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Paranormal Salad. The Dressing. The Ember Timeline. An RJPC Studio
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Audio Production. Written by Robert Jerome Pagan. Performed by Jax Ember.
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Created and produced by Robert Jerome Pagan. This program is
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a work of dramatic fiction. Listener discretion is advised.
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Sophia was not possessed when I met her. I need
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to be in there because I spent years telling the
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story backward. Possession is convenient word. It creates a before
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and after a healthy person. Evil arrives, ritual happens. Evil leaves.
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Everybody understands their role and somebody gets to bring a crucifix.
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Sophia was more complicated. She was 28, worked at a hotel,
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hated mushrooms, loved terrible dance music, and could imitate her
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mother so perfectly that the first time she did it,
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I thought another woman had entered the room. She was
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also exhausted, frightened, and seeing a woman in her hallway
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who disappeared when anyone else looked. When I arrived at
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her apartment, Sophia opened the door and said, You are
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younger than I expected. I said, You are less possessed
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than I expected. She stared at me. Then she laughed.
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That was Sophia. If you could make her laugh, she
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gave you another ten minutes. I liked her immediately. The
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apartment was ordinary. Too ordinary, maybe. Cheap-framed grints, a couch
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that survived at least one relationship, laundry, folded, with the
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optimism of someone who intended to put it away, eventually.
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There were no symbols on the wall, no dead birds,
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no blood, no temperature dropped.
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I asked.
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Where she saw the woman. Sophia pointed towards the hallway,
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usually there. I looked. Nothing. What does she do? Watches. Watches.
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My stomach tightened. What does she look like? Sophia described
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dark clothing, wet hair, pale hands. I stopped writing. She noticed.
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You know her?
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No.
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That was lie number one. Then why did your face
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do that? My face does many things. Your face just
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joined a monastery. I liked her. I told Sophia I
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had experienced something similar before. That was technically true and
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emotionally dishonest. I did not tell her the woman knew
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the names of men I had wanted. I did not
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tell her the apparition had followed me from seminary. I
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did not tell her I slept with my closet door open.
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I wanted to be the expert. Experts do not say
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funny coincidence. Your haunting and mine appear to shock. At
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the same store. I set up the record. The first
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night gave nothing. The second gave us a whisper. I
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listened 30 times. Sophia... Heard her own name. I heard Daniel.
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Neither of us told the other at first. That should
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have been the warning. A phenomenon that gives two listeners...
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Different meaningful words... They're not simply producing sound. It's participating
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in interpretation. And I didn't have the language yet. I
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called it contamination. The third night, Sophia woke screaming and
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I was sleeping on her couch because she had become
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too afraid to be alone. I ran into the hallway
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and found her standing barefoot in front of the bedroom mirror.
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There was blood on her lip. Not much. She had
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bitten herself. In the mirror behind us, the woman stood
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at the end of the hallway. I turned, empty. I
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looked back at the mirror. She was closer. Sophia whispered,
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Do not let her touch me. I reached for the
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small bottle of holy water in my pocket. The woman smiled,
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then she was gone. The bathroom light shattered. Sophia collapsed.
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That was the first night I prayed over another person
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outside the church. Not because I believed I had authority.
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Because I had nothing. Nothing else. I used prayers I
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remembered from the seminary. Then stopped halfway through because Sophia
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started choking any time I spoke Latin. So... I changed languages.
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I prayed in English, then Spanish. Then I stopped using
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formal prayer entirely and said, you are not allowed to
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hurt her. The apartment went quiet. Sophia opened her eyes.
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She said, who are you talking to? I did not know.
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That should have stopped me. It did not. Over the
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next six weeks, Sophia became my first real case witness.
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and my first real friend after seminary. We ate terrible
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takeout at two in the morning. She mocked my notebooks.
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I mocked her music. She told me I looked like
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somebody had been raised by a haunted file encampment. I
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told her that sentence was racist against file encampments. She said, see,
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this is why you're single. I did not tell her
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about Daniel until Much later. When I finally did, she shrugged.
