Chapter 3:

  Sez’s presence was elusive; if Rin did not look at him every ten seconds, her mind would instinctively begin to disregard his existence. This was unlike Molinder—despite the sharpness of his words and the weight of his gaze, her heart would ease whenever he spoke. It was a relief that stripped fear away, not one that planted reassurance.

  Rin pressed her lips together in deep frustration and said with desperate agitation,

  “But how am I not supposed to ignore things that only I can see?!”

  Molinder replied with a steadiness that began to unsettle her,

  “What do you see in that shape, Rin?”

  She was no longer surprised by anything that came from him. She exhaled deeply, realizing that openness was the only solution—even if it was embarrassing, even if it led nowhere.

  “I think it’s the Masonic eye.”

  Sez and Molinder exchanged a fleeting, cryptic glance. But before the moment could end, a creature appeared between them—covered in dense black hair, short and tightly curled, as if puffed up. It sat upside down in the middle of the void, as though suspended by its rear in midair.

  Rin’s breath caught in her throat. Molinder and Sez did not move.

  The creature had a single bulging eye, twitching wildly, while thick cracking sounds popped and echoed through the air. At last, its pupil fixed itself on Molinder, and a thin, terrifying voice slipped out:

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  “Who are you?”

  Rin gasped as Molinder suddenly seized the creature by the neck, slamming it to the ground in a motion too fast for the eye to follow. He said coldly,

  “And who are you?”

  A faint pink glow flared between Molinder’s fingers. Immediately, the creature began to vanish—its skin and bones peeling away like ancient paint flaking from a wall. Molinder’s features tightened; soft groans escaped him as if he were wrestling with an unseen pain.

  The creature disappeared completely.

  Molinder stared absently at his hand, then turned to Rin.

  “What was that?”

  His words sounded like bullying , not like an actual question at all.

  She shouted in agitation,

  “How should I know?!”

  Then, as their gazes met, she added,

  “They call them demons… but I refused to believe in them—to protect myself.”

  Molinder tilted his head in silent inquiry, and Rin explained,

  “Yes. I can see them… but I ignore them, because that’s the only thing I can do. That’s what my father told me to do.”

  “If you don’t want something to become real, just ignore it.”

  She continued in a broken, hushed voice,

  “I’ve never seen one this clearly before. Their existence was limited to rumors and eyewitness accounts… so I truly believed they were nothing more than waking nightmares.”

  Molinder nodded faintly, as though satisfied with her answers. He turned to Sez and said,

  “Have you finished measuring the age of the energy around us?”

  Sez grumbled coolly,

  “Don’t make it sound like drinking water.”

  After a brief pause, he added,

  “The energy is subtle, but the land is saturated with it. Crystalline density is a hundred times lower.”

  Molinder asked,

  “Then how long have we been asleep?”

  Sez muttered with some hesitation,

  “A hundred—”

  Rin jolted in shock.

  “A hundred years?!”

  Sez repeated himself, louder and more resolute,

  “A hundred centuries.”

  “Heh!“

  Rin couldn’t even react to his words. An explosion thundered from beneath the village, and thick black smoke began to coil upward, dancing as it rose, its color blending with the pale blue of the sea.

  Rin looked on in stunned disbelief—then trembled in terror.

  “That… that’s my father’s warehouse?!”