Mismanifesting - Story Time! (Part 2 - End)

Billy was good at hiding things, but his hunchback was rather prominent. His parents noticed it and had a talk with him. He tried to avoid the conversation and leave, but his father stopped him and told him that if he was gonna leave now without a solution then he was a coward. Billy felt terrible that he was disappointing his father and told everything to him. How everywhere he went his fears followed him, how he had been covering the stench and how he felt a weight on his back.

His father assured Billy that he would be alright and soon took him to a therapist. The therapist was the country's best one, you can't go to a local one when your son's health seems to be falling apart and especially when your family is more important than everything else that you own.

The therapist took good care of Billy. He gently told Billy to do little tasks to remove his fears. At first, he was hesitant, but constant assurance and gentleness got him to do them little by little. Tasks included him going out to dark alley, washing his hands while being assured that he would be stopped if he overdid it, exercises that were supposed to help with his posture.

The therapist knew how sometimes kids get wild imagination and made creative scenery. Billy often tried to tell him that they were real, but therapist gently gave him facts and reality checks that made him believe that it could just be imagination too. The therapist would wash his own hands for several minutes and then stop, showing that one won't go insane with a little wash. Soon, the therapist gained his trust and made Billy clean his hands and face, but unlike what Billy expected, nothing happened.

After a few days, he was finally able to take a bath.

Though he still had his back hunched most of the times, but occasionally, he would stand straight, light changes and fact checks were making him calm and light enough to often forget about something being on his back ever, after all it was all just in his head, right?

He was often shown his weight to prove him that it's standard for his height and age and there's nothing on his back. He started to understand it and started to feel even lighter. The improvement was quick. He stood straight without his shoulders even hunching a little. His posture became of a fine young man soon. 

His mother opened his curtains and he didn't feel the fear of the ghost showing up at his window, but felt warm as the sunlight brightened his room.

His father put the LED screen back on the wall. He was scared the first whole night. He kept staring at it but when nothing happened for long hours, he calmed down. Maybe it was just a screen that lit up when you turn it on and showed colours. That's all it was. He firmly believed it and stopped worrying about it.

His imagination was tamed rapidly. It wasn't running wild enough for him to see ghosts on fridges, shelves, wardrobes or stairs. He would calmly walk in dark. The boy on stairs was nothing, but dark shadows now that could be easily ignored.

His shirts, mobile wallpapers and covers soon became like before too. He felt at ease as he wore his old colourful shirts instead gore shirts. His mobile cover was back to classy matte black. Everything he changed to horror was back to what it used be.

 All back to Normal. Just like before.

Obsession was extreme but it left Billy without giving him any harm permanently. 

He felt at ease as he walked past the dark stairs. He turned to look at it and to his surprise he saw the little ghost! He stares at it waiting for it to vanish but it didn't and blankly stared at Billy. He ran from there as fast as he could. When he entered his room all panting, he saw a ghost staring at him from his window. He drew his curtains back. He sat on the floor panting. What was happening? Didn't he get rid of these imaginations? or.....they weren't imaginations this time?

He was pondering over it all when suddenly his LED screen lit up and a ghost appeared on it. Billy felt his blood run cold, but he got into fight and flight mode and used his baseball bat to destroy the LED screen. He kept hitting it until it was destroyed into small pieces. He stood there for a while just staring at it when he heard a noise from the kitchen. Clutching the bat, he walked towards the kitchen and there it was, the ghost sitting on the fridge. Billy went in shock this time. Seeing a thing on the screen can give a person courage to attack, but seeing a thing in real life always hits different and thus Billy just stood there frozen. The ghost jumped at him and was trying to bite him. Oh how he swung that bat of his on ghost's head, one might say that it was the reflexes of a person who's the best athlete. It didn't kill it, but the violent force made the ghost move away for enough time that Billy was able to rush to his room and lock the door.

He sat on the floor gasping for air. He could hear the ghost outside his room. He stayed still just breathing. When he calmed down as much as one can given the situation, he looked down and realized that something liquidly was on his arm which was yellow with slight veiny red texture. He probably got it from the ghost. With dread, he walked into his bathroom and started to clean his hand. He kept cleaning it, but for some reason, it felt like it was never getting rinsed. 

For what felt like eternity, he rinsed his hand and slowly he started to feel like whatever it was, it was spreading all over. He was cleaning himself over and over again until he felt like his skin was burning from cleaning so much. He looked in the mirror and felt like something was on his face too, he started to clean it.

His eyes were closed when he felt something on his back, he quickly opened his eyes and looked in the mirror. He saw a ghost looking over his shoulder towards him through the mirror, in a chilling crooked smile. His breath hitch and he rush out of the bathroom and closed the door. He was panting when he heard scratching noises from the door of the room and bathroom and tapping noise from his window.

He was trapped.

Nowhere to go to.

He kept looking around pondering what he should do to get out of this situation. He ran from them, attacked them and yet here he was still lost. His bravado didn't do him any good and he was now cornered in his own room.

A slow light thing tugged at his shoulders and suddenly it weighed a lot. He inhaled sharply and rushed towards the mirror. There he saw a ghost sitting on his shoulder. It moved it's skinny unnaturally long fingers to his cheeks. Its nails were digging against Billy's cheeks causing him to wince as it whispered:

'It’s been ages since someone manifested us hard enough to resurrect us. That’s mismanifesting, isn’t it, Billy?'

It gave Billy a crooked smile as it wrapped it's arms around him.

And just like that, Billy vanished forever.

The End.