Chapter 4
The rain pours down outside Kiyomi's window. That doesn't mean the noises outside the room weren't loud. The sound of her mother's cries and screams scare Kiyomi. She shuts her eyes and covers her ears.
"AHHHHHH~"
Kiyomi opens her eyes to the noise. She furrows her eyebrows and frowns feeling stressed out by the constant noises that were being yelled from outside the room. All she could wonder is if her mother is okay. But she's too scared to get out of bed. The darkness surrounding her scared her most. She feels like there's something there that could snatch her the second she crawls out of bed.
Her eyes slowly move as she looks at the whole room, but then it stop in one spot. A figure in the corner of the room. Her eyes widen when she sees it. She is so sleepy but so scared at the same time.
BAM
Kiyomi freezes when the shadow smiles and starts to get bigger. Kiyomi screams and runs out the room crying. She runs to her mother's room.
"MOMMMY! MOMMY!" She screams as she pounds on the door. The noises coming from inside the room goes quiet. Kiyomi turns the doorknob and stumbles into the room. "Mo-mommy!!!" She cries out. The man in the room quickly covers himself and the mother walks over to Kiyomi. "Mommy there's a monster... there's a monster in my roooooom...." Kiyomi cries louder. The mother grabs Kiyomi and drags her back to her room.
"Go to sleep." The mother huffs and shuts Kiyomi's bedroom door.
"WAAAAAAAAH" Kiyomi falls to the ground in front of the door. She holds herself and closes her eyes, scared of the darkness around her... too scared to walk to her bed.
Her eyes shoot open as she feels a strong presence near her. Her eyes drift in the direction she feels the presence in. A tall man standing right next to Kiyomi's window in her room looks at her. She shivers and closes her eyes out of fear. The figure moves closer. The man pulls out a lighter which lights up a bit around him.
"Kiyomi." The man says. Kiyomi slowly opens her eyes to see her friend.
"S-Sir Sameul..." She sniffles.
"Are you okay?" He asks. Kiyomi shakes her head and starts crying again.
Kiyomi lays in bed and the man sits down beside her, still holding the lighter in his hand.
"What happened? Why were you crying?" He softly asks. Kiyomi sinks down a bit into her blanket before taking a deep breath and looking in the corner where she saw the figure earlier.
"A scary monster was over there..." She quavers as she points towards the corner. The man slowly looks in the corner and then back at Kiyomi.
"A scary monster... That's no good..." He softly bubbles. "Want me to show you something?" He says slowly standing up and walking towards the corner. "This is a trick I use when I want things, I don't like to go away... I will teach you it if you want..." He says stopping inches in front of the corner. Kiyomi slowly nods and covers half of her face with the blanket. The man smiles at her and takes a deep breath. He pulls out his book and holds it in his left hand. The book flips to a specific page and the man quickly places a bookmark on it in a fast and cool way. "Luminous light of the sea beasts.... make the darkness disappear." He sooths.
The room fills up with luminous sea creatures. Kiyomi reaches her hand up, feeling the aura around her. Her eyes glisten and widen from how pretty her room looks. The man softly smiles at Kiyomi.
"Sometimes I use these to light my surroundings when it's dark." He softly says. Kiyomi slowly nods at the man.
"So cool..." Kiyomi bubbles.
"When things get too scary you should make them disappear... Only you have the ability to make them disappear..." He softly says to Kiyomi. She stares at him in confusion. " Like this..." He holds his hands out in front of him. "DISAPPEAR!" He yells out. The luminous sea creatures that fill the room disappear. Kiyomi's eyes widen when the room goes dark again. The man smiles and pulls the lighter out again and lightening up the room. "Don't let things scare you... If you want it to go away, then yell disappear, and it will." He soothes.
"Okay~" Kiyomi coos. The man notices her tired eyes and turns off the light.
"I will let you rest now..." He softly says.
"But... It's scary..." She quavers. The man pushes open the curtain to the room more, allowing more light from the moon to fill the room.
"Is that better?" He asks. Kiyomi slowly nods.
