"James Adeyemi. Why are you smiling?"
The man's low voice carves through the silence of the chapel, sending a shiver down my spine.
Huh?
Despite the horror unfolding before my eyes, I realize my lips are twisted in a slight smile.
I hadn't even realized.
My finger twitches, a fight-or-flight response coursing through my body. My eyes flicker back to Paul.
Am I gonna end up like him?
Helplessly choked to death?
The man's gaze snaps to my twitching hand. "Don't do anything stupid," he says, stepping out into the aisle. "Damn Adeyemi blood..." he mutters. He snaps through his gloved fingers—and what little control I have over my body vanishes in an instant.
I glance at my mother. Her eyes are locked onto Paul's corpse—her face remaining as expressionless as a porcelain doll.
The man in the red-tinted shades sighs. "Sole living awakener of the Adeyemi bloodline, some clueless, creep kid. You have no idea, huh?"
My chest tightens. This lunatic... What's he talking about?
"Nala Adeyemi," he says sharply.
My heart sinks as I hear Ma's name.
"'Sealer of Specters.' A living—well, formerly living—legend." The man walks down the aisle, stopping at Ma's casket.
Blood rushes to my head, my limp hands curling into fists at the sight. A drop of blood from my bandaged hand splatters onto the chapel's floor, turning the man's head.
Forcing the words through my gritted teeth I utter, "Get...away...from her."
I push upwards with all my might, and I'm barely able to stand from my seat.
The man simply laughs. "Maybe you're not all worthless. I suppose I'll inform you," he says, snapping his gloved fingers once more.
In an instant, the world jerks as nausea overwhelms me. The man's red shades now sit inches away from my face. It wasn't that he got closer to me.
He moved me.
Ma's casket lies right behind the man's silhouette, with the priest up on the platform standing over us. To my sides, the mourners remain frozen in time—watching us from behind their eyes.
The man places a gloved hand on my shoulder, pushing me into the ground.
"Sit," he says, placing a gloved hand on my shoulder and pushing me into the ground.
A sharp ache spreads through my knees as they meet the smooth marble floor hard, forcing a groan out of me.
Ignoring my glare, the man adjusts his red-tinted shades. He paces before Ma's casket, saying, "The Adeyemis. Peerless antagonists of all specters." The man clicks his tongue.
"How far they've fallen. To think an awakened Adeyemi would get done in by one."
My breath catches.
Is he talking about Ma?
"If an Adeyemi awakens, their souls will carry quite the unique scent—irresistible to all manner of entities." The man's pacing comes to a halt, and he turns to Ma's casket.
"Though not without the ability to fight back. Nala, here, held a rather... double-edged gift. Imbuing her soul's scent into her creations, serving as a lure and trap for any hungry specter."
His gaze flickers back to me, the red-tinted shades catching the chapel's light. "Any lesser specter would wither and die within a day, starved of a soul to feed on. But what killed her," he gestures toward Ma, "wasn't lesser. Something that she might've bested in her prime proved too powerful to be contained in a pretty little clay vase."
He pauses, walking over to me. "So, in the end, she had no choice but to seal the specter in the only vessel strong enough—her own body."
My eyes widen, heart thundering in my chest. Feeling the rigidness above my shoulders loosen, I yell at the man, "You're lying! She was sick! None of this mystical bullshit!"
His blurred face shifts, staring back at me, as if my words mean nothing. Then, in that same calm voice:
"She fought it for years—quite impressive considering her age. But in the end, the specter won."
He turns, his gaze drifting toward Paul's lifeless body. "It needed time to digest an Adeyemi's soul. So, it hid in your grandmother's corpse... until it found a suitable host in the dead man over there."
My head swims. I have no choice but to accept his words as the truth. "Why..." I croak out, my voice rasping. "Why are you telling me this? Who are you?"
The man's shifting face reveals nothing. He hums before saying, "I'm a cleaner—cleaning up your grandmother's mess," he says flatly. "And you, James Adeyemi," he says, pointing at me, "are the last loose end."
My stomach turns to ice. "...What do you mean...?"