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And that's it. I had expected questions. What do you mean,
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that's it? I thought you were going to tell me
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you killed somebody. I was in seminary. Same sentence in
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some countries. I laughed. So hard I spilled my coffee.
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That is Sophia. I want you to remember... Not the
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wet ghost in the desert. Not the accusation. Not the
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thing that happened later. Remember the woman who kept hot
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sauce in her purse. Because restaurants could not be trusted.
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The haunting changed gradually. The woman appeared less. Other things
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appeared instead. Voices in the vents. Knocks that answered questions.
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A smell like wet earth. Sophia began losing time. Once
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I arrived and found every cabinet door open, Sophia was
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sitting at the kitchen table, staring at her hands. What happened,
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I asked. She said, I think I invented it. What
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did you invent? I don't know. I should have called
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for help then. I did not know Thorn yet. But
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I knew enough people from seminary to find somebody qualified.
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I was ashamed, not as Sophia, of myself. I had
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left the church declaring that I did not need their authority.
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And now the first real case in front of me
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was proving that reading books and being angry at bishops
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did not make me competent. Pride is embarrassing, when you
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name it correctly. That is the part I have never forgiven.
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Not that I failed. People fail. I told her I
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could save her when I did not know if I could.
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She trusted the confidence I performed. That is difficult. The
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final night began with rain. Sofia called and said the
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woman was inside the bedroom. I drove too fast. When
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I arrived, the apartment door was open. Water covered the
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hallway floor, though the ceiling was dry. Sophia was standing
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inside the bedroom. The woman stood beside her. I said
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Sophia's name. Sophia looked at me and said, You promised.
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Then every light went out. I remember noise. I remember water.
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I remember Sophia screaming. I remember something speaking through her
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voice and calling me Little Faith. I remember running. There.
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That is my confession. I ran. I told myself I
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went outside to call emergency services. I told myself I
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needed distance. to break whatever pattern was forming. I told
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the official report that I exited because of the electrical hazard.
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I ran because I was afraid. By the time I
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went back inside, Sofia was gone.
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Nobody.
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Nobody. No blood. No broken window, no open door. For
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years I said I failed to save Sophia. That sentence
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is almost honest. The truth is uglier. I left her
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alone at that exact moment because she believed I would stay.
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Everything I did after that began there. Books, the training,
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the cases... Paranormal style, the obsession with evidence, the inability
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to walk away when walking away would have been wise.
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I built a career trying to become the man who
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would not run the next time, Sophia screamed. That sounds
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noble until you realize how many people I dragged into
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rooms because I was still trying to rescue a woman
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from the past. The night Sophia stopped joking, I knew
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we were in trouble. Humor had been our pressure valve.
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She could make fun of almost anything until the evening
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I found her sitting on the kitchen floor with every
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light in the apartment turned on and a steak knife
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in her lap. I did not rush her. That is
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one of the few things I did correctly. Sophia, I
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know how this looks. It looks like you have a knife.
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I was cutting an apple. There is no apple. She
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looked around as if the missing fruit had betrayed her personally.
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Then she started crying. She told me the woman had
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stood behind her and said my name in my voice.
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Not imitated me. Used my voice. Sophia had answered because
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she thought I was in the hallway. After she answered,
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the lights went out. When they came back, the knife
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was in her hand. That is when I first understood.
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Familiar voices could be doors. I should have left with
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her that night. Put her in a hotel. Called every
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qualified person I knew. Instead, I stayed because I thought
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staying made me brave. And because some ugly part of
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me wanted to see what happened next. I loved Sophia.
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I also was fascinated by what was happening to her.
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Those two truths can occupy the same body. That is
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one of the reasons this story is difficult to tell.
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Sophia laughed when I called her haunted Said I looked
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too young to know There was a woman in the
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hallway Only Sophia could see go She said don't let
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her touch me.
