"I read something interesting," I said, eyes lighting up with sudden excitement. "It's about poop!"
Raven blinked, clearly caught off guard. "Poop?"
"Yup." I nodded enthusiastically. "Did you know sloths only poop once every five to seven days?"
Raven recoiled slightly, his expression shifting to one of deep concern. "Aren't they…constipated?"
"I know, right?" I waved a hand. "All they eat are leaves and fruit. You'd think that'd help things move along."
I tapped my chin thoughtfully, then continued, "They're like the complete opposite of wombats."
"Wombat?" Raven repeated, brow furrowing. "What's that?"
"They're kind of like a dog," I offered.
Raven's face brightened instantly, eyes gleaming. "Oh! A dog!"
"Mixed with a rat."
"…Rat?" His smile wavered.
"And a bear."
"A bear?" Now he just looked unsettled.
"But some people also say they're like badgers."
"Badger…?" Raven clutched his head, looking visibly pained. "Are you sure that's an animal?"
"Anyway!" I cleared my throat, brushing past the identity crisis. "Unlike most animals, whose poop is round, wombats have square-shaped poop."
Raven's jaw dropped. "Square?!"
I nodded sagely. "Perfect cubes. And they can poop up to a hundred times a night."
"A hundred?!" Raven's voice cracked in disbelief.
"Yep. Total opposite of the sloth." I grinned. "Sloth's got extreme constipation. Wombat's got turbocharged diarrhea."
Feeling thoroughly satisfied with my impromptu poop lecture, I snuggled under the blanket and promptly took a nap. Meanwhile, Raven sat on the bed, eyes wide and vacant, his soul seemingly still grappling with the mental image of square-shaped wombat poop. He looked like a man who had stared too long into the abyss—and the abyss had flung digestive trivia right back at him.
Eventually, after a long, blissful nap, I stirred from beneath the covers. With a loud yawn, I stretched my arms overhead until my back popped.
"Ah~ How I missed this peace," I sighed contentedly.
I turned to look at Raven—and nearly choked on a laugh. He looked utterly wrecked, like he'd spent the last hour debating the meaning of life and lost spectacularly.
"What's wrong, pal? You look like someone drained the life out of you." My eyes narrowed suspiciously as I scanned the room, immediately slipping into combat mode. "Who did it? I'll beat the crap outta them."
Raven just stared at me, bottom lip jutted out in a wounded pout.
'That person is you!' his expression screamed in silent betrayal.
Eventually, we both got ourselves ready. I clapped my hands once and pointed dramatically to the door. "Next stop: the manor!"
Raven gulped and nodded, bracing himself like a soldier about to storm the battlefield.
With him trailing behind, I strode confidently to the door and flung it open. We stepped out—
Only to be met by something utterly impossible.
I paused, taking another step forward. 'Something felt… off. Very off.' I glanced down—and froze.
There was no ground.
Beneath our feet yawned an enormous swirling vortex, dark and hungry, stretching into oblivion. My stomach flipped. Raven stopped dead behind me, paling as quickly as I had.
I flailed my arms in a futile attempt to defy gravity, my legs kicking at the air like I could somehow find solid footing. Then, in a desperate move, I grabbed Raven's shirt.
"EHHHH?!" Raven shrieked.
And then—we fell.
Together, we screamed at the top of our lungs, "AAAAAHHHHH!!!" as the vortex swallowed us whole, dragging us down into the unknown.
BOOM!
We hit the ground—hard.
*Llyne and Ronald's disguises vanished the moment they were spat out of the wormhole. Llyne is Llyne again, and Ronald is Ronald.
My back slammed against something solid and unyielding, the impact knocking the air clean out of my lungs. For a split second, all I could do was lie there, wide-eyed and gasping like a fish out of water. A sharp jolt of pain rippled through every bone in my spine, and my brain short-circuited into a single, agonized thought:
'Ow.'
Beside me, Ronald groaned in a tone that suggested his soul was trying to escape through his teeth. "I think… I saw my ancestors just now…"
My breath wheezed out in a high-pitched gasp as I forced myself onto my elbows. "I—I can't feel my ribs… wait, nope—now I can. And I regret it."
Every inch of my body protested as I slowly sat up, wincing with each movement. My legs felt like noodles. My back felt like it had been used as a trampoline by a sumo wrestler.
"Is this what death feels like?" Ronald whimpered.
"No," I muttered, wincing as I rolled my neck. "Death would've been kinder."
