time to process what they had just witnessed, the wreckage then catapulted to one side, rolling over four SWAT members standing on the passenger side of it when it suddenly summersaulted off into the cornfield.

Shocked by the mysterious phenomenon they had just bared witness to, the remaining officers stood motionless, watching the wreckage tumble out of sight as dark gray smoke trailed behind it. Within seconds, however, something else began to happen in front of them that immediately caught their attention. The smoke that had been rushing over their feet towards the cornfield had begun to gather together over the crushed bodies of their four dead friends, leaving them staring in disbelief as it began to take the shape of a large caterpillar-like creature. By the time they realized they were in danger, the Entity reared up like a king cobra, letting out a ghastly roar as it towered over them nearly fifteen feet in the air.

Backing away in retreat, they began shooting at the thing, not realizing their efforts were in vain. Bringing its 'head' down low to the ground, the Entity attacked with a raging fury as it swung itself side to side, letting those fiery red eyes lock on to one officer at a time. Starting with those closest to it first, it used its supernatural power to crush, rip and tear each one to pieces. Taking only mere seconds to turn the ground beneath it into a bright red blood bath littered with scattered body parts.

From high above, the drone captured everything as it unfolded, leaving those back at the command center watching in horror as the smoke monster laid waste to the SWAT team.

Terrified at the sight of his teammates being slaughtered and fearing for his life, John rushed over to a patch of grass near the water pump and practically dropped Mary out of his arms before spinning around to his left with his weapon raised..., but it was too late.

Having torn through the last team member on its way to him, the Entity smacked the gun out of his hands before he ever fired off a shot. Letting out a roar as it lunged forward, it slapped both Mary and John backwards through the air nearly ten feet. Landing on their assess, side by side in the soft grass, they barely had a chance to sit up as it moved towards them again.

Assuming he was about to die, John just closed his eyes and prayed,

"Remember me, Lord."

It was at that very moment, the Entity stopped and for a few brief seconds, John held his breath, waiting to feel himself being torn apart limb from limb. As his heart raced out of control, he hoped that death would be quick and merciful, but when nothing happened, he peeked.

To his horror, he found the creature right by his feet, floating about three feet off the ground. It was staring at him. Too afraid to move, he remained still. Then finally, after finding the courage to open his eyes, stared back at it.

It wasn't until he saw something move out the corner of his left eye, however, that he remembered Mary was beside him.

Too afraid to turn his head to look at her, he whispered, "What the fuck is it?"

After weighing through the possibilities, she replied,"I think it's the Angel of Death."

Glancing over at his dead buddies he asked the obvious. "Why hasn't it killed me yet?"

"I was kinda wondering that myself," she quipped.

Just then the Entity started inching closer and fear of it forced them to scoot backwards away from it. For Mary however, holding onto the blanket while trying to hide her nakedness was no easy task and with all the cuts and bruises on her body, it was a painful one at that.

"Where are your clothes?" John asked after noticing how desperately she was trying to keep herself covered up.

Breathing heavily, she explained, "It ripped them off of me two years ago. Right after it murdered my parents."

Backing into a wooden fence, they found themselves trapped with nowhere to go, allowing the Entity to get right up in their faces. Emitting a low growling sound as it focused its fiery red eyes on John, it used its power to grab him by the front of his bullet proof vest and slowly raise him off the ground by about two feet, pulling him so close, they were practically nose to nose.

In a panic, John turned his face away from it and instinctively reached out to to push it back, but his hands passed through it like nothing was there. That's when the monster threw him back against the fence before letting him drop to his ass.

Dumbfounded, he gasped, "What the fuck? It's just smoke?!"

"I don't know," Mary told him.

Staring at the Entity, John tried to figure out what it was doing. Why wasn't it killing him? Glancing over to her, he asked, "Why hasn't it killed me?"

"I don't know," she whispered, "but that's the only form I've seen it take".

"Why hasn't killed you?"

At first, Mary hesitated to answer. The disgust in saying what she truly believed out loud made her sick to her stomach. Finally, she groaned the words she loathed to say, "I think I gratify it."

John eyed her with pity. He couldn't even begin to imagine the horrors she must have endured over the last two years and the thought of her innocence being stolen made him furious.

"I'm sorry," he said with heartfelt empathy.

Mary looked at him and smiled. Her first human interaction in two years, even under these conditions, felt like a date. That's when she noticed a sparkle just under his collar. In taking a second look at it, she immediately realized he had a golden cross hanging around his neck.

"Are you a Christian?" She asked.

"What...?"

Suddenly the Entity roared with anger, striking fear into both of them. Ripping the blanket out of her hands, it picked her up and carried her off screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Nooooooooo!" John cried out.

