Clouds of smoke and mist appeared in different corners of the warehouse. But somehow, they were not spreading to the rest of the interior. Gloria peeked around, and she could see worms, lizards, toads and bugs crawling around on some of the wooden crates and boxes.
Gyuu Park finished his chanting, and made a “shhh” gesture at both Gloria and Sue. Then, he turned and started looking around. Sue’s body was trembling, her legs were shaking especially hard as if just being here was taking a toll on her body. Gloria feared that the sight around her would cause her additional distress, so she pointed at the bowl of rice a few times, gesturing to her friend to keep her eyes on it.
Gloria’s eyes followed Gyuu Park’s movement and the directions in which he was looking. With this ritual taking place, there was a strange iridescent aura around everything. Gloria was not sure if it was because the aura was really there, or it was because the ritual had affected her eyes.
Sue’s body was trembling in fear and stress, she seemed like she could not help but want to look around just to understand what kind of situation she was in. She had just enough self control to keep her head facing the bowl of sticky rice, yet her eyes still wandered, and what she could see from the corners of her eyes just made her shake harder.
Gyuu Park carefully walked over some jumping and croaking toads covered in mud with all shades of brown, then he bypassed a coiling snake beside a wooden pillar. He looked up along the wooden and metal beams on the higher up places - and Gloria looked around with him.
The beams were not clean to begin with, but right now they looked extra filthy: aside from the normal collected dust, rush and corrosion, there were also some kind of hair or grass like threads dangling from them. But with all of the dark, grim and repulsive visuals, there was still something bright amongst them - she could see some dim, flickering but glowing threads wrapped around some of the beams, which seemed to have some kind of repelling effect on the dark hair-like dangling entities around them. The weirdly shaped spiders, crabs and human spirits all seemed to be avoiding these glowing threads as well.
Was it just some Feng Shui tricks, or a mystic old craft of blessing the building and the land one which it stood named “Lubanshu Craft”, Gloria was not sure, but whatever it was it seemed to be the sole source of non-negative energy in the warehouse right now.
Gyuu Park shook his head, then carefully walked around the severely disfigured pacing man and a cloud of gray fog that had the rough shape of a human while continuing to examine the beams. From where Gloria was standing, the dark hair looked just like the hair of humans, or some kind of fungus having overgrown. One beam especially caught his eyes - one that did not have any glowing threads on, and had the most dark hair-like threads on it. At the connecting corner between this beam and the pillar that was closest to the door through which they came, there was a pile of the same substance/entity that was almost the height of a small child.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
He looked down around to make sure that he was not stepping on anything - be it paranormal entities or something that could make a sound. After making sure there was nothing of concern around him, he looked up again.
Gloria looked down then up along with Gyuu Park. She saw the same sudden change just as he did: a pair of bloodshot, jaundiced eyes opened up on the pile of dark threads. Though the pile was barely the height of a small child, the eyes were much bigger than that of any normal human’s.
Gyuu Park took a step back and almost froze in place, then he slowly raised his left hand at Gloria, signaling her to hold instead of going over to help him.
The pile rose taller, revealing a pair of slender legs with pale gray skin, curly white leg hair and two big toes on each foot. The creature looked at Gyuu Park, then turned its eyes to Gloria and Sue. After staring at them for a while, the creature hopped off from the beam and started walking around the warehouse.
The creature came closer to Sue and Gloria, but it seemed to be doing so aimlessly. And right in front of Gloria’s eyes, the snakes, the toads, and even the pacing man with ragged clothes all cracked and crumbled when coming into contact with it.
A realization hit Gloria just now - most of the paranormal entities she saw, they were not actually here. They were shadows, or echoes of some other kind. It was probably why there were strange auras around them. And right now this creature, which seemed to be real and had taken a corporeal form, was somehow awakened or revealed by the ritual.
Gyuu Park backed away from his position and inched toward Gloria and Sue one step at a time while keeping his eyes on the creature. The creature continued to walk around, colliding with more and more vivid, almost lifelike shadows. Gloria couldn’t help but wonder if it was doing so on purpose.
“We should go.” Gyuu Park whispered to Gloria and Sue, “Sue, hold my hand and hold Gloria’s. We need to get out of here, don’t disturb anything, don’t make a sound.”
Sue nodded, and extended her hands. Gloria held her left hand, Gyuu Park held her right. Three of them formed a line and started walking around the area not occupied by the shadows of the creatures.
The creature continued to walk around, then stopped right next to the cloud of fog that looked like a human. Gloria turned back to take a look at the creature, just in time to see the creature slowly absorbing the fog. A thin stream of fog was pulled out from the main cloud, and flowed into the top of the creature’s head. The creature’s body shook gently, its eyes grew more bloodshot and it started making some sort of contented humming noises.
All three of them were almost at the door, just a few more steps, and Gyuu Park would have made it out.
An ear-piercing scream almost made all of them jump in the air. When they looked to where the scream came from - it appeared to be coming from either the fog or the creature, they just did not know which one.
“Go, go!” Gyuu Park tried to pull Sue and Gloria out of the door.
The frame of the door shook, then a loud bang came from the outside. Iridescent rings of light exploded from the door, and a shockwave threw all three of them back.