Rise of the Night Witch

Interlude 1 (Simon)

"Moooore. Just one step more and we are almost there."

Simon shrieked. His throat felt dry and his back ached from bad posture. That's what he got from falling asleep on a chair in the visitor room of Summer Community Hospital's Intensive Care Unit.

He didn't even feel the possession happen. When he first visited the basement, a tiny part of the demon's life energy invaded him. But the seed blossomed. He developed this irrational need, this curiosity, this cockiness to go back. He could have resisted had he been stronger-willed. Once he reached the school's vicinity, he heard this inner voice. It only became stronger. And he'd remember it forever. Slinging his horseshoe necklace around his neck was one of his last memories before he started sleepwalking. What would have happened without this rather embarrassing rescue? Would the monster just have given up?

It was such a cruel world. Dungeon crawling was what one did to escape reality. Now, he had to escape fantasy. He listened to Busta Rhymes over his headphones and distracted himself by following Vs-Debates on his favorite forum. His "Thunder Chariot vs Monkey Man" thread had unread replies, although it was arguable how much sense a thread between two featless urban legend superheroes even made.

The lift opened as Simon's friend Jason Turner entered the waiting room. He was a mousy white boy with messy, jet-black hair and a pair of beaver-like buck teeth that looked like more of a job for the dentist than his dad. His face disappeared under the shadow of his cap. He came to visit his mother in the hospital.

Visiting loved ones stuck in the ICU was always a daunting and overwhelming experience, but Jason refused to show how he felt. He neither smiled nor cried. He did not even look Simon in the eye. Here merely gave him a hi-five and took a seat like everyone else.

Simon put his headphones off.

"Are you alright man?" Jason asked. "Heard you got sick and couldn't come to school today."

"No worries, I'm fit as a fiddle."

"And what exactly happened?"

"Well, my breakfast left my mouth."

Simon leaned forward and mimicked the motions he made while vomiting

Jason nodded. He did not ask the obvious question. If there was a link between Simon's illness and that of Jason's mother.

Mrs. Turner was one of the many hobby sleuths who showed up in recent years who loved looking into cases that the police considered too ... abnormal. When she tried to find information on the Erlking, the killer gave her a cold. A bad cold.

Her curiosity was her downfall. Simon had looked at the Erlking's modus operandi. He had a preference for women – although he thankfully spared children – which fit with how the myths characterized him as a darkly seductive creature. He especially hated investigators. His hideout, his face, his motives – unknown. The Erlking went to any lengths to preserve his anonymity. Mrs. Turner fit his victim profile to a T.

Jason refused to show how he felt about that. He disguised his face behind his iOS phone and skimmed through meaningless notifications.

When Simon looked at the phone, Jason showed him funny pictures of Dennis, the helpless nerd kid who made even Simon feel like a real macho. He then scrolled through the Instagram feeds of popular girls at their school. They engaged in time-killing small talk. Jason asked him if he wanted to ask any of them out, but Simon still couldn't get over the time Lucy rejected him.

This "waiting period" became tedious and Simon stood up. Just what was his father doing for so long? The patient privacy hours were over. Jason had his appointment and he was waiting.