We both lay there for a moment longer, letting the pain subside enough to function. Eventually, I managed to get to my feet, though not without a fair bit of grumbling and wobbling. Ronald rolled over like a sack of potatoes and flopped onto his stomach with a groan.
"I think my butt cracked in half," he mumbled.
Without hesitation, I reached down and gave his backside a firm squeeze. "Nope. Perfectly intact."
Ronald jolted with a squeak. "Llyne!"
I snickered and dusted off my pants. "What? I was conducting a thorough medical exam."
As I brushed myself off, something about the place itched at my memory. I narrowed my eyes and scanned the surroundings. "Why does this place look so... familiar?"
Ronald finally managed to push himself upright. He rubbed at his eyes, then squinted into the distance. His brow furrowed as something clicked.
"Oh! This is where we met Ellaxa!" he said.
"Who?" I blinked.
"You know—Ellaxa. The mysterious girl who said Rona was in the house waiting for us."
"Ah! Right. That vixen." My hand curled into a fist at the memory.
Ronald turned and pointed toward where the haunted house had once loomed. "Llyne, look! The House… it's gone!"
I followed his finger—and froze. The house had vanished. Completely. Not a splinter remained.
My master's voice rang in my head like a death knell: "If you cause even a slight bit of trouble…" Her voice had dropped to a whisper, lethal as a knife. "I'll kill you myself."
A chill ran down my spine. "I'm going to die for real this time."
Ronald flailed his arms in panic. "What do we do now? The House is gone!"
My brain scrambled for an answer—and then, like a divine revelation, I remembered the murder of crows. A terrible, wonderful idea hatched in my mind.
"Let's blame it on the crows."
Ronald's head snapped toward me, horrified. "What?!"
"We'll say the crows carried the House away." I nodded sagely, as if I were proposing a completely rational explanation.
His expression was one of sheer disbelief. "You ate some of them! And now you're blaming them too?! What did the crows ever do to you?"
I crossed my arms. "Then how do you explain the missing house?"
"Tell them the truth!" Ronald cried.
"And you said you didn't want to die young," I muttered.
"It's still better than telling a lie!"
I gave him a sly look. "Have you ever lied before?"
"Nope." He said it with such innocent conviction, it made me sigh.
"Then we shall lie." I placed a hand on his shoulder with solemn determination.
"Did you even hear anything I just said?" Ronald looked ready to scream.
"Since we're going to die anyway, might as well try something new." I gave him a thumbs-up.
"It's not new for you!" he snapped.
"But watching you lie? That's brand new." I grinned wickedly.
Ronald pouted, deflated and doomed.
I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him in a firm, overly cheerful hug. "Come on, Ronald. Look on the positive side."
He trembled in my embrace like a leaf in a storm. "What positive side?!"
I grinned, undeterred. "Look on the positive side..." I trailed off, tapping my chin in exaggerated thought. "...that there might be a positive side, even if the possibility is undeniably zero percent."
Ronald stared at me, aghast. All the color drained from his face in one dramatic swoop.
It was like watching a flower wither in fast-forward.
Without another word, I grabbed Ronald's arm and began dragging his soulless body out of the clearing. He didn't resist—just let himself be pulled along like a lifeless doll, eyes vacant, mouth slightly agape, the embodiment of someone who had seen too much and processed none of it.
Our footsteps echoed softly in the stillness. Then, behind us, the air shifted.
A low hum drifted in, chilling and otherworldly. At first, I thought it was just the wind playing tricks.
But no.
It was a choir.
A soft, eerie harmony, distant yet unmistakable—like children singing underwater, slow and distorted. The voice slithered into the air like a curse:
Child of Misfortune
Born beneath a bleeding moon,
Woven threads shall snap too soon.
Marked by dusk, not blessed by dawn,
Where this child walks, hope is gone.
Eyes that see, but do not weep,
Heart that wakes when others sleep.
Stars recoil and bells won't chime,
Shadows follow out of time.
Child of misfortune, cursed from the start,
Chaos blooms where you break hearts.
Ash to ash, and bone to dust,
All you touch betrays your trust.
Child of sorrow, thorn-crowned fate,
Heaven closed the golden gate.
The world shall tremble, skies shall fall,
When you rise to heed the call...
I froze.
So did Ronald.
His head snapped toward me, eyes wide with terror. My skin prickled, heart thudding once, hard.
We didn't look back.
We just ran.