"You've awakened. Unlike the dud over there," he says, glancing over at Aunt Rosetta. Left unattended, you'll just fatten the belly of a wandering specter—and I'd rather not have to hunt down the specter lucky enough to digest your soul."
The man tugs at his gloved fingers, sending a tremor through my entire body.
I'm gonna die.
Seeing my reaction, the man laughs. "Relax, boy. I won't be hurting you—well, not anymore."
The man intertwines his gloved fingers, and for a split-second, his clouded face clears—enough for me to make out a long scar, running jagged across where his left cheek should be. Then it blurs again, like smoke refusing to settle.
After a few moments, a series of dull thuds echoes around the chapel as mourners crumple in their seats. The priest is the last to fall, sliding limply from behind the lectern.
My eyes dart around the chapel, panic swelling in my chest. I find my mother slumped over Paul's corpse; Aunt Rosetta hangs half out of her wheelchair, unconscious; and Mike lies beside her, just as still.
"You... killed them."
"I did nothing of the sort. I only..."
His voice becomes muffled under the blood rushing through my head.
He killed them.
I bare my teeth, springing up from the chapel ground. My bandaged, bloody fist launches towards the man's blurred face.
The world around me burns as deep and red as the shades on his face. I can almost see a hint of surprise behind his mask of mirages.
—Shatter.
My punch lands, splitting the man's shades into a thousand shards. The shifting air around his face dissipates—revealing a young man with pale skin, marred by a jagged scar. Short white hair frames glaring red eyes. His gloved left hand flies up to cover his scar, his right cocking into a snap.
But I don't let up.
Planting my right foot hard enough to crack the marble floor, I move faster than I ever have—slapping away the hand before it can finish the snap.
"You..." he starts, but I don't listen.
They're all dead.
My fist rockets toward the man's face once more, thirsty for blood. Before it can land, he kicks my left leg out from under me—sending the red world spinning.
Time seems to slow as I flip in the air, catching the sight of the man's upside-down hand preparing another snap.
Twisting midair, I crash my right heel into his gloved hand—breaking the snap before it can spark. He winces at the impact, his hand trembling.
"How dare you!" he hisses, still hiding his scar behind his other glove.
I hit the ground hard, knees scraping the marble, but I don't feel it. I shoot toward him again, drowning everything out.
Die.
This time he's ready.
The man's gloved hand slides off his face, revealing the deep scar. His hand drops into an open palm, and just before I reach him—a wall of air crashes into my chest, sending me skidding across the chapel floor.
My back crashes into a row of pews, crowded with the limp bodies of the mourners. Their bodies jolt from the impact, with someone's arm falling on my shoulder.
The world slowly loses its red hue.
A screaming pain ruptures through my back—spreading fast through my limbs. Each breath sends shards of glass into my lungs.
Across the aisle, the man's red eyes burn into mine, rage twisted on his face. He covers his trembling right hand with his left, enveloping it in a green glow. The trembling stops.
"Tch. You little monster," he spits. "I should just kill you."
He walks over to me, every step sending an echo throughout the lifeless chapel.
"Go on," I rasp. "Do it."
His lip curls as he stares at me. Then with a huff, "I'd never hear the end of it if I killed an Adeyemi. Consider yourself lucky."
I try to get up, but my body doesn't listen.
"And as I was saying," he continues, "I couldn't let anyone walk away knowing of my existence—so I wiped their memory. No one is dead."
I glare up at him, eyes sharp with doubt and hate. He huffs once more, snapping his fingers. My stomach lurches and my vision blurs—when I blink, I'm lying next to my mother on the floor of the row we sat in.
Reaching my hand over her mouth, I feel light breaths brush against my palm.
She's alive.
My eyes roll back into my head, and the last thing I see is a green glow before everything fades to black.
***
Trial
I stop—the light's glare bleeds through my eyelids in a pink haze.
Alice tugs at my hand. "What's wrong?" she asks, a flicker of impatience threading her voice. "We haven't reached the place of trial yet."
