Chapter 17: Out of Body

Day Six at the Haunted House

In the morning, Rey didn't seem like the same person. He seemed almost like a person possessed. C.M. Punk eyed him like he suspected Rey might literally be possessed.

Rey had lost all of his grace, which frankly just confounded everybody. They were used to Rey being fast and light and in control of totally cat-like reflexes.

Rey was wandering around the house bumping into things. Even when he was injured, Rey managed to be gracefully injured. He could limp with an elegance that shot spikes of jealousy through Shawn Michaels' heart. But now Rey was beside himself and apparently could not convince his legs to steer his feet away from furniture.

They all gawked at him like they were watching an alien abduction.

Rule one of WWE: John Cena cannot shut his goddamn mouth EVER.

Rule two: Rey Mysterio is graceful in all forms at all times, ALWAYS.

He'd probably never tripped over anything a day in his life. He startled himself the first time he did it and apologized profusely for making a racket and wandered away to be by himself.

He finally ended up just sitting on the porch.

He refused to eat breakfast and Dave actually brought some out to him, but he didn't touch it.

Rey seemed to be searching for something. He was scared to death of the house now, so he wouldn't wander alone. He'd always look up when he decided to leave a room and meet Dave's eyes. Dave would smile at him sadly and Rey would just blink silently back and lead him into the next room.

They were breaking the unspoken rule of going places without the entire group following and they were getting progressively further away from the living room that was home base. Batista permitted this because Rey had been kind enough to take him along.

This had started after breakfast. After they'd passed through the third room Batista couldn't hold back his curiosity any longer.

"Rey, where are you going?"

"I don't know," Rey answered blankly and kept bobbing along, ramming his shin into a bench that he never would have hit before today.

"Ow," he said lamely and hopped one legged through the next doorway. Absolutely pitiful. He had bags under his eyes to rival C.M. Punk's.

His big eyes would scan over the whole room and he would walk every inch of it, sometimes trailing his fingertips over furniture. Batista knew when he noticed that Rey's lips were moving that Mysterio was trying to call something to him.

"Rey, who are you looking for?" Batista thought to ask.

Rey stopped in his tracks. He stared at Dave. "Sylvia."

"She's dead, Rey, you can't help her."

Rey just shook his head. "I haven't seen her today. I haven't seen her at all since yesterday. She usually visits in the night if I don't see her before I go to bed."

"Rey, she's dead," Batista repeated desperately, not sure if Rey understood that.

"I know!" Rey shouted suddenly and stopped, covering his mouth with his hands. He ran his hands distractedly over his scalp and shook his head.

"Why do you need to find her?" Batista prodded gently.

Rey didn't answer him; he just sat down on the dusty couch, making himself cough horribly as the cloud passed over him. He wiped his eyes as they teared up from the filth.

Batista covered his mouth to keep from inhaling the dust, too.

"Rey, come on, you haven't eaten anything today. Let me get you something. Or why don't you go back to the living room again and lie down? You barely slept a wink at all last night," Batista advised.

Rey shook his head and stared at the floor. "I'm not tired."

"The hell you're not tired, when have you ever seen yourself run into things before?!" Batista blurted impatiently.

Rey flinched and reflexively touched his bruised shin. He dropped his eyes. He'd hoped that no one had noticed that.

Rey bit his lip. "I'm not."

"Rey, you are. Michelle was right. You were right. You shouldn't have come here. It's doing things to you. It's messing with your head. You took Sylvia too much to heart, Rey, I should have noticed, man, I'm sorry. You just took her murder too personally," Batista apologized.

"¿Corazón?" Rey whispered suddenly, touching his chest where his was. He swallowed.

Batista didn't know what Rey was referencing so he just assumed it was either some Mexican thing or Rey being delirious.

Rey ignored the worried look on Dave's face. Batista kept mentioning his heart. Maybe he would understand later. But Rey remembered mentioning to Michelle that no one was in charge of his heart but him. It was his responsibility to make himself happy. Dave and the others had already done the best they could for him, now it was his job to buckle down and deal with things.

Rey took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders.

Batista blinked. Rey seemed to come back to himself suddenly.

And then in the next second Dave was sure that Rey had totally lost his marbles again.

Rey stood up and started shouting for the ghost girl.

"SYLVIA!!"

Punk had said something about summoning spirits. They could be called to people. Rey had no idea how to use psychic powers or whatever he was supposed to use to will Sylvia to him, so he settled for literally calling for her. Hey, screaming worked wonders on regular kids, it should work for ghost kids just as well.

