Chapter Twenty

Ben felt foolish. Just two days ago, he was a skeptic and non-believer, an atheist, trying to disprove a haunting. Now, here he was, praying and performing a Christian ritual to rid a haunted house of a demon.

The events of the last two days had caused him to question his beliefs, about life after death, about death in general, and whether or not God existed. He had believed when he was young, but as he grew up, God became a fairy tale, like Santa Claus or the tooth fairy.

Ben felt that he was not alone in the room. He looked around furtively, but no one was there. No one who was visible, anyway. His mind was overflowing. If demons were real, and nature was all about balance, then that meant angels must be real as well. And if demons and angels were real, then God and the Devil must be real as well, entities that embodied pure good and pure evil.

Ben started to cry. It was too much for him to process. He finished the ritual, but he didn’t feel any different. He still had a sense that he was being watched, and he could feel an evil presence nearby.

The ritual was a failure. The only thing left to do was to flee. Ben rushed out of the room and back down the hallway. When he reached room 501, the door was already open. He pushed it wider and found Cameron’s body on the floor. Ben knelt beside him, sobbing.

As he knelt there on the floor, Ben sensed another presence. He looked up and saw the spirit of the soldier standing over him. Ben knew that his own death was imminent. He made no attempt to run as the soldier drew his knife and slashed Ben’s throat with one swift move.

Ben felt the blood flowing from his wound. He choked on the blood, breathing it into his lungs, coughing it back up in a struggle to exchange air in his lungs. When everything finally went black, Ben felt as though he was floating. He opened his eyes and realized he was looking down at his own corpse, lying across Cameron’s chest.

Ben removed his camera from his backpack. He started recording and sat down in front of it, and then, he told his story.

“My name is Ben Blankenship. If you’re watching this, I want you to know that I am no longer alive. I have definitive proof of life after death and that the Silverwood Manor hotel is confirmed to be haunted.”

The End