My eyelids slowly usher in the light. It feels alien—like I've spent my whole life in the shadows. "It's… bright," I murmur, remembering the girl's condition.
The light pours from a shimmering white mist trailing above us. Its glow lays bare the wet cavern floor I'd grown accustomed to—but to my surprise, we've been walking through a corridor. On either side, glossy walls stretch upwards, vanishing into the misty light above us.
Have these walls been here the entire time?
"Ah," Alice says. "Keep moving." She pulls my arm, but I don't budge. Heat rises in my face once more, the sudden glow having revealed what the darkness had hidden. Her gray eyes stare at me blankly, waiting for an answer.
"Hold on," I say, dropping her hand and unfastening my damp black t-shirt from around my waist. Holding it out toward her and turning away, I tell her, "Wear this…"
The shirt leaves my hands. For a few moments, I hear the rustling of fabric before Alice says, "Okay, let's go."
Sighing, I turn around—only to find Alice with her hand out, my shirt draping over her head.
"Not like—!" I facepalm. "Whatever," I mutter, grabbing the shirt from her head and taking the lead. "Let's just go."
I can see perfectly fine, anyway.
Alice lets her hand drop and trails after me.
Fastening the shirt back around my waist, I continue down the corridor. The path stretches endlessly, the trail of light blurring into a milky white. Our footsteps sound a steady drumbeat—one step following the other, never quite in sync.
"Almost there," Alice says from behind me.
I've walked with her for some time now, but her enigmatic sense of direction never fails to give me the creeps. She says we're nearing our destination, but the path only seems to stretch further—planting a seed of doubt deep in my chest.
Did I trust her too easily?
A mysterious girl, born from the shadows of this hell, quenching my thirst and tempting me with direction. I glance back at the girl. Her cloudy gray eyes seem to pierce the darkness, as if seeing something surely ahead.
Why help me, in this nonsensical world of death and darkness?
I push down my skepticism, turning back to the void of a corridor.
Just keep moving.
As if taunting my doubts, a dryness in my throat resurfaces. I slow my pace to fall beside Alice. My voice raises slightly as I ask her, "You wouldn't mind allowing me some more of that water, would you?"
Her expression reads nothing as she holds out her palm. The air shimmers, and the familiar bottle of water materializes.
Won't be getting used to that.
"You can hold onto it for now," she says, handing me the bottle without glancing my way. "Don't drop it."
"How much water is even in this thing?" I ask, gripping it and remembering how it seemed to hold more than it should.
"...Enough," she replies, leaving me just as clueless.
I uncork the bottle, raising its bottom to the hazy light above as the water gushes into my dry mouth like a waterfall. With each gulp, a wave of cool relief crashes down. Satisfied, I pull the bottle away, wiping my lips with the back of my hand.
Could get used to this, I think to myself as we walk, tossing the bottle lightly and catching it.
Alice hears its weight slap into my palm and turns her unwavering gaze toward me this time. "Seriously. Don't drop it."
"I won't," I mumble, steadying the bottle by my side. A strong urge to get the trial over with washes over me as I hasten my pace and take the lead again.
Just moments after I pass her, the light above us quickly fades. My head whips back to face Alice—but she's gone.
I freeze, my chest tightening as I'm pulled back into the unnavigable dark. Stuffing the bottle into my pocket, I utter into the dark, "Alice?"
No response.
I feel around the shadows tentatively, and my hand presses against the smooth walls that persisted in the darkness.
Breathe.
I suck up the damp air, trying to exhale my creeping anxiety. Crouching to the ground, I press my palms to my eyes.
Alice is gone. So is my sight.
A humid musk saturates the air, tinged with a faint earthly aroma.
I have my smell.
I press my fingers into the slick ridges of the cavern floor. No different from what I've grown used to.
I have my touch.
I snap my fingers—its crack echoes endlessly off the cavern walls. Only now, without footsteps or rustling cloth, do I hear how eerily silent this corridor is.
Still, I have my hearing.
Feeling like a kite that'd lost its wind, I turn toward where Alice had been leading me. My heart skips with each tentative step forward. Each footstep's echo fades completely before the next one breaks the silence.
