Creation began on 12-05-08

Creation ended on 12-06-08

The Skeleton Key

The Restoration

A/N: What if, occurring after the ending of the film, Papa and Mama were dealt with…by their spiritual brother, and his name meant their undoing, and he had had enough of their sins? This is what happens.

This has gone too far, thought a nigh-omnipotent mind, having just seen the dark act being committed to an innocent soul at the Devoreaux plantation. Those two cannot be allowed to continue this again and again and again to innocent lives just to cheat their overdue death date. Those two innocents, along with every other soul that had been cheated of their lives still had, by all accounts, still have a future to live that's filled with happiness! Voodoo, hoodoo, not even selling their souls to the Devil himself will protect them from me!

Disappearing from his solitary domain of mist and crimson-colored sands, a master of spiritual energies and true justification made a destination to the two cruelest souls he'd ever been disgraced to be related to spiritually.

They had done it again. Cheating their demise by taking the lives of another pair of fools that believed in the magic that transcended Death's domain, even though they wished they'd been of the darker color. It would be through these bodies they would exist on borrowed time for probably another few decades like the last time.

"Come with me to the bedroom," Papa told her. "I want to enjoy this body like the other times when they were young."

Mama looked at him, seductively, and responded, "Oh, yes. I'd enjoy that."

They proceeded to the stairs, until they heard a knock at the door. They both frowned, wondering who would be here at this time of night after their new victims had been stripped of their bodies and left with their old shells.

"I'll get it," Mama told Papa. "Go wait for me in the room. This won't take long."

He obliged and left to the upstairs. She went to the front door and opened it to see a man of probably nineteen years of age, dark as night and soil and, in a way, very attractive. But his face was somewhat-locked in an expression of perpetual anger. To an extent, she couldn't stop feeling a bit of fear being invoked by looking at him.

"Can I help you?" She asked him.

"Yes," he said, his voice sounding un-threatening, detached from the rest of him. "Actually, you can. Are you, by any chance, the new owner of the Devoreaux plantation?"

"Yes, I am," she answered him, hiding her irritation.

Suddenly, he grabbed her by her neck, nearly strangling her.

"You're not," he told her, now appearing as though his voice and expression matched perfectly. "You're unfit to live in this body…Mama Cecile, and now's the time to pay your dues."

Papa waited for four minutes, losing his patience waiting for his wife to come up so they could have their special time together. It wasn't until fifteen seconds, afterward, that he heard a shriek.

"Aaaaaaaaaaahhh!" It sounded like Cecile, and he ran down the hall to the stairs, seeing the new body of hers down on the floor, with the hand of a dark stranger pressed against her chest as a strange red glow of dust manifested around it.

The young man looked over at him and smirked. He had already dealt with the woman, and now only he remained.

"His face doesn't suit you," he told him, and used his right hand to send a telekinetic-like jolt down his spine, lifting him up off his feet and restraining him. "You've both had more than enough time to change your ways and accept that Death was waiting for you. But you continued to stay amongst the living where you no longer belong, giving me the task to undo your crimes. Now, come to MY attic and…see MY skeletons!"

The room grew dark until Papa saw that they were no longer at the Devoreaux plantation, but in a place that looked like a perpetual wasteland, littered with bones and rotting flesh that seemed decades old.

"I hold your spouse's soul in my left hand," the stranger told him, revealing that the red dust around his palm was the soul of Cecile, bound to his will and stripped of her freedom, "and now you will join her in your suffering."

Approaching his new body, he grasped his chest and forced Papa's soul out of it.

"No!" He screamed, feeling all of his senses, with the exception of his sight and hearing, being ripped away from him. "Who are you?! What are you?!"

Lowering the body of Luke Race to the ground, and checking to make sure there were no residual unwanted spiritual energies left inside it, the stranger then brought up his palms to face the souls of the wicked couple.