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I said I.
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Swear I won't The lights went black, the water rose
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And I did what I said I.
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Wouldn't I ran, I should've stayed I should've stayed.
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You called my name inside the dark and I walked away.
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No blood, no body, no window open wide I came
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back to an.
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Empty room And you were gone without goodbye Your shoes
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are still beside the doorway. Your coffee waited by the sink.
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Water dying in the carpet. Not one clue to make
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me think.
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You climbed out. You slipped away. You found some ordinary road.
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Everything you want was there.
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Sophia.
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Only you were.
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Gone I should have stayed.
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I should have.
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Stayed You trusted me to face the thing I told
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you I could face No cry, nobody, no answer left
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behind Just your voice saying you promised.
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Every time I close my eyes.
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Every ghost I followed after you. Every door I opened you.
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Every signal in the darkness. Every voice beneath the noise.
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I was listening for you.
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Sophia, I came back. Too late, but I came back.
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And if somewhere there is still a door between your.
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World and mine, please.
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Help me.
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I should have stayed.
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You promised.
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I know.
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I know.
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No.
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You have been listening to Paranormal Salad. The Dressing. The
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00:17:18.990 --> 00:17:28.099
Ember Timeline. Written by Robert Jerome Pagan. Performed by Jax Ember. Created, directed, edited,
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00:17:28.319 --> 00:17:32.380
and produced by Robert Jerome Pagan. Sound design and production
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by RJPC Studios Audio. Paranormal Salad. The Ember Timeline. Our
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production's of RJPC Studios, LLC. Follow Paranormal Salad wherever you
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listen to podcasts for the next confession.
1
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Paranormal Salad. The Dressing. The Ember Timeline. An RJPC Studio
2
00:00:06.710 --> 00:00:12.929
Audio Production. Written by Robert Jerome Pagan. Performed by Jax Ember.
3
00:00:14.310 --> 00:00:18.769
Created and produced by Robert Jerome Pagan. This program is
4
00:00:18.809 --> 00:00:22.339
a work of dramatic fiction. Listener discretion is advised.
5
00:00:26.820 --> 00:00:29.289
Sophia was not possessed when I met her. I need
6
00:00:29.350 --> 00:00:31.750
to be in there because I spent years telling the
7
00:00:31.789 --> 00:00:37.630
story backward. Possession is convenient word. It creates a before
8
00:00:37.909 --> 00:00:44.000
and after a healthy person. Evil arrives, ritual happens. Evil leaves.
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Everybody understands their role and somebody gets to bring a crucifix.
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00:00:51.320 --> 00:00:54.880
Sophia was more complicated. She was 28, worked at a hotel,
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00:00:58.299 --> 00:01:04.500
hated mushrooms, loved terrible dance music, and could imitate her
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mother so perfectly that the first time she did it,
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I thought another woman had entered the room. She was
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also exhausted, frightened, and seeing a woman in her hallway
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who disappeared when anyone else looked. When I arrived at
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her apartment, Sophia opened the door and said, You are
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younger than I expected. I said, You are less possessed
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than I expected. She stared at me. Then she laughed.
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That was Sophia. If you could make her laugh, she
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gave you another ten minutes. I liked her immediately. The
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apartment was ordinary. Too ordinary, maybe. Cheap-framed grints, a couch
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that survived at least one relationship, laundry, folded, with the
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optimism of someone who intended to put it away, eventually.
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There were no symbols on the wall, no dead birds,
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no blood, no temperature dropped.
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I asked.
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Where she saw the woman. Sophia pointed towards the hallway,
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usually there. I looked. Nothing. What does she do? Watches. Watches.
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My stomach tightened. What does she look like? Sophia described
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dark clothing, wet hair, pale hands. I stopped writing. She noticed.
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You know her?
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No.
