"I felt lucky," Simon began, just to interrupt himself. "No, let me rephrase that... I felt blessed. I was just so happy to see my dad again and find out that it is really him, that he had come back to me like this. That even death wouldn't keep him away from me." He sighed, paused for a moment. As he continued, he sounded much gloomier. "It took me a while to realize that this came with a price."

Lauren's pen scratched over the paper, leaving notes, while she paid all her attention to him.

"His first visit happened in the night, when I was asleep. It didn't last long, but it made me feel... I don't now... it felt like he caught me in a fall, like he was comforting me after this horrific loss. In this night he only told me that there was a bigger plan at play here, that I shouldn't be too struck with grief about his death, because this was part of something more important than him or me. He couldn't tell me anymore that time, because he couldn't stay that long. It was something he himself was new to - speaking to the ones left behind is not a common ability for the dead, you know. It took him a lot of strength, and he had to gather it before his next visit."

Lauren nodded. If it were a common occurance, then more people would have told her stories like this.

Simon went on: "The second time... it was broad daylight. I was at home, doing my work, and suddenly I felt his presence. I turned around... and saw him. I couldn't believe it. In fact, at this moment I was convinced that I was losing my mind. This simply couldn't be happening, I thought. It took him all his time that he had for the visit to convince me that it was happening, that I was not going crazy, and that he kept coming back to me for a very important reason. But it would take him a while for his next visit. He had to gather his strength again."

"How much time was between those two visits?" Lauren then asked.

Simon thought about it for a moment. "About one week and a half, give or take a day. Later on those occurances would come faster, cause the more it happened, and the more my dad and I talked, the more I believed in it. I guess this is what made the connection stronger, so it didn't take that much of him anymore."

Lauren touched her lower lip with her pen as she thought about it. "Or maybe he just learned how to use his strength more efficiently, since every time he got more used to it." A few moments later she realized how much she got caught up in this story, like she actually believed it.

Simon looked at her with a surprized gaze that even carried a hint of admiration. "Yes, that could be it. Anyway... the reason why he came to me is that he needed my help. But first he needed to tell me what was really going on."

He stopped himself again, waiting patiently for Lauren to finish taking her notes. Then he pointed at her notebook. "May I borrow your pen? And a piece of paper?"

For a moment she hesitated. It was against the rules to give convicts any items. But only for a moment. She tore a sheet of paper out of the ring book and slid it over the table, along with her pen. He nodded graciously and started to draw something on the paper. As Lauren took a closer look, she identified it as the rough form of a human body.

"I'm afraid this is a crude way of showing this, but that is the only way I could think of for explaining it," Simon apologised. He didn't bother with drawing a face where the head was visible. However, he did make a little circle in the head area, and one in the centre of this body, approximately where the heart was. Then he showed it to her.

"General belief states that the essential human has three important things. The body... the mind..." He pointed at the overall drawing, then the circle in the head area, last at the other circle in the center. "The soul. Those are the three things that make us individual beings, that steer us through our lives. All of our thoughts, our emotions, our senses, everything... Our actions and decisions are all based on those three things, as a mixture of emotions, experience, knowledge and ability. So far you can follow me?"

Cautiously Lauren nodded, staring at the drawing. What was he going for?

And then Simon took the drawing and added something. Another circle in the central body area, next to the one symbolising the soul.

As he finished, he carefully handed the pen back to Lauren. And then he put the finger on this new circle. "And this is it... the root of all evil. The one that no mortal human being really knows about."

"What is this?" Lauren asked, staring at it.

Simon hesitated, although it felt more like a deliberate dramatic pause. "A demon."

And he had lost her again. When she looked up in his face, her eyes were full of doubt. "A demon?" Her voice was full of sarcasm.

"Forget about those things from myths and legends!" Simon answered. "Forget about what you may have seen or read about in media. Yes, demons are a source of evil, creatures from a place some might call hell... but they don't work like the typical monster that folklore has made of them. They don't have hooves or horns, scales or a tail. They don't breathe fire or speak in hellish voices. They actually don't even have a body of their own - they need to inhabit a human body to stay in this world.

