I wiped the sweat off my brow as I balanced a tray of beverages, skillfully weaving through the bustling crowd at my mother's bakery. So my mothers backery sells more than just treats, we have a selection of several different beverages and other staple foods that has customers lining up to eat here. It took some remodeling a couple years back to add several tables though they fill up quite fast during rush hour.
"Excuse me, coming through," I called out politely, careful not to spill a drop of the coffee.
As I set the cups at the customer's table, a middle-aged man with a kind smile nodded in appreciation. "Thank you, Adrian. You're a hard worker, just like your mother."
I offered him a small smile, grateful for the compliment. "No problem, Sir. Can I get you anything else?"
"No that will be all, you have been working here quite a while, and if I remember right. Your mother started you out as a dishwasher at age?"
"Age 12, Sir." I answered.
"Now look at you, you have become a real hard working man." He drank some of his coffee. "So what are your plans after you graduate?"
"I do not know, I might go to college or stay here and run the restaurant, though mom seems to want me to become a lawyer or policeman."
"The man laughed and we talked for a few more minutes, before I excused myself and headed to the back office where Yuki was working on some paperwork.
"Hey, any luck?" I asked,as she shook her head as I looked at what she was doing. "Did you call in some more shipment for the following month? We are getting quite low on some supplies."
"Ah, no. I haven't gotten to it yet." Yuki answered. "Just let me finish getting the payment details for this month's payroll done and I'll do it."
"Don't sweat it, Alex just arrived so she can help mother around the Bakery." I said as I grabbed the phone dialing the company.
☉☉☉
I step out of the Bakery into the crisp air, grateful for the break. The city's quiet hum replaced the buzz of conversation inside. I sit down, take a sip of my iced lavender coffee—odd but comforting—and scroll through my phone, letting the world fade away.
A tingling unease creeps in, growing stronger with each passing second. I glance up and freeze.
A soccer ball hangs in the air in front of me, suspended mid-bounce. A kid, mid-run, is frozen in time, his eyes locked on the ball. Everything around me—birds, cars, people—has stopped.
My heart pounds, the only sound in the oppressive silence. I try to move, but the air feels thick, heavy. Panic sets in.
Then, from the horizon, a golden light rises, expanding until it covers the entire sky. The air pulses with waves of energy, each one hitting me harder than the last. Pain rips through me as if my body is being torn apart. I double over, coughing up blood, my scream swallowed by the relentless light.
Amid the pain, I see a figure walking toward me. He moves and stops infront of me as he says something that I couldn't quite understand but I got two words.
"It's time"
It's time for what? What was going on! He reaches out, touches my forehead, and then, everything goes dark.
Suddenly I shot up as I started gasping for air. I slowly looked around to see that everything was normal, I must have dozed off a bit. I looked at the time to see that not even a minute had passed since I had taken my break. That's when I heard screaming as I saw customers running out the restaurant. I ran inside and what I saw made my blood run cold.
The restaurant was a mess of overturned chairs, shattered plates, and the metallic scent of blood hanging thick in the air, this was something out of a horror movie.
I didn't see them at first, but there they were—three of them. Two hulking, dog-like creatures with matted, black fur and glowing red eyes, and a man… if you could call him that. He was tall, overly muscular with skin pale and gray. His teeth were like those of a shark, his eyes red and bloodshot, a wild glint in them. He had what looked to be the pelt of some lion over his shoulder, a leather necklace with teeth of some beast tied to it. Though the two curved ram horns on his head really made him look like some kind of demon from the depths of hell.... this was the guy I had seen that day!
And the dogs, or whatever they were, were just as terrifying. Their fur was pitch black, like it absorbed all the light around them, and their eyes burned with the same red glow as the man's. Their mouths were filled with sharp, yellowed teeth, and their claws scraped the floor as they moved, leaving deep gouges in the wood.
