There was no streetlight glow. No light from the living room. Even the fan stopped. But the darkness somehow was complete.

  For a second, the whole house felt like it had been sealed off from the world.

  Then I heard the front door handle move.

  Slowly. There was no banging nor someone forcing it, but it was turning.

  Metal against metal.

  My chest began tightenning, worried I turned to look at my Mom and sister who were in the living room.

  "Mom?" I called out, but my voice came out low.

  There was no answer.

  The handle stopped moving.

  Silence filled the house.

  Then the door opened.

  I didn't hear it creak but i felt it.

  The pressure in my head deepened instantly. The colored lines returned across my ceiling, faint but spreading outward like cracks.

  Footsteps entered.

  Calmly and measured.

  Each step firm against the tiled floor.

  Walking like it belonged there.

  I stepped into the hallway.

  The air felt colder.

  "Mom?" I called again, louder.

  From the living room, my sister's voice came.

  "Chiroma?"

  There was confusion in it.

  And something else.

  Fear.

  I moved faster.

  The hallway felt longer than usual. My heart pounded hard enough to blur my vision. As I reached the living room entrance, I saw him.

  He stood near the center of the room.

  Tall.

  Slim.

  Dressed in dark clothes that did not reflect light.

  His face was normal.

  If I saw him on the street during the day, I would not look twice.

  But his eyes—

  They were wrong.

  It was not glowing neither was it monstrous.

  It was just empty in a way that made my stomach twist.

  Mom stood near the kitchen entrance, holding a knife she had probably picked up without thinking. My sister was behind her, gripping her arm.

  "Who are you?, how did you enter this house?" Mom demanded.

  The man ignored her.

  His eyes were on me.

  "You opened it," he said calmly.

  My throat tightened.

  "I didn't open anything," I replied.

  He tilted his head slightly, studying me.

  "The fracture. You widened it."

  The colored lines began to spread across the walls now. Thin streaks of rainbow colors cutting across the paint.

  Mom glanced around, confused.

  "What is he talking about?" she whispered.

  The man finally looked at her and eeriely smiled.

  He took a step forward.

  Mom raised the knife. "Don't come closer!"

  He stopped.

  Then the air shifted.

  It felt like something invisible moved outward from him.

  A pulse.

  The knife in Mom's hand vibrated.

  Then snapped in half.

  The blade fell to the floor.

  "Ahhh argh" My sister screamed.

  The man moved fast.

  Faster than I expected.

  One second he stood three steps away.

  The next he was in front of them.

  Mom tried to push my sister behind her.

  "Go my back, Roma hurry come my back!" she shouted and as I tried to move to my mum

  He lifted his hand then suddenly the colored lines exploded around his arm wrapping around Mom's body instantly.

  Thin strips of red and yellow light coiled around her torso and arms like tightening ropes.

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  She gasped, shaking.

  Her feet lifted slightly off the ground.

  "Chiroma—" she tried to say.

  Her voice broke.

  The strips tightened.

  Her body arched unnaturally as if something inside her was being pulled upward.

  Her scream which sounded like wails echoed everywhere..

  My legs refused to move, I could only imagine the pain she was enduring at that moment.

  The man's eyes shifted briefly, watching her like someone observing a process.

  The colored strips began to sink into her chest passing through her skin like it was water.

  "Ahhhh arrrrrgh"

  Her scream grew louder and louder.

  Then it changed.

  It became strained.

  Desperate.

  Her hands began clawing at the air.

  I saw faint light begin to rise from her body.

  Thin threads of pale gold light pulling upward through her chest, through her mouth, through her eyes.

  She convulsed violently.

  "Stop! Let her go!!" I shouted.

  I tried to run forward but something invisible slammed into my chest like a wall.

  I fell backward against the wall.

  The man extended his other hand toward me without looking.

  Holding me there.

  "Shhhh, don't be in a rush, we'll reach your turn" he said to me with a devilish smile in his face.

  My sister tried to pull Mom down.

  The moment she touched her, the colored strips lashed outward and wrapped around her too.

  She screamed instantly.

  The man's eyes flickered with brief confusion.

  "Two," he murmured softly.

  The strips around my mother thickened.

  The pale gold light pouring from her body intensified.

  Her screams weakened.

  Her body trembled violently.

  With tears streaming down her cheeks,

  "Ro-" she tried to call to me.

  Then—

  She went still.

  The gold light thinned.

  Then snapped upward into the man's palm.

  Her body dropped to the floor.

  Lifeless.

  My ears rang.

  My sister was still trapped in the colored strips.

  "Please!" she cried.

  The man turned fully toward her now.

  Studying her.

  As if measuring something.

  The strips tightened around her chest.

  She gasped.

  The same pale gold light began to rise from her too.

  Her screams filled the house.

  She reached toward me.

  "Ch-i-ro--"

  Her voice cracked.

  I fought desperately, banging madly against the invisible force pinning me.

  It pressed harder.

  The man's face showed concentration now but showed some signs of strain.

  The gold light from my sister flickered unevenly.

  "Not as strong and steady as the mother"

  He frowned.

  "Dormant,what a waste" he whispered.

  The strips tightened again.

  My sister's scream cut off abruptly as her body jerked violently.

  The light tore upward from her chest in broken fragments.

  Her eyes locked onto mine.

  Then went empty.

  Her body fell beside Mom's.

  Silence hit the room like a physical weight.

  I couldn't breathe.

  The invisible force released me.

  I collapsed to the floor.

  My hands shook uncontrollably.

  The man stood between their bodies, looking down at them with mild irritation.

  "Still Insufficient," he muttered.