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That was lie number one. Then why did your face
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do that? My face does many things. Your face just
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joined a monastery. I liked her. I told Sophia I
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had experienced something similar before. That was technically true and
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emotionally dishonest. I did not tell her the woman knew
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the names of men I had wanted. I did not
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tell her the apparition had followed me from seminary. I
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did not tell her I slept with my closet door open.
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I wanted to be the expert. Experts do not say
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funny coincidence. Your haunting and mine appear to shock. At
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the same store. I set up the record. The first
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night gave nothing. The second gave us a whisper. I
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listened 30 times. Sophia... Heard her own name. I heard Daniel.
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Neither of us told the other at first. That should
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have been the warning. A phenomenon that gives two listeners...
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Different meaningful words... They're not simply producing sound. It's participating
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in interpretation. And I didn't have the language yet. I
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called it contamination. The third night, Sophia woke screaming and
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I was sleeping on her couch because she had become
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too afraid to be alone. I ran into the hallway
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and found her standing barefoot in front of the bedroom mirror.
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There was blood on her lip. Not much. She had
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bitten herself. In the mirror behind us, the woman stood
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at the end of the hallway. I turned, empty. I
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looked back at the mirror. She was closer. Sophia whispered,
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Do not let her touch me. I reached for the
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small bottle of holy water in my pocket. The woman smiled,
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then she was gone. The bathroom light shattered. Sophia collapsed.
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That was the first night I prayed over another person
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outside the church. Not because I believed I had authority.
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Because I had nothing. Nothing else. I used prayers I
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remembered from the seminary. Then stopped halfway through because Sophia
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started choking any time I spoke Latin. So... I changed languages.
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I prayed in English, then Spanish. Then I stopped using
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formal prayer entirely and said, you are not allowed to
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hurt her. The apartment went quiet. Sophia opened her eyes.
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She said, who are you talking to? I did not know.
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That should have stopped me. It did not. Over the
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next six weeks, Sophia became my first real case witness.
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and my first real friend after seminary. We ate terrible
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takeout at two in the morning. She mocked my notebooks.
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I mocked her music. She told me I looked like
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somebody had been raised by a haunted file encampment. I
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told her that sentence was racist against file encampments. She said, see,
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this is why you're single. I did not tell her
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about Daniel until Much later. When I finally did, she shrugged.
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And that's it. I had expected questions. What do you mean,
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that's it? I thought you were going to tell me
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you killed somebody. I was in seminary. Same sentence in
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some countries. I laughed. So hard I spilled my coffee.
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That is Sophia. I want you to remember... Not the
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wet ghost in the desert. Not the accusation. Not the
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thing that happened later. Remember the woman who kept hot
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sauce in her purse. Because restaurants could not be trusted.
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The haunting changed gradually. The woman appeared less. Other things
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appeared instead. Voices in the vents. Knocks that answered questions.
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A smell like wet earth. Sophia began losing time. Once
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I arrived and found every cabinet door open, Sophia was
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sitting at the kitchen table, staring at her hands. What happened,
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I asked. She said, I think I invented it. What
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did you invent? I don't know. I should have called
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for help then. I did not know Thorn yet. But
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I knew enough people from seminary to find somebody qualified.
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I was ashamed, not as Sophia, of myself. I had
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left the church declaring that I did not need their authority.
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And now the first real case in front of me
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was proving that reading books and being angry at bishops
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did not make me competent. Pride is embarrassing, when you
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name it correctly. That is the part I have never forgiven.
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Not that I failed. People fail. I told her I
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could save her when I did not know if I could.
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She trusted the confidence I performed. That is difficult. The
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final night began with rain. Sofia called and said the
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woman was inside the bedroom. I drove too fast. When
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I arrived, the apartment door was open. Water covered the
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hallway floor, though the ceiling was dry. Sophia was standing
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inside the bedroom. The woman stood beside her. I said
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Sophia's name. Sophia looked at me and said, You promised.
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Then every light went out. I remember noise. I remember water.
