Mary is 34.
Mary likes cats and black licorice.
Mary is not seeing anyone right now, but the guy who delivers packages at work is pretty cute.
Mary is a nurse at the Feisty Senior Retirement Village.
Today, after a particularly unpleasant night shift, while driving her older model (mature, well traveled) blue sedan home, Mary is possessed by a demon.
Mary was an atheist.
Seems 2 boys had come to town. Called the Winchesters. The demons who wanted to attack them needed bodies. Guess it just wasn't Mary's day.
It's like being under an ocean, only dry. It's unbelievably heavy and pushing down on all sides. It's completely dark and silent, no matter how hard Mary screams.
Those are the good times.
Sometimes she gets glimpses, catches sound of what's going on around her.
It burns, like she's surfaced in a lake of sulfuric acid. She can feel this horrible malevolence. It hates these boys, hates the older man in the blue cap who's with them (who under other circumstances might have caught Mary's eye). It hates Mary, and it hates every single stinking sack of meat it sees walking around in paradise (it's words, not Mary's).
It's better for her when she goes back under. When she can't see or hear anymore. She doesn't want to know what that thing is doing to her body, with her body. Not watching is just easier.
Suddenly one of the boys is watching her, palm towards her, arm straight. He has a nosebleed. The nurse in Mary thinks he needs to get that cut above his eye checked out.
The weight's being lifted-ripped. It feels like vomiting up a mountain. It hurts.
Before she can tell those WInchester boys thank you, or even that she is alright, they and the older man, Bobby comes the memory, the vestiges of the monster in her mind, they are all gone. Mary will not see any of them again.
At first she's just grateful to be free of that thing. Mary tries not to think about what happened.
Mary plays with her cats and eats licorice and looks for a new job because apparently demonic possession is not reason enough for missing a week of work and not calling in.
Mary is more alone than ever.
Mary sees monsters everywhere she goes.
Mary decides to move, get away from the bad memories.
Mary thinks maybe she's a veteran, only without the pub, or the parade, or the group therapy.
Mary thinks a stiff drink is looking better and better all the time.
Mary tries going to church. It tingles unpleasantly on her skin the whole time she is there.
Mary is no longer an atheist. Too bad God no longer seems to want her.
Mary goes to a bar. Something about the dark and the misery feels good. Feels right.
Mary does not go back to the bar.
New city. New Job. No cats. Mary has given them away. She started to imagine the sounds her cats would make if she strangled them.
Mary sees monsters everytime she looks in a mirror.
Six months to the day Mary was possessed she starts thinking about killing herself.
But Mary has gotten religious. She knows (worries) that suicides go to hell. If demonic possession is bad, Hell must be much, much worse.
Mary stops shaving because the glint of the metal is catching her eye a little too much.
Mary tries drinking, but the burn, and the feeling of not being in control, of doing things she wouldn't normally do is a little to close to that thing she will not (can not) think about.
Mary stops leaving her house. She has her groceries delivered.
When the money runs out and the hunger sets in Mary is grateful she already got rid of her cats. Part of her is glad she is still disgusted by the thought. Part of her is horrified she even considered it.
Mary takes pills, because she decided Hell can't be any worse than where she is now.
Mary is wrong.