The part that nobody knows is: Demons are in all of us. You, me... your family... every man, woman or child on the street, all of them. It is a part of human life. Only that it is like I said... it is the root of all evil."

"What do you mean?" She was wondering if he wasn't just pulling her leg.

"I mean all those things that humans are capable of... the pain and suffering that they can cause others, or most of the time they inflict it upon themselves. Demons are what give us our urges, our desires... the things we crave for, those selfish wishes that make us feel better or that are just inexplicable desires that do more damage to us than good. The desire for money, power, admiration... all that comes from demons. And it has one single purpose, cause the demons have one single goal: to make the life of humans miserable and have them torment themselves, cause they hate human beings."

Simon made another pause. Without any doubt he could see that Lauren had a hard time bying all this. Especially that last part - it really sounded like the ramblings of a mad man. But then he continued: "Living humans have no knowledge about it, or at least not anymore. But there was a time when there were people aware of this situation, and they developed ways and rules to counter those. Of some of them you might even have heard."

"No." Lauren shook her head. "I haven't."

Simon answered with a knowing smile. "The seven deadly sins."

"What? What do you mean?" In her mind Lauren tried to find the memories of her religious education, but it had been a long time ago.

"I mean: Religion as such was a way not only to give people a moral compass, to give them guidelines for a better life. It also taught means to keep their demons in check. One way to do it was to invent the Seven Deadly Sins, because those are the main powers demons have over us. They are the basic urges that they use to trick us into doing bad things. Just think about it: Wrath. Envy. Greed. Pride. How many crimes have been committed in which the motive could be broken down to one of those sins?"

Lauren saw it, a gap in his argumentation. And jumped for it: "Like yours?"

She hit a nerve. Simon stared at her. "No." His voice was but a whisper. "Mine is more complicated. You need to hear the full story before you can understand."

For a short moment Lauren put her pen down. "This story of yours is unbelievable, Simon. I get now why you would think I would commit you as an insane person."

"And I can't blame you," Simon replied. "Hell, even I didn't believe any of this, even when it was told by the ghost of my own father. I mean: I really thought just that. How can anyone in the world ever believe this? And that is exactly why it is working for the demons: Nobody knows about their nature, apart from a few priests or other religious figures who had passed down the knowledge about this for generations. But nowadays they are not taken serious anymore. Religion becomes less and less important in our lives, and at the same time the demons grow stronger. Their methods of tormenting us become more devious. And they even started to work together, to combine their powers."

"How?" Lauren asked.

Simon waited another important moment before dropping the next bomb shell. "Mass media."

That was it. Lauren put her pen down and closed the notebook. "We're done here," she declared impatiently. This was just nonsense. How could he ever expect her to believe all of this. This was... She didn't use this word often, or any strong language since Angela was born, but this was bullshit! "Thank you for your time, Mr. Weisa, and have a nice day."

"Wait, where are you going?" Simon looked up in shock, even sounding desperate. He hadn't expected her to react in such a way. "I am not finished."

"But I am finished listening." Lauren stood up and grabbed her things. "Guards!"

"I told you that you need an open mind..." Simon reminded her, but in this second she turned around and outright snapped at him.

"I have been very open minded so far, Simon. That you are seeing the ghost of your dead father, that demons inhabit the bodies of every human and make them do evil things, and that Christian religion was designed as a defense against it... this is hard to swallow. But to claim that demons use mass media to communicate with each other, to help each other... You really expect me to believe all this?"

"I knew you would think I'm crazy..." Simon's head sank, he looked sad. But it wouldn't work on her. She was convinced that it was all an act.

"No, I don't think you're crazy. I think you are a trickster, and you are playing these games with me, trying to find out how far you can go. Like a child testing the limits with its parents. Well, this is how far it goes, and I am no longer wasting any more time with you and your mind games. You had a motive for killing this man, but even if you told me now, this would just be another one of your games. I've had it with this."

Simon looked at her, a somewhat knowing and dangerous look. "Not to alarm you, Doctor Miller... but that is the demon inside you talking."

"Goodbye, Mr. Weisa!" Lauren's voice was like ice at these last words. The door behind her opened, and she hurried to leave before she herself would become crazy enough to murder someone.