"What did you just say?" Annie took off her glasses, as if somehow it gave more seriousness to her expressions.
"Kids, go up to your rooms."
Anton looked at the girl and the teenager in this family; there was a lot of darkness between the two of them, so he said, "I prefer them to stay; it would be too dangerous for them to leave at this moment."
"Haven't you noticed?"
"Noticed what?"
It seemed this family still didn't feel the strange things that should have alarmed them, or worse, they were ignoring them. This was common in people who overnight experienced things that had never happened to them before and believed it was all just their imagination.
"If Mother Mrs. Annie was involved in a ritual cult, which you know for sure, let me tell you that these rituals are illegal according to our own policy, and that means it's an immediate death sentence." Anton looked at Annie, who wanted to say something, until she heard the cold words he had just uttered.
Steve could see the gun on Anton's waist and immediately sounded nervous. Who were these people really?
"I kindly ask you to leave my house right now."
Steve extended his hand to calm his wife and asked, "Are we in trouble?"
Anton nodded without saying a word, wanting to know what these people thought.
"All those involved in the ritual cult your mother was part of have been killed; only your family remains, who are practically at the center of it all." Akira mentioned this while looking around.
Annie frowned and asked, "At the center of what? My mother is dead; anything related to trouble, I think you should consider letting it go."
"That's the problem; your mother hasn't left this house." Anton was about to say more when he saw the girl named Charlie getting nervous.
"Do you want to say something?"
Charlie looked at her mom and muttered, "I saw Grandma this morning at school; she was looking at me."
"That's absurd..." Annie shook her head, wanting to silence her daughter and not dwell on this matter anymore.
But Anton, who was interested in addressing this issue slowly, said, "How far away was she?"
"Across the street, maybe a bit farther..." Charlie responded with certainty, knowing what she had seen.
"It can't be..."
"You still don't believe me, do you?" Anton took out some photos from his coat and handed them to Steve to look at.
Steve held the photos with trembling hands and could see truly grotesque images firsthand of decapitated people in the center of a bloody rune.
"I'm afraid you're involved because your family has been part of a ritual to bring a demon unknown to this world; your mother knew it perfectly; that's why she wanted a boy instead of a girl, and that's precisely why she would kill her daughter first to clear the way for her older son."
Annie looked at the photos Steve was holding and shook her head, not wanting to believe what she was hearing, so she stood up.
"Doesn't it strike you as odd? Many members of your family have inherited many physical conditions that have slowly led them to death; precisely, that's why you distanced yourself from your mother, knowing perfectly well that would keep her away from the problem, but everything changed when you let your only daughter grow up with her."
Akira tightened her fists and said, "You don't know anything..."
"Maybe we don't know, but your daughter has been prepared for her mother to possess her and thus kill her whenever she gets the chance; she'll finish you all slowly until she has her body." Anton pointed to the teenager, who was listening silently.
Annie knew this was probable considering her mother, but she didn't want to believe complete strangers.
She had pushed all of that away from her life and didn't want to attract it now.
"Once your daughter dies, you yourself will invoke the demon; someone else will approach you with the way to do it, and this way, following your mother's instructions, you'll end up doing all the work." Anton murmured while also standing up.
For Anton, it would be nothing to eliminate the family now that he had the authority to do so, but he wanted to save these people.
"I need you to leave my house." Annie said once more, Furious.
But Akira pulled out a gun and soon after attached a silencer to it. The whole family became nervous, but she said without caring, "We are trying to save your family; we suspect that somewhere in the house there is a ritual, so if you don't agree to let us help you, it would be best to eliminate you to avoid problems for other people."
"Wait, wait, wait a minute, is there a ritual in our house?" Steve wanted to stop things because of how fast they were moving and asked with confusion.
"Tell me, where? If you know everything about what supposedly is happening in our family, tell me where the ritual is." Annie thought these people were aware that many of the things didn't make sense, but for some reason, she also felt they weren't lying.
"That's simple." Anton walked to the staircase to the second floor, following the aura around them, and pointed to the skylight that was on the roof.
"The shed?" Steve found this very strange, but still walked to open it.
As soon as he opened it, a strong smell of decay came from above, making many cover their noses. Steve, now more terrified, slowly climbed the stairs.
Anton walked towards Akira, placed a blood cross on her forehead, and said, "Give them the silver crosses; they'll need them."
Just as Anton was about to say something, a scream of horror was heard from above, and shortly after, Steve approached. "Annie, how is it that your mother's body is in the shed?"
"What did you say?" Annie pushed Anton, and she herself went up to the shed through the ladder. As soon as she approached a corner, she could notice her mother's headless corpse. She looked at this with horror and stepped back a few steps because she didn't believe what she was seeing.
Anton, who had also climbed up, walked to this place and looked at the ritual, extended his blood-filled hand, and murmured, "May God forgive your sins."