The Last Smile

Ren stood at his mother's bedroom door with widened eyes. A chill breeze from within carried the scent of iron and dread. He remained still, trying to process what he saw. His chest felt heavy; heartbeat pounding against his ribs.

Eyes raised toward him crimson and slow...

But it wasn't his mother's.

A demon.

A body hid under its form, red and limp. Puncture wounds revealed on the flesh as it tilted its head, studying the one who interrupted its meal.

Ren’s feet moved before his mind caught up. He grabbed a broom leaning by the wall, angling it like a lance. With a raw cry, he couched it toward the demon.

It hoped backwards, mounted on the wall above a destroyed window.

Ren ignored it, dropping his weapon, he quickly lifted her body in his arms. His sight began to blur. Her head hung at a sickening angle with her skin barely holding to bone. Blood flowed through his fingers painting the floor in a carpet of blood.

The demon didn't give him time to mourn.

It pounced.

Its claws hung high, attached to scaling arms that expended a black mist.

It swiped at Ren's head.

Silence responded.
The demon stared at the spot where it had struck, nothing but a fresh blood trail led toward the bed on the other side.

"They weren’t supposed… they don’t come into homes…" Ren whispered.

He crouched on the bed's surface with his mother still cradled in his arms. Tears poured down onto her marred skin as he gently laid her on the bed, fixing her head so she looked at the very least somewhat normal.

Normal.

That’s all he ever wanted. A normal life. A life where he could choose his own pace. A life where he could protect the people who mattered.

But he couldn’t. Not even now.

There was still much he didn't know about the world, but he now knew one thing; he won't be able to live a normal life the way he was now.

His tears froze as his hands curled up into tight fists. He looked at his mother one last time and smiled.

__________

Sayaka shot a blast of light toward a demon. It dodged into the air, wings beating the air as it tried to reposition.

"Oh no you don't" she yelled.

Another blast quickly left her hand, cleanly striking it in the wings. They began to melt as a white light burned through its scaled shell.

The demon crashed onto the pavement. Sayaka calmly approached it.

"Unfortunately for you," her hand raised toward the downed entity. "I can cast more than before." A final blast of light pierced the demons skull leaving nothing but a rising black mist.

The sky began to color.

"That felt so much better." Her fingers interlocked in front of her as she stretched. "I wonder what mom is making for dinner."

The moonlight refracted on glass windows and doors. Lampposts no longer dulled on sidewalks. The air felt cleaner. Alive.

She pressed her the mark on her, revealing her stats.

"Ugh, still level seven." She pressed the mark again, closing the interface with a sigh. "I did say an hour. Guess I'll head home a little bit early."

She turned the way she had came, her footsteps light on the concrete.

Raphael drifted silently beside her.

__________

The bedroom drowned in grey.

The only color that remained was the blood between Ren's fingers, and even that, began to dim.

His heart slowed, as if time itself simply stepped aside.

Ren's body began to line with a faint glow, soft at first, then brightening with each heartbeat. The air bent around him, as if twisting to his fury as he stood. Across the room, the demon hesitated. It crouched low with trembling claws, fighting between the urge to flee or strike.

It lunged toward Ren anyway.

Ren turned, his palm snapped quickly in front of him. The light that had encased him drew together down the point of his hand before briefly stalling.

The demon noticed. Using its wings, it quickly twisted to the side as Ren's blast left his palm.

The blast collided with the wall behind it. 

Ren stared. The demon stared. Neither understood what they were seeing.

The wall was unchanged. Then, it began to ripple and curl as it pulled inward into a single point. Paint, wood, and bricks distorted together leaving behind a crumpled object that had fallen on the floor. The wall now opened to dull world outside.

Just as he thought, he was in a Spatial Zone.

"Faster," he murmured as he focused on the demon.

The demon hissed and skittered up the wall, darting across it to confuse Ren before lunging at him. This time, its movements felt slower. The aura returned around Ren as steadily aimed at the demon. The light drew into the point of his palm once more and fired. This time there was no hesitation.

