Meridith’s Thursday night exorcism
Date: 2025-07-24 22:35
(Meridith’s Thursday night exorcism)
[Thu Jul 24 2025]
A Tree–Lined Park Pathway/span>/spanWide paved pathways wind through Acadia Park, their weathered asphalt
surfaces showing the telltale cracks and patches of decades of New England
winters. Mature oaks, maples, and elms line the paths, their thick trunks
rising from well-worn dirt patches in the grass where countless feet have
trod. Cast iron lampposts stand at regular intervals, their Victorian-style
fixtures painted black and topped with glass globes that cast pools of amber
light after dusk. Wooden benches appear every hundred feet or so, their dark
green paint peeling in places to reveal the grey wood beneath. The paths
curve gently through the landscape, occasionally branching at intersections
marked by simple wooden signposts. During autumn, fallen leaves accumulate
along the edges despite the groundskeepers’ efforts, creating rustling drifts
of gold and crimson. The salt-tinged breeze from the Atlantic carries through
the trees, particularly strong when the wind blows from the east, bringing
with it the faint cries of seagulls that wheel overhead./span>/spanIt is night, about 73F(22C) degrees, and there are clear skies. The mist is heaviest At Carnation and Franklin/span>/span
There is a waxing crescent moon.
The amber glow of the Victorian lampposts creates pools of light along the winding pathway through Acadia Park, casting long shadows between the mature oaks and maples. A salt-tinged breeze rustles through the leaves overhead, carrying the distant sound of traffic from the borough beyond. Jenny, Meridith, Amber, Jasper, and Eloa find themselves walking along the main path when they notice a figure standing perfectly still beneath a flickering lamppost about fifty feet ahead.
The man appears to be in his thirties, wearing a worn leather jacket over a vintage band t-shirt, wire-rimmed glasses catching the unsteady light. In his hands, he holds a small digital recorder that emits a strange, layered audio loop – fragments of voices overlapping in an unsettling harmony. Children’s laughter bleeds into heated whispers, while elderly voices sharing stories weave through the sound of footsteps on gravel, all slightly distorted as if played through water.
As the group approaches, the man’s head tilts at an unnatural angle, turning toward them with mechanical precision. When he speaks, his voice carries an impossible depth, as if multiple people are speaking in perfect unison: “Such beautiful echoes you carry… let me keep them safe for you, before time steals them away.” His eyes reflect the lamplight strangely, and the recorder in his hands pulses with a faint silver glow that matches the rhythm of his words.
The temperature around him seems several degrees cooler than the rest of the warm July evening.
Jenny looks down at the recorder the man is holding “I think we found the demon… its probably bound to the recorder by my guess.”
Meridith emote peers around a bit, and sticks her hands in her pocket. She looks at those assembled and offers a polite nod. She steps light, then frowns. “Yeeep, got damn this better not be who I think it is…” she grumbles.
“This must be disturbance reported in city.” Eloa comments as she looks down at her phone then looks up at the man, “Sound like he already capture many children and elderly.” There’s a frown as the latina stays a good distance away. “Should we wait to see how recorder works first? No want get soul captured because too close.”
“Cold…” Jasper murmurs, turning to look at the man before he turns to nod at Eloa. “Right. We rather not be soulless husks from that thing.”
“Why is it always demons,” grouses Amber, lingering with the group, “Why is it always THIS demon?” She reaches up to polish off her pin.
“Demon? Such a harsh word for one who preserves… who saves what would otherwise fade to nothing.” His wire-rimmed glasses catch the flickering lamplight as his gaze settles on each member of the group in turn.
The audio loop from the recorder shifts, now playing what sounds like a conversation between two lovers walking through this very park – their voices young and full of hope, discussing future plans that will never come to pass. The man’s expression softens with genuine sadness as he listens.
“Marcus,” he says in his own voice for just a moment, before the layered harmony returns. “His name was Marcus. He came here every night, recording echoes of places he’d walked with David. So much pain… so much beautiful pain that time would steal away.” The recorder pulses again, and now the voices include what might be Marcus’s own, whispering “I miss you” over and over.
