“I’m going to summon a demon and you’ll have to exorcise it,” Logan said with a cheeky smile to his friends.

“WHAT?!” Max exclaimed in surprise. “You are going to do what?” Max asked again, this time with a tinge of fear noticeable in his voice.

“I’m going to summon a demon,” Logan said with a gentle tone of voice to soothe Max a bit. “Don’t worry, it’ll be one of the lowest level demons and is for you three to get practice,” Logan explained further what he wanted to do. “And if any of you can’t exorcise it, I will, so don’t worry,” Logan said trying to untense the atmosphere. 

“Okay,” Ian said, a bit cold and skeptical. 

“If something happens it’ll be your fault, got it?” Kyle warned Logan.

“Okay,” Logan said to Kyle. “I’m going to summon a Void Shifter,” Logan said as he rummaged through the pages of a book to show it to his friends. “It’s a low level demon that sucks the darkness from people’s souls and uses it to change its shape, it’s aggressive so it might hurt you if you don't’ exorcise it quickly. A simple Trinitarian formula and the sign of the cross should be enough,” Logan said before grabbing a knife from his table. “You ready?” Logan asked, before anyone could answer he was already making a deep cut in his finger and drawing something with his blood on the floor. 

Kyle, Max and Ian watched as Logan drew and started to chant unintelligible words.

"Exaudi vocem meam et veni," Logan said before a black mass started to come from the blood drawing that Logan made from his blood a minute ago. They watched as it approached Logan and a faint black mist started to emerge from him.

“What is it doing?” Max asked fearfully. 

“Is feeding off the darkness of my soul,” Logan said, starting to feel a bit weak. “Exorcise it, before it gets too big,” Logan said in between harsh breaths. The energy that he used to summon the demon and the one that was being sucked off him was making him weaker.

“In the name of the Father, the Son and the holy spirit, be gone demon,” Kyle said while making the sign of the cross. Logan, Max, and Ian looked to the demon, waiting for it to disappear, but it didn’t.

“Why is it not disappearing?!” Kyle asked in distress as the demon grew in size. 

“I don’t know,” Logan said as he coughed blood. He looked at the blood in his hand and floor in concern. 

“Logan!” Max said as he, Kyle and Ian backed to the wall. 

“Don’t worry, I’m okay,” Logan said as blood trickled down his mouth and chin, falling on his neck. “I’ll get rid of it,” he continued saying as he got up with difficulty and stood in between his friends and the demon that was almost as tall as him now.

Before Logan could start chanting the demon changed into a humanoid form with blades instead of arms and attacked Logan. The attack was successful but the barrier that he casted earlier protected him. Kyle, Ian and Max watched as the demon attacked Logan without being able to do something. 

"Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio, contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium. Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur: tuque, Princeps militiae caelestis, Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos, qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo, divina virtute in infernum detrude. Amen." Logan said as blood kept coming from his mouth and the demon kept charging against him breaking the barrier and successfully hitting him on the stomach before disappearing. Logan fell to his knees and started to throw up blood. After a couple of minutes he got up again, leaving his friends completely horrified. He didn’t see the big and bleeding cut that he had across his stomach. 

As Logan saw the cut he collapsed and fell to the floor, blood kept coming from the wound and the blood that he was coughing it seemed like he was drowning in a pool of his own blood. The hardwood floors were tinted crimson red the same as Logan’s clothes. 

“Logan,” Kyle said with tears in his eyes as he tried to close the wound with his hands but it was too big. 

“Stop,” Logan said weakly as he gently pushed Kyle’s hands away. 

Logan grabbed his rosary and with all the strength he still had, he pushed it into the wound, completely burying it on his skin. Kyle, Ian and Max watched Logan in horror as he pushed, completely, the cross and beads into his wound, making it bleed more.

“I’m sorry for making you see this,” Logan said with a drifting voice. 

"O Saint Padre Pio, holy bearer of the Wounds of Christ, accept us this day as your spiritual sons and daughters and keep us always on the narrow path by your intercession. And do thou, O our spiritual father, stay there at the Gates of Heaven until all of your spiritual children have entered through, even and including us. Through Christ Our Lord, Amen." Logan said with great difficulty as he was struggling to breath, he just hoped that it worked so his friends wouldn’t have to see him die. As he finished praying the rosary inside of his body started to glow and after a few seconds it came out floating. The rosary was soaked in blood, the before white cross and beads with a few decorations made of gold were completely red. The rosary kept floating as a golden mist started to cover Logan completely, after a couple of minutes in that golden bath the cut in his stomach started to close until there was nothing, not even a scar.

Logan laid in the blood soaked floor for a few minutes before he got up, when his eyes met the eyes of his friends the world came crashing down on his shoulders again, he was reckless and almost died and he made his friends watch it. It was no one’s fault but his.

Logan’s hand started to shake in fear, fear that he had traumatized his friends to inexplicable extents, fear that he wouldn’t be able to call them friends again, fear of staying alone. 

“Please forgive me,” Logan said as tears washed down the blood in his face. “It was all my fault, I was reckless and I could’ve hurt you,” he continued saying as he fell to his knees and looked to the floor. “You have all the right to be mad and hate me, you can scream at me or hit me, I deserve to be punished,” Logan said as he cried harder. “But please don’t leave me,” Logan said, almost begging. He thought he looked pathetic but he also thought that he deserved it so he didn’t care. Logan cried, bawled and sobbed pathetically on his floor, like a lost child that can’t find his mother in a park. 

