The Thing Inside Ivy
The classroom door slammed shut behind them with a heavy thud, echoing down the deserted hallway like a warning bell. Dust swirled in the stale air as Mona turned to face her sister, chest heaving, her heart pounding against her ribs.
"So what are we actually running from?" Mona demanded, her voice sharp with panic.
Julia didn't answer right away. Instead, she pressed her forehead against the narrow window of the classroom door, peering out into the dark hallway beyond. Her breath fogged the glass. The corridor was empty, silent, but Julia's muscles were tense, as though expecting something to burst through at any moment.
"I don't know," she finally murmured, "but we have to wait. It's coming… I can feel it."
Behind them, a low chant began to fill the room, soft at first, then louder, like the rising hum of electricity. Mona turned toward the sound. Ivy was on the floor, legs crossed, hands spread apart and trembling as they hovered just above the ground. Her lips moved rapidly, whispering words that didn't belong to any language they knew. The fluorescent light flickered above her head, casting her in and out of shadow.
Her eyes had turned completely white.
Mona gasped. "Julia, look at Ivy!"
Julia spun around, eyes widening. "No, no, no…"
Tendrils of black smoke began to leak from Ivy's hands, curling and twisting into the air like they were alive. The temperature dropped instantly, icy and unnatural. Mona and Julia rushed toward her in unison.
"Ivy! What are you saying? Stop it!" Mona cried, grabbing her friend's shoulders and trying to shake her out of the trance.
But Ivy didn't respond. She kept chanting, louder now, the smoke thickening as it billowed out of her palms and coiled toward the ceiling like a living serpent.
"I knew it," Julia said, her voice breaking with urgency. "I knew it wasn't just a random feeling."
She yanked open her backpack and began rummaging through it in desperation. "Mona, help me! We need to shut her up, something to block her mouth, now!"
Mona looked around frantically, grabbed a clean rag from the supply shelf, and handed it to Julia. "Is this why you told us not to leave school today? Did you see this coming in one of your visions?"
Julia knelt down, wrapping the cloth around Ivy's mouth as gently but firmly as possible. "No," she said, breathing hard. "It wasn't a vision… it was different. Just this awful, gnawing feeling in my gut. Like something was going to go very wrong."
She tightened the cloth, muffling Ivy's voice. The smoke began to slow but didn't vanish.
"I don't know what exactly is happening," Julia whispered. "But I know this, if Ivy escapes… people are going to die. I can feel it in my bones."
Mona swallowed hard, her eyes flicking nervously back toward the classroom door. "Escapes? What do you mean 'escapes'? She's not even herself right now…"
The sisters huddled close, whispering in hushed tones, trying to piece together what little they understood.
And then, they heard it.
A low, guttural groan.
From the hallway.
It didn't sound human.
Their heads snapped toward the door. The sound came again, closer this time, dragging and distorted, like something crawling across the walls. Mona's skin prickled with goosebumps as she whispered, "Did you hear that?"
"What the hell is that?" Julia breathed.
The sisters crept toward the door, pressing their faces to the small pane of glass. The corridor was dim, only lit by the dying flickers of the overhead lights. Just as they leaned in, trying to focus..
Something moved. Just at the edge of the hallway. A shadow, gliding without a sound. Then… stillness.
Mona and Julia froze.
Behind them, unnoticed, Ivy had risen to her feet.
The cloth that had silenced her was gone, burned to ash on the floor. Her head tilted unnaturally to one side, and the smoke from her hands now poured from her mouth and nose, snaking around her like a cloak. Her eyes glowed brighter than before, no longer just white, but with a strange violet pulse.
And then she spoke, not in her voice, but in something older, darker, and filled with malice.
"You should've let me go…"
Julia turned just in time to see her.
"Ivy?" she whispered.
But it wasn't Ivy anymore.
The possessed girl raised her hands, smoke coiling like living tendrils, reaching out with intent.
And before they could scream, the smoke shot forward, aimed straight for their throats.
"I… I… Ivy… stop. Stop, please," Julia gasped, her voice cracking under the weight of invisible pressure around her throat.
The smoke was everywhere, coiled like fingers of darkness around her neck, tightening with each passing second. Beside her, Mona was on her knees, lips parted in a silent scream, her eyes wide and desperate. Her face was turning pale, veins darkening beneath the skin as the life was slowly being crushed out of her.
"Ivy… this isn't you," Julia croaked, trying to hold eye contact with the possessed girl in front of them.
But Ivy didn't respond, not at first. Her head was tilted downward, hair falling over her face, her hands outstretched like a puppet pulled by dark strings. The smoke pulsed with her breath, rhythmic and cruel.
Then, suddenly, she looked up.
But the thing that met Julia's gaze wasn't Ivy.
A twisted grin curled on Ivy's face, her once-soft eyes burning with something ancient and malicious. And then, the voice came, not hers. Not human.
"Sorry, Julia," it said, low and venomous. "But your friend isn't here anymore. Her body is mine now."
The sound was like nails dragging across cold stone, deep and slow, filled with mockery. The twisted smirk that followed made Julia's blood run cold.
Mona, barely conscious, reached out a trembling hand toward Ivy. Her fingers quivered, brushing through the smoky tendrils. Tears streamed down her cheeks, not from the pain, but from heartbreak. Her eyes weren't pleading for air. They were pleading for Ivy.
And something in that sorrow… reached her.
The smoky grip around their necks loosened.
Ivy's expression twitched. Her body faltered.
Then her mouth opened, and this time, it was Ivy.
"I'm… I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice thin, fractured, like it was coming through a crack in a wall. "I can't… I can't control it… Please… help me…"
Julia gasped as air flooded back into her lungs. Mona fell to the floor, coughing violently but alive.
Before either of them could move, Ivy's head snapped back, and the eerie smile returned, but it was strained, furious. The dark voice roared from within her once more, deeper than before, shaking the very air in the room.
"Stop meddling with my transition!" it howled.
Then Ivy collapsed to her knees, hands clutching her head, her body wracked with tremors as if two souls were battling inside her. The smoke that had been suffocating them dissipated into the corners of the room, leaving behind only the scent of scorched metal and something foul.
Julia crawled toward her, still gasping. "She's fighting it. Ivy's still in there."
Mona, her voice hoarse, nodded. "We have to help her… now. Before it finishes whatever it's trying to do."
Ivy's body jerked again, her fingernails scratching deep grooves into the floor. Her eyes flickered between the white of possession and the hazel brown they knew. Sweat poured down her face. Her lips moved without sound.
"We need to bind her. Restrain her, physically and spiritually," Julia said, remembering something she'd read in one of their grandmother's old occult books.
"Do you have anything?" Mona asked, half-standing and steadying herself against a desk.
"No, I don't" Julia said fearfully as they both stared at ivy…