"Rey?!" Dave blurted, stupefied.

"Rey, what the fuck are you shouting for?!" Batista demanded, but Rey ignored him and kept calling for the ghost girl.

"SYVLIA!!!"

"SYLVIAAAAAAAA!!!" Rey screamed.

C.M. Punk, Shawn Michaels and Triple H all came panting into the room.

"What the fuck has gotten into him?" Shawn asked.

"He's trying to call Sylvia? Why?" Triple H said.

"SYLVI- mmmf!" Rey exclaimed as Batista ran up behind him and covered his mouth. "Rey, calm down! Jesus!"

Rey squirmed, but Dave wouldn't let go of him.

Suddenly Triple H started and hid behind Shawn Michaels.

"Oh my God…" C.M. Punk said in awe.

Rey's eyes lit up and Batista released him from muffling.

"Sylvia!" Rey said, grinning.

The little girl was panting after dashing through a solid wall to get to him.

"Baby girl, where were you?!" Rey blurted and threw his arms around her.

She giggled and hugged him back. She kissed his cheek playfully.

He leaned back from her, a small mark like a little burn fading away from his face where she'd touched him. He set his hands on her waist, not wanting to let her go.

They all blinked as they saw the mark vanish. Rey was right. Whenever he touched the ghost girl, a little freezer burn would appear on his skin.

"Are you all right now? After you ran off the other day, I didn't see you."

Sylvia nodded.

"You're okay now?"

She nodded firmly and smiled at him.

He smiled back. "You had me worried there."

She started moving her lips very fast.

"Wait, wait. Easy. There's nobody here who can read your lips anymore, baby girl, I'm sorry."

Sylvia stopped 'talking' and pouted.

"Let's get you a pen and some paper, okay?" Punk suggested. He left with a reluctant Triple H and HBK as escorts and he came back a minute later with a sketch pad, two pens, and two wheezing older wrestlers. He handed the things to Rey, who set them down and patted the floor.

Sylvia sat where he motioned her to and he laid out the pad before her.

"'What did you want to ask me?'" Rey read.

"Well, I was hoping you knew where my friends were."

I didn't take them.

"Who did? Was it someone else? Do you know who took my friends, Sylvia?"

Papa did.

Rey looked at her worriedly. She stared back at him grimly.

"That…that man with the…who killed you. Is he your father?"

Sylvia nodded.
"I was afraid of that."

I can lead you to where he takes them.

"Sylvia, baby, listen to me. This is very important."

The little girl's eyes widened and she watched Rey, paying strict attention.

"Are my friends alive?"

She nodded fervently.

"All of them?"

More nodding.

Rey sighed, relieved.
"Oh, thank God."

I can take you to them, but I need your help.

Rey read that aloud and stared at Sylvia in concern.

"What do you need, baby girl?"

I need to borrow you.

Rey blinked at her, confused. "What do you mean?"

Sylvia had seen them all using this 21st century gesture known as the shrug to communicate that they were unsure. She shrugged. She could only show him.

She dropped the pen and stepped closer to Rey. He looked back at her, perplexed, and she set her hands against his temples. Rey felt the slight burn of his living skin coming into contact with her ectoplasm or whatever her skin had become.

"Sylvia, what are you…?" Rey asked and then stiffened. His voice ceased to work. They all watched, confused.

Rey's eyes grew hazy and his breathing slowed.

"Oh…I understand…go ahead…" Rey murmured and then suddenly he collapsed, and Sylvia vanished.

Batista dashed over and caught him.

Rey's eyes were closed and his mouth was shut tight.

"Rey, wake up! REY!!!" Batista cried, his deep voice becoming mangled and strained.

"REEEEY…" he sobbed, shaking Rey's small, limp body.

"Batista! Easy, man! Easy!"

"Punk…Punk, I don't know what to do, he won't wake up, I can't wake him up…"

A huge slap cracked Dave Batista straight across the face.

He put a hand to his sore jaw and gaped at C.M. Punk in shock.

"Sorry about that, but you need to get ahold of yourself. Are you calm?"

"No, I'm not calm! Rey's hurt or something, how can I be calm?!"

Punk sighed and held his hand over Rey's mouth. He felt the faint touch of air escaping Rey's body.

"He's breathing."

"Oh, thank God," Batista said, relieved.

"Hold my flashlight for me."

