"You'll experience a dark presence, but you're safe with us."

Across the table from him, a woman in her late forties watched him with huge, brown eyes, and she trembled almost as hard as he did. Fear and hope: They riddled her face as she held a doll in her arms, cradling it to her chest. 

Beside her, Svet's father stood with his hands behind his back, his mask obscurred in the candlelit room.

She warily looked at Svet's father. "And this boy is...?"

"He's a medium," he answered. The woman quirked a brow and he continued, saying, "He has the ability to host spirits, as well as sift through their thoughts and view their life. For our particular case, your son will use his body to relay his messages to you. And you can ask your son as many questions as you desire." 

"Won't it- Does it hurt him?" she asked.

Svet turned his head towards the sound of his father's voice and waited for his response. Every time a customer asked this question, his father painted a pretty, rose-tinted picture. "He's often too far gone to feel anything" or "It doesn't hurt at all". Each lie was different. And each time, Svet secretly wished his father would tell the truth.

"My son has done this many times, to the point where it's second nature to him. Any pain he would feel, if at all, would be an afterthought once he's possessed," his father said.

Svet dipped his head in disappointment. Though he didn't know the woman's appearance or name, most clients that approached his father were wealthy or had power behind the scenes. Their clients often went through great lengths to talk to the dead. So, it didn't matter if they heard the truth or not. It would be cruel to get his hopes up.

He should be honest from the beginning through, Svet thought, sensing that the woman would leave the room more destraught than she was now.

He heard the woman search her skirt for her purse. The hard jangled of coins sank into the room before something hit the surface of the table. 

His father immediately snatched the bag and began his work. "Once we begin, whatever you do, you mustn't leave your seat at the table. I have a protective seal on that very spot. If you sit up at all or attempt to leave this space, a regular human such as yourself will lose their soul to the spirits attracted to the boy."

"U-Understood," the woman said.

After a long pause, Svet heard clothing rustle across the room and he jumped in his chair when his father's presence approached him. Was it time already? No interrogation of what her son was like? No last messages? Nothing for him to use for the seance?

With his hands clenching, Svet waited for his father's hand. Instead, he felt something fall onto his lap. His eyebrows scrunched under the paper talismans and Svet shifted his legs. The object wasn't heavy. And it had a light fabric that swished against his tunic.

The doll, a spirit said by his ear. Another voice joined in, saying, The doll that belonged to her son.

He released a breath. 

So, she wants me to channel his spirit through this, he thought, gulping dryly. 

Svet wasn't so confident with objects. He needed to at least touch the object with his hands or search for markings, but his father would give him an earful if he didn't at least try. 

He readjusted himself on his seat and loomed above the doll's head of curls. Head lowering, the talismans fell off his eyes just a crack, just enough for him to see the pattern on the skirt and the ringletts cascading down its head. 

He slowly breathed out his nose and began searching for the spirit. Okay, doll, tell me a bit about your friend.

Thinking about the weight of the doll, Svet imagined tiny hands reaching for its waist and holding it tenderly. This boy took good care of her. Brushed her every morning. Coiled each curl on his finger. Cleaned off the crumbs that fell on her skirt when they had tea parties. He would have been beloved by his parents, spoiled by his elders. 

Then, an image flashed in his head. A bowl of strawberries and red velvet cake. It was the boy's favorite dessert, but for some reason, the boy wasn't able to enjoy it the night before he died. Svet had a feeling he passed away after experiencing a sharp pain in his stomach. 

As he pieced together the boy's story, Svet sank deeper and deeper into the pit in his soul where spirits tried crawling in from. Or at least, he imagined it looked like a pit. His father trained him to visualize the spirits gathering together in a hole, so it was easy to keep them at bay and tell them apart. 

Thomas, Thomas, Thomas. He knew the boy's name now and chanted it, waiting for anyone to react. Searching, listening, pin-pointing where the young boy was amongst the sea of corpses. Until finally...

The doll's mouth hung open, it's beady eyes blinking awake. 

The woman gasped and was about to rise from her chair when Svet's father raised his hand. Based on Svet's father's body language, the doll didn't seem a danger to them. No- It seemed like this was supposed to happen. 

Warily staring between the man and the boy, she settled back into her seat and could only watch as the doll's porcelain mouth opened, slowly revealing a row of pearly teeth. And with a loud groan, the doll started shaking on Svet's lap.

Thrashing, kicking- Curls bounced while a childish whine resounded from its tiny body, its teeth chattering, its head lolling to and fro. The loud clicking traveled all the way to Svet's imaginary pit and created a beacon through the dark mass.

Svet squinted through the darkness. He could hear Thomas calling his name, a light flickering above the waves of faces. But Thomas couldn't break through the surface.

Guess I have to go in there myself then, Svet sighed.

Shakily, Svet sank into the pit and followed the shining light. He pried past a sea of contorted faces and pushed back fingers, shrugging off the claws grasping at his soul. And within the rows and rows of bodies, he saw him standing there with a broad smile.

 Thomas. Barely the age of five. His brown, wide eyes gazed up at Svet as he jumped excitedly up and down, his hands waving excitedly. 

"You found me!" Thomas exclaimed, dry blood dribbling from his mouth like drool.

Svet was almost tempted to smile at him too, but rememered he had a job to do. Seances were always bittersweet. Svet, who had stored many spirits in his body, wasn't allowed to look at human faces because he would unintentionally curse them. The dead, however, were exempt from his gift. So, he always felt giddy seeing someone smiling back at him, someone who looked into his eyes, someone who made him feel like he was real. 

"Your doll lead me here. She told me you loved her very much," Svet said.

Thomas' eyes widened in wonderment before he giggled happily. Cracking a smile, Svet bent down on his knee and reach out to shake his hand, granting him permission to use his body. Thomas inched closer and his tiny hands reminded Svet of the shadows of his siblings. How tiny they were....

Except when their fingers touched, Svet found himself looking into the eyes of someone else. 

Deep magenta. Sharp teeth. It grinned at him and snatched him by the wrist, causing his imaginary form to stumble closer to the stranger's face. Eyes widening in shock, Svet gazed into the entity's abysal form, lips ghosting against his own, sharp nails raking through his scalp. 

Terror forced his stomach to fall to his feet, and Svet sudden felt like throwing up when he realized what was happening.

Gasping, Svet threw his head away from the doll and felt a weight in his chest. The floorboards groaned under his weight, gravity flunctuating, pressure building around his temples. He arched back into his chair and low, gutteral sound ripped from his lips. The type of sound you felt at the center of your chest and the front row of your jaw. It grew louder and louder until he screamed, to the point where his throat burning. 

"Svet!"

Large branches. That was all Svet could envision as something crawled up his throat and shot sharp needles into his limbs. Claws hooked into his tongue and pulled. Teeth gnawed at his joints and demanded him to submit. Tears beaded in his eyes as a huge mass pressed up against the roof of his mouth and forced it's way into his head, leaving an aching trail inside him. 

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, echoed in his mind while another boomed in his ears. Sleep, sleep, sleep.

Kicking his feet against he floorboards, Svet wept and couldn't hear his father shouting his name, stuck between screaming and wanting to throw up, trapped in eternal agony while having his brain picked apart. The sounds and silhouettes of his family flashed in the darkness, the only thing keeping him rooted to his body. 

Then, everything came to a halt when Svet lunged forward and slammed his head against the table.