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DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Lester - Mental asylum inmate.

Trent - Lester's demonic entity.

Guard/Jack - Simple civilian orderly.

*In a darkly-lit padded cell, an anthropomorphic otter-man named LESTER, cold and lonely, sits in an aluminum chair. He mumbles incoherently to himself in a confused state, reminiscing events from his past life, which flicker on whitened walls behind him as film projections. Amazed and confused by the sudden arrival of such memories, he talks to himself in a low tone. The images disappear as soon as he speaks.*

Lester: Truly, this absent place has grown far colder... this pretty white padded sanctuary in which I now sleep, dream and contemplate. Such a humble abode for me, this little room in such a little corner of a little slice of the world. How I yearn for freedom, but ALAS! None cometh for me. Perhaps for the best.

*maniacally grinning, LESTER chuckles under his breath, screeching like a banshee, jerking his head spastically. He quits, quickly resuming stone-cold stillness. The white walls begin to bleed and pulse inward.*

Lester: The air has turned rather stale in this God-forsaken dump, a stench most wretched and foul, like that of a profoundly old swamp or a rank decaying gravesite. I am rather cold now. Cold. So goddam cold. Perhaps the new replacement guard will lend me a blanket or some warm clothing if I learn to ask politely. Good little furs always prosper once they learn how to adequately request things. I am rather fond of him. Rather fond, indeed. So fond in fact, I believe he will make due for the last man who shall ever bear sight to my possessed vessel. I will taunt his soul while my spirit consumes him from the inside out, or will that be better left to my internal demons? Oh God, please rest his soul and respite his blasphemies. Despite the fact he didn't even see the initial blow from my blunt utensil coming fast toward his eye socket earlier today or yesterday or the day before that, so many times over again, so many gainful opportunities lost in the blink of an eye, one single bothered dusty eyelid. Oh, my lucky stars and sports-cars, how he still managed to gain enough strength to strike thy will down, to act hastily enough to pull upon a red alert lever nearby! Oh how ironic to think the warden himself falling prey to the innocent and determined enemy in a manner of spilled milk and overturned stones, thus resulting in madness upon an otherwise simple homicide! How ironic! How cumbersome! How bloody respite! What do you think, my dear sweet friend? What say you?

*No reply. He is alone in the cell. The only response he receives is the hollow echo of his own voice. Discouraged and exhausted, LESTER resumes speaking in a weary tone of voice, shivering and delirious. The walls quit bleeding, becoming white once again and skeletal faces press against the whitened surfaces, hands spread and press against the outside, bending inward.*

Lester: Whatever, you dolt. Fine! So be it! If I can't have a natural conversation with you, then I won't even have a conversation at all! We'll see about that now then, will we? We'll see about that, for goodness sake! I can live forever without ever even hearing a single solitary response from you again. Sure I can! I know I can! You don't rule me. I can make do with the silence presented before me. No problem whatsoever. I have a captive audience who can and will keep me plenty company.

*a slightly extended pause sweeps across the room, solidifying LESTER in its wake. The walls retract, faces disappear and hands sink away. Suddenly he jerks up, slamming the chair down upon the ground in a frenzy of repeated slams. The frame is bent and distorted. He raises the chair above his head and careens it against the door, cracking a tiny window. As he looks down at a twisted heap of aluminum, LESTER takes a seat upon the floor, crossing his legs. The walls turn blue, flashing a blood-red pulse like the beating of a heart.*

Lester: Oh, drat it all! Just ignore me as long as you see fit. I have no problem with rejection, no, none at all. I am certainly no stranger to the silent treatment! Some of my... earlier victims in the past... oh, they all just... they all tried to resent me. Resent! Deny! Provoke! Fuck! No more for their lives, though. They decided foolishly to ignore me. Ignore me, as you do so even now. Thy will be done, eh puppy-faces?

