"Man, are you going crazy again?" Kan said, anticipating an answer. My eyes darted around the room, trying to find it. This was no normal demon, I could sense its existence around us, yet there was only the wind outside and the smell of dry leaves inside. The glass that was shattered did not shatter, the sofa that was toppled returned unscathed, and yet I could sense something was misplaced.
I turned to Kan, my black transformation danced off of his pupils, "this is no ordinary demon… it's a Chmsin," I looked around one more time, as if I was playing 'Find the Difference.' The light of the moon outside began to shift, the beams penetrated through the window in banded seams.
"Kan, whatever you do… Stay the fuck away from those lights," I whispered, moving back, one creaking step at a time, as I hugged sweating walls, and Kan followed right behind me.
The moon was looking for us. "Don't you know what kind of Chmsin this is?" Kan asked, looking at the beams refracting through the windows.
"No… There is almost no record of these fucks, clever bastards… Most of us don't survive to tell the tale."
"...Man, am too young to die like this,"
Then it happened again, I grabbed Kan's shirt and threw him through the door out of the living room as I blinked, in a split second, I saw the demon rampage through the wall, causing the wood to crumble down, then the room came back to a halt, the wind whistled outside, and the dry leaves danced inside. And I panted at the sight of my cleanly chopped hand, the cut was imperfect, the bone and marrow out, and a lot of gushing blood to coat the floor. The sound of dribbling added to the dry leaves.
"...Are you okay?" Kan said, looking at me from the door frame.
"yeah… I'll be fine," I said, as my blood revolved around the bones, developing the flesh every so slowly.
"How do we deal with hallucinations? Can't you like, do some weird magic and get us out?"
"If I could, I would've left you here to rot," I said, as I sensed it again. I ran forward to the doorframe, and grabbed Kan as I looked behind me. The room went chaotic, the huge headless horse, the size of a mini truck, began kicking and tackling everything, the old framed pictures broke into pieces, the coffee table became one with the floor, the walls turned into dust as its neck looked at us. And with one blink, it was all as if it was not.
"It does not see nor hear. Yet it looks for us through…" I said, while my eyes darted around the foyer, and then I saw it, our reflection from a distorted family picture on the shelf, and the light from one of the cracks from the main entrance, slowly aligning together.
I pushed Kan towards the stairs as I jumped towards him, and then it happened.
"...Dude…" Kan said, as my blood gushed into his hands…
"You sure you're… Okay?" He said. I took a deep breath, focusing all my blood on the chunks that horse bastard just chopped, my right arm was butchered, the cut wasn't clean as the bones were left out cracked and broken in the cold breeze of the cottage, my ribs were missing while my liver was half chopped and intestines were dangling out, spasming. My right leg was no use, as half of my thigh was chopped off as if it was bitten by an alligator. I stood on one foot, with the support of Kan's shoulders, as I slowly fell on the wooden steps of the stairs.
My blood drenched the floor and the wood, killing some of the moss and leaves that grew out of the woods.. "I've been… in worse, gah… fucking hell" I said, coughing off a puke of blood from my mouth and nose as I began rubbing it on the wounds. Now this is going to take forever to bring back. "That fuck is using the moon's light and our reflections in to see…" I said as Kan carried my almost corpse of a body upstairs. He tiptoed and side stepped all light coming from the holes in the ceiling as he kicked open a door to his left.
It was a bedroom with a queen size bed, broken wardrobes, but clean cabinets, and the bed was split between being the cleanest bed ready for sale, and the nastiest filth there was. The window was curtained covering us but Kan did not like it. He placed me next to the cabinet, and flipped the bed to cover the window and some of the holes next to it, causing the entire room to darken.
"Kan… This is your first time hunting a Chmsin right?" I asked, as my breaths were uneven, this was the first time in a while where I have ever felt great pain. Losing a limb is fine, but that fuck chopped half of my liver and intestines…
"Yeah… you?" He asked, making his way towards me, almost stumbling on protruding wood.
I chuckled weakly, clutching my side. "I was ten… last time. They're not fair. They don't fight you head-on. Always some trick… always behind you."
"There must be something to do against it man. Come on, ya giving up or somet-?"
