POV: Unnamed Spirit 1
At first, we followed after John. He was an anxious fella, but he had a good heart.
Actually, none of us had wanted to be part of this, but that organization calling themselves Heatwave decided we were weak enough to force into their service — and, well, they'd been right.
All five of us were originally Autumn spirits. Before Heatwave came, John had been the personification of a warm autumn day. Then suddenly, they were there. They bound our cores and forced us to accept their own domains. It was an incredibly painful process. Now, not one of us was an Autumn spirit anymore — we were just extensions of power to those despicable summer spirits.
Then they told us about their plan for this city: to turn it into a stronghold, not only to fend off Autumn but to eventually conquer it. Not that they needed much to succeed. Every spirit but those of Autumn feared our so-called king — the ruler of Autumn.
Heatwave, an organization if my guess was right (and they usually are), seemed just as afraid as anyone else, even though they claimed to be planning to kill that king.
What many spirits didn't know — and what we Autumn spirits made sure of — was that our season never had a king, nor a queen. Since the first of our kind appeared, we've been lying through our teeth about that nonexistent monarch.
Stories about him piled up, spiraled out of control, and changed his appearance over the centuries. Inconsistencies stacked high, but no one called us out. The result? A king said to be a master shapeshifter — terrifying, unpredictable, unreal.
So here I was, running through the city, being hunted by what felt like the very king we'd invented. My doubts about him being real had flown out the window the moment I'd heard that melody. There was power in that voice — the kind that lured even the sanest souls into the wild and the unknown.
That voice crawled under my skin and rattled through my bones. All five of us ran the moment we heard it.
Spirits have many origins: some born of belief, others simply because. Take the Spirit of Rats, for example. Why rats? No one knows. Not even the rats do, nor their spirit. It just exists. Worse, sometime in the 1990s that spirit caught wind of something called the Skaven. None of us dared to ask questions after that…
But one thing we did know — no spirit could be born from the belief of other spirits. No amount of sightings, testimonies, or fear could make that happen. It had all been tested. Even gods and goddesses couldn't create spirits; their belief wasn't enough.
So whatever was hunting us was either a new spirit… or someone who thought this was a hilarious joke. And honestly, that voice left no doubt it was the former.
The melody swelled, and suddenly I realized I was no longer in the city.
Fuck.
I'd been relatively safe there — Autumn spirits weaken outside their season's domain — but somehow that voice had driven me out.
Too late, I realized my mistake. Eyes glowed amber in the dark, and then everything went black.
POV: Percy Jackson
The poor thing had been so out of breath when I caught it, it didn't even hear me approach. Then suddenly, it just collapsed in front of me.
But I didn't really care. I waited a bit, then went back to driving the other spirits insane.
POV: Unknown Spirits 2 and 3:
Well, we kinda knew this would happen. Considering Lloyd's luck, it was only a matter of time before something completely unreasonable happened — and apparently, today was the day his luck ran out.
The streets were empty as we ran, but in every alley we passed, shadows stirred. Amber and golden eyes flashed. Once, we lingered too long because Lloyd was absolutely sure we were heading the wrong direction. While we argued about cardinal points, the shadows crept closer. We only realized when they lapped at our ankles.
Panicking, Lloyd threw a blaze at them — forest fire, his new domain — but the flames were just swallowed up by them. Then, to our horror, they absorbed them and suddenly their bodies were made of a horrifying mix of shadow and flame.
We continued to run as if the devil was after us and then—
"IS THAT A FUCKING MOOSE!?" I screamed.
"Oh, holy shit, we're going to fucking die!"
"RUN, BITCH, RUN!" Lloyd howled — unknowingly making a certain spirit in the distance collapse from laughter.
We ran from the relentless pursuit of the shadows, eventually arriving at what looked like a foggy park. But something was off about it. There shouldn't be any fog here and definitely no.....
*Thud
"HEEEELP M—ARGH!" came a scream behind me. Lloyd.
I spun around. He was gone.
Wait—were those drag marks on the ground?
Then I remembered why this place felt so wrong.
This city doesn't even have a park.
*Thud
Pov: Unknown Spirit 4 and 5
"John, you idiot! Why did you run? The spirit isn't even here!"
" It's not?" He turned, eyes wide and uncertain. "I thought I saw it."
"Bullshit." My voice cracked from both fear and anger. "You've been sabotaging us for days. You're not even a Fall spirit, are you?"
John's face twisted in disgust. "Oh? And how exactly did you come to that conclusion, genius?"
"Don't play dumb with me! You never weaken when you're out of season, you don't feel the call when the leaves turn, and your aura burns too hot. You're wrong, John. You don't belong to Autumn."
He stared at me for a long moment, expression unreadable. Then a thin smile spread across his face.
"Maybe you're finally starting to figure it out?" he said quietly.
"Seriously? You think this is funny?!"
"As a matter of fact, I do, Harth. Did you never wonder how Heatwave found you guys? It was me, Harth. Those lies about the Autumn King, I was sent by the organization to find out more about him. But it turns out that king doesn't even exist. Ha, that just makes it even easier for us to take over.
I snapped. "Screw you, John. I hope whoever's doing this to us kills you slowly."
"Guess what a little birdie told me?" came a sudden voice from within the fog.