THUMP!
Aeron woke up with a start due to the sudden and loud noise. He looked at the clock next to his bed, it was 3 in the morning. He knew something was wrong. That loud thumping noise wouldn't have come out of anywhere that too in the middle of the night.
'Is it the special force?'
Aeron thought about the special force first because not only they had a fight with Zaen but Miko was apparently their target as well. And since all of them were related to each other in one way or another, Aeron wouldn't be surprised if the Special force tried to do something to them.
His first reaction was to activate all of the homemade traps he had made. If it was a run of mill, burglar, well, then they were done for. However, The traps wouldn't have been enough to stop trained soldiers, like special officers. Even so at the very least, the traps could slow them down while Zaen and he made their escape.
This was his plan, but the room was dark and he did not dare to switch on the lights in case someone was outside waiting for them to do something stupid. Switching on the lights would inevitably give his location away and then he would be in trouble. It was something he would rather avoid. Not because of his well-being, but of Zaen's.
Aeron knew Zaen better than he knew himself. If he was in danger, Zaen wouldn't think twice before fighting everyone there to save him from those crooked idiots. Aeron couldn't allow something like that to happen. If the special force got to know it was Zaen who had been going up against them, all of them would be in trouble.
Aeron slowly got off of his bed. He tried to be as quiet as possible. His eyes darted across his room, looking for any kind of suitable weapon. He found a baseball bat that Zaen had gifted him last year on his birthday. It was an attempt to get him outdoors but well... Aeron never did. He had never thought even in his wildest dreams that a day would come when he would use the baseball bat in such a manner.
After he got his weapon, Aeron slowly opened the door that led to the corridor outside his room. He had always fearlessly walked around the house even at odd hours. But now the fear of the unknown and darkness overwhelmed him.
Aeron felt as if he was going paranoid. He looked around the upper living room, trying to look for a dark silhouette of someone hiding in the dark. But there was nothing. Aeron did not put his guard down though. He tightened his grip around the baseball bat. He knew that even with the bat in his hands, he wouldn't be able to do much because of his weak physique. Having the bat in his hands was more like a mere reassurance than anything at this point.
'Zaen always told me to get some exercise in but no! I just had to keep myself busy with study and stuff. Now, look at what happened because of it... I can't beat an opponent even with a weapon in my hands.' Aeron tried to preoccupy himself with his weird thoughts so that he could navigate through this crisis.
In situations like these, it was important for one to keep his mind occupied to let go of the stray thoughts. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get rid of one thought...
'What the heck is Zaen doing? Where is he?'
Aeron knew Zaen was a light sleeper, thanks to his military training. He himself, on the other hand, was a heavy sleeper. So if the noise was loud enough to wake him up, there was no way it didn't wake Zaen up as well. The only odd thing was that Zaen wasn't anywhere around.
As much as Aeron knew his brother, Zaen would've come rushing into his room the moment he would've woken up by the noise. However, that did not happen. Zaen was nowhere to be found. His optimistic thinking turned pessimistic in an instant.
If Zaen wasn't there it meant one of four things. Firstly, he had woken up due to the noise and went to investigate it by himself. But Aeron thought it was high;y improbable that Zaen would do something like that without checking up on him first.
Secondly, it could've been that he was attacked soon after the noise came and was fighting off the intruders while Aeron was coming up with what-if scenarios. Aeron brushed off this theory as well. If the would've been a fight, there would've been a lot more noise. But there wasn't any. The only sounds he could heard was the ticking of the clocks.
Thirdly, it could've been that Zaen was attacked in his sleep and drugged. And maybe the noise he heard wasn't of someone entering the house but leaving it. Maybe Zaen had been subdued by the intruders and if that was the case then... well even with his bat, Aeron wouldn't be a match for them either. But then again, the sound that Aeron had heard resembled someone jumping on the wooden floor and he was pretty sure there were no wooden flooring outside the house for obvious reasons.
And lastly, it could've been that Zaen went out of the house like he had done previously to 'hunt'. But Aeron scrapped this idea as well. Because Zaen had promised to inform him whenever he went out and Zaen never went back on the promises. At least the ones he made to him. Also, in this scenario there was no explanation about the loud noise either. So it wasn't feasible to think about it.
'I got to check up on Zaen first...' Aeron thought as he stared at the stairs. He had to go down to check up on Zaen but the darkness got to him again.
'I'm not afraid... I'm not afraid... I'm not afraid...' Aeron kept thinking in his head, 'Who am I kidding? I'm ready to crap my pants any moment now. God! How does Zaen do this stuff!'
He slowly got down the stairs and made his way towards Zaen's room. He looked around and everything seemed fine. Nothing was out of place. However, when went ahead to knock on the door he stepped on some kind of liquid. It was dark so Aeron couldn't see what it was. So he flicked some of it off the floor and gave it a whiff.
A moment later, his eyes widened in horror. It was not a liquid Aeron was used to be around but he immediately recognised it. It was blood. Blood had been oozing through the doors of Zaen's room.
All thoughts of fear were thrown right out of Aeron's mind in an instant as he broke the locked door open with all his might. Aeron wouldn't have been able to do something like this under normal circumstances but at that moment, he was filled with adrenaline and worry about his brother.
But what he saw next, shook Aeron to his core. Zaen was lying there, face down, there were two fist-sized holes in his back and his shoulder. His hands were covering the wound but the no avail, blood was still pumping out of the wounds like crazy.
"ZAEN!"