Then—slow footsteps sound from the dark, not far behind me.
Heavy.
Far heavier than the steps of my light-footed companion. Ragged breaths pierce the musky air, coupled with a snarl strong enough to set a buzz throughout my body. My heart hammers against my ribs. I can tell instantly that there'd be no running from this thing, and my mind races fast with its approach.
I'd always heard that the best thing you could do when faced with a bear is to remain calm and never run.
So that's what I'll do.
Right.
Maybe it'll just waltz right past me.
But my body's already moving.
Something primal roars through me, biting down my logic.
Fear.
I kick off the cavern floor hard, arms flailing wildly in the dark. Thunderous steps pounce after me, a roar erupting throughout the corridor—each echo sapping my strength. The breath behind me grows louder as it gains on me—close now.
Too close.
My lungs scream, my legs burn—then my foot skids on the slick ground, sending me tumbling through the air.
My body twists sideways as a massive shape lunges over me, splitting the air like a javelin. I hit the ground hard, knees scraping against the floor, breath knocked out of me. And in that instant—light bursts through the corridor.
I scramble to my feet, heart pounding, eyes darting.
Nothing. As if it was an illusion.
Then, I see it.
A faint silhouette of darkness, tracing a wolf-like creature. I could've mistaken it for a mirage if not for its hollow, ancient eyes staring at me with hunger. The memory of the darkness dweller I'd been chained to resurfaces, chilling me to the bone.
My fingers instinctively tighten around the bottle tucked in my pocket, the cool glass anchoring me to reality. The creature doesn't move, but the silence feels unnatural—like the moment before a storm breaks. I retreat slowly, each step ringing too loudly in the thick air. My eyes remain locked on the creature's hollow gaze, every fiber ready to flee the instant its outline stirs.
I get some distance away from the creature—then light dims once more, slower this time. With every fading second, its shape grows more solid. I turn to run—but stop.
I can't outrun this thing.
No chance I could kill it in the dark either.
So I run.
Toward the creature.
Its hollow eyes track me, but it remains frozen. Shadows creep closer along the walls, enveloping the corridor with their darkness. Soon, the shadows would reign—and my chance would vanish.
My legs threaten to give out, but I force them forward. The creature's figure looms larger with every step.
A punch wouldn't faze it.
Could I choke it with my shirt?
No—I need a weapon.
The bottle feels heavy in my pocket. In a flash of desperation, my fingers close tightly around its cool surface.
The creature lies just ahead, still motionless.
I lunge forward, yanking the bottle free. A spark of light lingers, seconds from being devoured by the shadows.
My grip tightens around the glass. I swing the bottle with all my might, aiming at the creature's head.
Glass shatters against its skull with a deafening crack, spraying shards into the air. Just as the bottle breaks—an impossible torrent erupts, its force knocking me off balance and sending me stggering back. Regaining my footing, I can only watch in awe at the sight before me.
Blue light flares from the water, cutting through the dark and reflecting off the glossy cavern walls. The beast thrashes, clawing at the water's hissing tendrils that persistently smother it. Its hollow eyes widen with terror as the water squeezes its life away. With one final shudder, the beast vanishes—the water bursts outward drenching me along with the walls of the corridor.
I stand there, breathless, soaked but victorious. A silence settles over the dark, drenched cavern, a fragile calm after the storm.
Then—hazy letters swim in my head, shaking me from my stupor. The letters sharpen into focus, before flickering and reforming again.
[Trial Cleared]
...
[Inventory Granted]
...
[Weapon Permissible]
...
[Deciphering Weapon]
...
...
[Deciphering Complete]
...
[Weapon: Misfortune]
The words cease. Fatigue washes over me, and all I can do is lay down on the wet cavern floor. The rocky bed feels strangely comforting, all things considered. Light steps approach nearby, soft and deliberate, but I'm too exhausted to react.
The steps pause close to me for a moment before a familiar voice breaks the silence, a pout threading through their words:
"You dropped my bottle, didn't you?"