Chapter 1 Preview

Transcript: Chapter 1 Preview Episode

The cover of Into the Smoke chapter 1. Blaze, a spirit medium with shoulder-length red hair and tattooed hands uses a lighter to summon Alastor, a dark, smoky ghost, who holds the medium while inhaling his breath. Text reads, Into the Smoke: Chapter 1 Preview.

Blaze pauses in an entryway and looks over his shoulder while a voice behind him calls, “Don’t go down there!”

Behind him, at the top of a stairway leading up, three nuns kneel huddled together. One of them prays intently, another stares at Blaze with worry, and the third says, “There’s a demon in the basement. You’re not safe!”

Blaze smiles and holds up a hand, replying, “The basement, you say? Thanks!” Off-panel, the nun yells, “No, STOP!!!”

A vignette shows a row of lit candles. Narration: “Spirit medium Blaze is a disaster at life but an expert at death.”

Narration: “He considers himself a spirit therapist.”

Blaze sits across from a red, bearded, smoky ghost and says, “You love her, right? Don’t you want her to move on? She was your wife.”

The ghost replies, “IS. She IS my wife.”

Narration: “And he never turns down a difficult case.” Blaze looks sympathetic and says, “No. Not anymore, Vern. I know it’s hard, but…”

Vern, eyes glowing, yells, “SHE’S MY WIFE.”

Narration: “Blaze loves his ghosts.” In a park, Blaze sits cross-legged beside a bullet-riddled smoky ghost. Each of them holds an ice cream cone, and they smile at each other.

Narration: “A little too much sometimes.” Blaze, his chest and shoulders bare, lies back and gazes into the eyes of a blue-tinted ghost, who’s poised intimately above him.

Narration: “He’d break any rule to help a spirit find the light—and to save it from the soul-smothering smoke.” Blaze sits on a sofa, looking upset. He says, “I know you don’t always like the way I do things. But I’ve never lost a spirit to the smoke. How many of your other students could say that?”

Evie, a blue-tinted ghost, sternly replies, “These risks you take… They’ll come back to haunt you one day.”

Narration: “But he’s about to face the greatest challenge yet…” In a close-up, Blaze squeezes his eyes shut and furrows his brows. He thinks, “This feeling… It’s the echo of someone’s deathblow… A spirit being torn from its body…”

Three successive narrow panels show Blaze. First, he holds up a lit lighter in a dark space and looks around. Second, he scrunches his eyebrows as he holds his glowing, un-gloved left hand with his gloved right hand. Third, he squints and glances around with a focused, searching expression. Barely visible behind him are two smoky black hands holding a taut length of wire.

A man grits his teeth. His face is mostly obscured as he yells, “He’s dead. A DEMON killed him! And it was going to kill me too!”

Blaze ducks as the black, clawed hand of a ghost swipes behind him.

A close-up of a creepy ghost’s open mouth yells.

Blaze grits his teeth and tries to break free of a string while a black, smoky hand pulls it tight around his neck.

Blaze draws a star-shaped sigil in the air with his lighter. He says, “There’s only one way to contain a spirit who’s this close to the smoke.”

He holds the lighter and says, “Your new home…”

He grabs the flame within his fist.

He holds out his hands, spiritual fire rising from both of his palms, and calls, “IS ME!” A bright starburst of light surrounds him.

The scene goes black.

The smoky ghost looks over his shoulder, his iris glowing bright white.

Blaze beckons with his finger and thinks, “Come and get it.”

Three semi-obscured panels show Blaze’s lips about to meet the smoky ghost, Alastor’s ghost with white irises, and Blaze looking overcome as he clutches the smoky ghost, their mouths pressed together. Above the dark panels, text appears: Into the Smoke, coming soon. Intothesmokecomic.com.