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“Rei, come on,” Trine says softly. She sounds so far away. “We can’t stay here.”
I want to follow her, but I can’t. I’m glued in place, unable to do anything but stare at the demons–at this point I’m pretty sure they can’t be anything but demons–trying to crawl into the house.
“Rei! We have to move!” Trine pleads, but I can’t.
All I can do is sit there and stare, even when the window shatters and the creatures start to crawl inside.
TRINE
Ican’t get Rei to move.
I’m not just going to abandon him here, even when everyone else seems to have no problem running to the garage so they can make an escape. Rei is much taller and bigger than me, and I can’t just snap him out of it.
“Trine, c’mon!” Misha urges me from the kitchen. We have to go through the kitchen to get to the garage door. It’s not exactly protected, but at least there’s a counter that can separate us from whatever the fuck these things are.
They’re not fast, so at least there’s that. They walk toward us slowly, practically staggering, until they’re only a few paces away. I tug at Rei’s sleeve when Misha approaches me from one side and Luke approaches me from another.
A thing that looks like a man takes another step toward Rei, his eyes glowing, a long dark nail hanging off a stubby finger. The nail scratches at Rei’s cheek, leaving a trail of blood that slowly drips from his cheekbone down to his neck.
“Woods, move!” Misha exclaims. That works just as well as me telling him that we need to leave, even though this thing is actively hurting him. Rei has fallen under some sort of spell that neither of us seem to be able to help him with.
Luke flashes a crucifix in front of the creature. None of them seem to enjoy it, every single one of them using their arms to cover their faces as if just seeing the crucifix is blinding.
That seems to release Rei from whatever the fuck is happening to him.
He blinks, taking a step back before he looks down at me.
“What’s happening?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t know and it doesn’t matter,” I say. “We need to get the fuck out of here right now.”
“Right,” Rei replies. Before either one of us can move, the sound of electricity crackles around us. The microwave explodes, sending the door of it tumbling forward into one of the counters, which breaks into smithereens. The kettle is the next thing to explode, hot water coating the handles and the stove.
They’re making the kitchen almost impossible to navigate, but it’s not like we can stay here. We have to get the fuck out of here. We back away from the creatures until they’re surrounding us, even with Luke trying to defend us with his crucifix and Misha and Rei now physically fighting them off.
One of them with ashen skin and bright red eyes grabs me, pulling me close to him, his nails biting into my arm. I pull away as much as I can, but this thing is way stronger than me and twice my size. Rei tries to punch it in the face, but the demon stays upright, its eyes boring into me.
The demon pulls me toward him with as much strength as he has. I’m incredibly weak against it, and its nails scrape against me, making me bleed as I try my best to fight the pain.
Then it suddenly stops. It takes me a second to realize what I’m seeing, the demon’s head sliding to the side and then rolling off until it’s at my feet. Malon stands behind him, his axe in his hands as he breathes heavily, his shoulders shaking.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I nod, my gaze darting around him to where the other demons are. There are so many of them. I don’t know how Malon managed to get behind them, but I’m still grateful.
“Can you breathe?” he asks.
I nod again. “Okay, then run,” he says. I do what he tells me, barely taking notice of the fight taking place around me. I’m pretty sure Luke is praying and spraying holy water on the demons while Misha and Rei continue to physically push them away. I don’t know where Ash or my mom are, but I think they’ve already gone to the garage. Hopefully, they’ve already escaped.
I try to run past them toward the door leading to the garage, but then Misha is behind me, his hand on top of my head. “Stay down,” he says in my ear.
I do as he tells me, even though it’s difficult to squat and run at the same time. The door isn’t that far away, but the whole thing seems to take forever. I reach out to grab the door handle. The moment I wrap my fingers around it, it burns so much I feel my skin bubble. I can’t pull away from it because my skin feels like it’s glued to the metal. I look back at Misha. I thought he’d be staring at me, but he’s at the sink, grabbing something. It takes me a second to process that it is, in fact, a glass of water, and he’s splashing it over the handle.
It feels like my skin tears as I pull my hand away from the handle, but at least I’m no longer attached to it. I grimace, tears stinging my eyes as the pain worsens for a second, but the adrenaline pumping through my veins is distracting enough that I’m not thinking about it.
“Yeah, don’t touch anything,” Misha says. He kicks the door, but he doesn’t crack it open. The wood cracks under his heavy kick, then it splits open when he keeps kicking. I’m trying to get out of his way, crouching as I protect myself. The sound is deafeningly loud, the fire is closing in around us, and it’s so hot I can hardly breathe without my lungs stinging.
Instinctively, I cover my mouth with my hand, but it’s still difficult to breathe. My eyes water. When I take a deep breath, I can feel my lungs burning again, and I start to cough.