"What are you going to do?" Dave asked, frowning, and taking it in his hand.

"Take his pulse."

Punk lifted up the sleeve of his hoodie and motioned for Dave to shine the light on his watch in the dim light of the room, which he did. The black-haired wrestler held Rey's wrist and looked at his watch, mouthing numbers as he counted.

After one minute, Punk spoke.

"He's fine. His pulse is normal. Maybe he's not asleep, Dave."

"No, he's not conscious. Not at all."

"Well, Rey is a heavy sleeper…" Punk said, his voice trailing off.

"I shook him. He's not that heavy of a sleeper. No one is."

"Did you hear what he said before he passed out? I couldn't hear him from the doorway after he asked Sylvia what she was doing," Punk explained.

"He said something. But it was nothing that made any sense," Batista said.

"It's Rey, Dave. If he said something right before passing out then it was probably important."

"He said 'go ahead.' But he was talking to Sylvia, he wasn't talking to us, I don't think."

"Will she know what to do? Does she know what's wrong with him?" Punk asked.

Dave shook his head. "I don't know. He didn't say. That one sentence was all he got out."

Punk sighed and look at Rey, smoothing over the Latino's cute shaved scalp.

"I hope we can find her again. She couldn't have disappeared completely…"

Punk closed his eyes tight and appeared to be meditating fiercely.

"What are you doing?" Triple H asked him.

"Trying to summon Sylvia again," Punk said through clenched teeth, he was concentrating so hard.

Shawn snorted. "Whatever, don't give yourself an aneurysm. As long as Rey's alive, who cares where that little kid is?"

Rey's eyelids fluttered. And then they opened completely.

Batista smiled broadly. "Rey!" he blinked. "Oh my God, your eyes!"

Punk stopped his meditation and saw Rey's brilliant blue irises and gasped.

Rey struggled to sit up. He struggled to do anything. Batista held him up to a sitting position.

He looked dizzy and disoriented.

"Thank you, sir…" Rey murmured in an uncharacteristically light tone. It was softer. It was in Rey's voice, but as though it was a part of his voice that went unused because frankly, it made him sound like a small girl.

Batista didn't like the voice, but the words were kind of a turn-on. Rey had never called him 'sir' or 'mister' or even 'señor' a day in his life. Dave had hopes that this would become a habit.

Rey touched his throat faintly. "Oh. This voice feels…lower."

"Rey, what's gotten into you?!" Batista asked, frightened.

"Easy, Batista, back up from him for a second," Punk advised.

Batista reluctantly stood and helped Rey to his feet before backing away.

Rey held his head and shut his eyes with a child-like expression. Like a little kid that had hit their head and was too old to cry but too upset not to dwell on the injury.

Punk observed this for a minute.

"Rey, look at me."

Rey didn't look up. Punk furrowed his brow suspiciously.

"Sylvia, is that you?" Punk asked carefully.

Rey looked up with his new blue eyes at Punk and nodded.

"Yes."

Batista blinked at him, shocked.

"What?!"

He nearly fainted. God, he hoped Rey wouldn't stay this way. If he –or she– did then that might make Dave a pedophile now.

"That can't be Sylvia, that's Rey! That-what…how?!" he demanded lamely.

Punk shrugged. "Doesn't matter how. Sylvia is inside Rey's body, controlling it."

Rey nodded. "Yes. I need to borrow him."

"OH. MY. GOD." Triple H said slowly.

"What do you mean Sylvia's inside him?!" Batista demanded, shaking Punk.

"Where's Rey's soul if Sylvia hijacked his body?!"

"He is in here still."

Batista stared incredulously at Rey-Sylvia.

With some difficulty, the ghost commanded the new body to perform a nervous swallow.

"Rey is in here. He is asleep. I am awake. He and I can be together inside here, but we cannot both be awake."

Punk's eyes widened in fascination. This was a dream come true for his fun-fact devouring mind. He loved ghost lore, now he got to explore it firsthand!

"Oh, that's so cool! You mean to say that there can only be one conscious person in a body at a time?" Punk asked.

Rey-Sylvia thought that over. "Yes."

Punk grinned. "Oh my God, that's amazing. How many souls can a body hold?"

"This one can hold two," Rey-Sylvia answered.

"Is it different for every body?" Punk continued, excited.

"Yes," Rey-Sylvia said assuredly.