The scene of Logan on his knees crying and bawling while his friends stood over him in complete silence was humiliating and pathetic but not enough for Logan, he wanted to be truly punished. If it wasn’t for him nothing would’ve happened, if it wasn’t for him his friends wouldn’t have been in danger. “Maybe I should've died,” Logan thought to himself while he cried.

“Stand up,” Kyle said sternly. Logan quickly complied. Kyle grabbed a tissue from his pocket and started to dry Logan’s tears and blood from his face. “It’s okay,” Kyle said gently. Logan looked at Max and Ian who were nodding with gentle smiles on their faces. 

“Why?” Logan said, choking up and starting to cry again. “Why, why, why why are you being so nice?” Logan said as he continued to cry, making it difficult for him to speak.

“We are friends, right?” Kyle said as he looked at Max and Ian for confirmation before drying Logan’s tears again. 

“You are not leaving me?” Logan asked in almost a whisper as he grabbed Kyle’s arms for support.

“We are not,” Kyle said gently to Logan. Max and Ian sent Logan a reassuring smile.

“I’m sorry for worrying you,” Logan said between sobs as he fell to Kyle’s chest, dampening his t-shirt with tears. 

“Is okay, what matters is that you are alright,” Ian said while patting Logan’s back.

Kyle, Ian and Max spent several minutes soothing Logan until he was calm enough to explain the situation.

“Why is your finger still bleeding if you cured the wound in your stomach?” Kyle asked as he saw the still bleeding finger that Logan used to draw on the floor.

Logan looked at his finger and licked the wound, cleaning the blood. “The prayer of Saint Padre Pio only cures physical wounds caused by demons,” Logan said quietly, he still felt guilty and unworthy of such kindness. 

“Why didn’t the demon disappear, I thought it was a low level demon,” Ian asked Logan. They were trying to keep his mind busy so he would stop blaming himself.

“Probably the darkness from my soul was so strong that it had no choice other than going berserk making it a higher ranking demon. It was the summoner’s fault,” Logan said, blaming himself again. 

Kyle, Ian and Max stayed silent, they didn’t want Logan to blame himself but there was just so much that they could do. “How did you expel it?” Max asked, breaking the silence. 

“I used the Prayer of Saint Michael the Archangel but in Latin, it is stronger that way,” Logan said in a quiet tone of voice. 

The four of them stayed quiet, none of them knew what to do. “I should change and clean the floor,” Logan said as he took off his t-shirt soaked in blood and took a clean one from his closet. “You can leave now,” Logan said to his friends before leaving his room.

Kyle, Ian and Max looked at eachother and left Logan’s room, careful of not stepping on the blood that was on the floor. 

“Goodbye,” Logan said to his friends with a mop on his hand as they walked down the stairs.

When Logan reached his room he looked out of the window and saw as his friends left, he could see the dim light from Kyle’s lit cigarette, he could see how Max shivered in the cold of the night and how Ian offered him his jacket. 

“They are still my friends,” Logan thought to himself as a tear made its way through Logan’s face before starting to clean the floor. 

***

Before going to bed Logan looked at himself in the mirror of his room and looked at his stomach. “I could’ve died,” he thought as he traced with his finger where the cut should be. He turned off the light of his room and went to bed, not before opening the window, the room still smelled like the hydrogen peroxide he used to clean the floor.

“Logan, Logan, Logan,” Logan heard someone whisper in his ear. He opened his eyes but at the sight of his empty room he closed them back. 

“Logan,” the same voice whispered. Logan remained with his eyes closed until he felt a faint touch in his back making him wake up in a halt. 

Logan looked around the room but it seemed empty, he left the bed to close the window and as he turned around to go back to bed he saw Aaron standing right in front of him.

“Aaron?” Logan asked in disbelief as he approached him. When he went to touch him his hand went through. “Is it a demon?” Logan thought as he started to raise his rosary.

“Don’t!” Aaron said, raising his hand to stop Logan but it went through. “I’m not a demon,” Aaron said. “I came to talk to you,” Aaron said sitting on Logan’s bed. 

“Talk about what?” Logan said as he sat next to Aaron.

“About my death,” Aaron said seriously.

“So you are really dead?” Logan said as a tear slid down his cheek.

“Yes,” Aaron answered sadly as he tried to wipe Logan’s tear but his hand went through. “I can’t get used to not having a body,” Aaron joked trying to lighten up the mood. 

“So? What do you have to tell me?” Logan asked as he dried his own tear. 

“I was killed by the same organization that’s after the four of you,” Aaron said directly. “The demons attacks, the leak of your video, my death, they are the one’s pulling the strings,” Aaron explained with an eerie seriousness to Logan. 

“What?” Logan asked in disbelief. “How do you know all that?” Logan asked Aaron, still in shock after hearing Aaron’s statement.

“I was killed because of it, my death was just a piece on a twisted puzzle that they are putting together,” Aaron explained.

“What do I do?” Logan asked. 

“This should help you,” Aaron said before hovering his hands a few millimeters from Logan’s temples. Logan looked at him confused, making Aaron chuckle. “Once you go to sleep you’ll know,” Aaron said with a smile before getting up from Logan’s bed and walking towards the window.

“Wait!” Logan said, going behind him. “How do I keep going?” Logan asked. 

“You are doing okay, keep taking care of your friends and let them take care of you.” Aaron started to say. “Also start painting again, is good for you.” Aaron said as he smiled softly to Logan. “And know that i’m always watching over you,” Aaron said as he gave Logan a wink and disappeared before going through the window, leaving a cold feeling in the room.

***

"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds."

Psalm 147:3