"You two are some of the worst disgraces to the history of humanity's spirituality," he told them. "Nothing, not even the heavens themselves, will save you from justice. It is time to meet your maker: Me. Your spiritual brother."

"We don't have any brothers," Cecile said to him.

"Maybe not in any life that you've stolen or biological relatives, but in spirit, we are all related, like it or not, and I'm the oldest, most-respected relative you will ever know. I am the vengeance of your victims incarnate. I am the wishes of happiness. I…am…BROTHER CORRECTION!"

Trapped, like a rat by a cat. That was how Caroline felt, unable to say or do anything because of her pseudo stroke. Unless some sort of a miracle happened to save her, death was her only salvation. Free of pain, of the injustice she was dealt…and this cruel body she'd been stuck with.

Please, she begged, deep in her spiritual heart. Somebody…please, help me end this suffering.

Her eyes, seeing the small room she'd been placed in, grew dark from their exhaustion, and the world around her fading out.

Is my wish being granted? She wondered.

"No," an answer came to her ears, "but your life is being given back to you."

The next thing she knew, she felt her heart beating with a strong rhythm that she felt was familiar to her senses. Like it was her heart, and not somebody else's that she was stuck with.

"Caroline Ellis, you may rise back to your feet. Your feet, your flesh, and know that your life is yours forever more again," the voice told her.

She lifted up her right arm, and gasped at the sight of a smooth, young hand. Her hand, as young and healthy as the day she lost it. Rising to her feet, she found herself with her body returned to her. It was no dream or hallucination. She was returned to herself.

"Caroline?" She turned left to a person she recognized anywhere: It was Luke, restored of his life, as well. "Is that really you?"

She nodded positively. They found themselves in a land of red mist and sand, with four other people: A pair of children that Caroline felt were the original children of the plantation manor, and another pair of people that were also cheated. All of them, young, restored or even resurrected. Standing before them was a stranger that they didn't recognize: The guy that had visited the manor and had taken action at the last moment.

"Who are you?" She asked him. "Are you…the one responsible for this (she held out her hands to emphasize her question)?"

"Yes," he answered her. "I cannot undo every wrong those two committed, but I can restore life to those they had severely harmed. I'm not all-powerful yet. But soon, I'll be able to undo every wrong those fools had done."

"Why did you help us?" The boy of the manor asked him. "And…who are you?"

"I am Brother Correction, a spiritual brother of all that carry souls and one of the masters of life and death. I thought that Justify and Cecile would stop if I was patient. I was wrong. And after what they had done, I couldn't stand and watch as two more innocents suffered. So, once I requested the aid of this person's body (pointing to himself), I went over to the manor and dealt a cruel punishment to both, and once their souls were ripped away, I restored you all back to your original bodies and ages prior to when you were assaulted by the beliefs of this dark art."

"I guess…you deserve this: Thank you." Luke told him.

"Your gratitude is appreciated," he responded. "I don't know what you'll all do in the future, but I do know that you should probably get away from Louisiana as soon as possible. I can guarantee that you'll never have to deal with anybody wanting to steal your lives again, but it is always best to start a new life elsewhere. By tomorrow morning, the plantation manor and all of its secrets will be burned to the ground. Because some memories aren't meant to leave traces."

"What will happen to Justify and Cecile?" Caroline asked him.

"Justice…and then Hell will receive their souls. Live free…and find your happy ending."

Taking what Brother Correction suggested to heart, Caroline, along with Luke, the Devoreaux children and the others that were stripped of their lives, fled Louisiana in the very same night as the manor was suddenly burnt to the ground. They went their separate ways as they left, with the children going with Luke and Caroline to New York to start their lives over without fear, and the other couple heading to Alaska in order to brave the storms over there. Caroline and Luke, readjusting to each other (as well as their bodies), dated for three months and then got married, adopting the Devoreaux children as their own, with a third child on the way. The people of Louisiana never found out the reason why the plantation had burned to the ground the day the elderly Devoreaux couple had vanished without a trace, taking with it everything that it possessed. Sheets, tiles, glass, all of it was gone, along with all of the darker secrets.