"You mean you've possessed people before?" Batista asked gently, not sure what tone to take. This was scaring him thoroughly. Just last night he had gotten off to the pleasure of interacting with Rey's body, and now it didn't even belong to Rey anymore.

Could he still have feelings for this thing? Jesus, he hoped this possession wouldn't last long. That would be a travesty if Rey's body had to be permanently treated as though he were a virginal little girl.

"Yes. I try to find girls or ladies, but the people who come here are often boys or gentlemen."

"Did you possess Michelle McCool?" Batista thought to ask. "Is that the link between you two?"

Rey-Sylvia shook her head. "No. I talked to her. She is my friend. Ask Rey when he comes back. She is my friend like he is. But she is much scarier than him. I did not want to try to borrow her."

Triple H laughed hysterically at the thought that the ghost girl considered a grown man far less intimidating to possess than Michelle.

"Oh, God, that's true… Michelle is so much scarier than Rey…" Triple H cried in between his laughs.

Shawn snorted, already finding ways make this situation funny. "Well, by Sylvia's logic, then Dave here should be able to fit three or four souls inside him."

Dave smacked him to the back of the head. "Stop mocking Rey's size! He hates that! Plus, you're barely bigger than him, you hypocrite!"

Rey-Sylvia covered his/her mouth. "Please stop fighting!" she requested.

(They had decided to settle on the pronoun 'she' to describe her. Yes, it was a male body, but it was a female consciousness occupying it right now.)

Punk patted her back. He smiled reassuringly and chuckled. "Its okay, Sylvia. They're boys. Boys like to roughhouse, right?"

She smiled and nodded.

"Sylvia, would you like to take us to our friends, now?" Punk requested kindly.

Rey-Sylvia nodded.

She tried to walk and tottered around, frowning, perplexed at being taller, and probably some other…things.

Punk braced her and said, "You got it? Can you walk by yourself? Do you need me to hold your hand or anything, Sylvia?"

Rey-Sylvia shook her head and tottered out the door.

"I do not think I like borrowing boys," Rey-Sylvia said as she led them down the hall.

Triple H chuckled. "Why?"

"They have too many extra parts."

Shawn sniggered.

Batista followed Rey-Sylvia closely, afraid that the girl would damage Rey's body.

"Sir?" she asked him, noticing that he seemed intensely worried.

"Uh…yeah?" Batista asked awkwardly.

"Are you Rey's best friend?"

Batista smiled nervously. "I'd like to think I am, yeah."

She made Rey smile in a way that just might have looked even cuter than the way he usually did.

"He told me to ask you not to worry about him."

Batista chuckled. "Yeah. Yeah, I bet he did tell you that, Sylvia. That sounds like Rey."

She smiled.

She led them to the basement stairs to no one's surprise.

"It will be safe for you to get your friends now because the sun is out. My father only comes at night."

Rey-Sylvia's body shuddered suddenly and Batista braced her shoulders to make sure Rey wouldn't fall.

His voice was the one that emerged next, but it echoed, as though he were being kept in the back of his own head. He was talking to Sylvia.

"Baby girl, can you let me take over, now? I'd like to see the guys."

"Yes, Rey."

"Thank you."

That was the most bizarre thing to witness two very different voices coming out of Rey's mouth.

"Wait, Sylvia!" Punk said.

He snapped a photo of Rey with blue eyes on his digital camera.

Rey-Sylvia rubbed her eyes, not accustomed to the flash of 21st century cameras.

"There we go. I bet nobody will believe it when we tell them Rey's eyes turned blue without contacts for once," Punk said with a grin. "Plus I have proof that somebody got possessed by a ghost! How awesome is that?!"

Rey-Sylvia appeared sleepy, much like how Rey had looked when Sylvia possessed him in the first place.

"Dave…you're gonna have to catch me…" Rey's echoing voice said, drifting out.

Rey-Sylvia's breathing slowed and her eyes rolled into the back of her head and Batista caught Rey as he passed out again.

"Rey? Buddy…?" Batista asked weakly, patting his cheek.

"Uh…" Rey opened his eyes. They were dark chocolate brown again. Still, Batista didn't want to take any chances. He stared down warily at his friend's body.

"Which one are you?"

Rey shut his eyes and then opened them again. His vision focused.

"I'm me," Rey answered, his voice back to normal.

Sylvia materialized in ghost form a few feet away, next to Punk, in fact.

Rey blinked drowsily. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Batista set his hand on the side of Rey's face, looking deep into his eyes. "Say something only you would know how to say."

