The Devil's Spawn

ACT VIII: PICTURE TAKEN

“Look at all of these,” Sora said as he gestured to the dim-lit room made out of stones with no room for a window. Chains were lined on the wall on all sides, giving the three an idea of what could have transpired in these rooms. And their hunch was only proved to be correct as skeletal bones of human beings remained chained to the ground while some hung on the walls.

“What the hell?” King exclaimed, visible disturbance reflected on the way he scrunched his face.

“What the hell indeed,” Kou agreed with a nod of his head.

“Wasn’t this place cleaned a long time ago? Weren’t the bodies already retrieved? So why are there still human remains left?” Hiro bombarded with a grimace, and the blonde male refused to move closer. In contrast to him, Yue strode closer to view the human remains thoroughly. King and Hiro flinched as the tall brunette held one of the skulls in his bare hands without an ounce of hesitation. Sora, on the other hand, seemed to approve of this and went to follow his example.

“Judging by the number of cobwebs attached to these skeletons, these things have been here for some time now — which is very peculiar. Did the police not inspect every nook and cranny? Or did someone use this mansion after the late Hellstine family’s death to continue what the family has started? This one looks recent to me, but I am by no means an expert so do not take my word for it.”

“The latter guess is not an ideal situation, not only did we trespass but if these skeletons really are recent, then we might also be stepping into a murderer’s den,” Yue said, his brows furrowed in concern. And it was the only indication of his emotion as the said brunette male still looked as stoic as ever.

Hiro hugged himself as he shivered. The said blonde boy paled while his teeth chattered as if he were affected by a sheer cold. “Can you please not be so dark? We are just jumping from one conclusion to another, and it gets terrifying each time.”

“It is best we do not tell the others yet, not even the conclusions Yue and Sora reached. Amber is still shaken up, and Rose, Princess, and Sky are not good with anything scary. We will only cause unnecessary worry and give them anxiety,” Kou added, his instincts to protect emerging. Having several little siblings back home to take care of, Kou is not unfamiliar with the role of protector and big brother. It is why he never gets discouraged when Yue scolds him about something related to him making advances to Prism.

"We can alert the police about this," Kou suggested and reached for his cellular device.

"We should have done that after finding out we got locked inside," Hiro groaned and reached for his phone but found it missing. The boy let out a strange noise and so did the ginger-haired male.

"I lost it? But I swore I do not remember taking it out of my pocket, unless I got robbed and I did not notice — highly unlike with only us here," Kou claimed with one brow raised. Hiro agreed and patted his own pocket and his jacket's pocket, but to his dismay, there was none. King, Yue, and Sora all reached for their own devices only to find them missing as well.

"How unfortunate. The situation just keeps on getting weirder," Sora thought out loud with his thumb and forefinger placed below his chin.

"Even so, I doubt this place has a signal, it is abandoned up on a hill after all." Yue shrugged and the group's shoulders sagged.

"It's as if someone is deliberately keeping us trapped inside here, but why?" King muttered. Of course, he has a hunch of why — because there is a killer with them, but that is just as what he just said, a hunch. His gut told him it was a bad idea to come here and he never listened. I am such an i***t, I never learn. The ravinette groaned in frustration. And then he remembered the room he, Hiro, and Hori found earlier.

"Actually," King began, catching the attention of the other three. "Earlier, we found a secret room behind the stairs. Although only Hori saw a little bit of what was inside."

"Oh right, that creepy room," Hiro chimed in. "Hori actually said she saw tools, and not the kind that is used for repairs. We had a hunch that those tools were torture devices but it was too dark to see properly. We were hoping Yue and the other taller guys would give us a hand."

"Is the mechanism to open the door too high?" Sora raised a brow, his curiosity peaking.

King shook his head. "It is not exactly a mechanism. It is more like a small opening, no knobs or levers, and the door is made out of concrete slab so it may be heavier and harder to open."

Sora hummed, although he really does not belong to the taller guys, as Hiro put it. Still, the ash-blonde bets his curiosity is a tad bit more than the rest of the guys. "Then let us go see this secret door. We have no reason to be in this dungeon any longer."

"Now that you said it, this really does look like a dungeon in those RPG games Pri has forced me to play," Yue said with a nod of approval towards Sora for his observation.

Once outside, the four men found Amber finally calm in the arms of Hori. The girls frowned, and did they notice the massive incinerator in the middle, latched onto the wall. At first, it looked like a normal pile of scrapped metal with how old and rusty it looked.

"Is this where bodies of the victims were burned — mfnh!" Kou slapped a hand on Yue's mouth but the damage has already been done. All eyes turned to the incinerator, their bodies slightly giving tremors.