"Sir Sameul..."
"Yes?"
"Can you stay?" She softly asks. He stares at her a bit before nodding.
"I will stay for a little longer..." He softly says as he sits down beside her. Kiyomi slowly smiles and her eyes slowly close, putting her into deep sleep.
The next morning Kiyomi wakes up to her friend gone. She slowly crawls out of bed and into the kitchen where her mother is preparing breakfast. Her father sits at the dining room table, working and typing on his computer. The mother's eyes dart at Kiyomi who's walking towards the dinning room table with the pen in her hand.
"Good morning Kiyomi... how did you sleep?" The father asks smiling at Kiyomi. She looks at him and smiles.
"I sleep good... My friend Sir Sameul show me really cool fish."
"Huh?" The father looks at Kiyomi confused.
"Last night Sir Sameul came and showed me a cool trick. It was pretty lights and fish..." She bubbles. The father looks at her confused. The mother sighs loudly, causing the father to look at her.
"What is she talking about? You had a man come last night?" He asks.
"NO!" The mother yells.
TING
Kiyomi furrows her eyebrows and looks down at the table.
"It's just that she's always talking about this Sir Sameul guy... but I never once seen him..." She sighs.
"Oh... so Sir Sameul is your imaginary friend?" He asks Kiyomi. Kiyomi looks at her father feeling confused.
"Imagine friend?" She questions.
"Imaginary friend." The father corrects.
"Don't normalize that..." The mother sighs.
"Why? She's four... It's normal to have imaginary friends at that age." The father implies.
"No, it's not normal. What she does isn't normal..." The mother huffs.
"What she does? What are you talking about?" He questions. The mother sighs and carries breakfast to the two of them.
"She says concerning things..." The mother quietly says.
"Like what?"
The mother furrows her eyebrows and looks at Kiyomi. Kiyomi sits at her seat. She's in her own little world as she eats the food. The mother slowly looks at the father and sighs.
"Nevermind."
Kiyomi plays in the living room as her father works on his computer and mother does laundry.
"Are you busy tomorrow?" The mother asks the father.
"No... I'm off tomorrow too. Why?" The father asks. The mother folds the clothes and places it in the laundry basket.
"I wanted to go visit the senior center..."
TING
"So, I was going to ask if you can watch Kiyomi." The mother softly says. Kiyomi furrows her eyebrows as she stares down at the pen in her hand.
"Yeah... sure..." The father listlessly says. The mother smiles and picks up the basket.
"Mommy..." Kiyomi says without looking at her mom. The mother stops walking and looks at Kiyomi.
"Yes?"
"Why do you keep lying?" Kiyomi asks. The mother's eyes widen, and the father looks at Kiyomi.
"What?"
"What do you mean, baby?" The father asks Kiyomi. She rubs her ears and looks up at her dad.
"Every time I hear a noise someone lies." Kiyomi calmly says. The father furrows his eyebrows and the mom places down the basket in a panicked manner.
"I'm not lying... " She huffs in a panicked way. "Who told you that? Your friend?" The mother fumes.
"Hey... relax... You're talking to our four year old daughter... Why are you getting so defensive..?" The father says as he stands up and walks over to the mother.
"What? You believe her?" The mother asks in a panicked tone.
"I never said I did..." The father sighs. The mothers eyes widen.
"Mommy..."
"DON'T TALK TO ME!" She yells at Kiyomi causing her to flinch a bit.
"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!" The father yells at the mother.
"That demon child isn't normal!" The mother yells.
"She's a demon now?!" The father rasps. "What the hell has gotten into you?" The father fumes. The mother flinches and glares at Kiyomi.
"Don't you notice the shit she's doing... she talks to a person that's not there... she controls minds... SHE MAKES YOU SAY THINGS... AND NOW SHE CLAIMS SHE HEARS WHEN SOMEONE LIES?!" The mother shouts. "There's nothing normal about her! That's not my daughter! That's a demon!"
"Karen... stop..." The father huffs. The mother stares at the father in a panicked and scared face. Almost as if she's guilty and slowly losing it.
