Nineteen years ago –
In a room heavy with the scent of incense and the presence of ancient gods statues stood like silent sentinels, their eyes carved in stone and gold watching over Rainer as he knelt alone in the flickering candlelight. Shadows danced upon the walls, twisting the carved faces of gods into expressions that seemed almost alive.
Rainer, younger and desperate, clasped his trembling hands together. His voice was barely above a whisper.
"God… Please, hear my prayer. If I am not able to bring forth a child, my family's legacy ends with me. I cannot let that happen."
But the silence was heavy and unbroken, pressing against his words with an iron weight. No whispering of the statues, no divine answer from above, only quiet mockery of his own echoes.
He waited there, expectant, hopeful for any sign…anything at all. With each passing minute, a noose of desperation tightened around his heart. When nothing happened, the bitter truth finally set in. Rainier slowly rose to his feet, his body heavy with the weight of his unanswered prayers. Turning his back on the rows of indifferent idols, he began to walk away, more alone than ever.
But then, just as he reached the edge of the candlelight, the air grew cold and dense, as if some noxious darkness were mushrooming within.
Out of that darkness, he felt something taking shape behind him, coalesced from the shadow itself.
Rainer stopped dead, and his breath was sheared in half midst a gasp; he felt, ere he saw it, by the lift of hairs about the nape of the neck-air thick, reeking of evil.
"Where do you think you're going?"
The voice was low and menacing, a guttural whisper that seemed to slither into his ears. Rainer froze, every muscle locking in place. He wanted to look, but his body refused, transfixed by paralyzing fear that seeped into the marrow of his bones.
Slowly, almost grudgingly, his eyes turned toward the darkness behind him. That was when he felt a hand, a cold claw-like touch resting upon his shoulder. Rainer's breath came in ragged, shallow bursts. He dared not turn, but his every instinct screamed at him to run.
"You shouldn't look back," the voice warned, and this time it felt like ice sliding down his spine. "If you look back, you will die."
But the thing wasn't finished. It tightened its hold, and Rainer could feel the frozen pressure of its fingers as if they were sinking into his flesh. Sweat formed at his temples. He tried to swallow, but his throat was dry and tight.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the barest hint of him, but that was far from the truth it was a robed figure with an appearance apparently woven from shadows, its form disturbingly human yet unequivocally monstrous.
The skin of this creature was a stark, unnatural white; where its face should have been, there was only a mockery of features: two eyes, one centered on its forehead, the other where its nose should have been. Both eyes were unblinking and unnaturally large, glistening with a sickly sheen.
Its hair writhed and hissed—a mass of serpents coiling and slithering, their forked tongues tasting the air.
Rainer's heart was hammering in his chest, and terror clawed at his mind. He had an overwhelming urge to turn around, to see his tormentor in full, but the voice echoed through his head with a warning that throbbed with malice:
"Don't look."
.
.
.
.
.
Akondo's eyes shot open, finding himself back in his hospital bed, the cold drip of saline seeping into his veins. His breathing was heavy, shallow, like he'd just surfaced from drowning. He looked around frantically, then raised a trembling hand in front of his face, confirming that it was truly his own.
"I… I'm back," he whispered, voice barely more than a breath.
He slowly sat up, his mind reeling in shock and confusion. "What happened to the hot dog guy…? Wait, was that crash real? How did I even—..." His head throbbed as memories collided in fragments, refusing to piece themselves together. "Did I cause this?"
He swung his legs off the bed, testing the floor beneath him with shaky steps. Stumbling to the window, he peered outside.
A small group of hospital staff was huddled around a gurney. His eyes widened as he saw the sheet draped over the motionless body of the hot dog vendor.
"Is he… dead?" Akondo thought, his voice catching in his throat.
Just then, the door creaked open, and a nurse stepped in. "You're awake?" she asked, with a tone that suggested she had been worried.
A few moments later—
Inside another room within the hospital, two police officers waited outside a door. Inside the room, Maxima lay on a bed, pale but resolute in her determination. Ren sat beside her, his hand protectively placed on the edge of the mattress.
"Mother, are you feeling any better now?" Ren inquired, his voice steady, though tinged with concern.
"Yes, the pain's not so sharp," Maxima said softly. "But where were you? And… What happened to Marou or the driver?"
