100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2024. #39. Possessed Ten Million.

The prize was ten million dollars.

The contest involved about ten people in a house who could only leave once they figured out which one of the ten was possessed by either a spirit or a more powerful entity. Nobody won that initial contest because all ten people were possessed. The second year was a foul because hiding in the group of ten was an exorcist in disguise. The contest was a bust; nobody won. Before the third year, the rules changed. There were exclusive background checks to make sure that the ten people were ordinary and that no one had any spiritual background in any capacity whatsoever. However, the question becomes, what about the possessed? Do the producers know who that person is ahead of time? If so, then how do they discern who is possessed as opposed to who has a mental illness? Or does the possession happen during the show? 

That's where the problems began for season three of the show. They decided filming the show in Hawai'i, specifically on the Big Island, would be fun. Rather than start out with a dark theme like the previous two seasons, this one would be nice and sunny. The cast would be filmed having fun at the beaches, sightseeing at historical locations, and perhaps a bit of romance, which they would let happen naturally. Even a lū'au was thrown in for good measure. After the first day, five cast members were sidelined with food poisoning for most of the shoot after stopping at a 7 11, where they tried spam musubi for the first time. Little did they know that the musubi had been sitting out all day and that a fly had gotten into the hot box. Three others had come down with a terrible rash after taking rocks from the walls of Pu'ukoholā and using them to skip the waters at Haleokapuni. That left only one unaffected person, who happened to be the one who was possessed. His name was Cory Rodrigues, and he was from the Bronx in New York. His possession came on the first day when they arrived at the resort. As soon as he was settled in, he walked to shake off the onset of jet lag. Not really knowing his way around, he ended up on the site of a sacred battleground where thousands were slaughtered. To him, it looked like a bunch of rocks. Suddenly, he realized that he had to expend his micturition there, so he urinated right where he stood and headed back.

His possession happened immediately, but not in the external sense, where it was apparent, like in the movies. His was subtle. For example, he suggested the already spoiled spam musubi to his five friends and told the four others that growing up in the Bronx, he never had the opportunity to skip rocks on the water's surface. So the spam musubi was eaten, taking out the first five. Then, the other four took rocks from the walls of a mighty temple of human sacrifice. 

The problem was that the producers couldn't find local clergy to perform an exorcism for Cory when the show ended. They even searched for a Kahuna, but no one local who knew what the show was about would risk helping. So, after the show, Cory returned to the Bronx in a state of total possession. The show got the axe soon after that, and no one knows what happened to Cory Rodrigues.