Page 2 of These Thoughts Are Not Your Own

The grin widens, impossibly so, stretching beyond the edges of what should be its face. “You do not know what you called,” Bhalka laughs, a sound that seems to shake the walls of the basement. The mocking tone tightens something in Alden’s chest, a feeling of dread mixed with humiliation. “The Beyond owes you nothing, mortal child. You think your crude symbols and borrowed words give you power here?”

The figure begins to pace, its form dragging through the circle as if testing its boundaries. Blackened fingers, dripping with ichor, trace the fiery bars of the pentagram. The hissing sound of contact is faint but insistent, like flesh searing on hot iron. Yet Bhalka shows no sign of pain, only curiosity.

“You dare mock me?” Alden spits, though his voice quivers as he grips the book tighter.

“Mock you? Foolish child,” Bhalka replies, its tone shifting to something resembling pity, though its grin remains as sharp as ever. “You are but a shadow of your father, and he was a shadow of what he sought to be.” Its form grows more defined as it moves, shadows pooling and thickening. Shoulders rise, broad and imposing, and long strands of what looks like hair cascade down its back, flowing like ink in water.

Alden stiffens as the creature's eyes finally materialize. Twin pools of void stare back at him, their edges shimmering faintly as though barely contained. They hold him in place, exposing something raw and trembling in his core.

“I am nothing like him,” Alden growls, his nails digging into the ancient leather of the book.

“Ah, but you are,” Bhalka hisses, its grin twisting. “You wish to tear through the veil, to demand answers, but you already have them.” The words drip with mockery. “You sought me, skeptic, thinking yourself immune to the allure of belief. And yet here you are, risking everything you have to see.”

“Enough!” Alden shouts, his voice cracking with desperation. The oppressive heat of the room makes his jacket stifling, and he loosens his collar with shaking hands. “Can you bring her back?”

Bhalka stills, and for a long moment, the room seems to hold its breath. “Your mother?” it sneers, its voice dripping with derision. “No. Death is a gate that swings one way. She is beyond your reach, mortal. But I can give you what you truly desire.”

The figure moves closer, its oily black surface beginning to change. Pale skin emerges from the shadows, inch by inch, as if a new being is being born from the depths. Muscles ripple beneath the surface, and sharp edges of definition form across its chest and arms. Hands take shape, long fingers flexing with an unnatural grace.

Bhalka's transformation continues, skin crawling upward over its shoulders and neck, forming a face of striking beauty, its features sharp yet strangely soft. Little moles dot the surface of its new flesh, like stars in a night sky, hinting at the darkness that lies just beneath. Its lips, full and curved, part in another wicked grin.

“I know you, Alden,” it purrs, stepping closer to the fiery barrier. “I know what you long for but cannot admit. A companion. A man who would take what you cannot give.”

The words hit Alden like a blow, and he stumbles back, his face flushing crimson. “You know nothing of me,” he says hoarsely, though the tremor in his voice betrays him.

“Oh, but I know everything,” Bhalka replies, its voice a silky taunt. “I see what lies hidden in your heart, what you bury beneath layers of denial. I can be what you refuse to ask for.” It flexes its newly formed body, each movement slow and deliberate, its bare skin glowing faintly in the candlelight.

“Stop,” Alden whispers, his throat dry, his words barely audible. “Men don’t desire other men as you say. I don’t desire…I don’t.”

Bhalka jeers at him. “Liar.” Dark eyes glitter at him over a wide mouth and a proud nose, shaped perfectly out of the fantasies Alden would never, ever speak. “They do. You do.” Hips angle towards him, displaying the long bulk of a cock, and Alden looks away, up to the ceiling, counting the crossbeams and watching the shadows of the candles flicker. “I will give you your darkest desires, Alden.”

“Lies and trickery,” Alden says, not looking back down. Perspiration is soaking his undershirt, gathering between his shoulder blades to freeze across the skin of his back.

“I do not lie to myself. As you do.” Alden watches the shadows on the ceiling flex and move as the creature stretches in his new form. “I wish to be freed. You will give me this, and I will give you what no mortal can give you in return.”

“Sex is cheap,” Alden says. “If I wished for it, I could have had it from any -”

“Not only sex,” Bhalka interrupts. “Though you do wish for that. You wish for more. You hunger for pleasures no mortal can give you, in a companion that will never leave you.” His voice thrums deeper, rolling through the stone floor of the basement and up the back of Alden's legs. “Look at me.”

As if he cannot stop it, as if there is a weight pulling his chin down from the ceiling, Alden does. Bhalka is staring at him, dark eyes drinking him in from the other side of the candle cage. “You wish to be owned.”

“No,” Alden whispers. “I -”

“Owned and taken by powers you could never match,” Bhalka croons. “I will be perfect for you, and you will be perfect for me.” He gestures with one of his new large hands at the circle enclosing him. “Come closer. You will believe.”

Alden can't stop the path of his feet. His numb fingertips drop away from the page of the book, and his dress shoes click across the floor. He steps carefully over the larger enclosing circle of salt. Now they stand only bare centimeters apart, separated by the fiery plumes of the blackish candles. Wax pools at his feet, and black eyes stare into his from a height just above his own. Perfect. As he'd always wanted it.

Bhalka leans forward, pressing his face through the gap in the bars. The flame sizzles into his flesh, searing a heavy line that arcs up the right side of his chest and neck, across his jawand cheek as he presses his face forward through the cage to reach out. Bhalka's expression flickers with pain, but he doesn't stop, staying there as the candle melts a line into his skin.

“Don't,” Alden whispers. He can't stand to see his face burning. This face, the composition of every secret lustful thought, burning in front of him as he'd burnt alone. He has never seen this face before, and yet he knows, deep down, that this is the face formed out of the very fabric of his dreams and the darkest textures of his secret lust.

“You like this,” Bhalka says, gesturing at the sizzling line on his face. Little embers glow at the edges of the line, and a thin trail of smoke is rising from his skin. He hasn’t stepped back from the flaming ring of fire. “You like this face.”

“Yes, I - ” Alden closes his eyes. “Stop it.”

“Does it please you? That I want you enough to burn?”

“Yes,” Alden says, his throat dry. He can smell the sharp scent of sulphur in the air, dark and unholy and twisted, biting at the back of his sinuses over the scent of candle wax.

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