Caroline, in the seventh month of her pregnancy, walked down the street to the local café to get herself a cup of coffee before she went to attend a parent-teacher meeting at her adopted children's school, when she bumped into somebody she hadn't seen since the nightmare had ended: The same guy that had restored her to her life and gave her the drive to get away from the darkness was holding a cup of coffee right in front of her.

"I…just wanted to make sure you were okay," Brother Correction told her, noticing her distended stomach. "It looks like you're going to be fine."

"Thanks to you," she praised him. "Would you…care to walk with me?"

"Sure."

Striking up a conversation out of simple curiosity about everything that went on, Caroline asked him a question she felt she had to ask to avoid going crazy about not asking.

"Where are Papa and Cecile?" She asked, finally able to get that off her shoulders.

"I'm still punishing them before I send them on to Hell," he answered her, chuckling. "I decided to make them see that, for each of the wrongs they did, they would suffer pain in every, physical way a person can suffer in the ways of the supernatural. Since they do their dark acts together, they shall share the pain together. How's your husband?"

"He's doing alright. He got a second job as a real estate broker."

"The kids?"

"They've adjusted fast to modern times, understanding things in a heartbeat. They've been given a second chance, and they're living it to its fullest."

"And this little one?" She looked down at her belly and patted it gently.

"She's gonna be quite a handful when she's born." She responded.

They reached the school, and bid each other farewell, promising they would meet again someday.

Thank you, Brother Correction, she thought peacefully as she went on to the parent-teacher meeting.

"Aaaaaaaahhhh!" Cecile screamed, her spirit being turned into what her body used to be before she had abandoned it to avoid death, suffering from one of her punishments along with Justify. "Please! Stop! I'm sorry!"

Brother Correction, watching her float over the pit of fire, ignored her plea as the shifting of flesh on her exposed abdomen occurred again and again every minute. This was becoming one of his favorite ways to punish the pair now: By putting Papa's soul into her dead womb, he ensured that they both knew how painful childbirth really was for those with darkness in their hearts. Sadly, though, Papa's soul was too big, and Cecile's womb was too small for him to move around.

"Let this enforce the lesson that is given: A person's body is their own property at birth. You make do with that property as you live each day, and when death approaches, you go with it!" He told her, watching as something began to emerge from between her legs. "Looks like somebody's not learning the punishment yet."

Just as Papa's head had finally managed to find its way out of Cecile's body, their spiritual brother used his powers to push his head back into her womb, causing her to scream louder from the pain of having him inside her this deep.

"Aaaaaahhh! Aaaaaaaahhh!" She went on and on, her hands tied behind her back and her legs tied to her hands. "Please! Stop! Aaaaaaahhh!"

Each time Papa moved, she felt the pain, but each time he didn't move, he would suffer, as well…like how, just five hours ago, he had accidentally burst from her stomach and caused severe pain to her, and he was then shoved back inside as the fleshed regenerated.

"Be silent, sister!" He told her, making the rags that clothed her nude body tighten around her shoulders and legs. "You and our brother still have two more hours, and then it'll be Bed Thrust Penalty, followed by the Pressed Flesh Punishment, followed by the Devil's Repeat Pleasure, meaning you'll have to go through these punishments again, in an unending cycle, until you're both completely worn out…and I have an eternity to know every layer of your spirits."

Feeling Papa trying to get out of her again, Cecile screamed her lungs out, crying from the pain.

"Aaaaaaahhh! Aaaah!"

"Never again will you two taste the air that comes with freedom. No more shall you feel the pleasures that come with life and love. Stripped for eternity of your hearts, your free will, and your destiny. Even when Hell does eventually freeze over, I will not permit you salvation. Hell is waiting for you. Heaven won't accept you. Earth no longer needs you. True justice…has finally been served."

The End

And I thank the person that inspired me to make this story. I hope it pleases all.