*The otter-anthro giggles lightly under his breath with a maniacal hankering, shoulders trembling and tail wagging freely, excitedly.*

Lester: I tell you, they have all assumed me in the past as being a monk, sprung from an ancient Chinese Buddhist temple, while others had assumed of me as a sniper trained to stay silent and still, mind you. Silent. Silent. Ever-so-still. Not a sound. No motion. No breath. Silence. Stillness. You and your strange conniving presence, however, seeping euphorically from my mind, subconsciously, upsetting my prolonged stillness! You, my friend! My buddy! My pal! My own! ME!! ME!! HAHAHA Yes! Me and myself, unafraid to break the stillness. You can and most certainly will never be at one with me nor with my spirit. No, not never ever! None how! No, no, no! Yet even still for years you have controlled me against my own gifted free will. When you asked me to destroy all those poor unfortunate human lives, I empathetically agreed yet still wondered, burrowed within my actions, a pondering question that dare ever not present its ugly face for too long, a simple question: "Why? Why must I incite such abhorrent actions? Why must I snuff out so many innocent lives? Why must I stain my webbed hand-paws with innocent blood? Why, oh why?" Indeed, why did you choose me, to control me and not another cursed being, to take out your arduous bloody actions? Truly you must admit that none of what happened was entirely my fault! I screamed aloud after seeing the diabolical pipe bomb smuggled upon the passenger jet with my own two naked otter-eyes! So naked and exposed! Oh sure, I was uncomfortably cramped and claustrophobic and surrounded by people, despicable humans, absurd fur-less apes with dirty skin and disgusting bodies and abnormal deformities, elderly wrinkled skin and wailing infants, giving me suspicious glances, as if they all knew more than they ever wished to know, children screaming and bickering and bellowing in ear-piercing shrills apt to crack fine china to shards, disrupting my mind to mere fragments.

*The walls crack and splinter like pressure applied to a broken mirror, blowing dust inward with gathered plumes, then quickly seal back together with a low rumble.*

Lester: Yet as a low vibrating hum emanated from the jet's turbine engines outside the vessel's cockpit, I grew PARANOID!!! Paranoia crept into my mind, seeped into my state of being like a bubonic plague of the soul. A dirty nasty horrible disease that only one so devoid of innocence can contract. Cuban mercenaries did a fine job bringing an armed bomb upon that accursed skyward vehicular tube. I was all but certain of it! Sure they were apprehended by local police and questioned regarding matters at hand but all bets aside I'd imagine they most certainly lied through their rotten crooked teeth the entire time, speaking their confounded language with limited volition. Their serpent tongues spewing abhorrent white lies, one after another, all the while derbies dragged me violently off the stretch of vast blacktop runway. As they threw me straight-jacketed into a large white van with a local county mental facility logo embedded upon its bare white-sided surface, the orderlies wanted nothing more than to dominate my advances! Dominate, I say! Dominion incarnate!!

*LESTER laughs aloud boisterously, shaking his head with snapping jerks. The room spins like a carousel and he sways in tune with the motion, rocking and grinning, eyes following the contours in motion.*

Lester: Curse and damn all those bloody fools! How naive and ignorant they were before and still are now... The van itself reeked of an awful scent like strong potent medicine or stale Novocain, presumably the very substance those rouges injected into my neck to c-c-c-calm me down and prevent me from dismembering them on the spot. Oh what a charming proposition! Dare I openly admit to such a thing so easily as this, but when that syringe plunger came down and injected their sweet maniac serum into my soft supple nape, it had at once brought me such comforts in which I never even knew had ever existed before!! Oh the sweet delicate fragility of medicinal anesthetic drugs! Drugs!! DRUGS!!!

*LESTER shakes his head rapidly back and forth, flapping his otter lips, projecting spittle flung in all directions while hopping around in a loony dance. Suddenly a strange clapping noise is heard, echoing from the opposing corner of the cell. Lester freezes in place silently and the room quits spinning immediately, becoming perfectly still and motionless. A strangely lit silhouette doused in onyx-black appears, glaring from the pitch darkness gathered near the doorway, posed in a business-like stance. What appears to be a mere hallucination is in fact a tall gentlemanly dragon-anthro named TRENT, a cursed demon who had greeted LESTER many years ago, forcing him by contract to perform malicious actions of homicide upon many people, including a family of six. The dragon is suave, dressed in a three-piece suit, head-bound spikes bent back with debutante fashion. His eyes simmer with a yellow glowing inner-light, translucent and piercing. He is grinning deviously at LESTER, applauding his nonsense babbling endeavors.*

Trent: Lester my dear soul, my poor sweet innocent boy-chap, whoever are you talking to now?