The temperature continues to drop around him, and frost begins forming on the nearby grass despite the warm July evening. The possessed man takes a single step forward, his movement eerily smooth. “You speak of souls, but what is a soul without its memories? I offer preservation. Eternity. Your laughter from childhood birthday parties, your first kiss, the last words your grandmother spoke – all safe with me forever.“
His eyes now glow with the same silver light as the recorder, and the overlapping voices grow more insistent: “Let me keep them safe…“
Meridith sighs. “A soul is a lot of things without memories, for example, it’s a soul. The two are irrelevant to one another.” She touches the hilt of her blade and gazes at the recorder. “So which thing here is possessed,” she wonders. “Tape or man?”
“Well what if you don’t get last words of your grandmother because you in recorder?” Eloa points out towards the man possessed, “What if Marcus doesn’t get to meet his new love? Because now he trapped there being sad about David forever?” Rubbing her arms because it’s cold, Eloa glares a bit at the man.
“The demon is feeding on your sorrow,” Jasper turns to tell the man, a frown appearing on his face while he cross his arms. “Is this David and Marcus still alive? They are not complete without their souls and they could never go to those places.”
“I think the tape…” Jenny says over to Meridith looking visibly disturbed by the man not saying anything else to the man currently. But she shivers rubbing her hands over her arms
“I think it’s the guy. I keep running into this demon obsessed with echoes and memories. Always possessing someone. Always has some artifact he’s using to do it,” Amber answers over to Meridith, in contrast to Jenny, as she hangs back a little for now.
“I can’t… I can’t let him fade away…“
The temperature drops another few degrees, and the lamppost above begins to flicker more violently. Through the recorder, dozens of voices now overlap – children calling for parents, elderly couples sharing final conversations, friends making promises they’ll never keep. All of them tinged with the same silver distortion.
“The artifact chooses the vessel,” the demon addresses Amber directly, its multiple voices focusing on her with unsettling recognition. “As you well know. But this one… this one called to me through his pain. Such exquisite grief, such perfect preservation of love.“
Marcus takes another smooth step forward, the recorder held out like an offering. “Just one memory. Your most precious. Let me keep it safe before time steals it away.“
Meridith mhms. “Vex’thara,” she offers. And pulls her sword free. Gifted with a straight forward solution, she lifts the blade up. “You all have a moment, and then I am cutting that thing in half.”
“Maybe the demon is attracted to you.” Eloa offers towards Amber as the woman admits that she keeps running into this particular demon. “You very sad memory?” She asks Amber as she shivers in the coolness, rubbing her arms as Meridith pulls out her sword.
Amber attempts to ignore the distorted voices, frowning some. “Just destroy the recorder? The artifact was the key last time,” she suggests to Meridith. A helpless shrug to Eloa, “Don’t we all? Comes with the territory.” She glances to the demon now, “I mean, like. Or you could just not?”
“It’s always Vex’thara or another demon whose name starts with V,” Jasper comments before he shakes his head at the man. “I can’t give you my memories. We can’t give you that. You can see him again once you give up that recorder.”
“I’ve never seen physical violence work against ’em. Tried shooting one and he just plucked it from the air…” Jenny says over to Meridith with a frown
“Marcus, remember when we walked through that park in Boston? Promise me you’ll keep walking, even when I’m gone.“
Marcus’s own voice breaks through the demonic harmony: “I can’t… I promised him I’d keep walking. But it hurts so much without him.“
The frost spreads further across the grass, and the lamppost flickers more violently. “The artifact is not the source,” Vex’thara speaks through Marcus, addressing Amber and Jenny. “It is merely the bridge. I exist in the spaces between sounds, in the echoes that linger after words are spoken. Destroy the recorder, and I will simply find another way to preserve what must be saved.“
The temperature drops to near freezing now, and their breath becomes visible in the suddenly frigid air. “But perhaps… perhaps there is another way. Give me one memory willingly, and I will release this vessel. One precious moment, freely offered, to add to my collection.“
Meridith shrugs. “I choked out the possessed man once and that freed ’em,” she offers. Then steps forward and slams the blade down on the recorder. “You always come back, even if we agreed,” she insists with a huff.
About to offer up a memory of well.. them standing there, Eloa stops as Meridith slams her blade into the record, seeming curious to see what would actually happen when physical violence started. “goodluck Meri hope you not get blown back too far..” She whispers, taking out her cross to pray.
“Oh.” Jasper watches Meridith stab the recorder and tells Marcus, “You need to move on and keep walking. Or that promise will be in vain.”
