CHAPTER 3- THE POSSESSION BEGINS

Initially, it started with whispers of gentle, slithering ideas that unexpectedly entered Eva's head. They were minor, almost perceptible at first: a brief thinking about how simple it was going to be to leave all behind or a stray insult that would resurface in her head when David refused to pick up his toys. She attributed it to the stress of the relocation. Naturally, it was exhausting to move into a new house, get used to living in town, and cope with four fidgety kids.

However, the whispers persisted, like beetles scuttling beneath her skin, whispering things she would never have thought of on her own. At night, they seemed to her, tangled in her mind like strands coming loose from an ancient tapestry. You don't live this life. They're not your kids. Sweet and toxic, the words encircled her. She dismissed them, telling herself that she was just deceiving herself.

That is until the dreams started.

She never existed as herself in the dreams. The identities of other women, strangers with familiar encounters, drifted in and out of her thoughts like fading memories as she wandered around the house. In a single dream, she appeared to be a young lady wearing a white nightgown, racing through the hallways barefoot while being pursued by a dark entity from room to room. In another, she appeared to be an elderly woman gazing in the presence of an image that displayed a shriveled corpse rather than her reflection.

The home changed every time she dreamed, changing like a live creature, its walls extending and contracting irrationally. Where there had previously been no doors, there now were. The stairs didn't lead anywhere. At the periphery of her vision, the shadows moved spontaneously and flickered. And someone was always always someone was watching.

The dreams were sticky and suffocating, clinging to Eva like spider webs when she woke up. Her heart would race as she lay in bed, gazing up at the ceiling, feeling as though she had just barely avoided a horrible situation. But the anxiety would subside as morning's light filtered through the windows, leaving her without only a slight apprehension. She repeatedly reminded herself that it was only a dream.

 However, the murmurs persisted.

Their volume increased.

Martha stopped by for coffee on a wet Thursday afternoon. In an attempt to distract herself from the uneasiness that had been weighing on her for the past few days, Eva had asked her. The house was unusually quiet because Thomas was out conducting business and the kids were upstairs playing.

Grasping her umbrella and wiping rain from her jacket, Martha came smiling nervously. But as soon as she entered, there was a slight change in the air, like the instant before a storm approached.

When Eva walked Martha into the kitchen and placed the pot of coffee on the burner, her hands shook a little as she prepared two cups, causing the ceramic to rattle against the saucer. She sensed something not a concept, but a presence moving within her head. As though someone else was putting on her flesh, it crushed her brain and filled her with an unusual peace.

Eva wasn't paying attention as Martha sat at the dining table and talked lightly about her husband or the area. Softly and insistently, the voice within her whispered directions. Say it. She will be able to identify it. Say it.

With a startlingly quiet gaze, Eva turned to face Martha.

"Didn't your mother detest the rain?" Eva said in a too-soft, too-knowing tone.

Martha's cup was midway to her lips when she froze. "What?"

"It always smelt like the final stages of things," she remarked. Eva's smile was incorrect, awkward, and excessively broad. And what did you say to her that night that she passed away, do you recall? Or ought I to remind you?

Martha's hands started to shake. Nobody was aware of that. Nobody.

 "Stop," Martha said in a broken whisper. "How do you know that, exactly?"

Eva came in closer, something dark and hungry shining in her eyes. "You expressed to her your desire for her to pass away so that you could be free at last."

With tears in her eyes, Martha let out a gasp. She almost knocked over her coffee as she pushed away from the table. "I... I must leave."

She was not stopped by Eva. She just smiled, a slow, predatory smile, while Martha, her breath catching in terror, fumbled for her umbrella and coat.

"That fun, wasn't it?" the voice within Eva murmured as the door banged behind her.

Eva felt as if she were about to pass out for a second as her hands began to shake violently. Then the silence came again, enveloping her like a veil. She grinned.

"Yes," she replied in a whisper. "It was."

Eva slept restlessly that night. Her dreams were hazy and jumbled, with odd noises and fading pictures she couldn't quite make out. However, there was a face at the center of the dream—a horrible, warped face that was barely visible, as though it were being worn by the darkness itself.

In the dream, she attempted to scream, but nothing came out. Its features sharpened into something too terrible to imagine as the face drew nearer. The visage moved in, filling her view, and she felt her thoughts disintegrating, thread by thread.

A scream rang through the house as Eva startled awake.

With his heart racing, Thomas leaped up next to her. "Eva! What's the matter?

Her hands gripped the blankets as though they were all that was keeping her rooted, and she was breathing heavily. Her big, wide eyes were filled with fear.

Slowly, though, her face changed. Something oddly peaceful took the place of the fear. Her face lit up with an odd, sluggish smile.

"That was only a dream," she muttered. She spoke in a light, almost upbeat tone. "A fantastic dream."

Thomas's skin crawled as he gazed at her. "Eva, are you certain you're alright?"

With an unwavering smile, she nodded. "Just fine." She then lay down again and closed her eyes as though nothing had occurred.

But that night, Thomas didn't sleep again. There was a problem. It seemed as if a shadow were bearing down upon his chest.

He didn't want to believe it, though.

Eva's actions grew increasingly disturbing over the course of the following few weeks. As she had done with Martha, she started bringing other women from town over for coffee. And every time, a similar pattern emerged: the talk would begin in a normal way before gradually turning into something more sinister until the women were pale and shaking by the moment they left.

Then the women suddenly started to die.

They were discovered unharmed, with no wounds or injuries, in their houses, on their beds, or seated in their favorite chairs. As though their hearts had silently failed, they just ceased living.

As suspicions swirled like smoke, the rumors in town became louder. The curse is back, and the locals know it. However, they remained silent. Their grins in the supermarket were too forced, and they avoided the Collins family.

Eva didn't know, or at least didn't act like she did. She was constantly prodded onward by a voice in her head, which hummed with satisfaction and guided her choices like a helping hand on her back.

The first to realize that anything was seriously off were the kids. One evening, Lily murmured to Simon that she had witnessed their mother conversing with herself in darkness, her voice faint and peculiar, as though she were chatting to an unseen entity.

 Lily gripped her doll closely and muttered, "She's not like she used to be." "She has changed since then."

Simon gave a terrified nod. "I dislike it."

However, David only grinned when they told him, a tiny, covert grin that made Ethan shudder.

 "Now she's happier," David muttered. "She is at last content."

Ethan didn't believe him.

And neither did Simon or Lily.