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I remember Sophia screaming. I remember something speaking through her
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voice and calling me Little Faith. I remember running. There.
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That is my confession. I ran. I told myself I
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went outside to call emergency services. I told myself I
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needed distance. to break whatever pattern was forming. I told
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the official report that I exited because of the electrical hazard.
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I ran because I was afraid. By the time I
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went back inside, Sofia was gone.
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Nobody.
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Nobody. No blood. No broken window, no open door. For
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years I said I failed to save Sophia. That sentence
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is almost honest. The truth is uglier. I left her
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alone at that exact moment because she believed I would stay.
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Everything I did after that began there. Books, the training,
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the cases... Paranormal style, the obsession with evidence, the inability
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to walk away when walking away would have been wise.
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I built a career trying to become the man who
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would not run the next time, Sophia screamed. That sounds
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noble until you realize how many people I dragged into
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rooms because I was still trying to rescue a woman
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from the past. The night Sophia stopped joking, I knew
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we were in trouble. Humor had been our pressure valve.
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She could make fun of almost anything until the evening
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I found her sitting on the kitchen floor with every
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light in the apartment turned on and a steak knife
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in her lap. I did not rush her. That is
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one of the few things I did correctly. Sophia, I
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know how this looks. It looks like you have a knife.
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I was cutting an apple. There is no apple. She
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looked around as if the missing fruit had betrayed her personally.
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Then she started crying. She told me the woman had
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stood behind her and said my name in my voice.
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Not imitated me. Used my voice. Sophia had answered because
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she thought I was in the hallway. After she answered,
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the lights went out. When they came back, the knife
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was in her hand. That is when I first understood.
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Familiar voices could be doors. I should have left with
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her that night. Put her in a hotel. Called every
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qualified person I knew. Instead, I stayed because I thought
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staying made me brave. And because some ugly part of
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me wanted to see what happened next. I loved Sophia.
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I also was fascinated by what was happening to her.
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Those two truths can occupy the same body. That is
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one of the reasons this story is difficult to tell.
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Sophia laughed when I called her haunted Said I looked
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too young to know There was a woman in the
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hallway Only Sophia could see go She said don't let
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her touch me.
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I said I.
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Swear I won't The lights went black, the water rose
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And I did what I said I.
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Wouldn't I ran, I should've stayed I should've stayed.
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You called my name inside the dark and I walked away.
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No blood, no body, no window open wide I came
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back to an.
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Empty room And you were gone without goodbye Your shoes
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are still beside the doorway. Your coffee waited by the sink.
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Water dying in the carpet. Not one clue to make
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me think.
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You climbed out. You slipped away. You found some ordinary road.
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Everything you want was there.
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Sophia.
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Only you were.
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Gone I should have stayed.
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I should have.
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Stayed You trusted me to face the thing I told
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you I could face No cry, nobody, no answer left
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behind Just your voice saying you promised.
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Every time I close my eyes.
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Every ghost I followed after you. Every door I opened you.
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Every signal in the darkness. Every voice beneath the noise.
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I was listening for you.
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Sophia, I came back. Too late, but I came back.
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And if somewhere there is still a door between your.
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World and mine, please.
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Help me.
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I should have stayed.
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You promised.
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I know.
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I know.
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No.
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You have been listening to Paranormal Salad. The Dressing. The
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00:17:18.990 --> 00:17:28.099
Ember Timeline. Written by Robert Jerome Pagan. Performed by Jax Ember. Created, directed, edited,
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00:17:28.319 --> 00:17:32.380
and produced by Robert Jerome Pagan. Sound design and production
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00:17:32.420 --> 00:17:38.539
by RJPC Studios Audio. Paranormal Salad. The Ember Timeline. Our
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00:17:38.579 --> 00:17:45.089
production's of RJPC Studios, LLC. Follow Paranormal Salad wherever you
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00:17:45.130 --> 00:17:47.769
listen to podcasts for the next confession.
