Possessed
February

Ciel Phantomhive was not a naturally superstitious person. To fully understand everything that happened to him, this is something one must constantly remember. He was not superstitious. In truth, he wasn't even religious, which remains to this day a little known fact. A fact his mourning parents choose to ignore – but who can really argue with the logic of mourning parents?

It all technically began on December 25th, 1966. Nine days past his fifteenth birthday, Ciel Phantomhive had been opening presents, just as any other child does on Christmas morning. His parents were there with him, all warm smiles and evergreen smells, watching their typically moody teenager's eyes light up as he tore open a box, revealing its contents. In 1966, the supernatural was flaring into popularity in an unprecedented way. But one must remember, Ciel was not superstitious. He did not believe in ghosts, or monsters, or aliens in the sky – but that didn't take away the novelty of it.

That Christmas, just one among many presents Vincent and Rachael Phantomhive bestowed upon their beautiful son, was a Ouija board.

An interesting thing to keep in mind is that Ouija boards are a relatively young invention, and more than anything, they are a game. Marketed for the first time as early as 1890, the idea that these boards actually have any mysterious powers to channel into the otherworld, it's preposterous. The Ouija board was merely an invention intended to take advantage of a market that was going through a phase of loving the supernatural. It was a time when séances were held in private homes for fun, when people held murder parties while sipping tea or brandy, and anyone who was anyone had a certifiably haunted house.

The 1960's and 1970's were another one of those flares. In that time, the sale of Ouija boards skyrocketed, and in the year Ciel Phantomhive received his very own Ouija board, a satanic panic was slowly brewing. It would boil over in the 70's and 80's, although Ciel would not be alive to witness it himself. No, instead, he was just a fifteen year old boy with an extremely morbid little toy – a prototype that the Funtom Company had produced. It wasn't the cheap sort of Ouija board that Fuld was producing, no, the Funtom Ouija board was carved out of wood, and the planchette meant to glide across the board was made of an eerie black glass. It wasn't meant to be released for a couple of years, of course, but Ciel was used to getting Funtom prototypes for Christmas.

This prototype, however, he took a particular liking to.

Despite the fact that this tale began on the Christmas of 1966, Ciel did not touch the game for quite some time. Mature for his age, he spent quite a lot of time watching the news, and with the sheer amount of death occurring overseas, he didn't spend much time thinking about the game. When he would look at it, unopened in the top of his closet, he would scoff, all of the things he had to do appearing in his mind. At fifteen, he really didn't have a lot to do – after all, it wasn't as if he was running a multimillion dollar toy company. But somehow, he was. Everything Vincent did, Ciel shadowed, knowing full well that after college, he would begin working within their company, and eventually inherit it. He kept himself busy, and once school started, forgot about the frivolous, beautiful little toy for a couple of months.

It was a snow day when he first cracked the seal on the box, sitting down on his bed and placing the game board in front of him. It had been a long time since Ciel had gone running into the snow, all delighted and sniffly to be playing in it – his asthma prevented running of almost any kind, and the snow always made him even more sickly than he was already. By fifteen, the entire novelty of the snow day had worn off, and so he'd gotten himself breakfast, kept warm in his pajamas, and spent most of the morning in his bedroom. Aside from its lovely design, there was nothing particularly threatening about the Ouija board. In black writing were the words YES and NO, the numbers 0-9, every letter in the alphabet, and GOODBYE. There was nothing inherently frightening about that. At 11:30, the black glass of the planchette no longer looked eerie, and with all of the light pouring into his bedroom, there was no need for a circle of movie-style candles.

As a not-superstitious person, Ciel expected no answer. The board games promised themselves to be mystifying oracles, but at best, Ciel expected an insight into his own subconscious. After all, that's how it must work. The one who uses it yearns for an answer, and subconsciously, their hands move towards certain letters, creating an answer. In a group, with more than one subconscious acting on the board, it's probably more interesting. And the dynamic of having a few genuine believers could make the experience frightening. No, he was expecting nothing. But he let his fingers rest on the glass planchette, closing his eyes.

"Is anyone here?"

He felt silly. There was, of course, no response.

"Is there anyone here?"

Again, no response. What a stupid toy. The label had said that it was meant to be used in groups of three or more. Perhaps it really did take three hands pulling on it for 'responses' to occur.

"My name is Ciel. I want to talk."

He felt a tug, then. A slight tug. But no, of course he didn't. He pushed it, he must have, but slowly, the planchette dragged toward the H. It settled on it, before moving to E. L. L. O. Hello. Ciel frowned a little. His subconscious was both impressive and disappointing. Impressive because that had felt so real, like someone else was really pulling on the glass, and disappointing because the response was so trite. Still, his pulse had quickened. Perhaps this was the appeal. He cleared his throat, his hands feeling heavy now.

"What's your name?"

The planchette moved more quickly this time, dragging from the O through each row of letters, and for a moment Ciel thought it was going to slide all the way off the board before it settled on NO. His frowned deepened. "That's rude." And he wasn't sure if he was just imagining it then, but that weightiness in his hands seemed to vanish. He pulled them away from the glass, staring at the board, a clamminess working its way through him. He felt uncomfortable. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up, and a sheen of cold sweat was beading at his temple.