*silent with no response, TRENT approaches LESTER with a comatose stride, coming closer, eyes glowing brighter with each step taken.*

Trent: Oh my dear young otter, you know you can't keep a conversation going for more than five minutes before having an explosive tantrum. You know these things as well as I do. I suppose talking aimlessly is your idea of escaping from this cell, this ward, this facility which holds you in contempt against your better judgment. Or am I woefully mistaken? Have you by chance conjured another ideal method of escape?

Lester: What the devils in blazes do you think you're doing here?? Leave me alone, won't you please?! You can't help me... nobody can help me! NOBODY!!! For years they tried every possible test to further ascertain my symptoms in hopes of understanding why I act the way I do. Not a single test has yet to yield any positive results though, not one single solitary bit of good. I am a failed bastard of a creature and you should leave me alone in this cell to rot so you may very well find someone else to save from imminent death, to extract your horrific bidding.

Trent: Hold your tongue, dearest mortal. I came here to help you escape by manipulating the mind of the young bastard in charge of keeping you confined who now stands aimlessly outside the door even as we speak. I'm looking right into his soul and let me tell you, oh, what a wretched harbinger. He is bright and seems to be rather fulfilled with his new job but even now he stands not a chance against my wrath. If you stick with me to the bitter end, Lester Miller, I may yet release you from the prison of your tortured subconscious. There is a catch however.

*LESTER gazes contemptuously at TRENT uncertainly, hearing nothing more than his heartbeat and the rugged breathing of his demonic counterpart, all other sounds muffled beyond recognition in his stuffy padded holding cell.*

Lester: Name it, foul apparition.

Trent: you must do something for me first in return.

Lester: Oh really? Well then... tell me, what kind of twisted scheme do you have tucked up your sleeve THIS time?! Another murder I wouldn't imagine...

Trent: This time it's quite simple in fact. All you have to do is hand over your accursed soul to me right now, this very instant. You and I both know this is for your own good, mind you. Do this and you are free. You will be freed of my influence and I shall leave this place, leave your presence, for good. Forever, in fact. How about it?

Lester: NO!!! NEVER!!! NEVER EVER!!!

Trent: Sacrifice your fate unto me and me alone, pathetic little mortal! Only then will I use my power to save you and spare any sort of life you still have left after all these long years of solitary correctional confinement. If you choose to give in to me, pitiful otter, then you will see your wife and daughter again. You will get your old life back. You will start fresh with a clean slate and you will become a successful soul, a wealthy creature dining in the splendors of excess like none of my kind has ever had the privilege to receive.

Lester: No.

Trent: If you deny my offer, then I shall leave you in this hole to rot for an eternity in waking. You will be mistreated horribly, life will fail to persist for you and I will make sure you suffer for every second before your last dying breath. The choice is yours, my dear sweet mortal. If you choose to accept my offer then you must make haste as soon as the door opens because there's no going back after you escape. Once you have gone from this place, you must stay gone permanently. That is the only rule I stand firm by.

Lester: What does it matter now anyways? The doctors referred to me as "another lost cause" on more than one occasion, I'm a bloody loss to their study for pity sake! Electroshock therapy treatment had once been the promise of mental ease. Can you believe that? I require no further mental easing or peace of mind! I'm not lost! I've never been lost in my entire life! I'm in-bloody-sane!! Those buggering pencil-pushers and textbook-savvy criminal prosecutors and profilers have all their fancy documented paperwork and professional diagnoses to prove my insanity as thorough fact. All my life people have been intimidated by me, by my presence, having always thought of me as a freak, scared of how I often peer expressionless at somebody or how I talk about our bickering arguments and contractual-trade agreements with you. They never believe me, have always thrown me to the wolves faster than the blink of a dusted eyelid!

