I sat in the hospital waiting room. The police had questioned me and Kish on what had happened, but to be honest I didn’t know for sure myself. Kish was hysterical which wasn’t surprising, but her interpretation of the events were so… distorted. It was difficult to tell what actually happened and what was caused by stress. Obviously the demons couldn’t be real, or was it obvious? Her descriptions were so vivid, and there was that thing I saw…

Maybe it’s better to start from the beginning. After I left the house I saw my brother in the park, only he was with this… strange hooded figure, I couldn’t see it clearly. I’m sure it was my mind playing tricks on me but it looked almost monstrous.

As I was driving by some kind of animal, ran past my brother, seemingly from out of nowhere, which did something that caused him to collapse. The hooded figure ran after the animal. Immediately I pulled over and ran to my brother to see if he was okay. He was still breathing but something was clearly wrong. I shouted at him, I shook him… nothing. Even when I dragged his body into the car he still didn’t wake. At this point I started thinking it might be connected to what was going on with Kish, so I continued on.

The Blackwell’s front door was sitting in the front yard when I pulled into their driveway. How it got there is a mystery, even the police are puzzled by that one. I ran through the open doorless “doorway.” The house looked even worse on the inside. A plant had been spilled with its vase shattered and claw-marks lined the walls and floor. I followed the marks to the living room. Grayson lay unconscious on the couch, Kish stood to the right with her hand covering her mouth, in between them was some woman I didn’t know, holding some kind of pole arm which she pulled out of the bodies of one of the animals below her. The animals I noticed last and too late before they apparently disintegrated into nothing.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Before I could even say anything the woman grabbed Grayson and also disappeared. However while the creatures disintegrated piece by piece her and Grayson disappeared in some kind of bright white light. What am I even saying. I probably hallucinated all of that. Sure Kish described something similar but… there had to be some rational explanation right?

After all this I finally called the police, my parents, and Kish’s aunt, all of whom rushed over here immediately. Hayden was taken to the hospital and I’m still waiting to hear what happened, I tried to describe what I saw as best I could, leaving out some of the more fanciful details. I did describe the woman as she could be a lead on Grayson’s disappearance. In spite of everything that happened and that I may or may not have seen I still felt oddly calm, somehow taking it all in stride. I was obviously worried about my brother, and Grayson even though I didn’t know him that well, but I maintained enough composure to do what I needed to in each situation.

I went over what happened over and over as I sat in that waiting room. Kish sat next to me, she hadn’t said a word to me since we got here, she just… starred at the floor. Her aunt was talking to the therapist she saw in the other room, probably scheduling more sessions or a prescription. For a long moment me and Kish sat there in silence.

Until finally Kish spoke up.

“We’re going to find my brother.”

I turned to her. “How?”

She just smirked at me. It was nice to see her act like her usual self if only for a second. I knew she had something crazy in mind, anyone else I would have said no.

But for her, I’d go through hell itself.