Unable to do a damn thing about it, he watched helplessly from the fence as it carried her across the blood-soaked driveway and into the cornfield on the other side.

Angry and pissed off by the unexpected turn of events, he jumped to his feet and chased after the creature, but when he came upon the spot where the bodies of his friends were, he decided instead to look for a weapon he could use to hunt it down with, but finding one proved difficult amid the strewn guts and shredded body parts lying everywhere. After wading through the kill zone for nearly a minute, John stumbled out into the clear and dropped to his knees upon the gravel driveway. Falling forward onto his hands, he heaved violently several times, vomiting up breakfast from a few hours earlier.

Then he broke into tears.

For several minutes, John wailed in agony, doubled over in pain with the top of his head pushing down into the stones. Seething with rage, he repeatedly punched the ground crying out to GOD, "Why?!!!"

Several more minutes would pass before he would begin to quiet down again. During that time, almost unnoticeably, a moderate wind started blowing over him, bringing with it something that gently rubbed across the knuckles of his right hand. Feeling the sensation of something soft on his skin, he rose up to his knees to see. To his surprise, it was Mary's blanket rippling in the breeze on the ground beside him.

'Was this a sign?'

After wiping the dirt and tears from his face, he picked up the blanket and held it in his hands. Suddenly, memories of the last few minutes started racing through his mind. Him asking Mary why the creature didn't kill him and her asking him if he was a christian. Then he remembered the cross he was wearing around his neck. Reaching up with his right hand, he pulled it out of his shirt and held it between his thumb and forefinger.

That's when it occurred to him.

He wasn't alone.

He was walking with the LORD!!!

Looking into the direction the monster had taken Mary, he got up on his feet and turned towards the cornfield. For a moment he stood there, with his eyes closed, taking a deep breath as he felt the wind blow across his face. Then he whispered.

"Protect me FATHER."

Dropping the blanket, he opened his eyes, bit his bottom lip, then sprinted as fast as he could into the cornfield, following the path the monster had taken through it.

---

Kneeling carefully beside the edge of the mysterious opening in the ground, John stared down into the abyss, unable to see the bottom beyond the depth of about twenty feet. For reasons he could not understand, no sunlight seemed to penetrate any further than that.

'Maybe it was an optical illusion,' he thought.

Picking up a very old bleached white leg bone lying on the ground beside him, he tossed it into the hole. Not even a second after disappearing into the darkness, he heard the bone hitting bottom.

"Mary!" He shouted down into the void as his voice echoed back up at him. Impatiently he waited for a response, but there was only silence. He began to wonder if the creature had even brought her down into the pit at all. Frustrated by his feeling of helplessness, he took a deep breath and sighed. After several long seconds, he shouted out her name even louder than before.

"Mary!"

Again, his voice echoed up out of the void, followed by nothing else. Closing his eyes, John bowed his head and began speaking to GOD.

"Give me a sign, Lord," he whispered to himself. "Give me a sign. Any sign. Don't bring her this close to freedom, just to have it slip away from her."

At that very moment, Mary's screams echoed out of the darkness, sending a surge of adrenalin coursing through his body.

"Help is coming, Mary!"

Elated that he had found her, he immediately stood up and began searching for something he could use to get down into the hole. Zig zagging between rusted farm equipment and scattered skeletal remains, he scowered the tall grass, trying his best not to trip over hidden debris.

By chance, he happened upon a long, rusted chain lying in the weeds. Grabbing a section of it with both hands, he had to pull up hard on it to tear it free from the plant life that had grown up through the links. Spooling it into large loops that he held tightly in his left hand, he traced one end back to an old, grey wooden fence post, where it was already securely attached. Calculating that he had about fifty feet of length to work with, he turned back towards the opening fifteen feet away and tossed the rest of the chain down into it.

Stepping up to the ledge again, he leaned forward and looked down. Everything was ready. Picking up a few feet of chain, John twisted it into a small loop before pushing it through a hinged metal bracket that was part of his utility belt. Then turning away from the pit, he threw his left leg over the chain and pulled it taut around the back of his thigh. After tugging on the chain a couple of times to double check its sturdiness, he gently eased backwards over the ledge. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and whispered, "Give me strength in faith, LORD."

Controlling his fear, John worked his way over the edge and slowly started down the side wall, monitoring his surroundings and the area beneath him as he descended, one step at a time. Curiously the layer of darkness began to look more and more like water the closer he got to it. Pausing just above its surface layer, he took a moment to stomp the heel of his left boot down into it. Surprisingly, ripples spanned out across the width of it, but it wasn't water he was looking at. This was something he'd never seen before, just like the creature made of smoke. Obviously, both were connected somehow.

Easing himself down into it, he immediately detected a noticeable drop in temperature as his legs and waist sank beneath the darkness.