Trent: You shouldn't expect everyone to instantly accredit you of speaking absolute truth. You are a mental case and your truths are disoriented and blurred without regard to solid fact.

Lester: When they categorized me as insane and locked me up in this forsaken place, I was devastated, torn, buried alive and crushed. They -no YOU!

*TRENT stares at LESTER through a pair of luminous reptilian eyes, bearing a spiteful gaze of uninhabitable hatred in response to this statement.*

Lester: Why yes indeed, YOU have taken everything I hold dear away from me! They have stolen my wife, my child; they have even stolen me. I have nothing now and all thanks to you, a disgusting demon cast from hell to perform your cruel bidding on an innocent man, an unwilling vessel. Thanks to your despicable existence within my mind, I am now filed in their archives as a lost cause. Never to be saved or redeemed again. Do you really think for a mere iota of a second that I will be happily assured once I escape? DO YOU?!

Guard: Goddammit Lester!

*The GUARD clangs a long black wooden nightstick violently upon the surface of the padlocked door, startling LESTER from his hallucination. TRENT quickly dissipates from view.*

Guard: Shut up in there already, will you please?

Lester: Make me you runt! You cockroach! You buggering thick, steaming pile of offal! You don't have the right to keep me at bay with silence. I have my rights and I may very well say whatever I may damn well please!! You are not the crazy one after all, I am!!! I AM!!!

*LESTER guffaws with his head tilted back and his arms clenched in a tight pretzel-twist inside his straitjacket, his "maniac attire" as he enjoys calling his new attire.*

Guard: True enough I suppose, you do have the right to be as loud and obnoxious as you wish after all just as well as you also having the right to remain silent. However you practice those rights, you are NOT the one and only patient on this ward. There are others who are just as nuts as you ever will be and then some and I doubt they'd want to be sleep-deprived, let alone have to put up with the likes of myself keeping a watchful eye over their every move. Remember that, man!

Lester: Get to the point, you bloody minx!

Guard: My point is that the other patients are getting restless, demanding that you pipe the fuck down. I too am getting rather annoyed with your constant bickering and endless conversations with yourself. If you want to talk to somebody in your own subconscious mind do so without speaking aloud! Hum to yourself! Have a dream and chat it up over a fantasy-dinner! Please, I assure you if you just remained silent in your cell nobody would consider hurting or bothering you. Not the warden, not any other guards or orderlies, nobody. They usually leave the silent ones alone to themselves because they know better than to interfere with a silent killer, or so I imagine. If you keep up the damn bickering and the endless noise, your risk your chances of survival. For your safety and my own, PLEASE just keep the crazy talk to a bare minimum!

Lester: No harm done, you insolent blabbering degenerate. I was only merely trying to recall a poet's collection of stories I've heard in my life once before. That explains the loud bickering and personal conversations which you've been hearing lately from my personal space, my humble abode. HA!

Guard: Oh, like poems and sonnets and the lot? I love poetry! I'm actually something of a poet myself.

Lester: Oh, I see... go figure, you dolt.

*LESTER rolls his eyes sarcastically and pays no further attention to the GUARD or his incredibly ignorant statements. A pair of eyes, yellow with cat-slit pupils, hovers against the door, staring relentlessly at the otter, beckoning.*

Trent: [whispering] Kill him now... you must. Quickly, escape from this stagnant confinement, rip open his chest and spread his guts across the cold cement floor of the outside hallway... pry that stick from his cold lifeless fingers and free a few of your fellow inmates as well. The escape would be a riot to be remembered. At least you wouldn't be sitting pretty any longer!

Guard: Anyways, so in high school you see, I won the poetry contest's "haiku of the year" award 3 times in a row! Poetry itself has always possessed this... I dunno, like this hidden life beneath its surface which speaks volumes to those who understand it clearly, allowing themselves to open their minds to it. I suppose it could very well be almost therapeutic in nature to read quality poetry aloud to others or yourself. You understand what I'm saying, don't you, Les?

Lester: whatever you say, Benjamin Franklin, master poet of our times...