"Is this worth it? Keeping that girl alive? We could've been home right now. You watching your stupid cartoons, me making dinner. Normal shit. Instead, I'm here… half-dead." I said, stabbing my knife on the floor next to me, over and over again.
"Why'd you accept it so easily back then, to take care of her," Kan said, grabbing my arm, as I barely made his wolf mask features in the dark, "knowing you, you would've murdering both of us back then, so why?"
I pushed his hand off, with whatever strength I had, as I faced the dark floor taking another deep breath.
"...Remember how I always had a black petal next to my tag?"
"Yeah… that never-withering petal made everyone jealous, it was magical to say the least,"
"It was hers… That promise I made a long time ago, is coming to hunt me b- gh!" I puked blood all over the floor, as I rubbed some of it onto my fingers and rubbed around my organs…
Kan's eyes widened behind his mask. "Wait, what? Ilyoh? But she's older than you! How the hell—?"
"I don't know!" I snapped, my voice cracking. "But when I look at her… I just know. She's the one who left us during the ambush. The one who deserted the clan. And yet…" I pulled out my bunker tag, the black petal still clinging to it. "I kept the petal..."
The room fell silent except for the sound of my labored breathing. Kan leaned back against the wall, his mask tilting as he studied me. "You're not as cold as you pretend to be, you know that? You're still holding onto that promise. You're not a bad demon." He chuckled, smiling at me.
"What's the point?" I muttered, my head dropping. "I lost everything back then. The promise… it doesn't mean shit anymore."
Kan sighed, sliding down to sit beside me. "Look… the reason I want to keep Nakumi alive… it's not just about her. It's about me too. She's my atonement. For all the shit I've done." He glanced at me, his voice softening. "Maybe… she's yours too. I guess that technically makes us selfish."
"Psh... Whatever..." I said, letting out a deep sigh.
"Aah.. dude your hand is…" Kan said, as I saw a weird glow coming from within my hand. It was radiant and warm, not so intense like witnessing the sun, yet not so dim that you had to squeeze your eyes… it was just perfect. I looked to my left side as my wounds and limbs healed and regenerated.
"Okay when the fuck were you able to do that?" Kan said, thrilled by what just happened, I would be lying if I said I was not as thrilled.
"I don't know… It never did this before,"
"I guess even the deserter still helped you from afar, you owe her some thanks" he said, chuckling before offering me a hand up, "come on, I hate when you get gloomy, you ruin the mood Mr. Professional,"
I took his hand and got up sighing, I hate when he's right, but I will never admit it to his damn face. "The situation is dire, we're almost dead," I said, looking around the dark room.
"I like these odds, what do we do genius?" Kan said, locking his gloves in.
"We need to find the demon's head somewhere in the house. Did you notice anything strange around?" "Oh yeah, wait," Kan said as he walked around the room, moving his hands in the air, as if he was telling a ghost the nearest bus stop from here. Then he stopped, walked two steps back, then waved his head and walked forward again.
"Can you stop dancing and get on with it already?" I said, facepalming at this guy's level of annoyance,
"Shhh, am concentrating," Kan said, and then stopped, and I had my fists ready. If he did one more bullshit move I swear he is coming out headless, "the fireplace!" He yelled, "the fireplace was unnatural… Something stank there," he continued, "why are your fists so up?"
"Nevermind that. So, the fireplace huh…" I said, and then I sensed it again… It was coming here. I took my knife and sliced through my wrist, letting all the blood drip onto the door, as I began drawing on it with the knife, a circle over a triangle that had three circles around its edges, "Mifloshgah!" I yelled, and the circles drew the constellations within as the blood entranced the door. The door made a face, demanding a sacrifice,
"Here you ugly bastard!" I said, and chopped my new hand, throwing it in the door's mouth as it munched on it.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" Kan said, taking a step back as he looked at the door with many eyes. "That demon is trying to break in. This should hold him for a bit. Quick, quickest way to the living room?" I said, as the room vibrated again, and I saw the demon door screaming, "quick!" I yelled.
"Aaaaaah! Under us dude!" Kan yelled back, and pointed down. I took out a knife from my thigh and readied my fist.
"Wait what are you do-"
I took a deep breath and punched a hole in the floor as the boards cracked and splintered around me into the living room. I scrambled towards the fireplace, and with a powerful thrust, I stabbed into the smoke chamber, crumbling down the bricks.