Ren shifted uncomfortably. "Uncle's in surgery. They're removing the bullets. When he wakes up, they're going to arrest him."
Maxima nodded, working through the news. "Did your father call again?"
"Yeah, twice since we got here," Ren replied. "Oh, and… there was an accident outside. Some middle-aged guy walked out into the street and got hit. He didn't make it."
"Oh my… how awful," Maxima whispered, face screwing up in concern.
Ren opened his mouth to respond, but his phone buzzed loudly in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the screen, letting out a long sigh. "I'll be right back," he said, getting to his feet.
He stepped into the hallway and was just about to answer the call when a girl came barreling down the corridor and crashed straight into him. Ren barely had time to react, but his reflexes kicked in, and he grabbed her hand before she could hit the floor.
"I'm sorry!" Ren blurted out.
The girl steadied herself, grabbing her fallen handbag quickly. "Sorry too," she muttered in a rush, her face red. She spun on her heel and hurried down the corridor without looking back.
The Girl was Saren.
Ren watched her go, then spotted something on the floor. A phone. He looked at his own phone still clutched in his hand and then back at the one on the ground. He picked it up, and the screen lit up to show a wallpaper of Seren and Akondo together, smiling.
"Must be hers…" Ren thought, looking down the hallway just in time to see her disappear around the corner.
Akondo lay in his bed and gazed blankly out the window. The world outside seemed distant and unreal. I don't know what to do now… If what happened is real, then… His mind was a jumbled mess of fear and doubt. I just can't go on living like this…
The door swung open, and he turned to see Seren standing there. The sight of her sent a jolt of confusion and alarm through him.
"Seren?" Akondo stammered. "Wh-what are you doing here?"
Seren's face was a mixture of anger and something else—something unreadable, almost hurt. She marched toward him with a resolute stride.
"Who called you here?" Akondo went on, but hadn't the time to finish his question, for Seren's hand darted out and slapped him right across the cheek.
"Huh?" Akondo's gasp of pain, leaving him reeling. Eyes opened wide in amazement, one side in a half-disbelieving, half-pained gasp at the sting of Seren's sudden slap.
"What do you think you were doing?" Seren's voice was sharp with frustration. "What's wrong with you all of a sudden?"
Akondo didn't meet her gaze. "Who called you here?"
"I'm not answering that," Seren shot back, voice rising. "Not until you answer me. Are you trying to hurt yourself? I told you to go home, but you didn't listen, and now look at you!" she screamed, voice cracking with emotion.
"I—" Akondo began, but Seren cut him off, her voice cracking. "It's my fault," she said, the words shaking from her lips. "I. I should have been more careful. I should have stayed and made sure you got home safely."
"Seren, it's not what you think," Akondo tried to explain.
"Then what is it?" Seren demanded, her eyes blazing with tears. "Why were you out in the cold, in the middle of the night, with no winter clothes on? The nurse told me you were found unconscious around nine. What am I to think?"
Akondo coughed slightly, and Seren's face crumpled in guilt. "See? Why am I even blaming you?" she whispered, her voice shaking. "It's my fault. I was so irresponsible… so careless that I let you end up like this." She choked back a sob, tears spilling down her cheeks. "If something happened to you…
Without thinking, Akondo pulled Seren into a tight embrace. "I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "Please, forgive me."
Seren buried her face in his chest, her voice muffled and raw. "I… if anything ever happened to you, I wouldn't be able to take it. Promise me you won't do anything like this again."
"I promise," Akondo said, his voice steady despite his own guilt. "I won't.".
He gently pulled back, his hands lingering on her arms as he wiped the tears from her face. "I love you," he said softly. "And I'll keep my promise, no matter what."
A faint, relieved smile crossed Seren's face. "I love you too," she murmured.
Just then, a male voice came from the doorway. "Excuse me… Oh, sorry," the voice hesitated.
Both Seren and Akondo turned around to see a young man standing at the entrance, holding a phone in his hand. It was Ren.
"Are you talking to us?" Seren asked, not letting go of Akondo's hand.
"Sorry to interrupt," Ren said, a tad awkwardly. "But did you drop your phone in the hallway?"
Seren instinctively checked her bag and realized it was empty. "Oh, I must've dropped it when I bumped into someone…
Ren cleared his throat. "Well, that someone was me," he admitted with a small smile. "You dropped your phone there."