The doorbell rang, and Ciel nearly jumped out of his skin, both breathless from the discomfort that seemed to have wrapped itself around his heart and squeezed and deeply thankful for the reason to leave the board. It was not like him to become frightened by something as… stupid as a game meant to entertain girls at sleepovers. But it'd felt so heavy. His hands, his chest, the air he was breathing. He dashed out of his room, faster than he meant to in his desire to remain dignified, opening the front door to a very impeccably dressed Elizabeth Middleford.

It was a snow day, she'd explained excitedly, so of course they were going to spend it together! Ciel agreed with less fuss than usual. And within a little while, the game was all but forgotten. By the time he'd returned, the maid had been in, and had boxed the game up and put it back in his closet. So, not thinking about a thing, he took a warm shower, put on his pajamas, and slept a dreamless sleep.

It was probably over then. There is no real way of telling exactly what encounter was the encounter, but what is known is that the dreams began a week after the maid put the Ouija board away. They began as dreams, not nightmares, and Ciel remembered few of them. What few he remembered were blurs of colors, hands on skin, and long, long fingernails. Black fingernails. He remembered these terribly vague details for only seconds, and when asked about the dreams later, he would shrug it off and say in a standoffish way that they were "just dreams". Ciel woke up aroused to more than one of them, and that was after only a week.

The second time he opened the Ouija board, he was wary. Far more so than he'd been the first time. The atmosphere was far more frightening too, because he'd been unable to sleep, and he'd done all the things fifteen year old boys did when they couldn't sleep. But none of them had worked. So slightly past three thirty in the morning, he'd slipped out of bed, opened his closet, and taken the box out. The wooden board felt heavier now, a reminder of its fine craftsmanship, far superior to the Fuld model of thin cardboard and a plastic planchette. Thinking about it in those terms made it seem less frightening. It's just a toy, after all. If it was truly dangerous, it wouldn't be on a market to children. He sat down on his bed, laying the board flat and the planchette in the center, watching the board for a moment before resting his fingers on the dark glass.

"Are you there? The one I spoke to before?"

The response was far quicker than either of his previous attempts at contact. The planchette under his hand moved sharply towards the YES, but that weight he'd sworn he'd felt before, that wasn't there. Now he was sure it was all in his mind. And if he hadn't been awake for hours already, if he hadn't been so terribly tired, he might have stopped. But he was bored, itchy with that boredom, and the complete and utter sureness that none of this was real, that all of this was a trick of his subconscious, was what made him ask:

"Are you in my house?"

The planchette almost quivered underneath him, before moving away slightly from the YES, and then returning to it. A typical answer of some stupid part of him that must love horror films.

"Where are you?"

The hair on his arms was standing up. Ciel didn't notice. The planchette slid slowly across the board, the noise of glass riding against wood soft and almost comforting. A reminder that this was nothing but a game. The glass pieced moved over the Y letter, and stilled completely. He frowned. How boring. And yet, it wasn't. There was a certain heat in the air, in his room which was on the bottommost floor of the mansion, per his request. The room buried in the dark, and the cold, was almost buzzing with electricity, that thrummed through his body, starting at each finger that touched the glass and moving through him.

And then, like a crack, the planchette moved with such force that it disappeared from out from under his fingers.

O.

It stilled for only a second.

U.

It didn't still this time.

Y.

Ciel felt the blood drain out of his face, the electricity thrumming through him, the weight that had been in his hands now all over him, all over him, smothering him like

O.

an asthma attack, but stronger, far stronger. Like someone was sitting on his chest, pushing, pushing, pushing

U.

until he had nothing left.

The planchette continued to spin, cracking Y-O-U in a triangle on the board, Ciel on his back, gasping for air. Desperately, unendingly, choking, and to a child starving for breath, this moment was eternity, but to a man with a watch, it lasted only seconds. Seconds, before it was over.

The planchette snapped very still in the center of the board. The weight vanished. And Ciel, shaking and cold sweats all over his slight frame, caught his breath, fighting the asthmatic attack that he could feel coming on. He stumbled out of bed, running sluggishly into his bathroom and grabbing his inhaler. He pressed it to his lips and once, the medicine tasted as terrible as it ever did, twice, he could feel it working already, and part of that hard to be placebo but thrice, and he was calm. He was okay. (He was okay.) His hands shook, inhaler still clutched in his fist the way someone would clutch a flashlight in the darkness, or a gun at war.

The board waited for him, looking perfectly innocent and a little jostled in his scramble to get up, on the bed. The air felt lighter, colder, but he didn't remain a moment longer.

He slept in the library that night.

It remains disputed to this day as to whether he was sleeping alone.

xx

Hello! I am excited to present my first Black Butler fic, Possessed. I have already planned out each chapter, and I can safely tell you that there are eleven chapters to this fic, and there will (as always) be yaoi. This fic is rated M for later gore and smut. Above all, it is a horror story, so if you're freaked out by demonic possession even more than I am, I would not recommend reading this fanfic. It has also gone unbeta'd, sorry about the mistakes. For the few who do end up reading this, I would love some encouraging reviews 8D Thanks!