Speaker 1: Caloroga Shark Media.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Romance Weekly and Halloween Possession. This
Speaker 2: is episode four Interference Patterns.
Speaker 1: Here's what they don't tell you about supernatural connections. They're
Speaker 1: not romantic, They're invasive. By week four, I could feel
Speaker 1: him from across town. I knew when he was thinking
Speaker 1: about me because my skin would flush, starting at my
Speaker 1: collar bones and spreading down. We'd been inseparable for three days,
Speaker 1: literally since the witch House incident. We couldn't be more
Speaker 1: than a few feet apart without excruciating pain. The entity
Speaker 1: had done something to us, tangled our electromagnetic signatures so
Speaker 1: thoroughly that separation felt like being turned inside out, which
Speaker 1: is how I ended up living in Ethan's apartment above
Speaker 1: the Old Salem Bookstore, sharing his bed, his shower, his
Speaker 1: every waking moment, while trying desperately not to give in
Speaker 1: to what our bodies were screaming for. You're staring, he
Speaker 1: said from the kitchen, making coffee. He didn't need to
Speaker 1: turn around to know he could feel my eyes on him,
Speaker 1: like a physical touch. You're wearing my favorite shirt, I replied,
Speaker 1: the gray henley that clung to every muscle that made
Speaker 1: his eyes look darker. I know, of course he did.
Speaker 1: He could feel my reaction to it, the way my
Speaker 1: breath caught, the heat that pulled low in my belly,
Speaker 1: just like I could feel his satisfaction at affecting me.
Speaker 1: This is torture, I muttered. Which part He turned coffee
Speaker 1: in hand, and the morning light through the window made
Speaker 1: him look like something out of a dream. The entity
Speaker 1: hunting us, your sister dating my best friend, or the
Speaker 1: fact that we're sharing a bed but can't touch without
Speaker 1: feeding the thing that wants to eat us. All of it,
Speaker 1: but especially that last part. Three nights of lying next
Speaker 1: to him, feeling every shift of his body, every dream,
Speaker 1: every moment he woke up, hard and wanting. Three nights
Speaker 1: of careful distance of pillows between us like the world's
Speaker 1: most ineffective protection. Three nights of feeling his desire mixed
Speaker 1: with mine until I couldn't tell where I ended, and
Speaker 1: he began. My phone rang, Lily, you need to come
Speaker 1: to the festival grounds, she said. Marcus found something, something
Speaker 1: about what the festival really is. Twenty minutes later, we
Speaker 1: stood in the middle of Salem Common, watching vendors set
Speaker 1: up booths for the Halloween Festival. It looked innocent enough, pumpkins,
Speaker 1: corn mazes, carnival games. But Marcus had different maps spread
Speaker 1: on a picnic table covered in electromagnetic readings. The festival
Speaker 1: isn't random, he said. Look at the booth placements, the stages,
Speaker 1: the paths between attractions. It's a circuit, a massive electromagnetic trap.
Speaker 1: Ethan leaned over the map and I had to focus
Speaker 1: on breathing normally as his scent washed over me. My
Speaker 1: grandmother designed this sixty years ago, but I never knew
Speaker 1: why to catch it. Marcus said, the entity Every Halloween,
Speaker 1: the trap activates, but it's never worked because he looked
Speaker 1: at us, because it needs bait. Two people with electromagnetic
Speaker 1: signatures so intertwined that the entity can't resist like us,
Speaker 1: I said, exactly like you. Your connection is the strongest
Speaker 1: I've ever measured. You're not just compatible, you're perfectly matched
Speaker 1: mirror frequencies. Lily grabbed my hand. So my sister is bait.
Speaker 1: We both are, Ethan said quietly. The trap needs us
Speaker 1: at the center, fully connected to draw the entity in.
Speaker 1: Once it's feeding on us, the circuit activates and theoretically
Speaker 1: destroys it. Theoretically, I laughed, but it came out shaky.
Speaker 1: What happens to us? Marcus exchanged a look with Ethan unknown.
Speaker 1: The trap's never been successfully activated because no one's been
Speaker 1: stupid enough to try, because no one's had a connection
Speaker 1: strong enough to survive it. I felt Ethan's fear through
Speaker 1: our bond, but underneath it was determination. He'd already decided
Speaker 1: he would do this with or without me. When I asked,
Speaker 1: Halloween night, midnight, when the veil is thinnest and the
Speaker 1: entity is strongest, four days, Lily said, we have four
Speaker 1: days to figure out how to keep you alive while
Speaker 1: using you as supernatural bait. That's when I noticed someone
Speaker 1: watching us, a woman at the candy Apple booth. Her
Speaker 1: movements too smooth, too synchronized. When she turned, I gasped.