The impact reverberated through the room, and a horrible, high-pitched scream filled the air. The head of the horse came falling down from within the smoke chamber. I stumbled back, panting heavily. It was a beautiful sight for psychopath, the horse's head was slightly infused to the concrete and dust, it's tongue cut, it's eyes removed, and it's skin black, some covered it's skull, some exposed it's dying flesh, it's teeth were missing except the back ones, yet it could bite worse than a hungry wolf. As I stood amidst the wreckage, Kan jumped down from the second floor, extending his arm high. "Yer five!" Kan said, his grin barely visible behind the mask.
I huffed and returned the gesture. The cottage seemed to exhale a sigh of relief as that demon's presence dissipated. We stood next to the chamber, as we extracted the beast's head out of the fireplace, a lot of other things fell. What things you may ask? Chunks of my arm, abdomen and legs came falling down, and a little girl's corpse fell down as well as some other adult looking skeletons… But the girl's skin was mauled recently, exposing a lot of her decayed flesh, as if someone forgot to take out the infested meat from the fridge. Her body was disfigured, with holes in some part of her chest, her limbs twisted at unnatural angles, and her bottom jaw was missing. But at least I got my hand reattached back.
Meanwhile, The headless horse demon, laid sprawled on the floor behind us, must've appeared when it was about to kill me earlier. Its body was an unsettling amalgamation of dark, sinewy flesh and spectral mist, "A safijiah… I've never seen one up-close," I said, as I looked at its body and beating heart. It looked just like human horses.
Kan wrapped the girl's body in a grimy cloth he found from the bedroom. I stopped to look around the cottage a bit, "Kan… We have to get the fuck out of here,"
"I know, let me just get everything done with the gi-" "No, right now!" I yelled and grabbed his shirt again, my eyes were drawn to the window's edge, where a glint of metal was approaching from the forest at a rapid speed, "duck!"
We dropped to the floor as a fountain pen sliced through the remaining glass and hovered in the air, rotating and moving around. The pen's tip glinted in the reflection of the moon outside, as it floated and darted around the room. We slowly scrambled behind the old furniture, Kan hid behind an antique armoire with warped wood and I crouched behind the moth-eaten armchair that had seen better days.
The pen continued its erratic dance, as it stopped and observed the horse's body, twirling around it in the air, then shooting out of the same window. We exchanged wary furrowed glances, and we had the same thought, as we read each other's mind, "no fucking way, the demon we've been hunting… was being hunted by an apostle…"
The rustling of bushes and creaking of trees outside heightened, as I felt my skin shiver and wither for every moment I was in the cottage.
"Come out, or I will destroy the entire building," a commanding voice came from outside, as I looked back at Kan and stood up reluctantly. We came out of the cottage, hands in the air. As we faced the imposing figure, alone in front of the house. He wore a white cloak that billowed around him, his eyes hidden beneath his hood, yet his grin was wide, and his teeth were visible, "so, you've hunted the Safijiah," he said, clapping at us, with his head tilted to the right, "I must say, I am impressed some lowly hunters managed to finish the job," he continued. I could smell his anticipation, as he walked forward, his eyes locked to mine. "You… I've never seen your kind before, but you smell weak… sniff, weak" he said, sniffing me a bit, "so weak."
I glared at him, as my anger flared off my fangs wishing for a bite off his smug face. "Don't get too comfortable, you asshole." I spat a glob of blood into his eyes. His eyes widened in surprise as the blood sizzled and dissolved upon contact with his cloak and skin. He jumped back as white scrolls filled with golden patterns of leaves and branches came out of his big sleeves, pushing him into the moon as he sat on them, floating.
"Hiko, go inside!" Kan yelled as he pulled out his cloth sheathed rifle, and quickly got on his knees and shot the first shot at the bullet coming at me, and in a blink, his rifle twirled around his neck and shot behind him without looking. When I saw it, two water bullets clashed into two blood bullets, and an explosion occurred from the sides of the cottage, causing a big smoke. "Heh, better luck next time suckers," Kan said as he jumped into the cottage, regrouping with me, "What's the new plan now?"
"Try not to die."