Human Portal to the Other Side Part 2

They are coming today. They should be there within the hour, but can she hold on?

It's day four of Lanie's body being used as a portal for spirits to come and go from the spiritual realm into ours. Three sets of eyes sit around her bed and watch as she suffers through nausea, blackouts, and a constant state of dizziness. She is unable to eat due to the extreme nausea; it never lets up. She can drink but only with the assistance of her mother or grandmother. The spirits have drained all of her energy. She can not get up to go to the bathroom on her own, or even hold herself up to sit in her bed.

There is a constant flow of spirits coming and going, with barely a moment's rest. She is unable to sleep and her loved ones are becoming increasingly worried as she has began what looks to them as hallucinating. She is talking about places she has never been, and pointing and laughing at objects that aren't there.

She can hear them talking but can't make out the words and it's frightening. Somewhere inside she knows that what is happening to her is not good. It is slowly draining the life force from her but she is helpless against it and doesn't know how to fight it.

Her mother is helping her to the bathroom when three other women walk into her room. Their mutual shocked expressions confirmed what she had thought. She looked as awful as she felt.

As the three middle aged women—Lauren, Michelle, and Sandra—talk with her family, they immediately know what needs to be done. But there are a couple of problems. They need a vial of her blood without a spirit passing through, and with as dehydrated and frail looking as she was, they weren't certain that they could get what they needed. They also informed her Mother that Lanie would lose her ability to be able to interact with spirits at all. She made the swift decision that if it meant saving her life then she would help her daughter cope with the latter when she was better. They contemplated the ways in which they could get the blood from her. They had just about made their decision when Lanie did the unexpected. She grabbed a pair of scissors and stabbed them into her leg.

She understood enough to know what she was giving up and what they needed, used all the energy she could, and took it upon herself to get it. She grabbed the empty cup beside her bed and held it to her leg as the blood poured. Everyone stared at her in complete shock. The six women rushed to the bedside. Her mother who happened to be a nurse went into work mode and removed the scissors from her daughter's leg and worked to bandage the wound. Michelle grabbed Lanie's blood, her spell book, and a bag that held her herbs. She called for Lauren and Sandra and they set about creating the spell needed to help Lanie.

It seemed as if the spirits could sense what was about to happen. Lanie let out a loud moan as she tried leaning over the side of the bed. With her mother's help, she was able to lean over just enough before she began vomiting profusely. She couldn't see anymore. Her vision had been taken over by dark spots that lead to total darkness. She was so dizzy she was close to passing out. The spirits were coming and going one right after the other with no pause in between. Breathing was becoming harder and harder for her which only increased how dizzy she was.

As she leaned back in bed, in total darkness, she was sobbing. No tears were coming as she was too dehydrated but she could feel the motions. She was scared and felt as if she was dying. She didn't know how much more she could take as she felt herself become weaker and weaker by the moment. How much longer would she have to endure this? Surely the wiccans were close to done with whatever it was they were doing.

Sandra pulled her mother, grandmother, and great aunt to the side and told them that they had ran into a pretty major problem. There is an herb that they need for the brew they are putting together and they do not have any. The closest place they can find any is two hours away which would mean that Lanie would have to wait another four hours for them to be able to complete the brew. As they look at Lanie, they all know that she does not have that much time left.

The person with the herb they need has offered to meet them halfway. They could take everything with them, finish in the car, and start the ritual as soon as they got back, but that would still be two hours and they weren't sure she would even make it that long. The only option was to risk putting Lanie in the back of the SUV, take her with them, and complete it once they got the herb. Right there in the back seat.

Her mother does her best to explain what's going on but Lanie is so out of it that she doesn't comprehend a single word of what she says. Michelle, Lauren, and Sandra gather everything they will need while the others load Lanie into the SUV. As they pull out of the drive her breathing becomes more labored as she lays there lifelessly. Less than 10 minutes later she starts dry heaving over and over. With nothing left in her stomach, that is all she can do. It seems that even in a moving vehicle the spirits take no heed and continue to come and go one right after the other. Her mother, grandmother, and great aunt are all sobbing as they watch the life drain from their precious girl. They are almost halfway there when Lanie reaches out into the darkness and her breaths become hard and fast. Her mother grabs her hand and her body falls limp. She screams for them to speed up the vehicle as she checks for a pulse. She finds her pulse but it is weak which was to be expected. She is hoping her state of unconsciousness is a result of the dizziness and it has made her pass out.

When they arrive at a small warehouse they find a man named Alex is already there and waiting. On the way there the three wiccans had already gotten their spell ready and made the concoction up to the point where they needed the herb. Lauren quickly ground the herb and added it to the "potion." They went around to the back and opened the hatch. They had to get her on a flat surface and one that was large enough for all of them to fit. Alex offered to carry Lanie from the SUV into the warehouse where there would be plenty of room. As he laid her down she woke up enough to realize they had made it. Lauren asked her family except for her mother to move to the side. They placed salt, crystals, and candles all around Lanie and themselves. Sandra went to Lanie's head and knelt down. Her mother noticed then that she had a vial in her hand. Lauren, Michelle, and Sandra started their incantation. As they started the chant for the third time, Sandra raised Lanie to a half sitting position against her knees. To her mother's surprise, this stirred Lanie enough to get her to come around a little more and she was able to follow Sandras instructions to open her mouth and drink at the end of the incantation. Lanie swallowed the liquid and the spell was spoken one last time and Sandra laid her back down. After that it would be a waiting game—hopefully a short game to see if the spell and potion had worked. Nobody was allowed to enter or leave the circle until they knew if it had worked or not. They didn't have to wait long. Her mother noticed that her breathing was becoming slower and easier. She still wasn't fully conscious but she was starting to move her hand a bit. Her mother checked her pulse to find that it was in fact becoming stronger.

On the inside Lanie could feel something changing. She could breathe better, the spinning in her head was slowly starting to dwindle, and the nausea was going away as well. She could feel her body temperature rising. She wanted to open her eyes but was scared all she would see was darkness so she waited. She knew what they had done worked and she wanted to tell them but she didn't dare move, not yet. She laid there for a bit longer. She tried to listen for voices but nobody was talking. They must have all been watching her. The nausea was totally gone now and she was extremely thirsty. She could breathe just fine now and the spinning was almost totally gone. Did she dare to open her eyes?

She slowly opened her eyes and found her mother's face first. Her eyes were rimmed in red and puffy and her cheeks were red as well—it was clear she had been crying. She tried to speak but it came out as a croak, her mouth was so dry. She wanted water but couldn't get the words out, so she stared at the bottle of water her grandmother was holding, in the hopes someone would figure out that was what she wanted. It worked quickly as her grandmother noticed what she was looking at and asked if she wanted it. All she could do was nod her head. There was the sound of seven collective sighs, three people burst into tears, three gave each other a hug, and one stood back as everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Lauren, Michelle, and Sandra finished the circle so that they could get the water and give her some. She was still weak and needed help getting into a sitting position to drink. She rested on her mother's knees and took a long drink. Everything was starting to make sense again. She knew what had happened and what she had just given up to save her life. She laid cradled in the lap of her mother for a long while before Alex told them he was sorry but he had to lock up the warehouse. He offered to carry back to the SUV, but she was feeling much better and declined his offer. All of the women thanked him as he climbed in his truck and drove away. Lanie had already drank three bottles of water and was working on the fourth but decided to lay in the back on the way home just in case. She laid thinking about what she had given up and how different her life would be now. She was oddly at peace with all of it and thought how maybe, just maybe, she could lead a normal life now. She smiled as she thought about it and drifted off to some much needed sleep.