Guard: Oh, please! In fact, I've just remembered this one that I had made up recently. Listen:

{Recited aloud}

"A criminal lost,

All freedom a bitter end,

Hope forlorn, delayed."

Lester:...is that it, grand maestro?

Trent: [sighs wearily] Keep in mind that that haiku in particular was made in reference to you, Lester. Mortal, what are you waiting for, you stupid fool? Come on and give me the order already so he'll open the door. You'll slay him and escape to freedom and our little "deal" will be fulfilled! You can see your darling pretty wife and your bouncing beautiful baby-

Lester: [yelling sporadically] stay your mouth, foul demon!

Guard: What the... hey now what was that all about? I thought we were getting along pretty good for a little while there!

*Shaking his head disappointingly, pacing back and forth in front of the cell with nervous anxiety, the GUARD begins to ponder further into his advances, making the other patients in the ward extremely uncomfortable, hearing his footsteps echo through the hallway outside and into their cells with daft clangs, footfalls assembled in a non-stop repetitive pattern, nerve-wrecking and uncertain.*

Guard: So just tell me one thing to set the record straight, Lester. Between you and me, why do you talk to yourself all the time? Could that be accredited to one of the reasons why they put you in here? A severe case of delusional paranoid schizophrenia, mind you? Or did you commit yourself into this institution willingly? I'll tell you one thing; I wouldn't be surprised a bit if you did decide to commit yourself because you're obviously crazy enough to turn yourself in to begin with. If not, you should deserve to undergo a lobotomy operation and perhaps a professional exorcism as well, that would set you straight!

Trent: [whispering] Listen to how this despicable fool of a bastard mocks you, treats you like an insolent moron then suddenly turns around and demands to know more about your past life. It's almost as if he's plotting to get at you somehow, don't you think? Maybe perhaps a ploy to dominate you somehow, to turn you into a weakling, a bottom-feeder for that disgusting example of human indecency to eat you right up with a glass of sweet Merlot on the side?

Lester: Hold your writhing serpent tongue, pitiful fool! I will not tolerate your insolence any further, do you hear me? I DEMAND YOU TO STAY QUIET!!! QUIET!!! QUIET!!!!!

Guard: SHUT THE FUCK UP you damn fool!!

*the GUARD slams his fist upon the padlocked door in a frenzied fury. LESTER peers around the room now, empty as empty can be, blinking in a flurry, eyes darting back and forth with paranoid uncertainty. Now only he and the guard remain to be seen and heard. A brief pause is exchanged between the two men as they collect themselves. It's the GUARD who opts to break this extended silence.*

Guard: That's right, just ignore me all you want you goddam loony, but you can't deny the undeniable fact that you're just as crazy as the rest and you'll never escape from this place. No matter how well you may assume you really are. I read into your history, your background. It made me nauseated; I cringed with a loathing hatred for you, reading about what you've done to all those people, that innocent family, all those helpless children. Why the children, Lester?

*LESTER winces, lowers his head and shakes it back and forth horizontally in a "no way" gesture, thumb and index finger-paws pinched shut over the bridge of his wide otter-nose, lanky arms folded. The GUARD then returns to a defensive stance just outside the doorway.*

Guard: You should be absolutely ashamed of yourself and what you've allowed your life to come down to. Just admit the obvious facts, Lester! Anybody can tell you that your chances of freedom are impossible! You should just stay quiet for now on, because nobody will ever get you out of here.

Lester: TRENT! Help me please, RIGHT NOW!

Guard: Who's Trent?! What the - who??! Who's Tre-

*the GUARD shakes violently, his words cut off immediately. He is confused and frightened at the unwillingness of his body, numb and beyond his own control.*

Guard: What's happening to me?! Holy Christ, what's hap-

*the GUARD opens the padlocked padded cell door and walks into the room against his own free will, eyes wide with fear, looking at LESTER with a forlorn questioning glance. He is being manipulated like a puppet on strings, swaying and walking crookedly, bumping into a nearby wall for upright support.*

Lester: I'm sorry I have to do this, but I'd like you to hold still for a minute if you'd be so kind.