Almost instantly, he sensed a weirdness to the cold that seemed to penetrate into his very being, instead of through his clothes. As he submerged his head beneath the surface, he looked up into the sky and noticed the boundary between light and shadow moved like water when viewed from below. Now totally emersed in the cold dark, a sense of dread befell him. Clearly this was a place belonging to something evil.

Pausing again to find his courage, he closed his eyes and quietly began reciting the 23rd Psalm.

"The Lord is my Sheppard," he whispered. "I shall not want."

Moving several more feet further down the wall, he finally reached the bottom and continued with the prayer. "He maketh me lie down in green pastures: he leadeth beside the still waters."

Detaching himself from the chain, he quickly placed his back against the wall and uttered, "He restoreth my soul."

Suddenly, images of his friends being torn apart by the supernatural monster, began flooding his thoughts, causing him to shake and tremble at the idea of just what it was he was about to face off with. Clearing his mind, he focused on the Lord's Prayer.

"He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake."

Reaching into his vest pocket he quickly removed a tiny flashlight and ignited it. Aiming its beam into the darkest corners of the pit, it shockingly dawned on him. There really was a kind of darkness that, for all intents and purposes, even light couldn't penetrate.

Stepping away from the wall, he carefully made his way out into the center of the crater, which to him looked more like a sinkhole collapse. Tiptoeing around shifting debris, he climbed atop a large slab of rock and stopped for a moment to gaze up the brilliant blue sky above him. He hoped it was something he would get to see once again from above ground.

Feeling the warmth of the sun on his face, he closed his eyes and thought about the briefings he had sat in concerning the landscape of the farm. One of the biggest topics of discussion was this dark hole in the ground encircled by hundreds of skeletal remains. At the time it was thought to have been a flooded sinkhole, and he concurred, but now that he was standing in the center of it, beneath a pool of shimmering darkness, which also appeared to be the home of a demon made of smoke, he came to the realization that he was going to need to understand the world in a whole new light.

It was at that point that a very faint sound started catching his attention and whatever it was, it was slowly and steadily, growing louder. From his position on top of the flat rock in the center of the pit, it was difficult to pinpoint the source, because it was more than likely echoing back and forth off the walls.

Stepping back down onto the floor of the sinkhole, John stumbled, but as he did, he thought he saw something moving in the dark just off to his left. Turning to look, all he could see were twinkling yellow lights in the shadows, but the longer he stared, the more those twinkling lights looked like disembodied eyes and those eyes were now staring at him from the shadows on every wall.

To his horror it seemed that the more he became aware of them, the more they became aware of him and just like that he finally understood what it was he'd been hearing. It was the faint audible whispers of disembodied voices, repeating...

Kill...,

Die...,

Burn...,

Suffer.

The realization that he was surrounded by evil spirits sent ice water coursing through his veins. It must have been a trap, he thought. Sensing fear in him, they revealed themselves.

That's when he saw it again, movement right along the edges of where the dim sunlight met the heavy darkness. Not out the corner of his eye this time, but right there in front of him. To his horror, he could see the faint, ghostly shapes of beings surrounding him on all sides.

John immediately closed his eyes and continued praying the 23rd Psalms. As he did, the whispers instantly grew quiet.

"Mary!" He called out, "Mary! Where are you?!!

"Help me!"

Thankfully, her voice sounded very close. Pointing his flashlight into the direction from where he thought her voice had come from, he walked up to the curtain of darkness.

"Keep shouting Mary!"

Again, the disembodied voices began whispering and again he continued reciting the 23rd Psalms.

Taking a deep breath, John pushed forward into the icy cold dark with only a tiny beam from his flashlight to see by.

"Mary!"

As he crept deeper into the dripping tunnel, it began to stink like death and the floor of it felt like thick squishy paste over rock. Upon reaching a dead end, John called out to her again.

This time she answered him..., from behind.

Spinning around like a top, the beam of his flashlight fell upon Mary, suspended naked in the air with the Entity behind her. Its fiery red eyes piercing the darkness. While all around it, hundreds of faint glowing disembodied eyes appeared.

"I'm sorry," Mary cried out.

Under the flashlight's glow, John could see that Mary had a halo of smoke wrapped around her head where the creature had latched itself to her.

Crying, Mary tried hard to resist the beast that was using her as a puppet, but she was powerless against it. Hyperventilating from the struggle, she fought every word it forced her to say.

"It... wants me... to tell you... that it... that it... will never... let me go."

She continued crying.

"Unless...."

John hesitated to ask.

"Unless what?"

When she didn't answer him, he asked again. "Unless what?"

Kicking her legs and twisting her body, Mary screamed in agony as she fought to free herself from the invisible hold that the Entity had on her. Reaching her arms high above her head, she tried punching at the beast, even though she knew she couldn't hurt it.