Rey thought for a second.

"Mi amigos no pueden decir el Español."

Batista laughed and squeezed Rey joyfully. "It's you! Or at least I hope so; I doubt a little white girl from the nineteen hundreds knows how to speak Spanish."

Rey chuckled. "Yeah."

"What did you say, something about your friends and Spanish?" Shawn asked him.

"I said 'my friends can't speak Spanish'," Rey translated.

Triple H snorted. "No, apparently we really really can't."

Rey grinned.

"Hey Rey, your eyes turned blue like Sylvia's when she had control of you," Punk informed him.

"No way…" Rey groaned when he tried to sit up. "Oh, God, my head…"

Dave supported him at the elbows.

"No, really, Rey, your eyes changed color completely," Batista insisted.

"No, I mean it. I literally do not believe you," Rey said stubbornly.

Punk showed him the picture.

"Maria, Madre de Dios…" Rey murmured, rubbing his temples.

"Are my eyes still that color?"

"No, they're brown again."

"God…" he looked at the ghost girl. "Did I turn into a cute little girl, too?"

Sylvia laughed and shook her head.

Rey grinned.

Batista set his hands on Rey's shoulders protectively and frowned at the ghost girl, who hid behind Punk.

"Why did she have to hijack you if all she had to do was lead us to the basement?"

Rey sighed. "Don't you go starting fights with small children now. It had to happen. We all would have worried so intensely on the way over to the basement door that our thoughts would have been enough to summon Sylvia's father. Punk was right; it's our thoughts about Sylvia's father that call him. He can manifest at night because when we're asleep, we're having nightmares about him and when we're awake at night we're thinking about the nightmares. We would have summoned him, so she had to suppress my thoughts because especially…" Rey swallowed. "Especially my thoughts would have been enough to summon him."

Sylvia peeked out from behind Punk's leg.

Rey smiled at her.

"Plus she thought it would be fun, I think," Rey teased.

Sylvia giggled.

Batista sighed. "Well, I didn't think it was funny."

"We did," Shawn and Triple H said together.

"Could you hear everything that Sylvia said while she was controlling your body?" Punk asked Rey.

"Oh, yeah. I knew what was going on; it was just like I was in the backseat of my own car while Sylvia was driving, except, the car was…my body."

"Yeah, we get the metaphor, Rey," Shawn said, sighing.

"Were you backseat driving?" Batista teased.

Rey ruffled Batista's hair into his eyes, mussing it up. "Ha ha ha. No. I wasn't."

Batista laughed and helped Rey back to his feet.

They wandered over to the basement entrance.

"There's a big black space down there. Is that where they are? Why didn't they just come out with the trapdoor gone?" Punk asked.

Rey shook his head. "Sylvia told me that there's a door down there that's locked from our side. And there's a key at the top of the doorframe. Even when she's solid, she's too short to reach it. They're in that locked room."

Batista stared at Rey.

"Sylvia told you all that in your head? When she was possessing you?"

Rey gave a short sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"It's complicated…I could speak to her, like instantaneously and she could speak to me that way, too."

"So whatever you thought she heard?" Punk asked.

Rey frowned and looked at the little girl.

She looked up into his face.

"Yes. I think that's what happened."

Triple H whistled. "Dang, that's weird."

Shawn giggled hysterically. "I'm glad she went inside you instead of inside somebody like me or Batista, Rey, because we wouldn't be able to edit all the nasty stuff we think of."

Batista growled. "Hey, that's not true. I can be nice to kids."

Sylvia and Rey exchanged glances and he laughed.

"She just pointed at you Shawn and raised an eyebrow at me…" Rey gasped, chuckling.

"She doesn't think you can be nice, I guess."

Shawn stuck out his tongue.

Sylvia was about to do the same but pouted because she realized she didn't have one.

Rey patted her hair.

"Don't mind him, baby girl, he's just…he's just silly."

Batista snorted.

"He's more than that."

Rey sighed tiredly.

They all looked back to the basement stairs.

There was an apprehensive pause.

"So who wants to go?" Triple H asked.

"Rey, you're not going down there," Batista intoned sternly. "I don't want to risk it."

Rey sighed and set his hand on Sylvia's head. She stared up at him.

"I'll stay here with you and Sylvia, Dave, calm down."

"I'll go," C.M. Punk volunteered. They handed him a flash light.

"Good luck, man," Triple H said as Punk went down the stairs.