Splash, splash....drip drip.
The excessive amount of water slid down the mirror placed over the sink. Jennovice's blank face appeared on it. he kept looking at it. His hair which turned completely white despite the fact that he was only eleven stood out the most. The overgrown hair touched the back of his knees. The boy with a rather slim and short stature compared to his age was entirely covered up by the thick smooth pearl white hair, he felt like a completely different person than what he was in the morning.
He could not keep looking at the unfamiliar person in the mirror. He lowered his eyes; his hands and his feet came into his view. They were no different than his head, covered by overgrown white body hairs, just a single difference was that they had long nails too.
Jennovice was going insane with this sudden development. At first, he thought it might be what they call "puberty", but he soon realized that none of the seniors he saw in his school had this kind of body and moreover, this change was not permanent. It would appear on a certain day every month, roughly after a twenty-eight days difference, it was the only peace of mind the boy had.
"Big bro?
"Did you do something?"
Only his voice echoed around the empty bathroom, no reply came.
The person in question remained silent.
The boy gave up on his futile inquiry. He came out of the bathroom and went towards the stairs of the second floor. The house was empty, no one else was there. Everyone went to eat out. it was Zoe's birthday that day, her twelfth birthday. They also wanted Jennovice to come but he excused himself by relying on the oldest trick in the book, stomachache! He would never go out somewhere under the light of a full moon.
Maybe his mind was too preoccupied with this transformation, the boy completely failed to notice the jet black silhouette of a person following him up the stairs.
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The pedestrian could clearly see the happiness radiating from the whole family, they could not help but smile seeing them. A man who was clearly not over thirty-five was holding and swinging the arm of the child who was around ten or a bit older, the mother of the family was busy smoothing up the shiny pink gown the angelic-looking child was wearing. The brightest of all might have been the innocent smile on the girl's face, but if someone noticed, they could clearly see the blankness in her eyes too, there was literally nothing in those dark black eyeballs, even the pupils were impossible to notice, but in plain sight, it would only appear as if she was lost in the thoughts of someone.
The mother noticed it all too quickly and bought ice cream from the roadside stall almost immediately. The kid happily started to eat the ice cream. They continued walking but the girl suddenly stopped eating the ice cream and looked in the direction where they came from. She squinted her already small eyes and stared at the running cars which slowly blurred away from her view, a house amidst a few tall trees and as if hidden from everyone behind a tall wall appeared in her view. She stared at the house for a few seconds while walking and then muttered in a very low voice, inaudible to her family,
"Someone's there."
She looked back at her ice cream which almost melted down. the melting accelerated. two pointed edges of the melted cream remained.
In her jet black, like a bottomless pit of abyss, eyes, the edges looked more like the horns of a devil.
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"Don't look back! just act like you don't know anything."
The "other person" in his consciousness kept screaming. Jennovice had no idea what was happening behind him in the staircase, but the suffocation he felt was enough for him to be aware of the enemy's strength level.
"Such a weird feeling", the boy thought. He kept climbing upstairs, but the stairs seemed to be a tunnel with no end and a flicker of light as the last straw of hope. But...
"Wait? Light? Aren't the lights broken?"
All the windows were closed due to his preference and curtains were pulled over them. The night was that of a full moon, it was not that surprising for moonlight to seep inside, but the light that he saw was red! Moonlight is not supposed to be red! The light slowly seeped near the stunned boy and wetted his feet.
"B-blood?"
Amidst the pool of fresh blood was standing a boy nearly of his age. He looked at the scared cat with brilliantly shining annoyance and an indescribable amount of boredom in his eyes. He reached his hand out to grab Jennovice's hand and pulled him into the sea of blood.
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"I can't believe I have to f*cking babysit an eleven-year-old! What does she take me for!?"
The boy grumbled while remaining seated on top of the bed, beside the sleeping Jennovice. He looked at the woman standing at the door and staring holes at the sleeping beauty. She was not a human, nor an inhuman, she was not even a living being, just like him.
