CHAPTER 10: "侵入者"

Tsukiko, still on her bed, lay frozen in shock as she watched a tall, burly man, try to break into her room. The man had tried to pound on the windows but that was not possible as he was almost completely deflected by the barrier that surrounded the entire hospital, so he tried something else. Stationing himself on the sill of the window, he raised his hand in the direction of the window. Usually, a sort of aura would spill out from your hand when performing magic or spells, but strangely enough, no aura could be seen coming from his raised hand. Tsukiko, even in her state of shock still couldn't help but wonder,

 "Is he actually doing anything?". Her question was answered when she saw the window's glass cracking. The sound of the glass could not be heard at all as the man had placed an enchantment on Tsukiko's room prior to coming here. 

Luckily, the glass of her window breaking managed to spur Tsukiko into action. Using all her strength, she flung herself in the direction of the light switch, turned off all the lights and destroyed it with her magic.

Almost immediately afterwards, the man had finally managed to break into her room. Tsukiko quickly hid under her bed and stayed completely still. Though she couldn't hear his footsteps, she could still see. Tsukiko's eyes could see extremely well in the dark and had no problem seeing where the man was.

The man had started pacing round the room, trying to pinpoint Tsukiko's location. The charm he had set had backfired on him since now, he could neither see nor hear making it extremely difficult to find Tsukiko which was exactly what Tsukiko wanted. 

Tsukiko still stayed quietly under the bed watching his feet closely. Sometimes, he would quite far from her, and sometimes, he would come dangerously close to finding her. He even once looked under the bed, but as it was pitch dark in the room, he wasn't able to discover her. He stood up straight and for a few minutes, nothing happened.

The man stopped walking and stayed still. Tsukiko, still under the bed was alarmed at this and tried to peek her head out and see what the man was doing. She carefully brought her head out and looked at the man's face and he had a very strange expression, one akin to smiling, though it was incredibly eerie and nothing like how a smile should be. His smile however, kept growing wider and wider, until the corners of his mouth had reached his eyes in a very disturbing way. 

What was even more disturbing, was the fact that, eerie and grin and all, he looked straight at Tsukiko and stared straight into her eyes. Tsukiko hid back under the bed, very much scared at the turn of events.

She prayed and prayed in her mind and hoped the man had not actually seen her, but the more she thought about it, the more she slowly realized that this was not very credible. He didn't just look at her face or any other part of her body, he had looked into her eyes, and very accurately too, almost like he knew that she was there. 

Tsukiko couldn't help but feel even more scared and confused than she already did. She felt that something was seriously wrong with the man. Previously, he was unable to see her, even when he was right in front of her, so how was he able to see her now?

Before she could try to come up with an answer, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that something seemed off about the man. Of course, he was already pretty off in the first place, now it had gotten worse. His body seemed to be expanding and contracting at the same time, his mouth was wide open, and saliva dripped out of it. In his eyes, were the look of a dead person, glazed over and lacking soul. 

By now, Tsukiko, under the bed, had shifted her entire focus onto the man and had become extremely appalled at the sight of it all. She just couldn't comprehend it, was the man possessed or was he something that was very far from being human. 

Suddenly, the man's body had expanded even further and exploded with a loud bang and standing at the heart of the explosion, was a black, shapeless monster-like thing that was made of an unknown substance that seemed to be both hard and soft, there but not all at the same time.

Its body seemed to tower above everything in the room, and Tsukiko was no exception. Though she was under the protection of the hospital bed, due to the sheer pressure that this thing was emanating, she wasn't able to move. Tsukiko tried and tried to move, even a little bit, but to no avail. 

As she did this, the monster had approached Tsukiko's bed. She tried even harder to move but she still wasn't able to. Now, not more than three feet from her hiding spot, the monster had crouched down to look at Tsukiko.

At this moment, Tsukiko felt her heart beating heavily against her chest and drops of sweat rolled down her face, though she didn't dare breathe loudly and restrained it. She had hoped that maybe the monster wouldn't see her, but she was wrong, the monster had in fact seen her, as clearly as she could see it. Strangely enough, it didn't do anything. It neither tried to kill her nor did it try to eat her. 