*in a swift gesture of great haste, LESTER attaches handcuffs to the GUARD; the chain has been wrapped around a sewer pipe jutting out from a corner between the soft padding. The GUARD is now immobilized and stranded; deciding to give in to a sullen surrender, he regains strength and allows his body to weaken, plopping himself down to the ground, nestling his head into the very corner edge of the room between two cushioned walls of padding material, still looking upward in a transfixed glance at LESTER, lying with legs sprawled outstretched from both sides. LESTER then stands and walks beside the GUARD, stepping over one of his legs, reaching down to his hip, swiping a small plastic security pass-card from his belt buckle. The GUARD struggles briefly but is incapable of even kicking upward in his awkward position. LESTER proceeds to the center of the padded room then turns around and faces the GUARD, posed in a military stance, looking down at the helpless man with eyes that spew forth hatred.*

Lester: You know something, my friend? It's really not my fault that I'm insane, as you may or may not see. This is exactly what I tried to convince those hired professionals and psychology majors of - the ineffable truth! You must understand, puny little human, there is a great demon in my mind who has single-handedly forced me to do things, HORRIBLE things which have gradually been getting worse and worse since my youth. By the way, you seem to be the victim of your own haiku now. Isn't that simple irony that the master becomes the slave of the slave to the master in a stone-thrown moment of time? It's fascinating, really. Truly, it is quite so very interesting to me. Just enough to turn me into a holy man, an advocate of God and Heaven, let me openly admit to you of that. If you try to escape right now, a disaster far-exceeding beyond your imagination will occur in a short time. First your family will be affected, then your friends, your acquaintances and finally... YOU.

_*As he points directly toward the inept man slouched down, lying upon the ground, arms aching painfully from the strain and fear at the overall situation he had been cast into, LESTER bends his otter lips upward into a foreboding grin.* _

Lester: I can assure you. I never give up. I never back down. I always hold a grudge for those who attempt to defile me and my infinite power and influence upon the weak and feeble-minded in which I prey upon regularly. Now, I have a haiku for you to recite and memorize. You would do well to remember this also, even after you've purchased a one-way ticket straight to your own personal hell:

{Recited aloud}

"I guarded the man,

But he overpowered me,

Now I'm nothing, dead."

Lester: Sayonara to you, Jack Lansing Packard, otherwise known as "tinkle boy".

*The GUARD [now referred to as JACK] gasps in shock and horrific sudden realization, eyes opened wide as teacup plates, jaw dropped down to his diaphragm. He wets himself, urine streaming down his thigh, puddling up beneath his hips on the white-washed padded ground beneath where he lay.*

Jack: y-y-you're my imaginary friend?! How, when, why?! I thought you were merely another loony, a lost cause, a blasphemer, but yet... somehow you have overpowered me, tricked me, taken control of my body and confined me in this room under my very nose?! If not only that, you even remembered my full name! How long have you been confined here?!

*Laughing wildly at his pondering alarm, LESTER cocks his head in a subversive look of irony. Now his otter eyes are glowing with a dull yellow glare.*

Jack: Or should I say, how long has your legion of restless spirits engulfed your soul? How long have you posed in disguise as Lester Burnham, mental patient number five-two-eight-one-seven? Surely, you know of what I speak of. You're immortal even now, are you not?

Lester: who wants to know?

Jack: TELL YOUR HALLUCINATION TO LET ME GO RIGHT NOW!!! Lester, can you hear me in there?! Can you still feel yourself?! Tell him I want to live! Convince him! PLEASE, TEL HIM TO LET ME GO!! I WANT TO LIVE!!!

Lester: I'm afraid that is what most sinners would call a bum rap.

Jack: Wait, what? What are you talking about?!? LET ME GO, DAMMIT! LET... ME... GO!!!

Lester: I made a deal with him.

Jack: A deal? HA!

*JACK cries mockingly, trying to hold back his tears of maddening fright yet failing miserably.*

Jack: Exactly what kind of deal did YOU have in mind, you freak?