"Hey, whatcha doin' there? You wan' a candy?"
the boy flipped out a lollipop from the pocket of his century-old shorts, literally. The woman was startled by this sudden offer and took a step back, she waved her right hand around and said,
"No thanks, elder brother. I'm just here on "his" request."
The boy scrutinized the woman from head to toe and narrowed his eyes. He took a glance at Jennovice and went to the woman. He stood on his tiptoes, trying to reach the woman's eyes but failed anyway.
"Look, this thing is under my supervision now, even though you are my sibling, I'm not just gonna sit idly if you do anything out of line. Got it?"
The woman stared at the boy for a few seconds and nodded her head in affirmative. The boy kept his eyes locked on her the whole time she got down the staircase and disappeared into the darkness. But there was a black shadow of worry on that boy's face, which made him look quite cute. He walked to stand beside the boy who seemed to know nothing about this world, the mysterious boy smiled and mumbled,
"Aren't you a clever thing?" Not waiting for the answer, he exited the room. And in the next moment, a boy with an "ear to ear" smile was seen to be sitting on the bed, it could not be identified if this smile was meant to be an answer to that boy's question or if it had a different meaning to it.
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The moment the newly thirteen-year-old entered the house, she ran to her younger brother's room. Akira did not even get the chance to ask why she insisted on coming back home rather than going to the restaurant she always wanted to go to.
Zoe peeked in Jennovice's room to see the latter in deep sleep, she squinted her eyes and kept staring at him then she ran down the stair again and dragged her poor father up. Our poor guy Jace just wanted to see his favourite drama after a long week of work but when he got up the stairs, he felt a faint scent of blood and felt the presence of a few unknown existences. He frowned a bit considering the fact that the boy was left inside the home all alone. He looked inside and outside for a while and then got down. He took Zoe with him.
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"Not a Keeper?"
The man from the other side of the phone sounded quite worried and also a bit curious at the same time. Jace assured him and continued.
"That's the worrying part. A non-Keeper barged into my house and I mean MY. HOUSE. They need to have balls of steel to do that. But it's a relief that Jennovice was unharmed. it was my fault to leave him all alone."
Jace paused for a moment, contemplating if what he was going to say was appropriate or not.
"Jace."
A heavy voice surfaced from the other side. The voice had mixed feelings in it, on one hand it was meant to assure the troubled father that no matter what he was going to say would not offend him and it had an air of command in it too.
"We still don't know what exactly happened with Jennovice's previous family. How an entire clan containing a pure-blood percentage of forty totally burned to a crisp in fire is still a mystery. In short, we are unaware of what was after the clan but we do know that it is currently on loose."
The man listened calmly the entire time. He did not have enough information to comment on what the worried man said, and then a voice filled the entire room.
"Zachary? Are you busy?"
The very normal looking man kept his phone down and turned to the woman standing on the corner. It was the same woman who was staring holes at sleeping Jennovice earlier. She had long curly sky-blue coloured hair with equally captivating blue eyes and the pale porcelain skin made a great contrast with the frown on her face. Any kind of fairy tale enthusiast would definitely mistake her for a siren. The mythical beings, known for their captivating beauty and enchanting singing voice. anyone who had heard their singing immediately fell for their charm and dropped guard. But sirens were not a very strong race, they had to rely on the fighter class of merpeople to survive.
Alas, those beautiful creatures were no more. For some mysterious reason, they were all completely wiped out from existence without any exceptions.
the very normal looking man smiled at the woman and asked her,
"you were there with Jennovice right? did you notice anything off?"
the woman clicked her tongue and answered in a pretty annoyed voice.
"What can be off about a mere mortal? Nothing was there obviously, if there was, I would have noticed."
She left the room in annoyance without stating why she came in the first place.
There was an unnatural silence in the man.