  He turned to me slowly.

  Now I understood.

  They had not been his target.

  I had.

  He stepped closer.

  I tried to crawl backward but my limbs felt numb.

  The colored strips around him thickened again.

  "You reacted strongly," he said calmly. "Yours will be mature."

  My chest tightened.

  "No," I whispered.

  He crouched in front of me.

  Up close, his face still looked human.

  But his eyes held something ancient and hollow.

  He placed his hand on my chest.

  The moment his palm touched me, pain exploded through my body like it was coming from within me.

  Like every nerve had been grabbed at once.

  The colored strips wrapped around me instantly.

  Red.

  Orange.

  Yellow.

  They dug inward, not cutting skin but penetrating deeper than bone.

  I screamed and yelled.

  The pain was beyond anything I had felt before.

  It was not sharp neither was there burning.

  It was extraction.

  Like something essential was being pulled out of me thread by thread.

  I felt it in my spine.

  In my lungs.

  Behind my eyes.

  Light began rising from my chest.

  Brighter than what I had seen from Mom and my sister.

  Not pale gold.

  Mine carried streaks of different colors within it.

  The man's expression shifted.

  Hunger.

  Relief.

  With a palm stroking his hair backwards while smiling eeriely

  "Awakened," he breathed.

  The light pulled upward faster.

  My vision blurred.

  I felt pieces of myself being removed.

  Memories flickered.

  My childhood.

  School.

  Laughter.

  All stretching toward his hand like they were attached to the light.

  I screamed again.

  My throat burned.

  The pressure in my skull intensified.

  The whispers returned.

  Louder.

  But they random now.

  :: DESSELB TAR UOHT::

  Though I could hear the words I could not understand them

  The colored strips around the room thickened, crawling over walls, ceiling, floor.

  The house itself seemed to strain under the weight of it.

  The man's grip tightened.

  More of my light tore free.

  My body convulsed violently.

  I felt a cold and empty space forming inside me.

  He leaned closer.

  "Yield," he whispered.

  The light rising from me surged.

  Then—

  "Bang!!"

  Something struck him.

  Hard.

  The colored strips shattered outward.

  The man flew sideways across the living room, crashing through the wooden table then suddenly the force pinning me vanished.

  I collapsed flat against the floor, gasping.

  The light above my chest snapped back into me violently, slamming into my body like a returning tide.

  Pain shot through every limb but I curled into myself.

  The man rose slowly from the wreckage.

  Unhurt and annoyed at the sudden presence of the new intruder..

  "You're not supposed to be here " he said setting his stance for attack.

  The other figure stood in the doorway.

  I couldn't see clearly.

  Everything blurred.

  But I saw movement.

  Calm.

  Controlled.

  The air around the newcomer carried different colored lines.

  A Sharper and more stable lines

  "You feed too much, and mainly, because I no really like una" the newcomer said evenly.

  The man smiled faintly and said back.

  "You felt it too."

  "He broke the boundary."

  "They opened it."

  The newcomer stepped further into the room.

  The colored strips in the house reacted differently now.

  They aligned toward the newcomer like iron toward a magnet.

  The man straightened fully.

  His eyes darkened.

  "You cannot stop what has begun."

  "Watch me," the newcomer replied.

  Bang!!

  Bang!!

  The air between them compressed.

  Then exploded.

  They collided in the center of the room.

  Not like normal fighters.

  Their movements bent the air.

  Each strike sent waves of colored fractures across the walls.

  Furniture splintered.

  Glass shattered.

  The man lashed out with strips of red light that sliced through the ceiling.

  The newcomer countered with blue arcs that deflected them midair.

  The house trembled.

  I crawled weakly toward the hallway.

  My body felt drained.

  Every breath hurt.

  The man extended his hand toward me again mid-fight.

  Colored strips shot toward my chest.

  The newcomer intercepted them instantly, slicing them apart with a sharp motion of his arm.

  "You will not take him!," the newcomer said coldly.

  The man's face twisted in anger for the first time.

  "He is not yours!."

  "He is not yours either."

  They clashed again.

  The living room walls cracked.

  The floor split slightly beneath their force.

  The man gathered the remaining red and yellow strips into one concentrated mass and hurled it toward me.

  The newcomer stepped in front of it without hesitation.

  The impact sent him crashing backward, but he stayed standing.

  He turned slightly toward me.

  "Stay conscious," he said yelled firmly.

  I tried.

  The edges of my vision darkened.

  The pain inside me pulsed in waves.

  The man glanced toward the window.

  Something in his expression shifted. As if calculating the loss he's acquired from the confrontation he retreated.

  The colored strips around him thinned rapidly.

  "You cannot guard him forever," he said quietly.

  The air around him distorted.

  And then he was gone, vanished out of plain sight.

  The colored fractures in the house faded slowly.

  The pressure in my head eased.

  The newcomer stood still for several seconds, scanning the space.

  Then he turned toward me.

  He walked over carefully and knelt beside me.

  Up close, his face was unfamiliar.

  Young.

  But his eyes carried depth.

  "You're alive," he said softly.

  I tried to speak but my throat felt raw.

  My gaze drifted past him.

  To the living room floor.

  To where my mother and sister lay motionless.

  The world tilted.

  My chest tightened so hard it felt like it would collapse.

  The newcomer followed my gaze.

  His jaw tightened slightly.

  "I'm sorry,if only I made it sooner" he said quietly.

  Everything inside me felt broken.

  Something fundamental had been torn open.

  The room blurred again.

  My strength faded.

  The last thing I saw before darkness took me was the stranger lifting me carefully off the floor—

  And the broken remains of my home behind him.