The blast struck it right in the middle.

Ren hopped to the side as the creature crashed to the floor, its body twitching. At first, it looked like nothing happened, then, the center of its torso began to twist. The dark flesh folded inward, spiraling, collapsing as though an unseen vortex had opening inside of it. 

It shrieked for a moment before the void collapsed in on itself, disappearing in nothingness. 

What was left was an unmoving body. A clump of flesh lay uneven in its center, black mist collectively retreating into the air like smoke before dissolving.

Silence returned.

Ren waited a moment for the body to fully disappear, then he walked back to the side of the bed and stared at his mother's still face. She looked gentler in the grey. Almost peaceful.

He took a hand in his, holding it gently before letting it go.

As the color of the world began to return, a thought crossed his mind. He wondered if she were alive right now, if she could only just see his face in this moment, would she still recognize him?

Would she still call him her son?

__________ 

Sayaka walked up their street, humming under her breath. A dog could be heard barking in one of the homes as she passed. The world was calm again. The night air was chillier than usual but from her point of view, it was how it always was, normal.

She walked up to the front door, swatting mosquitos around her.

Everything looked normal. 

And she wondered what scent of food she would discover once the door opened.

She pressed the front door open.

No scent.

"I'm back!" she closed the door behind her. Nothing but silence greeted her. She carefully slipped her shoes off and laid it neatly by the door.

She turned and blinked, confused. Maybe they were both upstairs.

"Ren? Mom?"

Still nothing.

She checked the living room, kitchen, and lower bathroom; empty. No more untouched than how she left it. 

"Ren?" her voice tightened.

Something's not right.

She bolted toward the stairs. 

Her small frame moved like a ghost on its steps; swiftly, almost like a blur, as she held the railing up.

She stopped at the top and looked down the hallway, each door was wide open. 

Then, she noticed it.

A dark liquid had seeped from the interior of a room; her mother's room, into the floorboards outside. 

She raised her trembling hands over mouth.

"...mom?" she whispered. Her steps inched forward to the room.

With every step, time seem to slow and her heartbeat raced with each thought.

She reached the opening, leaning just enough to see inside, and...

Her breath left her.

Ren stood by the bedside, unmoving, facing a figure she couldn't make out immediately. In the center of the room lay a pool of drying blood. Her eyes followed a loose trail toward the bed.

She stepped forward slowly, her feet sinking into the dark liquid. 

The closer she inched, the clearer the figure became. She stopped a breath away, staring at Ren's hands, painted with dried blood. 

Their mother laid on the sheets, positioned neatly. Too neatly.

Did he…?
No... no, Ren wouldn’t...
What happened?

Her throat tightened as she whispered his name.

"…Ren?"

He didn’t turn.

She placed her hands on his shoulders and turned him toward her.

His face made her stomach drop.

Empty.

Cold.

Clarity and grief twisted into something she had never seen before.

It was like looking at her brother’s body with someone else standing behind his eyes.

Sayaka glanced at their mother’s wounds. Clean punctures. A massive tearing at the neck. No human could have done this. No blade. No weapon.

Only one possibility.

"A demon..." she whispered, breath shaking.

Raphael drifted beside her, voice low. "These wounds match demon attacks. This was not done by him."

All suspicion in her heart vanished instantly, replaced by an unbearable heaviness that brought her to her knees beside him.

Minutes passed. Maybe hours. Time didn’t feel real anymore as the two held still in silence.

Then when the stillness couldn't get anymore heavy, Ren inched like he had just remembered to breathe.

His voice came out calm. Too calm.

"Sayaka," he murmured. "I've made a decision."

She raised her head and looked at him through dried tears.

"It seems no matter what I do in this world, we can't live normally."

His steady eyes turned toward the fixed window. The wall next to it, unaffected; closed off from the world outside. No damage. No trace of what had happened.

"So I’m going to be strong," he continued. "Strong enough to protect you. Strong enough to never lose anything again."

__________

Fun Fact: Demons are the only ones who can create Spatial Zones.