He walked up and handed the phone to Seren. "Again, sorry for the interruption," he added with a slight inclination of his head.
Ren turned to leave, but just as he did, his gaze met Akondo's. In that split second, something shifted.
Akondo saw a shining, golden-white light quivering in the depths of Ren's irises, as if a luminescence was struggling to reach out from deep inside. Simultaneously, Ren's eyes appeared to see right through to Akondo's very soul, his pupils reflecting an almost dark, black-red hue.
The air around them grew thick and heavy, weighted down as Akondo and Ren locked eyes. Neither of them could see it, but an invisible aura began to radiate from their bodies.
Akondo's aura pulsed with dark, swirling shadows, while Ren's radiated pure, blinding white. The opposing energies clashed, unseen yet palpable, like two storm fronts coming together.
Only Akondo could feel the pressure of a choking force closing in about his chest as if something inside him was twisting, squeezing for breakage. Every breath he took burned like sharp knives piercing his lungs, his ribs, and every nerve in his body.
An invisible noose seemed to close around his throat, slowly squeezing the life from him. The pain was relentless, time itself warping, each second stretching into agonizing minutes.
Akondo's body felt paralyzed, unresponsive to his desperate attempts at moving. Voices began echoing inside his mind—haunting, disjointed, and unnervingly familiar.
First, there came a shrill cry from the newborn baby, followed by the low, urgent whispered words of the anxious woman: "Save him at any cost, or they will kill him. Take him somewhere safe!"
The voices became a deluge of whispers he could not understand, his mind assaulted by scraps of information that made no sense. It was as if a dam had given way, and an ocean of memories and voices surged in to drown him. And the pressure kept on, growing louder and louder to the bursting point, until he felt his skull was being torn asunder under the weight of it all.
He heard every voice at once, as if his head was an antenna picking up the cries of the world.
The pain and cacophony became too much. He finally got back enough control to let loose a raw and primal scream that tore through the silence.
The exchange looked like only a brief glance to Seren and Ren—until Akondo's scream ripped it open.
Ren instinctively took a step back, surprised by Akondo's outburst. Seren rushed to his side, her eyes wide in panic. "What happened?" she asked, her voice trembling with concern.
Akondo only continued screaming, clutching his head as though he was physically trying to hold his mind together.
"Please, get a doctor!" Seren begged, her voice breaking.
"Yeah, okay…" Ren stuttered, turning back to the door just in time to see a doctor hurry into the room.
The doctor sprang forward, his face screwing up in alarm. "What's going on? Who's yelling?"
Ren just stood there, shocked, as he tried to process what he had just seen. "Is this kid mentally unstable or something?" he wondered.
The doctor finally reached Akondo, trying to gauge the situation, but just as he did, Ren's phone buzzed with a call. He stepped out of the room to answer it, his mind still reeling from the bizarre encounter. Just as he crossed the threshold, Akondo's screaming suddenly stopped.
"Looks like he's turned back to normal now," Ren muttered, his voice hollow with lingering confusion.
He proceeded down the hallway, talking on his phone in an attempt to shake the weird feeling of apprehension.
He hung up a few minutes later, the unexplainable tingling sensation of unease still bothering him.
He got to his mother's room, opened the door, and saw her sitting up, casually browsing her phone. Everything appeared to be normal, yet as he neared her, the hallway started spinning around him.
A wave of nausea hit him hard. He felt a sudden, intense pain in his chest, not where his previous injuries were, but deep on the opposite side, like a blade twisting into his heart. The room tilted, his vision blurring as he collapsed onto the cold tile floor.
"Ren? What's wrong?" Maxima's voice broke through, but Ren couldn't answer. His chest heaved violently, and then he felt a sharp sting at the back of his throat. His stomach convulsed, and he vomited, except it wasn't bile.
Blood burst from his lips in thick, gushing torrents, spattering across the floor with incredible force. Maxima's face went white, horror etched into her features. The blood wouldn't stop, spraying the ground in sickening waves, the crimson staining everything in its path. Ren's breaths came in short, desperate gasps between the heaves, but the pain only intensified.
He did not know what was wrong and why his body was betraying him like that; he felt just one thing: this unyielding and suffocating pain, so as if life was going to be yanked out from him.
"Ren!" screamed Maxima as she turned for the panic button, shaking her fingers wildly over it.
[To be continued]