Unexpected..

The pressure inside my chest spiked all at once.

It wasn’t gradual. There was no warning curve, no time to process it intellectually. 

One moment I was standing in the kitchen, my mother’s back turned as she reached for something on the counter—

—and the next, something inside me screamed.

I moved before the thought finished forming.

My hand shot out and closed around the knife on the counter, fingers locking instinctively around the handle just as my mother turned. 

Confusion flashed across her face, sharp and immediate, her mouth parting to ask a question I didn’t let her finish.

“Akira—?”

I shoved her toward the pantry. Harder than I meant to.

She stumbled, catching herself against the door frame, shock giving way to alarm as she called my name. 

I didn’t look at her face again. If I did, I knew I would hesitate.

I slammed the pantry door shut before she could see what was behind me.

My fingers fumbled with the lock, slick with sweat, refusing to cooperate. The pressure in my chest throbbed in time with my heartbeat, each pulse heavier than the last. 

Finally, the latch clicked into place. “Stay inside,” I said, my voice breaking despite my effort to steady it. “Don’t open it.”

I grabbed my little brother Hikaru and hid him inside the bathroom, and shut the door.
My father who was talking on the phone, dropped it on the floor as i shoved him in the closet.

There was no time to explain. No time to apologize.

The front door of my home exploded. The shockwave rattled the walls, sending a tremor through the floor beneath my feet.

Clawed shapes spilled into the hallway. The Lessor demons from the warp gate had arrived to my home.

They weren’t fully formed—not properly. Limbs stretched at unnatural angles, joints bending where they shouldn’t. Shadows clung to them like wet cloth, peeling and reattaching as they moved. The air reeked of rot.

My heartbeat drowned everything else out. I didn’t hear my own breathing. I didn’t hear the distant shout from the living room. 

All I could hear was the thud of blood in my ears and the heat spreading across my chest.

The pendant burned. Like it had been pressed against open flame. The pain was sharp enough to cut through the panic, anchoring me to the moment.

I stepped forward—

And activated the pendant.

Click.

The pressure doubled instantly, slamming into my body from every direction. My legs screamed the moment I moved.

Every step felt heavy. Like my bones were grinding against themselves, joints protesting under a weight they weren’t meant to bear. The air was thick, resistant, each movement tearing through it instead of passing cleanly.

I knew that I have to move fast immediately, even as my body continued to resist.

The hallway stretched unnaturally long as I crossed it in jagged strides, cutting sharp angles to avoid obstacles that no longer behaved the way they should have. My vision blurred at the edges, colors smearing together as my brain struggled to keep up.

The knife struck the lessor demons.

The impact jolted up my arm, rattling my shoulder. The blade stuck, lodged deep. 
I yanked it free with a grunt that sounded distant even to me, then slashed again without aiming properly.

Blood sprayed out, and it hung there, suspended in the frozen air like scattered paint, droplets stretched into uneven shapes by the strain of motion. 

I could see my own breath hanging in front of my face, clouded and trembling as I forced air out of my lungs. 

My hands were shaking.

I moved faster than my mind could process, reflex stacking on impulse as I tore through the space between the creatures. 

The world around me warped slightly with each step, the edges of objects bending inward, as if time itself was being stretched thin where my blade moved.

The 10 seconds felt endless.

Each movement demanded more than the last. 

Pain flared along my spine, sharp and electric, branching outward into my limbs. My muscles burned, then went numb, then burned again, the feedback arriving out of order and all at once.

I didn’t count the strikes. I couldn’t.

There was only motion. if I stopped—even for an instant—something would tear me apart from the inside.

Then—

Time snapped back.

The sound crashed in all at once.

The roar of collapsing structures. The wet, tearing impact of bodies hitting the floor. My own voice—hoarse and broken—gasping for air.

My muscles seized violently.

Pain detonated through my body, sharp and overwhelming, every nerve lighting up at once as if punishment had been delayed and was now being collected with interest. 

My legs buckled, and I hit the floor hard, the impact driving the breath from my lungs.

The knife skidded out of my grip, clattering across the tile.

Behind me, the demons collapsed on the floor. Heads separated, limbs tore free mid-motion. Their bodies disintegrated unevenly, dissolving into ash that scattered across the hallway, leaving gouges and stains where it had been moments earlier.

My vision swam violently, the ceiling spinning in nauseating arcs as i felt my throat burning. I coughed, gagged, barely managing to keep myself from choking as my body rejected the strain all at once.

The pantry door shook.

“Akira?”

My mother’s voice came through it, thin and panicked, muffled by the wood. “Akira, what’s happening?”

I tried to answer. My mouth opened but nothing came out.

My throat burned. My chest felt tight, like something had wrapped itself around my lungs and refused to let go. I dragged in shallow breaths, each one scraping painfully through my ribs.

The house was silent except for my breathing.

My body was wrecked, trembling uncontrollably, every muscle screaming in protest. The hallway was destroyed—splintered wood, ash smeared across the floor.

This wasn’t glorious. It was a desperate attempt to fight.

Ugly.

Terrifying.

But the house was still standing.

The walls hadn’t collapsed. The pantry door still held. The people inside were still alive.

That was more than enough for me.

I got outside my home and shut the door behind.

Staring at the sky, my heartbeat slowly dragging itself back to normal.

"I have to find the warp gate.."