Damien rubbed his eyes, blinking like a madman at the empty lawn below.
'What just happened?'He asked himself, poking his head out the window to look for Ahara—but she had indeed vanished out of sight.
Checking the clock by the large Goku sticker facing his bed, Damien scoffed.
"Are you kidding me? A minute hasn't even passed damnit!"
This time he couldn't use the gym instructor excuse again. Ahara had moved at god tier speed. She was too fast—even for his sharp eyesight.
With a pacing heartbeat that threatened to crack his chest open with the way it was thumping, Damien half-closed his window and sat back on his bed, wondering what the hell he had just witnessed. Yes, he was an otaku who always wished reality would intertwine with anime but this? This was a bit too much. It wasn't what he'd expected at all.
'Maybe the website people can help me again,' he wondered, frantically reaching for his phone by the bed counter before logging in to the question-and-answer website he'd found a few years ago when he wanted to know how to shave his pubic hair but couldn't ask Ahara because he was embarrassed.
Ever since then, the website became his go-to place on topics he couldn't bring himself to ask his sister—and maybe he was being paranoid right now but his current predicament made him yearn for the worldly wisdom and advice from strangers online.
Pressing the small pen icon on the far corner of the page with slightly quivering hands, Damien typed:
[My sister just left the house, and I witnessed something confusing. It might be my eyesight playing games on me but she jumped from the fourth floor we live on down to the ground in mere seconds, and when I went to look for her outside, I saw her suddenly vanish from my sight! Should I ask her about what I saw when she comes back from wherever she went or should I just leave her be? What should I do?
P.S.: She's a gym instructor]
Pressing the send button, Damien threw his phone on the bed and looked out the window again. Maybe he had imagined it all and was just sleepy.
Yes, that had to be it.
He was way past his normal bedtime. It was probably his eyes playing tricks on him because they were tired.
Deciding to ignore the little annoying voice in his head telling him his eyes were okay, he picked up the duvet he had thrown on the floor a while ago and tucked himself in to sleep. However, when he closed his eyes, the noise in his head only worsened.
Ahara had indeed vanished before his eyes. There was no denying it. No amount of sleep or therapy could make him unsee it and there was only one way to end the dilemma he was facing—confronting Ahara; again.
"Ugh, isn't there a better way?" Damien cried to no one but himself, kicking his feet in the air and throwing the duvet down again as if that would make his problems disappear.
DING! DING!
Messages popped up on his screen and he immediately sat up, unlocked his phone, and headed to the website to check the answers he had received so far. Unfortunately, all of them weren't exactly helpful to his current predicament. Instead, they seemed to mock him.
[Go to sleep!]
[Bro, you've watched too many anime. Tone it down a little.]
[Hahaha. Kids and their imagination. Are you sure you weren't dreaming?]
[How is that even humanly possible?]
[Maybe she's a magical cultivator from another dimension *laughing emoji*]
Sighing, Damien pressed the delete button for all the replies mocking him and flopped back on his bed, cursing under his breath. He should have known better than to ask such a childish-sounding question online. The majority of the people on the website were older than him by age—it showed on their bios. But he still thought they'd at least help him with this question like they always did every time he needed their help.
'Now what?'
Damien couldn't help but gnaw at his bottom lip and peek out the window again.
Ahara said she'd be back by dawn. It was barely even ten minutes since she vanished, and yet, it seemed like an entire hour had passed now. The boy wasn't sure he'd be able to handle all this pressure alone whilst waiting for his sister to return from wherever she'd gone. He needed someone to talk to...now!
DING!
Another notification rang. Clicking his tongue, Damien checked the website again, readying himself for disappointment—but whoever had sent him the message had done so in his inbox.
'I swear if this idiot's a bully, I'll curse him out.'
With a strong resolve to block the stranger already, Damien opened the message but was shocked to see what was written in it.
[If it's noon where you live then please stay indoors and don't leave your house. It might as well have been one of the man-eating beasts that've been recently getting sighted around the world trying to trick you. But if your sister did leave the house then please warn her not to do so again if she makes it home alive.]
Black dots covered Damien's vision as he tried to comprehend what the stranger had just sent him. Animal-like people they said. It was stupid of him to even believe what the stranger was saying in the first place, but he just couldn't help but get paranoid when it came to his sister.
[But what if she doesn't return home? Should I just risk it and go after her?] Damien typed back, biting his nails as he waited impatiently for a reply.
Three small dots showed at the bottom of the chat, hinting that his new 'phone pal' was typing back. Lemony—as the username suggested—was rather a slow poke at typing. Damien clicked on the profile to check their bio and wasn't shocked to see that she was a fifty-year-old woman with far too many degrees in her hands. But what caught his eye the most was her profile picture—she was dressed in a black tight-fitting body glove, holding a large dagger that looked as though blood was dripping from it to her side.
Damien scoffed to himself, his scary delusions leaving him in an instant. 'Yeah right Lemony, as if that'll make your messages more realistic.'
It took a lot of waiting before a message finally came from her.
[I wouldn't advise you to do that. What if you end up being killed and she returns to an empty home?]
Suddenly, Damien found himself interested in toying with the woman. After all, he needed something to distract his mind from Ahara for a moment.
'I'll just avoid disclosing my details,' he thought before typing back:
[Then what do you suggest I do?]
This time, the woman's response was fast.
[Wait for her return. If she doesn't return before the afternoon, call the police or, if you're not scared, inform me.]
"Ha! I might be dumb enough to get F's, but I'm smart enough to know not to trust the internet woman. Nice try though," Damien mumbled to himself, thinking of a way to reply to the scammer.
Before he could reply, another message came from Lemony:
[When your sister returns, check to see if she has any scars. It could be a sign that she fought. If it's ragged and looks as though an alien dog bit her and ripped her skin apart (or shredded it) then by all means contact me. She might have met the beasts and almost gotten killed but escaped somehow, or she might be the beast (which is the least probable option since she'd have killed you by now). Either way, calling the police won't be a good solution for both of you—but I can help. In the meantime, stay at home and see if she returns. If she doesn't, you know what to do.
Stay safe champ!]
Damien watched as the green dot that showed Lemony's online status vanished to signal her going offline.
However, that wasn't what made him grip his phone with shaking hands and a blurry vision. It was the message itself—especially the part about the scar. The description Lemony had given Damien fit the scar he had seen not too long ago on his sister's back—shredded skin that looked ragged as if bitten by an alien dog. Then there was Ahara hiding the truth about the scar from him and Lemony's theories about her either narrowly escaping whatever beasts she was talking about...or her being the man-eating beast herself.
'What the hell am I thinking?!'
Damien froze as the sudden realization of where his mind was wandering caught up with him.
'Why would I even think of my sister in that way damnit!'
He threw his hands to the side in protest, his phone slipping from his grip the next moment before smashing into the wall and cracking into pieces.
"Shit! Now look what you made me do you old scammer!" Damien yelled at the top of his voice, rushing to pick the broken phone pieces lying below the Goku sticker's feet.
It was already damaged beyond repair and Damien was too mentally exhausted to care about it, so he just flopped back into his bed. When he tried closing his eyes though, he couldn't sleep. Lemony's words had somehow cemented themselves in his head and he was now starting to believe them against his will.
'Shut up, just...fucking shut up!' He yelled at whatever part of his brain was responsible for the ugly thought processing happening in his head.
But the horrors didn't stop and he ended up anxiously staring outside the window again.
"Guess I'm not having a good night's sleep until Ahara's back," Damien mumbled to himself with a sigh.