“I saw an ad that said you exorcised cursed spirits?”

Sam’s voice was rasped, roughened by a week without proper sleep. He was unsure where to begin unraveling the tangled mess of his life. There wasn’t a simple way to explain it—a history filled with bad luck, frayed by strange happenings that stalked him from the cradle. Born to an esper and a psychic who turned their backs on the supernatural, Sam’s life had always been a contradiction: a household that had the talent to sense the unseen but none of the desire to do so.

He had spent his childhood surrounded by shadows that slithered through the corners of his vision. Spirits whispered to him in the night, coaxing, pleading, their voices like the wind sighing through a crack in the wall. But Sam, young and afraid, learned to shut his eyes tight and will them away for a time.

As he stumbled into adulthood, he did his best to stitch together an ordinary life—a tedious office job by day, dull routines by night. He was fine with blending in, with being a nameless face in a sea of other exhausted commuters. He convinced himself that the spirits had faded into the background of his unremarkable existence.

But one reckless night unraveled it all. Against his better judgement, Sam had let himself be dragged out to a bar by his coworkers—people who thought his quiet nature was just shyness. He’d made it all of three beers before his tongue loosened. He cursed the spirits he saw in the dim corners of the bar, spitting out his frustrations.

The next morning, he regretted every word. It wasn’t the hangover that plagued him, but a spirit far more vicious that had lingered at the edge of his sight. This one made itself known—its presence heavy and suffocating. Demanding.

“I’ll pay whatever your rate is, plus some,” Sam said, rubbing at his bleary eyes with a shaking hand. His exhaustion was palpable. “The church turned me away, said I wasn’t their kind of problem. And the medium I went to—well, I’m pretty sure she was just after my money. So now I’m here.”