"Mommy..." Kiyomi softly says again. The mother slowly looks at her. "Are you afraid of the dark?" She randomly asks. The mother furrows her eyebrows confused to why Kiyomi asked that. The father looks at Kiyomi too.
"What?"
"I'm scared of the dark... because of scary monsters... Sir Sameul say if something scares you then you can tell it to disappear like this." Kiyomi holds her hands out and smiles. "Disappear! And then it will disappear~" She sooths. "Mommy... Do you want me to disappear?" Kiyomi's eyes go completely white and the father's eyes widen when he sees her eyes go white. The mother's eyes relax and she smiles.
"Yes... I want you to disappear..." The mother unintentionally says. The father quickly looks at the mother and scrunches up his face.
"WHY THE HELL DID YOU SAY THAT?" The father yells. The mother snaps out of it and gasps.
"SHE... SHE DID IT AGAIN!" She screams in fear. Kiyomi stares at the mother with a blank expression on her face. "SHE KEEPS DOING THAT... SHE KEEPS MAKING ME SAY THINGS..." The mother cries. The father looks back at Kiyomi.
"Who's this friend of yours Kiyomi? When did he tell you that?" He asks.
"Last night... He's magical..." She coos.
"SEE A DEMON! SHES FRIENDS WITH A DEMON!" The mother screams.
"Is your friend here right now? Can he see me?" The father asks.
"No...?" Kiyomi looks at the dad confused. The father furrows his eyebrows and looks at the mother and then back at Kiyomi.
"I never seen her friend... Only she can see him..." The mother cries.
"Kiyomi... how about you go outside and play... okay?" The father says. Kiyomi smiles and grabs her toys and skips outside. The father closes the back door. The mother sits on the couch shaking. The father slowly approaches her.
"You saw it... didn't you... she made me say it..."
"Yeah I did..." The father listlessly says. The mother's eyes widens when she realizes the father believes her. He sits down across from her and sighs.
"You think she's possessed with a demon?" The father asks. The mother nods and starts crying.
"When she first spoke, she did that... Her eyes would go white, and she would make me say something I didn't say... She always mentions that man... that Sameul guy but I never once seen him. She would say he's outside with her but he's never there. She hears noises when someone lies.... SHE HEARS AND SEES THINGS THAT ARE NOT EVEN THERE!" The mother screams and then cries. "That's not normal... its demonic.... I... I gave birth to a demon." She starts bawling. The father relaxes his eyes and sighs.
"So, what do you want to do?" The father asks.
"... I want to call an exorcist..." The mother sniffles.
"Would that even work... are they even real?" He asks.
"..." The mother blankly stares at the ground unable to answer him right away. "I want to try... I want to get rid of whatever that is..." She seethes.
Kiyomi stands by the backdoor listening in on her parent's. Her eyes are blank, and her face has no expression on it. She looks up when she feels a presence near her causing her to look towards it.
"Sir Sameul..." Kiyomi says in a soft and sadden tone.
"What's wrong... you seem rather sad today..." The man says as he watches Kiyomi play with the dirt.
"My mommy said you aren't real..." She softly says. The man furrows his eyebrows and then softly sighs.
"Is it because she never seen me?" He asks.
"Are you real Sir Sameul...?" She softly asks. The man stares at her and then sits down next to her.
"Here... let me see your hand." He says reaching out for her to grab his hand. She touches his hand, and he places her hand on his chest where his heart is. "Do you feel that?" He asks. Kiyomi's eyes widen when she feels his heart beating. "That's my heart... Real things have a heart..." He softly says. Kiyomi looks up at him and then frowns. "I am real Kiyomi... just like how you are real..." He sooths.
"Are you a demon?" She asks him.
"A demon? No... I'm not a demon..." He calmly says. Kiyomi goes quiet for a bit. A blank look in her eyes.
"Does my mommy not love me?" She sadly asks. He stares at her as tears fill her eyes. He relaxes his eyes and places his hand on her head, rubbing it gently.
"... I'm pretty sure your mommy loves you..." He softly says.