Her green eyes pierced through the darkness of midnight, and three sets of heavy breathing echoed through the kitchen. Aiden couldn't peel his eyes off the Korean hunter, and neither could she. His thoughts were jumbled; even the simplest thought failed to be discerned. Every nerve was screaming in agony as Lyra pierced his chest lightly with the knife, slicing through the top layer of flesh. A sharp breath ripped through his lips as he struggled to sit up against the spirit's strength.
Warm saliva seeped into the cut, its sweetness sending shivers throughout Aiden's body. "Get the hell off me!" His voice rang, but it was not answered. Why would anyone save a rabid dog? Even if there was a reason to, no one who knew was close by to save him. This was how he lived, alone.
The sound of dragging footsteps entered the kitchen. Meilin stood buckled over, leaning on her staff. Cold black eyes looked down at Aiden; it was a foreign yet familiar feeling. He had seen that unwelcoming gaze every day. The mirror presented his own bottomless soul through the darkness of his own eyes; in that, Meilin and Aiden were alike.
"I hope you understand why we have to do this, Aiden. It's nothing personal..." Meilin's hand squeezed her arm, trying to cast her gaze aside. The goat eyes never stopped watching, observing, waiting. And you couldn't see it, but you could feel it. A smile that reached far beyond what any human could do, one that cut from ear to ear with a set of serrated teeth that greedily drooled for anything to come near enough.
Ryn struggled to stand up, trying to clean up the blood from her head. She reached her hand toward the crown of thorns, ripping her skin and allowing blood to flow into the form of a blade. But it didn't hold. Aiden breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived as Lyra jumped onto his stomach to knock whatever air was left out.
"I see. You are a clever dog, Aiden. We can't purge the spirits without my charms, so you are free to do what you wish until I regain my power." Ryn shot Lyra a glance, and it didn't take any other words for her to dash away from Aiden and to finally dismiss her fox form.
Silence clung to the air; not even the gentle pitter-patter of the rain outside seemed to break the tension that had built up. Aiden knew what should happen. An apology, a promise that they wouldn't try to eliminate his mother again. Something along those lines. And he waited. For minutes that were only being tracked by the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway.
His fists shook in anger, but he felt himself leaning, like the world was spinning. As if it were uneven. 'They think they can come in and-'
"-bastards." Aiden propped himself up against the kitchen counter, taking back his knife from the green-eyed hyena and leaving the room.
Lyra was the first to speak, as usual. Her tone was casual, simply complaining about her exhaustion and having stayed up way past her bedtime. But another stretch of silence made the atmosphere tense. The Chinese girl found it hard to actually speak the words she was thinking.
"I...I didn't want to say it before...but maybe you should apologise to Aiden." Meilin rubbed her thumbs against one another, worried for the younger boy.
"Like hell I will! That amalgamation of demonic spirits deserves to die! That is part of our mission, did you forget?" Lyra furrowed her brows, poking the Chinese girl in the chest.
"No. Not that. For you know... straddling him, cutting him up..." Lyra felt like shrugging it off, but Ryn would end up pushing her to the same decision.
The stairs creaked, silence shattered by the shrieking hinges of the far bedroom. A single boy sat in the room, running a stone against the edge of his silver knife. The air was cold but circulated like a growing typhoon around the room. He had no need to turn around to know who it was; the gale gave him all of the information he needed.
"I told you guys to leave." His voice was sharper than his blade, amplified by the wendigo's elemental affinity.
"Yeah, well~ we will be staying here for the foreseeable future. Sooo~ the hunters and I wanted to truly negotiate the terms of our living arrangement." Lyra tried stepping closer, but her foot could not pierce the wall of air; it was stuck in time. 'Strange.' She thought, withdrawing her foot and remaining in the hallway, watching as Aiden's midnight eyes pierced the veil of darkness. "And...I am sorry for cutting you off. If you let me, I can heal it-"
"Get out of my house. Now." His body motioned to move, and the currents obeyed, slamming the door shut. Echoes of distant wails shook the walls as the floorboards curled upward, biting at Lyra's feet and drawing blood. "Tch."
"Evacuate the house! He is turning!" Lyra was the fastest of the three.
Two pairs of eyes grew wide as they found themselves facing the house they had previously invaded. The outside seemed odd now that they had also been inside. Its shape...its aura, and even the feeling of being watched constantly were concerning. But only Meilin had noticed what was truly wrong here. Its inside was much, much larger than the outside.
There was no second story to the house on the outside, only the attic. The windows that allowed moonlight to seep in upstairs didn't exist on the outside.
Before another suspicious thought could form, a fourth and final figure emerged from the doorway. His shirt had been ripped to shreds, revealing the tattoo of a slithering serpent, engulfing his body in a black, ever-burning fire. Incoherent mumbling parted his lips, echoing as if everything surrounding the house was an enclosed space. 'Kill them.' The serpent whispered.
A single tear ran down from his eye. "Please...save me..."
Ryn raised her hand forward weakly, expression softening as her feet moved on their own. But Meilin was faster. Wood split the soil and parted the water, raising roots stronger than steel to encage Aiden. "The young wendigo spirit has fed on Aiden's negative feelings and sprung up! We must exorcise him this instance!"
Lyra stepped forward with her daggers already readied for battle. "And if we fail?" She turned back to face her friend.
"He dies."
Meilin snapped her fingers, and the three girls switched into the shrine's uniform. A long white dress with red ribbon stitching lining the seams of the fabric. Thunder roared, illuminating the white face masks the girls had equipped.
The night was still young.