Speaker 1: It was Rebecca Torres, but not her features were right,
Speaker 1: but her electromagnetic signature was wrong, empty, like a photocopy
Speaker 1: of a person. Ethan, I whispered, he saw her too
Speaker 1: through our connection. I felt his horror and rage. It's
Speaker 1: wearing them, he said, the entity. It's wearing the women.
Speaker 1: It took Rebecca, not Rebecca smiled and waved, then disappeared
Speaker 1: into the crowd. But there were others. I could see
Speaker 1: them now, Emma Martinez at the fortune Teller's tent, Sarah
Speaker 1: Kim helping with decorations, all the missing women walking around
Speaker 1: Salem like nothing had happened. We need to get out
Speaker 1: of here, Marcus said, already packing up his maps. But
Speaker 1: when we turned to leave, Lily was gone. Lily. I
Speaker 1: spun around, panic, rising Lily through the crowd, I saw
Speaker 1: her walking toward the Haunted House attraction, her movements puppet smooth.
Speaker 1: Marcus ran after her, but she disappeared inside before he
Speaker 1: could reach her. It's taking her, I said, right now,
Speaker 1: in broad daylight, it's taking her. Ethan grabbed my hand
Speaker 1: and the full connection blazed to life between us. Through it,
Speaker 1: I could feel Lily faint, fading, being pulled apart, one
Speaker 1: frequency at a time. We can't wait for Halloween, I said,
Speaker 1: we have to do something now. If we activate the
Speaker 1: trap early, I don't care. That's my sister. He looked
Speaker 1: at me, and I felt his decision through our bond.
Speaker 1: Then we go get her. The Haunted House was closed,
Speaker 1: still being assembled for Halloween. We broke in through a
Speaker 1: service door, following the electromagnetic trail. Lily left behind inside
Speaker 1: was a maze of half built scares and exposed wiring.
Speaker 1: She's here, I said, feeling for her frequency, but she's scattered.
Speaker 1: That's when the lights went out. In the darkness, I
Speaker 1: could see them, all, the missing women, glowing with stolen
Speaker 1: electromagnetic energy. They moved in perfect synchronization, surrounding us. Mara Chen,
Speaker 1: they said in unison, their voices creating harmonics that made
Speaker 1: my bones ache. We've been waiting for you. Let my
Speaker 1: sister go. She's already gone, dispersed, absorbed like you will be. No.
Speaker 1: The word came from Ethan, and with it a surge
Speaker 1: of power through our connection the empty women, and stepped back.
Speaker 1: You're going to fight, they laughed, with Rebecca's mouth, Emma's throat,
Speaker 1: Sarah's lungs. You can't fight what you are, electromagnetic energy,
Speaker 1: seeking unity, fighting entropy, fighting isolation. We are what you'll become,
Speaker 1: perfect connection without the burden of self. That's not connection,
Speaker 1: I said, that's a rature.
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: Feel what you're becoming? And I did feel it. The
Speaker 1: boundaries between Ethan and me were dissolving more each day.
Speaker 1: I knew his thoughts before he spoke them, his desires,
Speaker 1: were becoming mine. We were losing ourselves in each other,
Speaker 1: and the entity was feeding on that loss. It's okay,
Speaker 1: Ethan said quietly to me, not them, I know what
Speaker 1: to do through our connection. I felt his plan. It
Speaker 1: was insane and our only chance. Trust me, He whispered,
Speaker 1: then pulled me against him and kissed me. The moment
Speaker 1: our lips met, the entity surged toward us, drawn by
Speaker 1: the electromagnetic explosion of our connection. But instead of resisting,
Speaker 1: we opened ourselves to it, Let it in, let it feed.
Speaker 1: It was agony ecstasy. I felt myself fragmenting, my electromagnetic
Speaker 1: signature scattering, but I also felt Ethan holding me together,
Speaker 1: using his energy to maintain my pattern. We were merging,
Speaker 1: truly merging, our frequencies, aligning into something new. The entity
Speaker 1: realized too late what we were doing. By feeding on us,
Speaker 1: it had created a conduit, and through that conduit we
Speaker 1: could reach the scattered pieces of the women it had taken. Lily,
Speaker 1: I called through the electromagnetic field, come back. I felt
Speaker 1: her distant and fading, but still there, still my sister.
Speaker 1: I pulled, using the connection the entity had created, and
Speaker 1: suddenly she was gasping on the floor. Beside us, the
Speaker 1: empty women screamed, their stolen forms flickering the trap. Marcus's
Speaker 1: voice came from the doorway. He was bleeding from a
Speaker 1: head wound, but holding something that looked like a jerry
Speaker 1: rigged electromagnetic pulse device. If you can hold it for
Speaker 1: thirty seconds, I can activate a localized version. Thirty seconds,
Speaker 1: it might as well have been thirty years. Ethan's arms
Speaker 1: tightened around me. Together together, we opened ourselves completely, no barriers,
Speaker 1: no resistance, every thought, every feeling, every cell of our
Speaker 1: beings aligned. I couldn't tell where I ended and he began.
