Week 9 Story: Exorcist Parashurama Part 1

Parashurama with the gat (source)

The Tavakoli family had been having troubles with spooky ghosts for a while now. At first it was subtle, cabinets all opened in the night, crosses flipped upside-down, things that could be explained away. But before long the Tavakoli family's haunting became worse. Demonic figures moved about in the shadows, footsteps could be heard coming from the attic and closed rooms. The family began hearing voices and occasional screams. They thought it might be carbon monoxide or an indian burial ground or a curse, but none of the psychics or physicians they consulted were able to stop the haunting. Until they called an ad in the phone book for an exorcist named Parker Sherman.

The Tavakolis were sitting on the living room couch when the doorbell rang-- *ding dong!* --they all jumped instinctively. Their anxiety had grown so bad in the months since they had moved in that they we all on a hair-trigger. Papa Tavakoli got up to go answer the door and was greeted by a man's stomach. Before him stood a mountain of a man, seven foot tall he guessed, wearing a priest outfit. Papa Tavakoli had to lean his head out of the doorframe to see the giant man's face.

"Hello," said the giant, "I'm Parker Sherman. I'm here to get rid of your ghoul problem."

"Oh yes come in" said Mr. Tavakoli.

Parker stooped over bent his head as he walked under the doorway. Parker Sherman was actually Parashurama, the immortal sixth avatar of Vishnu who fought demons. In the modern era, the power of these demons, whose power came from fear and ignorance, had declined drastically. Their weak spirits were trying to restore their strength by terrorizing people. As less people believed in the paranormal, their power weakened, but occasionally through occult practices or other means, the ancient demons could summoned or empowered. Parashurama's mission was to deal with these demons just as he had thousands of years ago.

"I sense an evil presence. You were right to call me, this house has many demons."

Mrs. Tavakoli began shaking in fear. Mr. Tavakoli responded,

"You can do something about this, right?"

"Yes. Allow me to explain. There are two planes, the spiritual and the physical. Through some evil magic, your home was made an intersection of these two realms. I will close off this demonic portal and no spirits will be able to harm you again."

Parashurama headed upstairs to the attic, where the evil aura was radiating from. The family stayed downstairs. The attic was ten degrees colder than the rest of the house, strangely dark despite the octagon window in the front wall. Parashurama heard whispering from behind him. He turned around to see a curved object obscured under a beige furniture cover. A cloud of dust billowed into the air as he tore off the cloth cover, revealing an antique vanity dresser underneath.

"So, this is how you are able to interface with this world."

Parashurama knew that mirrors could act as links between the spirit world and the physical world. However at this stage, destroying the mirror alone would do nothing. The inter-dimensional rift had grown too large. Parashurama knew he would have to travel to the spirit realm and defeat the demons there. He closed his eyes and recited the Mantra that would let him travel to the spirit world. Normally this Mantra would take a decade to recite properly, but Parashurama was able to complete it almost instantly, a skill acquired from thousands of years of practice.

Parashurama opened his eyes and saw that the Mantra had worked, he was in the realm of demons.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2

Author's Note:

More Parashurama. I really like Parashurama. I've been reading Pet Sematary by Stephen King and so I thought it would be cool for Parashurama to fight demons in a modern paranormal setting. I like in fantasy novels when they imply that the fantasy world was actually ancient history, but magic has just faded from the world for whatever reason, they say that in The Hobbit. So I thought it would be cool if the demons from all of our Indian Epics stories, after suffering countless defeats, became so weak that they could only interact with humans by haunting them, and that ancient Hindu demons were the source of ghostly activity. I like Parashurama as a character because he's just a dude that kills things, and the fact that he lives forever means that he can fit into any time period as a stoic hero.