A Lesson

Acknowledging the paranormal entity only gives it strength.

Acknowledging, in this sense, refers to admitting to yourself and those around you that there’s an entity bugging you. Entity is the species name for the beings I speak of, the things which mortals have named ghosts, demons, spirits, and so forth. I’ve seen it happen that an entity starts out with the usual tapping on walls, gusts of wind, staring at its chosen victim, stomping around in hallways to get the victim’s attention…the standard fare. Usually, a fledgling entity just stepping out into the mortal world has only enough power to make one victim notice it. However, once the victim starts telling their family or friends about these strange occurrences, starts thinking to themselves that maybe this isn’t just in their mind after all, that is when the entity grows.

Some entities choose to express this growth in sharing their disturbances with the initial victims housemates – if any – or guests. Some prefer to remain selective, and instead funnel their new power into gaining visibility to their chosen victim – usually just as shadows or in mirrors at this stage. Others choose to play the minimalist, and merely increase the frequency and severity of their chosen methods of disturbance. Regardless of the path the entity takes, this will usually continue for a decent length of time, and the more the victim acknowledges, the stronger the entity grows, until the victim triggers the second stage of development.

Communicating with an entity increases its power.

Once the victim inevitably tries to communicate with whatever’s “haunting” them, the entity enters stage two of development. Again, many choose different paths, but the most common are communicating back to the victim, and taking true physical form. Now, what most mortals are unaware of is that an entity does not come preset with a personality. Its personality is created by its victim, through its victims thoughts, fears, and method of communication. For example, if the victim is merely curious and asks the entity what it is and such, the entity’s personality will not become as violent as one whose victim starts by asserting dominance and demanding it leave them alone.

A mortal who is intrigued by the paranormal might find their entity to be friendly, curious about the workings of the mortal world, or even just lonely. Those lucky few victims get to live longer and die more pleasantly, but make no mistake, they still die. The far more common brand of mortal, the ones who either fear the paranormal (be it an open or secret fear) or simply hate everything which is different from them, will more likely find their entity to take on an antagonistic personality at this point. Those ones always die horribly.

Regardless of the personality an entity comes to possess, it will always kill its victim. Some grow strong enough to physically kill them. Others manipulate their victim and force them to kill themselves in one way or another. Still others will terrorize their victim until the victim grows distressed enough to kill themselves without the entity’s direct influence. All this, of course, is assuming the victim isn’t foolish enough to bring about the entity’s third and final stage of development.

Attempting to banish (or summon) an entity will only make it angry.

Forcing an entity to come or go will trigger its final stage of development, which often results in numerous deaths rather than just that of its chosen victim. This is the most common way for an entity to gain notoriety and “make it big” in the mortal world. You can surely understand how the attempt to banish would enrage an entity, as it would at least upset most mortals too. Summoning, however, is equally dangerous. You see, we entities are not meant to fully exist in your mortal world. We are meant to be forever “trapped” between your world and the one adjacent, so that we can exist in at least two different worlds at once. Stronger entities can even split their essence, stretching themselves out to many other worlds. Attempting to summon us and confine us solely to your world is an act we deem selfish, and often distracts us from whatever else we were doing at the time, so yes, of course we get upset with that.

Some “hauntings” begin this way as you know, with some foolish mortal trying to summon something. The rare times the mortal gets what they want, the result is a quick yet painful death. The times where the particular entity being summoned does not exist, however, are far more common and are cues for us…managers, you might call us, to send a fledgling entity to the new victim. Those fledglings are special, as they are gifted with personalities from the start.

You may wonder why I’m bothering explain all this to you. Well, thanks to mortals’ growing interest in the paranormal, and attempts to understand it, we’ve found a new way of repopulating our numbers. We’ve had to, what with the increase in volume of fledglings being sent out to you. And so, there are the lucky individuals whom we seek out to transform into entities. We choose ones who appeal to us, which of course means something different to each entity. Some choose heroic mortals. Some choose those easily persuaded. Others choose…you know what, that part doesn’t matter. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt a bit. Just hold still now…

Credit: LadyMidnight