𝔖𝔦𝔩𝔢𝔫𝔠𝔢

Arc 3 (6)

There was no way out. The monster was roaming around. In the deep dead night, the eerie quietness of the house was magnified under the terrifying aura.

'James' opened the suitcase he was carrying. It contained a glass jar with a horrifying ripped heart still beating inside it. Taking it 'he' handed it over to the trembling director and solemnly said, "Sir, please take it and hand it over to that thing. Once it eats this heart, it should die as this is the siren's heart and that monster should also be something similar. Blood of the same species should act like poison for it. But it can only be handed over by you. Your wife's reason should not all be faded so your safety would be higher than me."

The director stared wide eyed at the glass jar speaking with uncontrollable anger, "Y-You fucker!! You want me to do what??! Do you want me die huh??!!"exploding with anger he dragged 'James' out of the basement door, threw him out e glass jar long with and locked the door. With rage he said through gritted teeth, "You better kill that thing outside! Don't blame me for the experiments that you did wrong!" he could hear the desperate calls of 'James' outside the door but he could care less. After a while he could hear the heart shaking scream of 'James' outside the door and finally, once again the whole house fell into silence. He knew exactly what happened. That monster killed 'James'. It should probably have eaten the heart by now.

Cautiously opening the door, he peeked into the deep darkness of the house. Adjusting his eyes a bit, he could see a few broken stuffs on the floor and some shards of glass shattered around. One of the windows was broken with blood splattered on it. He came out of the basement and stood in the hallway of the house that was messed up with blood and shattered things.

"Crunch...splech...crunch..." suddenly he heard a sound coming from behind him. Cold sweat poured out his whole body as he froze in place out of the terrifying fear. Almost breathless, he mechanically turned his head around to become stupefied out of mind. In front of his, that long tailed monster was feeding upon James body that had its eyes still open wide with horror. Half of his body only had bones with meat here and there still sticking to the bones. The other half was covered in blood with gruesome scratches all over. The intestines had been eaten clean. The monster seemed to be munching upon the fingers when the scene was seen by him. Worse even, his eyes met the appalling blood red eyes of that monster when he had turned around.

His mind went blank. He could only watch, dumbfounded from the fear that he felt as if he was facing the devil itself. The monster also stopped eating with its eyes fixed upon him. It crawled towards him, the tail swinging left and right to help in movement and hands breaking the tiles wherever they were placed. He failed to react even when the monster was only a meter away from him. When its arm grabbed his legs he could feel the biting cold temperature of that hand and the sharpness of those long nails on them. But he still stood fixed, as if his soul had long been sucked out from his body. He felt everything but he failed to move. He was paralyzed by fear and could only let out a last scream when he felt that unbearable pain of his leg getting eaten bit by bit.

All was over.

***

"Hello? How may I help you?" the sweet voice of the receptionist was heard from the phone.

"Umm.. is this XX city mental asylum?" the person on the other side asked with a bit hesitation but still had a hint of urgency in the tone.

"Yes, Sir. How may I help you?" the receptionist again with patience.

"The director of the Y institute seems have damaged his brain. I am his assistant and I don't know the specific of his condition. So can you please arrange someone to check out his situation as soon a possible?" the assistant explained.

He had arrived in the morning to see his boss' terrified being sitting in the hallway crying and spouting nonsense like "can't die", "monster" and some jabbers that were incomprehensible. The house seemed perfectly alright with no trace of an intruder barging in or something like that. So he could only decide urgently and call a mental hospital.

The director, that had gone crazy, was taken to the asylum. He still seemed to have been thinking that he was dead or something.

***

Claire looked at the beautiful maiden in front of her. Her blood red eyes were filled with twisted glee as she looked at the glass jar with the beating heart.

Alisa had long disappeared after James had died. The woman in front of her was the 'mutated' wife of the director who had been strengthened long ago and had escaped from the house. She had left an illusion in the house instead of directly killing the director, letting him suffer from a lifetime of deep fear and despair. Claire had taken James' disguise to trigger the illusion while the girl had gone to the institute to retrieve the heart of Alisa where all the scientists had been dead the same way James had died since the powder of the live scales didn't actually disperse, they just get absorbed into whoever touches that powdery substance and would turn no less than a curse when reaction took place.

The girl was finally free from the long torture she suffered in that director's hands.

As said, how could illusion not win in a game of deception...?

***