"Unless what," John inquired a third time.

"Unless... unless... you... sac... rifice... your life... for mine," she wept. "It... will never... set me free."

Done using her as its puppet, the Entity dropped her with a thud onto the wet rocky floor of the cave, then it backed away several feet, as if to let John know he could approach her.

Rushing to Mary's side in the dark with only a flashlight to see by, he scooped her up into his arms once again as she continued to cry. As he carried her back to the dead-end of the tunnel, she tightly wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face against his shoulder, weeping.

Reaching the end of the tunnel, he turned and leaned his back against the wall, trying to support her weight so that he didn't have to put her down on the nasty floor. Keeping the flashlight just off to the left side of her face, he could see in the glow of it that her body was covered with black smelly muck. The floor, it seemed, was covered with rotting flesh that he suspected once belonged to the skeletal remains above ground.

Breaking down into tears again, Mary held onto this man who had tried his best to rescue her. As she wept, John stared at the

beast that remained stationary about 25ft away. After she quieted down a bit, she started speaking softly.

"It will let you leave," she told him, "but you have to leave now."

"What?!" John retorted, "And leave you behind? I can't do that."

"You have no choice," she sobbed.

Closing his eyes, he prayed once again to GOD.

"Remember me LORD as I walk in faith."

With that, he placed her gently down on the cavern floor. He knew now what he had to do. If this poor child was ever going to have a chance to grow up and be free, somebody had to pay the price. Running his left hand across the top of her head, down to her neck, he kissed her on the forehead as she gazed up at him in the dim light.

"Live your life," he whispered to her as he said his goodbye and stood up. At that very moment, it occurred to her just what he meant. Yelping out in terror as he stepped away, she lunged out into the darkness to stop him, but the fingers of her right hand only slid down the back of his pants leg.

Facing the creature in the dark, John held his head high, confident in his GOD. After a momentary pause to gather strength from his inner peace, he bravely declared, "I willingly lay my life down for hers!"

Upon hearing those words, the monster reared up and bellowed with excitement, shaking the cavern with its unearthly roar as it crushed and pulverized his body with its supernatural ability, until every inch of him was savagely destroyed.

Wailing in horror as his body fell to the floor with a thud, Mary didn't need to see his remains to know that he was dead. Helpless and defeated, she backed up against the cavern wall, curled into a fetal position and continued to cry.

Reveling in her suffering, the beast moved over to Mary to feed on her pain, making a purring noise that sounded like it was pleased with itself. Getting its face right up into hers, it trained it's eyes on her and stared, but when she failed to acknowledge its presence, it forced her to roll over on her back.

That's when Mary exploded with primal rage, verbally letting out every ounce of hate she had for the thing that had kept her locked away as a prisoner from the rest of the world for two long years and killed the man who had tried to save her. Screaming as loud as she humanly could, she punched and kicked at something she could not hurt or even touch, but her sorrow did not go unnoticed.

Out of nowhere, a burst of energy from an unknown source, instantly filled the cavern with a blinding flash of light. While Mary had no way of knowing what had happened as she instinctively covered her eyes, the creature immediately recognized the pure heavenly glow of THE ALMIGHTY.

So sudden and unexpected was the appearance of three Arc Angels standing side by side, wingtip to wingtip, over Mary, the demon froze in terror. As the center one bent down to comfort her tortured soul, the other two got to work carrying out the LORD'S JUST WRATH.

Raising their hands together in unison and moving them all around in perfect synch, the Angels called forth multiple Golden Chains from the walls of the cave. Using only the Will and Power of THE ALMIGHTY, they rapidly guided the chains around the demon without ever touching them, until large Golden Binders locked them in place, sealing its fate. Finished with the job they were sent to do, the two Angels then vanished from the cave with the demon in tow, wailing in fear of the uncertain punishment brought down upon it from Heaven.

As silence returned to the cave, the last remaining Angel was still leaning over Mary, holding its left hand on the top of her head. Although she laid motionless on the floor in a near catatonic state, still naked, but miraculously clean and warm, she was no longer crying and no longer in fear.

When the Angel was done administering to her needs, it then pivoted over to the right to heal John's badly broken body. Placing its ghostly right hand upon what was once his head, the breath of life was blown back into his nostrils and almost immediately, John was resurrected from his sleep. Rising up onto his hands and knees, he took his very first breath in his new body. Then all at once, the three faded away as the cavern became pitch black again.

Above ground, Mary and John 'awoke' to find themselves walking side by side down the driveway towards the road. Now wrapped in a clean blanket and wearing sandals, Mary asked John if he knew how they got out of the pit. Glancing over at her, he happily said with a smile, "GOD".

By Michael Fright

From: United States

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