Jenny takes a step back as Meridith goes in for the attack, watching what happens next carefully as she pulls out a hunting knife from her boot
Amber is wearing a hoodie and otherwise doesn’t seem terribly bothered by the cold. But she also doesn’t have visible breath in the air right now, so that might have more to do with it. “Not giving you shiiiit,” she belts out to the demon, “But if you exist between the sound, maybe a whole lot of noise will keep you from manifest-” But then the recorder is slain in cold blood, and she goes quiet for the moment to see what the demon does.
“What… where am I?” His glasses slip down his nose as he blinks in confusion, looking around at the group of strangers surrounding him.
But the temperature continues to plummet, and the silver light doesn’t fade – instead, it begins emanating directly from Marcus himself, seeping from his eyes and mouth like luminous mist. The demon’s layered voice now comes from the air around them, no longer needing the recorder as a focus.
“Foolish. The artifact was merely convenience.” Vex’thara’s voice echoes from the lampposts, the tree branches, the very pathway beneath their feet. “I told you – I exist in the spaces between sounds. In every echo that has ever bounced through this park.“
Marcus clutches his head, silver light streaming from between his fingers. “David… I can hear David’s voice fading. Please, I can’t lose him again!“
The frost spreads in a widening circle around them, and the lamppost above finally dies completely, plunging them into darkness broken only by the eerie silver glow.
Meridith steps back after her deft strike, and slips her blade away cleanly. “Now, cheer him up. Tell him all that pap, like, he lives on his heart, or whatever. That the memories are his to hold, not physical.”
Eloa’s teeth chatter from how cold it is, Eloa and rubs her arms, “Good thing this is in summer. If it’s in winter we all freeze to death.” She complains as she makes her way over to Jenny as if to seek warmth, “We make happy memory now Jenny. Of hugging.”
“You think he is going to be happy being trapped like that?” Jenny yells out to the man knife in hand at the ready. Before Eloa comes over she is visibly confused before she nods giving Eloa a hug
“I think you need a hug. We all need a hug,” Jasper tells Marcus, moving his arms as he steps closer towards the man. “Don’t let that vile demon steal your happy memories of David away.”
Amber lingers behind, quiet for the moment as she observes this new twist. Waits. “If you guys get eaten, I’ll go run and tell your families,” she offers.
“But I can feel them slipping away. Every day, I remember his laugh a little less clearly. The way he said my name… it’s getting quieter.“
Jasper’s approach causes the silver mist to swirl more violently around Marcus, and Vex’thara’s voice grows more insistent from the surrounding darkness: “Yes, feel how they fade! Time is the true thief here. I offer permanence. I offer–“
“No.” Marcus’s own voice cuts through, stronger now as Jenny and Eloa embrace nearby. “David wouldn’t want me to stop living just to hold onto him perfectly. He’d want me to keep making new memories, even if the old ones get softer around the edges.“
The temperature begins to rise slightly, and some of the silver light wavers. Vex’thara’s voice becomes more desperate: “But without me, you’ll lose him completely! The sound of his voice, the exact words he spoke–“
“I’ll lose the recording,” Marcus says, reaching toward Jasper’s offered embrace, “but I’ll never lose what he meant to me. That’s not stored in my head… it’s deeper than memory.“
The silver light flickers like a candle in wind.
“Plus! You can record your on phone these days you know? There’s such things as a video?” Eloa calls out as she hugs Jenny, letting the happy, healing energy bolster the area. “Come on Amber. Eloa not know you very well but come hug.” She beckons to Amber, Meridith and Jasper.
“Group hug!” Jenny calls out with a chuckle as she yells out to the man “You need to keep moving forward. Its what he would’ve wanted.”
Meridith shakes her head. “Uhm, no, I’m good. I think he gets the message.” She shifts and peers off to one side. Uneasy. She shakes her head. “Vex’thara, you offer nothing a stored voice clip doesn’t, with some cringy AI slop as a close second.”
“Right, and that the true memories will live with you. Come join us for new memories.” Holding out his hand towards Marcus, Jasper beckons him as he moves to join Eloa in a group hug.
Amber inches over to the group hug, but she resists joining just yet. She pulls out her phone and taps at it a bit. My Heart Will Go On starts playing. Loudly. “Noise and emotional impact,” she murmurs before shuffling in for an awkward half-hug.
“But… but they’ll fade…“
“And that’s okay,” Marcus whispers.