*LESTER begins to twitch violently out of control. JACK freezes up and quits struggling. He stares in a horrific dazed expression as LESTER'S body begins to change form. The straight jacket tears at the seams, ripping down the hem which cause the buckles and shackles and metallic rings to pop outward, careening upon the cement floor, tinkling faintly with minute chimes in the room's padded quarters. The demon's shape-shifting face contorts and molds into a massive ensemble of caricatures, mainly victims of its diabolical murderous hands throughout the past. JACK sees an elderly couple, a family of six including three young girls and an infant boy, a mid-aged man of Chinese descent and a young teenage girl with facial piercings that glow like an unwelcome apparition, transparent to the naked eye. Then with the face of the demon itself revealed, its body pulsates into a massive terrifying bundle of twigs and branches. Its chest is charred and smoldered with small embers burning softly upon the surface of its limbs with a faint esoteric luminosity. The straight-jacket, lying tattered in smoldering pieces in the very center of the room, engulfs in a bluish-green flame. The hideous apparition hovers in the air, arms outstretched with enormous spindly branch-adorned claws bending and contorting, like a sort of twisted welcome embrace. It stares down at JACK with phosphorescent turquoise-colored pupil-less eyes, emanating yellow simmering coronas. What used to be a patch of peppered-grey curly hair upon its slightly cubical-shaped head then becomes small endoplasmic fibrous tentacles, constantly swinging and bending and contorting in perverted spiraling wistful motions. Its legs are bundled tight with thickened roots and petrified wood replaces what had once been webbed feet, sprouting moss-covered patches near where the otter toes used to reside. An acrid stench had settled in the room as well, something between an out-of-control forest fire and charred fleshy remains. Its long tail grows spindly thorns as it cackles aloud, a cursed laugh that pierces the minds of all the other patients, screaming in terrified unison.*

Lester/Trent: [the two voices merge into one] Why my dear pathetic human, the kind of one-time-only deal that has a permanent consequence if denied. You will take my place in this prison, this sanctuary, this cell of peaceful surrender. Or much rather the final resting place of Lester Burnham - the crazy old fool who cried wolf and consigned to seek treatment which would ultimately prove to be entirely unnecessary in the long run.

*trembling with fright and unable to look away at the hovering abomination, now staring fixated upon him, JACK inhales deeply then lets out a wheezing gasp to gain a practical breath of redeemed sanity. With teeth clenched down tight to prevent any further jittering, he sits upward.*

Jack: Curse you, Lester... curse you to hell... curse you and you're possessive -no, possessed... spirit!

Lester/Trent: Sorry, old chap. It appears as if I'll be the one performing today's cursing. Perhaps once I've made my escape into the outside world, I will scourge the earth for those weak-minded individuals who dare attempt to defile me and my power and I will send you some company for the taking. For now, sweet human, just relax and keep my influence as a strong factor in this asylum of catastrophe which I have made my home for more years than you can ever imagine. See you very soon, dear boy.

*The shambled figure which had once been LESTER then drifts forward, leaving behind a cloud of hovering particles and flurrying embers floating, swirling in the stifling black smoke trail which precedes it. The demon leaves JACK in the cell, grasps a large ring of cantankerous rusted keys hanging from a nearby nail on the outside wall and floats away through the doorway of the cell, into the main patrolling hallway. Just before the horrific scorched atrocity leaves, it waves its nightmarish wooden hand into the air and points a finger of oak and eucalyptus bark toward JACK and at this very moment his body slowly hunches over, now lying motionless on the ground, wide-eyed and staring at absolutely nothing. JACK sheds a single bloody tear, leaking down his paste-white cheek, eyes trembling and breathing in heaving bouts of hyperventilation. The demonic entity slams the cell door lever down, opening all the other confinement doors. It digests the keys, churning them into a smoldering mass of red-hot metal shaped like a wad of putty which breaks through the demon"s parched soil-encrusted cheek, clunking down like a lead paperweight onto the surface of the hallway's tiling. Finally, the demonic entity dissipates through the wall, chuckling with prospects of returning very soon.*

END