Speaker 1: We were one electromagnetic signature, blazing like a sun. The
Speaker 1: entity couldn't resist. It poured into us, trying to scatter us,
Speaker 1: to add us to its collection. But we held. We
Speaker 1: held each other, held ourselves, held a pattern of who
Speaker 1: we were, even as everything tried to tear us apart.
Speaker 1: I felt the missing women, Rebecca, Emma, Sarah, dozens of
Speaker 1: others stretching back decades, all trapped in the entity's hunger.
Speaker 1: Through our connection, we gave them something to anchor to. Now, Marcus,
Speaker 1: the pulse hit and the world went white. When I
Speaker 1: came to I was on the floor of the haunted house.
Speaker 1: Ethan's body curved around mine. We were still connected, but
Speaker 1: the invasive presence was gone. The entity had been dispersed,
Speaker 1: its hold on the missing women broken, but they were
Speaker 1: still gone, Rebecca, Emma, Sarah. Their electromagnetic signatures had been
Speaker 1: scattered too completely to recover. Only Lily had been saved,
Speaker 1: pulled back before the point of no return, Mara. Lily's
Speaker 1: voice weak but real. I reached for her, and Ethan
Speaker 1: moved with me. Our bodies still synchronized. We couldn't seem
Speaker 1: to separate, couldn't find where one ended and the other began.
Speaker 1: The merge Marcus said quietly, permanent, isn't it? I felt
Speaker 1: the truth of it through every cell. Ethan and I
Speaker 1: were one electromagnetic field. Now we could probably learn to
Speaker 1: function separately to create the illusion of independence, but we
Speaker 1: would always be connected. Every thought, every feeling, every sensation
Speaker 1: shared forever. Are you okay with this? Ethan asked, though
Speaker 1: he already knew the answer. He could feel my mind
Speaker 1: as clearly as his own. Ask me again in fifty years,
Speaker 1: I said, He laughed, and I felt it resonate through
Speaker 1: both our bodies. The entity Lily asked. Dispersed, Marcus said,
Speaker 1: the pulse scattered it, but he looked at the electromagnetic reader.
Speaker 1: It's not gone, just spread thin. It'll reform eventually, maybe
Speaker 1: not for decades, but but it'll come back, I finished,
Speaker 1: and we'll be ready. Ethan helped me stand. Our movements
Speaker 1: perfectly coordinated. Now I could feel everything, his exhaustion, his relief,
Speaker 1: his love. That last one stopped me cold. You love me,
Speaker 1: I said, since the moment you walked into that Victorian house,
Speaker 1: glowing with power, you didn't understand. He touched my face
Speaker 1: and it felt like touching myself. The connection just made
Speaker 1: it impossible to hide. I love you too, I said,
Speaker 1: though the words were unnecessary. He could feel it, had
Speaker 1: probably felt it for days. This is beautiful and disturbing
Speaker 1: in equal measure. Lily said, can you not share everything
Speaker 1: like when you use the bathroom. We'll figure it out,
Speaker 1: I said, though I had no idea how. Marcus helped
Speaker 1: Lily stand. The festival still needs to happen. The entity
Speaker 1: is weak now, but the full trap on Halloween will
Speaker 1: make sure it can't reform for generations. So we still
Speaker 1: have to be bait. I asked. No, Ethan said, Now
Speaker 1: you are the trap. Your merged signature is like electromagnetic flypaper.
Speaker 1: Any piece of the entity that comes near you will
Speaker 1: stick and burn out. Four days until Halloween. Four days
Speaker 1: to learn how to exist as one electromagnetic being in
Speaker 1: two bodies. Four days to figure out if love could
Speaker 1: survive the complete absence of privacy. At least the sex
Speaker 1: will be interesting, Lily, said Lily, But she wasn't wrong.
Speaker 1: I could already feel it through our connection. When we
Speaker 1: finally gave in to the physical side of our merge,
Speaker 1: it would be unlike anything either of us had experienced,
Speaker 1: feeling everything from both sides. Pleasure doubled and reflected back infinitely.
Speaker 1: If we survived Halloween, the entity was wounded, but not dead,
Speaker 1: and we were no longer two people who could barely
Speaker 1: touch without consequences. We were something new, something powerful, something
Speaker 1: that had four days to figure out how to exist
Speaker 1: before the final test. Ready to go home, Ethan asked
Speaker 1: home his apartment, our apartment. Now I supposed our life together,
Speaker 1: I asked, though it was a joke. Now we couldn't
Speaker 1: be anything but together always, he said, and kissed me.
Speaker 1: The world exploded with sensation. His mouth on mine, my
Speaker 1: mouth on his, The taste of ourselves, the perfect circuit
Speaker 1: of desire and connection. Maybe losing my self in October
Speaker 1: wasn't the worst thing after all. Maybe it was the
Speaker 1: only way to truly be found.