I stood there bewildered. If you had asked me before what he was going to say, it would have never crossed my mind that he was about to say that. After all, I wasn't even sure if I believed it was true.
"It's a matter of life and death. We need to know who you saw get killed."
"I don't know what you are talking about. I didn't see anyone get killed."
I decided to play it safe. While playing dumb, I would wait for them to leverage more information.
"Look, I know you may want to believe that what you saw was a hallucination and deny it, but someone is going to die if you don't speak."
The girl in the neon hoodie glared at the woman who just spoke and turned to me.
"This may be scary, but you have to trust us. We aren't trying to hurt anyone here."
The younger guy who had stayed silent this whole time suddenly spoke up. He wore relaxed athletic wear and was less tense than the others.
"If you don't tell us, we'll have no choice but to bring you with us."
"And why should I come with you?"
"Your ability to see future murders, it will eventually put you in danger. The killer in your vision probably looked human, right?"
I meekly nodded.
"But their eyes were different, right? Not quite human, almost another being. Those are the creatures that will come after you."
"How do I know these creatures are real, I mean what proof—"
Crash. I instinctively glanced at the source of the noise.
What the fu—
On our living room floor were millions of small pieces of glass, shattered from the window. Before I could even move to see what caused it, someone's leg stuck through the opening of the window.
Behind me, everyone stood up abruptly, the chairs they had been sitting on loudly hitting the floor.
"It can't be." The girl with the neon beanie murmured anxiously.
Where the leg was, there was now a tall, middle aged man, your average person you most likely would've passed in the streets. Even though his left hand was bleeding and had traces of glass shards embedded in the flesh, he still strongly gripped a brick. He turned his head around to survey his surroundings.
"Call 9-1-1 right now, someone!" I yelled as I scoured for my own phone.
The oldest woman placed her hand on mine, the sudden action surprising me. "By the time they get here, it'll be too late. He's not human, at least not right now," she told me.
What was that even supposed to mean? Not human right now?
The girl with the neon beanie suddenly closed her eyes and snapped her fingers.
Suddenly the atmosphere wasn't the same. I glanced at the man, whose eyes were darting everywhere, and was now moving in slow motion. His arms slowly moved from side to side, as if frantically searching for something, and then he moved his gaze towards the kitchen. Just then, my eyes made contact with him. Instantly, something changed about him. He was no longer looking everywhere, but became fixated on me.
Crap. He wasn't looking for something, It was someone. Me.
Someone grabbed my arm and turned me around. Right in my face was the girl with the neon beanie.
"Right now you need to make a choice. Fast. I can only slow time down for another 3 mins. You can either fight this man alone or let us help you. But if we help you, you must join us. Otherwise, we cannot show our abilities."
I thought of my grandma and dad who were sleeping soundly through all this noise, probably due to the ear plugs I gave them when they complained of the neighbour's' children. There was no way I could defeat this human-that-wasn't-a-human by myself. If he was really what these strangers claimed to be, I didn't stand a chance.
Gosh, wasn't this deal kind of unfair?
Reluctantly, I agreed. "Fine, fine. It's a deal."
As I said that, the atmosphere of the room reverted to normal. I glanced towards the man and saw that he was moving at normal speed again.
"Did you just slow down time?"
"I'll explain later. For now, just stay put and whatever you do, do not go near that man."
The girl with the neon beanie and the other three ran towards the man. In a split second, two of them were fighting with the man, fist to fist. The youngest guy was agile, and where the man would try to land punches, he was always one step ahead. Soon, the young guy began to land hits on the man. On his third punch, the man completely tumbled over. Even I could feel the sheer force that he hit him with. That was when the woman took over. Although she appeared the oldest of the four, she had the type of confidence that you knew came from experience. Her stance was powerful and she felt like someone that was immovable like a wall.
Immediately, before the man could recover from that lethal blow, she lifted her leg and sent it flying down with great strength right onto his stomach. As soon as her leg made contact with his flesh, his eyes enlarged in shock—probably from pain. Not even able to get up, his eyes had finally begun to show traces of fear. The older guy, who had barely spoken since he had sat down in my kitchen, smoothly hit him in the neck.
Soon enough, the man was unconscious and slumped on my living room floor. I could barely register what had just happened, but the others didn't seem fazed at all. Their faces were neither shocked nor surprised. They calmly tied the man up and the woman began to drag him behind her.
She opened the front door, and everyone followed her.
I stood there, transfixed by what I had just witnessed, when someone yelled at me.
"What are you doing, Dae-mi? Come on, we have to go. Now."
The girl with the neon beanie beckoned me to follow her. Everyone else had already gone outside.
Before I walked out of my house, I took one last glance at my home. The living room was a mess, exactly what houses who have been robbed in movies looked like. I glanced at the tv stand where my dad had placed framed pictures. Every one of them had been shattered in the midst of the fight, but the one with my mom's picture stood untouched.
At last, I moved from where I stood at the doorway and followed them. Whether this was a good decision I wasn't sure. But after having that creature break into my house, looking for me, I needed answers. And these people seemed like the only ones who knew what was going on.