The Fourfold Course

Chapter 5

While Matt drove us home, my mind refused to rest. I kept replaying everything that had happened on my birthday the visions, the wolf, the blood, the fear. My chest tightened with unease. Maybe Matt was right. Maybe it was all just some drunken hallucination, stress from exams twisting my brain.

But how long can hallucinations last? Two years? I clenched my fists. Something wasn’t adding up.

Matt dropped Aumiree home first, then Zaryer. That left me as the last passenger. By the time we reached my house, night had settled heavy on my shoulders.

The moment I stepped into our parlor, a chill ran down my spine. My whole family was waiting, my parents and my brothers. Their faces were tight with worry.

If Matt was telling the truth, if I’d only been drunk, why would my entire family be waiting, so tense, so restless? Why would my parents close their stores for the day just to sit here? My brothers were always protective, yes, but this… this was different.

I forced a smile, bowing my head. “I’m sorry for making you all worry. I promise… it won’t happen again.”

They didn’t look convinced, but they let me go.

In my room, I showered, trying to wash the dread away. Matt’s words echoed in my head: It was just like a horror movie you watched. I whispered it to myself over and over, clinging to it like a lifeline. But the fear lingered.

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Two months later, life had returned to something almost normal. I graduated, did my convocation, and began working in one of my parents’ stores. We weren’t wealthy, but not poor either, the lifestyle we're living is comfortable enough to live without debts and always have food on the table. Now it was my turn to repay them by working hard.

I begged my parents to assign me to one store on my own. I wanted to prove I could handle business, not just be the reckless, spontaneous daughter they worried about. Eventually, they agreed.

One normal evening, I returned from work exhausted and I slept off on my beautiful bed, only to wake and see my parents already home. Not just them, my brothers too. All of them wore the same expression: worried, tense.

How good was my sleep that I didn't even notice my family were back from work but earlier I guess.

And then I noticed the visitors.

Three men in dark suits sat stiffly in our living room. I couldn’t hear their words, but I could read my family’s faces. Fear. Submission. My father, the strongest man I knew, was bowing slightly to one of them.

My stomach knotted.

And then, to my shock, Aumiree’s mother walked in. She greeted everyone with a forced, nervous smile.

What was she doing here?

My pulse quickened. Was this the “secret” my best friend had promised to tell me this weekend? Something to do with her mother? With me?

An arranged marriage? A pact? Why were the three men angry at my family? And why did Aumiree’s mother look just as terrified as my parents?

Something was happening. Something far bigger than any of us.

And I was right in the middle of it.

From my room upstairs, I peeked through the stairway gap. I couldn’t hear their conversation, not a word, but I didn’t need to. The look on my parents’ faces told me everything.

My father’s head was bowed. My mother’s fingers twisted together nervously. Even my brothers, the ones who never feared anything stood stiff, their eyes avoiding the men in black.

And then there was Aumiree’s mother, standing beside them, smiling in that forced, trembling way that wasn’t really a smile at all.

My chest tightened.

Why are they so afraid?

Who are those men?

Did Aumiree’s mother drag us into something? An arranged marriage? Some family debt?

I bit my lip. None of it made sense.

The tallest of the men suddenly rose, his movement sharp enough to make my brothers flinch. He gestured, and the others followed, all three turning for the door. They left in silence, but anger hung in the air like smoke after a fire.

I rushed into my room and pulled back the curtain, my eyes following them as they stepped into the night.

They walked toward a long black car parked by the curb. Their shadows stretched unnaturally far beneath the streetlight.

Then, without warning, the man in the middle stopped.

Slowly, deliberately, he turned his head upward toward me.

Our eyes met. My breath caught in my throat.

And then he smiled.

It wasn’t warm. It wasn’t human. It was sharp and knowing, like he had seen me long before this moment.

As I stared, his eyes darkened, the whites swallowed by black. Then, rippling through that darkness, colors bled like liquid fire: red, gold, blue, violet… swirling, shifting, never still.

My body froze. I couldn’t scream, couldn’t move. It felt as though those eyes had reached into my chest and stolen the air itself.

I blinked and they were normal again. Just plain eyes in a plain face.

He turned away and stepped into the car. A moment later, the vehicle slid into the night, leaving me pressed against the glass, trembling, wondering if I had imagined it all.