season 1. chapter 4

Chapter 4: The Gathering Storm

The next morning, Jason stood in the living room, watching as his friends shuffled around, bleary-eyed but determined. They had all gathered again after he had shown them the hidden room beneath Tyler's house. The weight of what they had found lingered in the air like a storm cloud. The journals, the cryptic notes, the terrifying descriptions of new demons—it was too much to process in one night. But they had no choice.

Damion paced near the desk, skimming through the papers, his brow furrowed with concentration. Daniel and Emma worked together, going through the old books Tyler had collected, their faces tense with worry. Taylor sat on the floor near the trap door, her hands clasped in her lap as she stared into the darkness below. She hadn't said much since the discovery, but Jason could see the fear in her eyes.

Jason stood next to Sarah, who was gathering her things. They had somewhere else to be today—Sarah's aunt's funeral. It felt strange, almost surreal, to be leaving in the middle of all this, but life outside the demons didn't stop. They had to go.

"Are you sure you guys will be okay here?" Jason asked, his voice low as he looked at Damion.

Damion glanced up from the papers, his expression set in a grim line. "We'll be fine. You go. We'll keep searching through this stuff while you're gone."

Jason nodded, then turned to Sarah, who had been silent for most of the morning. She was dressed in black, her hair pulled back, eyes downcast. She hadn't talked much about her aunt's passing, but Jason could feel the heaviness in her steps. She had been holding in a lot—her aunt, Tyler, the demons—it was all too much at once.

"Ready?" Jason asked gently.

Sarah nodded, avoiding his gaze. "Yeah. Let's go."

Before they left, Jason pulled Damion aside. "Keep an eye on everyone. If you find anything… anything about these 'abilities,' call me immediately."

Damion nodded. "Don't worry. I'll keep digging."

With a final glance at his friends, Jason and Sarah stepped out into the cold morning air, the chill biting through their jackets as they headed to the funeral.

---

The drive to the cemetery was silent, the tension between them almost palpable. Jason glanced over at Sarah every now and then, but she was lost in thought, staring out the window, her hands fidgeting in her lap.

"You okay?" Jason asked quietly, his voice breaking the silence.

Sarah sighed, her breath fogging the window slightly. "It's just… everything's happening all at once, you know? My aunt, Tyler, the demons… I don't even know how to process any of it."

Jason nodded. "I get it. It feels like everything's spiraling out of control."

"I just wish… I wish we had more time to figure things out," Sarah said, her voice barely above a whisper. "It feels like the demons are already here, watching us. And now… with Tyler gone, I'm scared, Jason."

Jason reached over, placing a comforting hand on her arm. "We'll figure this out. We've faced them before. We'll stop them."

Sarah didn't respond, but her grip on Jason's hand tightened slightly, a silent acknowledgment of the battle ahead.

---

At the funeral, the somber mood felt familiar, yet distant. The sorrow of losing a family member was layered with the strange, unspoken weight of everything else they were dealing with. As Sarah stood next to Jason, watching her aunt's casket being lowered into the ground, she couldn't help but feel like the demons had already taken something from her—just like they had taken Tyler.

Jason stood by her side, stoic as ever, but his mind was back in that hidden room beneath Tyler's house. He couldn't stop thinking about those words: "the ability of my friends." What had Tyler known that they didn't? And what were these abilities the demons were after?

The ceremony ended, and as mourners gathered to pay their respects, Jason and Sarah stood off to the side, isolated in their shared grief.

"I hate this," Sarah whispered, her voice trembling. "I hate that I can't even mourn my aunt without thinking about those… things."

Jason wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. "We'll get through it. We just need to stay focused. Whatever these demons are after, we'll find out before they can use it against us."

Sarah leaned into him, her head resting against his chest. "I hope you're right."

---

Back at the house, the others continued their search through Tyler's hidden room. Papers were scattered everywhere, notebooks half-opened, strange symbols drawn on the walls. Damion rubbed his eyes, frustrated by the lack of progress.

"There's so much here," he muttered, flipping through another one of Tyler's notebooks. "But it's all fragments. Pieces of a puzzle we don't know how to solve."

Daniel, sitting cross-legged on the floor, frowned. "It's like Tyler was trying to keep this stuff hidden from us. But why? Why didn't he tell us what he was going through?"

Emma looked up from the stack of papers she had been organizing. "Maybe he thought he could handle it on his own. He was always like that. But these demons… they're different from the ones we faced before. They got to him."

Taylor, still sitting quietly near the trap door, spoke up for the first time. "What if they're after us too? What if… what if we're next?"

The room fell into an uneasy silence. The thought had crossed all their minds, but hearing it spoken aloud made it real.

Damion stood up, crossing the room to where Taylor sat. "We're not going to let that happen. We'll figure this out. Tyler didn't die for nothing."

Daniel, who had been studying a set of strange, old drawings, looked up suddenly. "Hey… look at this." He held up a page, the faded image showing a circle of symbols surrounding what looked like a figure in the center. "This looks like some kind of ritual or… a summoning."

Damion frowned, walking over to examine it. "You think Tyler was trying to summon something?"

"I don't know," Daniel said. "But whatever it is, it's connected to these demons. Maybe he was trying to get answers."

Emma stood, crossing her arms. "If Tyler was messing with summoning rituals, that could've opened the door to something worse. Something we don't understand yet."

Damion looked at the drawings again, his mind racing. "We need to figure out what Tyler was dealing with, and fast. Before it's too late."

As the pieces slowly came together, the group realized that they were far from safe. Tyler's secrets were unraveling, but with every answer came more questions—and the growing sense that something much darker was on the horizon.

And whatever it was, it was coming for them.