Home

Home.

You’re home. How- How the hell did you get here?

You stand, way too easily for your liking and make your way downstairs. Its warm here, the floor doesn’t have the ice cold morning frost it usually has at this hour, whatever hour this may be. How long were you out for? Who drove you home and tucked you into bed and… dressed you? Did they strip you and put you in your pajamas?

The fuck?

The view of the kitchen isn’t right, it looks to wide, too big on one side. The dude with tits! You mean- The Vessel! The Vessel is here! Wearing- God, what the fuck is he wearing? It’s like a full religious cassock robe and everything but it’s all crop-topified. Like someone just took a pair of scissors and went to work.

You ask him what the fuck he’s doing in your kitchen, how he got here, what the fuck he’s wearing, and you are trying so hard not to look at his junk right now. Fuck, that's not covering up anything at all.

“Oh, hey.” The fact that he’s man-spreading in your mom’s dinning table chair makes you a bit uncomfortable, not as uncomfortable as his weird looking genitals and- Oh hey look at the microwave! Damn! You never realized how fucking interesting it is right now. God look at the craftsmen ship on that motherfucker.

He takes a long sip of something that you can’t see right now because this microwave is just way too handsome. “This your first time here?”

What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

“Oh, that’s right you’re new to this shit and no one tells the new guy anything, ever. No, I get it. That’s probably annoying as all hell. Let me pull back the curtain and show you the man at the control panel real quick, just slap the pussy right where it matters, get that clit throbbing for more knowledge than an NSA informant whose pay just got docked;

“This isn’t your house.”

...

What?

You turn to look at him and see that in the place of his robes he now is wearing a hoodie. It somehow covers more than the robes did despite the fact that it’s the only thing he’s wearing. Wait, Where the hell did the microwave go? What the fuck? Where the fuck? Okay, got it- where the fuck are you? What the fuck is going on?

“Hey, shut the fuck up actually.” He says it in a bored tone but he’s got a smile on his face, like this is something he does for fun.

“The more you panic the more it makes me want to slap you. I mean you just witnessed me getting possessed, which by the way I was naked for the whole thing, it makes no sense that my dick would freak you out now but hey props to you for being a gentleman.”

Shit, that reminds you, you never got his pronouns. All the excitement of not knowing what the fuck is going on distracted you.

“He/Him, but yeah. This isn’t your house, this is a shared ‘space’ in the astral plane, hence the inconsistent kitchen appliances and wardrobe. Come on, I’ll show you where we are in Kansas.” You’re sure he’s making a reference but you can’t tell because you actually live in the state of Kansas.

He takes you to the kitchen window which doesn’t actually exist in your parent’s house and shows you, a restaurant. It’s that specific brunch diner out of town that you passed, you can see Keith’s truck and an RV and some other vehicles that you can’t quite focus on. You lean forward to get a better look and the whole world beyond the window moves, it’s really disorienting but you manage.

Oh, and there you are. You’re asleep curled up on one of the booth seats like a dumb-ass. You can’t make out what Keith, Brutus, and Goat-Dude are doing or saying, just like the other cars in the parking lot it’s all very unclear and difficult to focus on like remembering a dream. Is… Is the goat inside the diner with them?

The Vessel’s body is there too, not asleep. Patting your head like you’re a cat. The Vessel shrugs. “That’s Karras, I guess they likes you.”

Hold on, you have to sit down for this shit. God this is so trippy. What is this, a dream?

“No, this is the place where dreams happen. Karras, the demon we invoked, is just using it to keep us tethered. It was only supposed to be me but Brutus is a smug piece of shit who loves giving vague directions. So to stop you from drifting into the wild parts of the Astral Plane, they grabbed you too.”

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.

Man, you get the feeling just talking to this guy that this is mandatory for him. The way he knows all of this and speaks about it in a matter of fact way doesn’t seem like the way Keith hypes it up or the way Brutus treats it like a military service, it makes it seem like he’s almost too familiar. You wonder how long he’s been doing this for, if The Vessel was always nameless. You also wonder why he seemed so tense back there at the ritual site.

That’s the one you decide to ask about, the rest seem too personal for this guy.

“I’m a schizo.”

Wow, that’s way more blunt than you expected. You ask him to elaborate.

“Sometimes my mind thinks up ‘what-if’ scenarios and decides that they’re fact, It’s a struggle to actually find out which ones are caution and which ones are conspiracies. Like this one time, I thought my church was going to sacrifice me in a blood ritual to Jesus. I don’t know why, I guess I just connected the imagery with the blood and martyrdom in my mind into my fear of adults at the time.”

The window changes to a cold, wet, night on a hill side some where. Orange light coming from somewhere out of view. “It didn’t help that everyone was spouting end-time prophecies at the time and were horrified of the idea of thought-crime, sure as hell scared the shit out of me.”

Slowly, the source of the light comes into view. The shadow of a building glowing with bright flames stands angry against the night sky, bits and piece of the structure collapse with sparks. “So I burned that bitch to the fucking ground.”

Oh. Dope, dope dope dope. You say “dope” because you don’t know what else to say. It makes him chuckle.

“Yeah, dope. Pretty intense fucking story, I know. I wasn't alone, there were a few other kids who had their own ideas and their own reasons to burn the place too. I don’t think I would’ve had the guts to do it without them.” He looks out the window as it changes again. You don’t see anything.

The Vessel claps. “Shit, I guess story time's over. Hope that answered some questions.”

All the ones that you think he’d answer, yeah. He chuckles.

Oh wow, where did that come from?

“What? The fridge?” He gestures to a refrigerator next to the usual refrigerator.

No. That’s weird but no. You explain that you were referring to the odd taste in your mouth.