Blood was everywhere. It was splattered across the walls, pooling on the floor, dripping from the torn bodies of the customers who had been too slow to escape. The dogs were relentless, tearing through anyone in their path, ripping flesh from bone with terrifying ease. The man stood in the center of it all, watching with an almost bored expression, like he had seen this all before.
"Listen here, I am Azazel. I am looking for the child known as Adrian, bring him here or I will start slaughtering every single one of you worthless mortals."
I was frozen, my heart pounding in my chest as I watched the chaos unfold. And then I saw my mom walk toward the demon calmly.
"Hey demon guy, I suggest you leave. There is no way in hell that I will let you have my son."
"You're son?" Azazel looked amused. "You are nothing but a mortal, what do you think that you can do against me!?"
"I can do this." Mom drew a gun that I didn't know she had and fired it at him, te bullet hit Azazels head as the demon crumbled. "Was it that easy?"
Yeah, no it wasn't, Azazel's laugh echoed through the room, a chilling sound that seemed to make the air grow colder. He got up as the wound on his forehead closed. "You are an interesting woman, to bad I now have to kill you." He hissed.
In one fluid motion, Azazel summoned a scimitar out of thin air. The blade was wickedly curved, glowing with a faint, crimson light that seemed to pulse with a life of its own. Without warning, he lunged at mom, moving with a speed that didn't seem impossible.
Fear flooded my body, no she couldn't die. I did not want her to die! I tried to move, tried to do something but my body was paralysid, frozen in place as I watched in horror as my mom was cut down. mother had run to her and only got killed as well, why couldn't I move or do anything!
The world burned. I felt so much raw emotion that what happened next was far from my control.
My body moved on its own, my heart pounding like a war drum, and my vision narrowed to Azazel, the demon bastard standing there with his smug grin, his scimitar dripping with their blood. My parent's body crumpled at his feet. The rage came first, a tidal wave that crushed everything else.
A scream tore from my throat, raw and animalistic. The ground beneath me cracked as a surge of heat exploded outward from my body. Black flames erupted around me, consuming the bakery, the street, everything. The fire didn't hurt—it felt alive, a part of me, roaring in time with my fury. Azazel staggered back, shielding himself as the heat seared his face. His grin faltered.
"What…what is this?" His voice shook.
I reached up, fingers grasping the ring hanging from the necklace around my neck. It started glowing, as dark tendrils came out of it and snaked down my arm as I pulled it free. In an instant, it wasn't a ring anymore. It grew, twisted, unfolded like a living thing. In my hand was a sword—a terrible, beautiful blade of obsidian, writhing with this black energy, jagged and wrong in all the right ways.
Azazel sneered, trying to cover his fear. "A little toy won't save you, boy."
His arrogance made me smile. A cold and empty smile. I could feel this power coursing through my veins, begging to be unleashed. The sword seemed almost alive, drumming into my head, destroy, kill, consume, over and over.
"Let's find out," I said, my voice low, dangerous.
Azazel moved first, lunging at me, scimitar aimed for my throat. My body moved faster than I thought possible, parrying his blade with a deafening clang that shook the air. The impact sent him stumbling, and I didn't let up. I pressed forward, every swing of my blade wild, unrelenting, forcing him back step by step.
"You think this changes anything?" he snarled, deflecting another blow, though his movements were becoming desperate. "You're nothing! A pathetic human trying to play god!"
The words barely registered. All I knew was the rhythm of the fight, the sound of his labored breaths, the crackling of the black flames that followed every swing of my sword. He whistled for his hounds to attack and yet I cut them down, their bodies dissolving into ash before they even hit the ground.
Azazel's confidence melted into fear, a demon fearing a human, how pathetic. I saw it in his eyes as I drove him to his knees, my blade inches from his neck.
"Wait—" he gasped, holding up a hand. "You don't understand—"
I didn't listen as the blade came down, a blur of black, and then…silence. Azazel's body collapsed in a heap, his scimitar clattering uselessly to the ground. The flames around me began to die down, the oppressive heat fading as my vision blurred. My legs buckled, the sword slipping from my grasp, and darkness claimed me.