"See what you did? You scared them!" Kou whisper-yelled, his cerulean blue eyes glaring daggers into Yue's amber ones.

"Oh, sorry," the tall brunette apologized and although Kou could tell he meant every word like he usually does, his expressionless face still made it harder for anyone to tell. The ginger only sighed at his friend before letting go.

King cleared his throat while sliding the knife carefully behind him. Kou nudged Yue to do the same, and fortunately, his blockhead of a friend got what he meant and hid his own behind his jacket.

"How about we get out of here, there is no exit so let's look in another place." Kou smiled, albeit awkwardly, and his cheeks hurt from having to force his face to stretch the smile.

"Let's hurry and find that exit, I do not feel safe in this place anymore," Princess declared with a frown. Rose let out a squeak from her words before nodding her head vigorously. The girl looked quite nervous, Hori noticed, as she fidgeted with the camera in her hand. Rose also seemed jumpy.

Did what Amber said affect her this much? The female twin thought.

Earlier, the brunette girl shook with fear, her gaze disoriented and cold beads of sweat rolling down on her temples. It took much coaxing and comforting from the rest of the girls to reassure her that no one will hurt her.

"We are going to die, we will never leave this place. Give up, it said," Amber muttered and Hori could not tell how many times she had said that. Over and over, like a broken record, the brunette repeated the same ominous words.

"W-Who is this it you are talking about?" Sky asked and the female twin gave her a look of encouragement knowing Sky is actually really afraid and she still found the courage to speak out.

"It," was all Amber replied and they were left wondering what this it may be.

"Like Pennywise? You know, the clown in the horror movie It," Rose suggested, or more like squeaked out like a frightened little mouse.

"That would be ridiculous, unless someone is pranking us. But to go to such lengths? I doubt it," Princess disagreed with a shake of her head and Rose shrank even smaller, if that were possible. Prism nudged her platinum blonde friend, urging her to be nicer to the poor girl of the newspaper club. The said blonde sighed and offered a quiet apology to which Rose accepted.

After a while, Amber has finally calmed down enough for her to stop trembling. Unfortunately, it would seem like she had no recollection of ever muttering incoherencies from earlier, it was as if she were under a spell earlier.

"All I do remember is the whispers — I know I may sound ridiculous, but I swear I am not making things up to scare you guys! Why in the living hell would I do that?" Amber defended in a rush upon seeing Princess' pointed look, her face flushed. Hori patted her back, telling her to calm down and that they believed her.

"Your scream sounded raw and full of emotion, I don't think you just made that up," Hori comforted and the brunette let out a sigh of relief.

Prism nodded her head. "Yeah, that scream really gave us a fright. We are just glad nothing happened to you and the others."

Unless she is just a very good actress, Princess thought with furrowed brows, but she dared not to voice that out loud. Prism would just scold her and Princess is not fond of getting lectured.

Just in time, the boys showed up, equally creeped out except Sora and Yue who remained as expressionless and unbothered as ever.

While they piled up the stairs and out of the basement one by one, Sora noticed Rose lagging behind, still fiddling with her camera and looking distracted. Interested, he moved closer to the said girl and tapped her on the shoulder, which proved to be the wrong move as the girl shrieked in surprise, catching the attention of the others.

"What is with everyone screaming today," Princess complained, although anyone could easily tell she only acted tough.

"I apologize," the ash-blonde offered. "You just looked troubled, did you experience anything out of the ordinary, perhaps?"

"I...uh, was I that obvious?" Rose stammered, and when the male nodded his head, the girl thought it was better to show him. With her camera on, Rose pushed buttons, in search of that one picture she captured, and when she found it, Sora's eyes slightly widened.

"Hey," he called to the rest. "Come back down for a second." Sora carefully took the hanging camera from Rose's neck and moved closer to the incinerator. Certainly, a glass that showed the inside can be found on its opening.

"What is it? Did you actually find something?" Kou was the first to come down and strode with large steps towards them.

"Not really, but we found something weirder. Or at least Rose did." Sora showed Kou the picture and it did not take long for the others to crowd over the ginger who had the camera.

"What the heck is that?" Prism questioned with wide eyes, and to her curiosity, peaked a glance towards the incinerator.

"It's a body!" Sky shrieked and Princess' grip on Yue only tightened. The brunette male patted her head in hopes of comforting her while he craned his neck to get a glance at the controversial picture Rose had apparently taken.

In the picture was a transparent body of a human male, pale and no doubt already deceased. But when one would glance at the incinerator, only piles of dust and rusty metal could be found, no bodies or anything.

However, what bothered the group the most was the eyes that were wide open. It stared at them as if it were aware of its picture getting taken.

But that is not all. Prism paled at the familiar figure. "Isn't that Leon?"