Bad omen

Akena's dream had left her wide awake. The light had barely broken outside, and yet Akena couldn't make herself fall asleep again. Unconsciously, she was oblivious to when and how she had dozed off into a deep slumber, which was interrupted by a strong beam of sunlight falling on her face. "Ugh," she squinted her eyes as she placed her hand in front of her face in an attempt to block the light. She pushed herself up from the makeshift bed, and suddenly a sharp pain ran through her body. Her joints stiffened. "What the—" Was yesterday's running around and walking finally catching up on her? But it strangely seemed too much for it to just be body pain.

Akena's sheltered mind couldn't comprehend this continuous series of strange events, and she couldn't bring herself to contemplate it at the moment of her awakening. She facepalmed before grabbing onto the window frame as support to lift herself off the ground. She grunted, gritting her teeth from the sharp pain throughout her body. "I should see a doctor," she muttered in a groggy voice. She slowly walked to the witch's room, feeling unsure about leaving the house without her knowledge. After all, she was probably alive due to the witch's consideration or whatever held in her heart that made her let Akena stay in her humble abode.

The wooden floorboards creaked beneath her feet as she struggled to lift her legs. "Hey—" she reached the witch's room and gave a soft push to the door, revealing the sight of the witch. To her surprise, the room seemed rather different than yesterday, and the witch was no longer there. "Hello...?" Akena pushed the door a bit more, stepping into the room, but there was no sight of the strange woman. The unclean dust made a cough slip out of Akena's lungs. "Jeez..." It was rather different than what she remembered. Akena raised an eyebrow before a sudden realization hit her. She stepped out of the room and laid her eyes on the living room, getting a look at the house. It was strange, very weird. There was just one person's footprint formed in the dust—Akena's. It seemed the house had no one living in it for a long time. But how could it be...? Just last night she was here, and the house seemed much cleaner and livable! Akena couldn't believe her eyes. "I really do need to see a doctor..." she muttered again, and an ominous feeling started to creep in. "I need to get out of here." She limped toward the door but paused at the sight of a brown envelope placed on the doormat. Akena bent over and picked up the envelope, her mind questioning its placement. "Read it before you leave," it read. Akena raised an eyebrow at the wording, obviously written by the witch, but chose to save the reading of a letter for later as her gut screamed at her to exit the house. She stuffed the letter into her pocket, the letter crumpling into folds alongside her rosary. Akena finally opened the door and exited the room.

She huffed and panted as she increased her pace, a sudden instinct telling her to run... as fast as she could before she got caught up in the illusion. An illusion, whose purpose and origin still remained unknown to Akena, but a vague suspicion pointed at the witch. A pebble on her path made her stumble, her skin piercing against a glass shard on the ground. "Ouch...!" She sat for a moment to take a look at her knee, which was now bloodied. As she took a moment to breathe, her body ran cold as she felt a cold breath on her neck. Her body stiffened, and her skin had turned almost pale. She couldn't move; she trembled ever so slightly, making her body feel numb, and for the first time, she could hear the being to whom the cold breaths belonged. "Akena..." the voice whispered.

Akena's eyes widened. She had never felt so frightened by something she couldn't even see. Although it was already day and sunlight surrounded the forest, all she could see was darkness; she had turned blind to the light. She reached for the rosary in her pocket, almost as a reflex action, the letter getting in her way. She finally caught hold of the rosary, avoiding the crumpled letter, and sprang out her hand, turning around with haste as she extended her arm and lifted the cross attached to the rosary, muttering the prayer she had been learning briefly prior to their arrival in Greece. There was nothing behind her. A cold sweat dripped from her forehead as she noticed that the color of the rosary had turned from the pure white to a sinister black, cracks had started to form on it's beads.. A bad omen it meant...