The last thing I saw was the sword melt and return back into the ring.
☉☉☉
The ache in my chest hit me first, pulling me from unconsciousness. My body felt heavy, leaden, as I slowly blinked my eyes open. The world was a smudge of blackened walls, scorched earth, and ash drifting like snow. I was still on the ground, my arms splayed awkwardly, and the sharp tang of burnt wood stung my nose.
"Adrian!" Yuki's voice cut through the haze, sharp and panicked. Her small frame came into view as she dropped to her knees beside me, shaking me lightly. "Adrian! Are you okay? What happened?"
I tried to sit up, groaning as the weight of everything hit me. "Azazel," I rasped. "He—he killed them, Yuki. Mom and Mother. I couldn't stop him."
Her face paled, her lips parting in shock. "No... where are they?"
I pointed weakly toward the rubble of what had once been our bakery. For a moment, Yuki just stared, then she scrambled to her feet and began sifting through the wreckage. I followed, dragging myself upright despite the protests of my body. We worked in silence, our hands filthy with soot and ash as we searched.
After what felt like hours, we found them.
They lay side by side, their faces eerily peaceful despite the dark stains on their clothes. I sank to my knees, the breath knocked out of me. My hands trembled as I reached for them, but I stopped just short, afraid to touch them and shatter whatever fragile hope I clung to.
Yuki knelt beside me, her expression troubled. "We can't just leave them like this, Adrian," she said quietly. "We need to call someone. An ambulance... the cops... something."
"I know," I whispered, my voice hoarse. But my body refused to move. Every muscle locked up, every thought a whirlwind of guilt and helplessness.
Then she said it.
"I can bring them back."
My head snapped toward her. "What?" The word came out harsher than I intended. "What do you mean, bring them back?"
Yuki's eyes glowed faintly, and that's when I saw them—four luminous fox tails swaying gently behind her. My heart stopped. "Yuki... what the hell?"
She looked away, guilt flashing across her face. "I didn't want you to find out like this. I'm a Kitsune, Adrian. A fox spirit. I can... I can revive them, but it's going to cost me."
I stared at her, my mind racing. "What cost?"
"I'll have to sacrifice two of my tails."
"No." The word came out instinctively, almost involuntarily. "You can't do that. Yuki, that's—"
"It's the only way!" she snapped, her voice trembling. "I can't just let them stay dead. You can't either!"
The silence stretched between us, heavy and suffocating. Finally, she grabbed two of her glowing tails with both hands. I lunged forward to stop her, but she shook her head. "It's my choice, Adrian."
And then she yanked them free.
Her scream tore through the air, raw and guttural, and I flinched as she collapsed to her knees. The tails in her hands glimmered weakly, their glow dimming as she gently laid one over each of our mothers. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and her breathing came in ragged gasps.
"What now?" I asked, my voice shaking. "What do we do?"
Yuki lifted her head, her eyes burning with determination. "Hold my hand," she said softly. "We need to pray."
I hesitated, then sat across from her, our knees almost touching. I took her trembling hands in mine, closing my eyes. For the first time in my life, I prayed—really prayed. I didn't know who I was begging, didn't care. I just poured everything out, every ounce of grief, anger, guilt, and love, and begged whoever was listening to give them back.
Please. Please. Please.
Just when I was about to give up, I heard it—a deep, rumbling voice that seemed to be coming from inside my own head.
"Do you truly wish to save them?"
The voice sent a chill down my spine. My eyes flew open, but the world around me was dark, empty. I wasn't in the ruins anymore. I was... somewhere else.
"Yes," I said, my voice firm despite the tremor in my chest, Why did I feel like I was selling my soul to the devil. "I'll do whatever it takes."
Infront of me this glowing red eye opened staring down at me. It was huge, far bigger than anytthing I have ever seen. The voice chuckled, low and foreboding. "Very well. I shall return them from the Underworld, but know this, mortal: from this day on, you belong to me."