"Daddy… what was that..?" Yuna asked, frozen, her eyes pinned on the front door.
"I-I don't know, dear." Her father pushed Yuna back around the wall beside her bedroom door. "Go to your room, now. Grab your brother and hide, okay?"
"But-"
"No. Just do as I say, alright?" He ruffled her hair. "Everything will be fine. I promise."
"Esrian? Is everything alright?" Yuna's mom called.
"Get the baby, Ally, hide with Yuna and Edric." Her father called back.
Yuna didn't want to listen. She wanted to stay by her father's side, but at the same time, she was frozen with fear, unable to move. It was as though she'd been entrapped within a prism of ice.
She watched as her father went towards the door slowly.
"What's going on..?" Came Edric's voice from beside Yuna, who jumped in response.
"I don't know.." she whimpered, holding onto her elder sibling, who quickly realized something was dreadfully wrong.
Edric looked over at his father, and then at their mother who was coming towards them with Mirai in her arms.
Another ear-splitting scream ripped through the night, followed by the sounds of a wild, out of control crowd and slamming, breaking and crashing objects. As well as another sound… but Yuna did not recognize it.. it reminded her of when her father would bring home a deer he'd hunted. The sounds of its skin being cut and peeled as it's blood was drained and it's bones broke…
Yuna began to recoil into her own mind. She could hear nothing but the sound of her own heart thrumming with fear, nothing but the sound of tearing bones and flesh. Her mind became flooded with images of deer being strung up and skinned, but eventually that deer became her. She imagined herself being strung up, her flesh being cut and torn away from her body as she bled out.
"Yuna!" Edric hissed, snapping her out of her frozen state. She looked over at her brother. He was holding her hand and trying to pull her into their room. "Come on!" He whispered, "we need to hide!"
Just as she was about to follow her sibling, the front door suddenly burst forth, shattering into splinters of wood.
"RUN!!" Their father roared. Yuna looked back, and her heart stopped. In the doorway was a grotesque monster, a demon. It had deep, hollow pits for eyes, metal hooks and wires digging deep into its flesh around the eye socket. It's skin was rotted and torn, held together by more metal hooks. Bone spikes jutted out from its red flesh, oozing with puss and blood. Two gnarled horns curled from its head and its jaws hung open, its mouth unnaturally wide. Rows of teeth abnormally sized and shaped lined the inside of its gaping mouth. A long, coiled tongue hung limply from its jaws, dripping with saliva.
The demon stepped through the entrance, ducking low to be able to fit. The creature towered over her father, who backed away, staring up at it in terror. It's arms hung low below its knees, long, sharp talons dragging across the floorboards.
Time seemed to slow as Yuna watched the horror unfold, the demon thrusting it's talons forward. She froze, watching in disbelief as her father, the pillar of the village, a figure she once saw as immortal and invincible, as he was ran through with the blade-like claws. The talons had skewered through his chest, poking out his back. Blood began to pour from his body, splattering in gooey puddles to the ground.
The demon raised her father off his feet, then skewered him with its other set of talons before pulling in both directions. Yuna felt hot tears welling up in her eyes. She could do nothing. She was forced to watch in helpless silence and vulnerability as her father was torn in two, his blood and organs spilling to the ground in heaps of hot flesh. The noxious smell of her father's entrails came to fill the house. Yuna felt sick and dizzy, vomit spilling from her lips, but she still didn't move. She was frozen still.
"Yuna!" Her mother's scream was the only thing that could snap her out of it. Yuna turned to her mother as Mirai was shoved into her arms. "Go! Escape! Run, get away from here, far, far away!"
"But, mommy.."
"Go!"
"Yuna! Come on! We have to go!!" Edric cried, tears pouring from his eyes as he pulled her towards their room and her mother pushed her.
"Yuna, protect Mirai." Her mother smiled sadly, tears streaming down her cheeks in sparkling trails. "I love yo-"
Her mother's kindhearted smile was the last thing Yuna saw before bloody talons pierced through her mother's throat from the side, blood flowing in streams of crimson from her neck as she was raised up. Then, in one quick twist, her mother's head was torn from her body, her flesh tearing and bones snapping as her body dropped, lifeless, to the floor where her blood oozed from the stump where her head had been.
Yuna stared up in paralyzing fear as the demon came around, crushing her mother's still smiling skull in its talons, the bones shattering as they were crushed and crimson liquid spilled to the floor.
"Yuna!" Edric cried, "PLEASE! COME ON!! WE HAVE TO RUN!! YUNA, PLEASE!!!"
Yuna could hear her brother crying for her, but she couldn't move. It was like her body had become separate from her own mind. She urged herself to move with all her might, but it was like she was no longer in control. All she could do… was helplessly stare at the demon.
Mirai began to wail in her arms, thrashing about in fear… but Yuna could do nothing to ease her. As she too was just as scared.
The demon began to reach towards Yuna, but then her brother cursed, a rare thing, and he ran towards the demon.
"Leave her alone!"
*SMACK*
The demon backhanded Edric, leaving a deep gash across his cheek as he slammed into the doorway and then to the floor.
Yuna wanted so desperately to help her brother, but she couldn't! She was frozen completely still… she was helpless..
The demon reached for Yuna, it's talons stopping a mere breath away from her face… and then it moved down towards Mirai.
Yuna's eyes widened as two talons sank into her baby sister head, Mirai's blood pouring onto Yuna's arms and soaking her clothes, dying them red. But, still, she could do nothing. And then the demon lifted Mirai from Yuna's arms, raising her over its jaws as it tilted its head back…
*CRUNCH*