Tsukiko, who had shut her eyes tight, expecting to be devoured whole by this monster with nothing but her bones left, was surprised to see that nothing had happened. So, she slowly opened her eyes and what was looking back at her was the monster.

Now, she could see its eyes. The monster had very hollowed out eyes that looked empty and void of any feeling, yet strangely enough, at that moment, she saw a that its eyes seemed to tell her, "Help me". Suddenly, the monster didn't seem like a monster at all, but more like a person that was wholly able to feel emotions like any human could and she felt pity for it. 

Tsukiko felt less scared now and bravery slowly built up in her chest. Raising her hand slowly, she reached out, trying to touch the monster and it seemed it was willing to be touched by her. Tsukiko's hand had nearly come into contact with the monster when all of a sudden, the lights turned on, and Hirano walked in. 

"Tsukiko? Why were all the....". He trailed off as he saw the scene in front of him. His little sister with scratches on her face, hiding under her bed, and a mass of black was crouching right in front of her. This was all very difficult for him to process, despite this, he still ran towards Tsukiko, dropping the food he found from his hands, trying to make his way towards her.

Suddenly, the monster who seemed so vulnerable became extremely savage and launched itself at Hirano, opening its mouth filled with razor sharp teeth. Hirano, who had been running towards Tsukiko, noticed the monster was trying to attack him and tried to dodge.

Unfortunately, in the middle of doing so, a piece of broken glass had managed to pierce his leg and he immediately dropped down on one knee, gritting his teeth in pain. The monster, sensing that Hirano had gotten injured, thought it'd be the perfect time to try to attack him once more and launched himself at him. 

Tsukiko, who had watched all this happen and immediately came out from under the bed. At first, she tried to use her magic, but since she hadn't fully recovered yet, this was unsuccessful. Later on, as she saw her brother about to be attacked by the monster, she rushed to protect him and stood in front of him with her arms open, and her eyes closed.

Hirano was horrified and almost immediately dragged her away and protected her instead by shielding in his embrace.

The monster had finally gotten to Hirano and opened his mouth widely, ready to chomp down when suddenly, a beam of light that shone with a translucent blue and pierced the monster through its mouth.

It let out a shriek and was obviously enraged. It turned around to see who had just attacked it and standing on the windowsill, in the midst of all the broken glass, was a tall young man who had hair reaching his shoulders that was flapping in the air. He had a very intimidating aura around him as he slowly put his hand down. This young man was in fact Jae-sung. 

He jumped down from the windowsill and continuously blasted at the monster with his magic. Of course, at this point, its hostility had greatly diminished, and it was running around the room, trying to avoid Jae-sung's blasts. It would let out a painful shriek every time it was hit and could no longer move at some point. It lay motionless on the ground, its blackness disappearing. At this point, Jae-sung turned to check on Tsukiko and the person he had assumed to be her brother to see if they were both okay. 

Tsukiko and Hirano were standing now, and Hirano supported Tsukiko as she wasn't able to stand properly due to an absolutely racking headache she had gotten. Jae-sung saw this and swiftly walked towards the brother and sister with a worried expression on his face. 

"Are you both alright?", he asked. 

Hirano nodded and smile gratefully at Jae-sung.

"Yes, thank you", said Hirano. Jae-sung nodded slightly to acknowledge his gratitude and at this moment, Tsukiko spoke up. 

"Jae-sung? What are you doing here?". Hirano was surprised to see that Tsukiko knew who their saviour was and asked her how she did. Stopping her brother from supporting her, she took it upon herself to introduce her brother and Jae-sung to one another,

"Brother, this is Kim Jae-sung, my classmate and Jae-sung, this is my brother, Hirano". They shook hands while Tsukiko said this though Hirano shook Jae-sung's hand very vigorously and kept thanking Jae-sung for helping him and Tsukiko. Jae-sung was a bit overwhelmed by this and could only smile helplessly at Hirano while telling him that he was happy to help.

Tsukiko, who stood watching their entire interaction chuckled softly. She was just about to separate the two of them and save Jae-sung from her brother, when she noticed something glowing on the ground. 

A soul was right there on the floor, and it was extremely bright. Both Jae-sung and Hirano noticed this as well and turned to look at it.

"This is the soul of one of The Lost".