1. Rainy Day

Sugar—it's quite addictive, no?

It's the victim of any grubby kid's hands prying to get a taste of that irresistible sweetness.

But what happens if a child is denied that sinful indulgence? Denial of something makes the idea of it more desirable.

A simple answer, really.

The grown-up sugar-denied child will overdose to overcompensate for the pleasure they were once denied. An endless craving unable to be satiated as it had been built over years and years.

Perhaps that analogy was how Catheris got himself tangled in this utter mess.

***

Saintess Ovis' roads were remarkably lonely for such a bustling area in the daytime. The city held no trace of the living and only documented sales, exchanges, and other various business occurrences. The area was the opposite of what it was in the daytime–an empty husk in the dead of night devoid of all its workers which its only purpose was to serve.

Melodis tilted her umbrella over his head "Are you sure you'll be alright? I'm gonna have to lock the building."

She was slightly muscular and tan, suited up as a security guard. Her mid-length blue hair was tied back tightly into a neat ponytail, head higher than the man's by mere inches.

He'd been avoiding her gaze, and was instead deadpanning towards the road across–pathetically lamenting.

That's right. The whole skyscraper-laid district was now dark and stormy, shrouded in torrential downpour that hadn't and wouldn't have stopped for another few hours. It was raining awfully hard, an otherwise soothing sound had become dreadful, foiling Catheris's usual track to the subway.

It was kind of funny to think about in an ironic sense. The fact his long jellyfish haircut couldn't go to the sea on its own, so it came in the form of heavy rain. Keywords: 'kind of'

"You know, I feel like you should've been more prepared." She remarked, scolding him with a tinge of disappointment.

"I've been looking for my umbrella ever since the rain started. So I've given up on that." The drenched man stated the obvious.

The man's voice was calm and poised as ever; it was androgynous but leaned more on the masculine side. His delicate appearance could rival a girl's from the way his thin, long lashes curled above his pupils: black as a deep abyss pulling you in with their gentleness, akin to a siren's allure. Contrary to his soft face, his features were somewhat sharp. His gaze could be mistaken for arrogance – as if he were looking down on whoever noticed.

He took after his mother in the aspect of growing out his wavy grayish-black hair down to his chest. Even the way he moved and carried himself could be considered flawlessly elegant, his air was cold as ice.

Catheris' appearance could be summed up in one word: pretty. A sophisticated beauty whose presence befitted a museum of fine arts.

She stood behind him like an intimidating tree, "And by looking—you just mean wherever close to your desk, huh?"

"That and the entrance. Where else could it have been?"

"Beats me. How would I know?"

"Exactly."

"...Don't you literally design coats."

Suit coats anyway. Unfit for heavy weather of this degree.

His outfit was so nice too... all formal styled, and black on black. The color contrasting with his skin was like ink calligraphy on paper. And he'd just tailored it to account for his—considered—small figure. Virosiad sizing catered to damned larger foreigners.

However, even if she did make a good point, Catheris' pitch-black hazy eyes were fixated on the news on the large LED screen across from him.

"On an endnote, this is a reminder to take care of and monitor your loved ones for symptoms of abnormal behavior." The gray haired, wrinkly middle-aged male reporter's tone instantly turned sullen. "Earlier this week an investigation of Amelia Maddocks, a 37 year old female who was found dead after–"

The scoop would have been shocking—had it not been so repeated worldwide. Now it was just a reminder so you wouldn't forget how hopeless humanity was. Just the sheer number of reports alone could make you sick in the stomach.

She scoffed, "Oh man. When are they gonna drop the demon possession stuff? It's been what," Melodis knitted her eyebrows, pointing out her fingers one by one from her balled up fist. "Four, five-ish? years already." she whined with an inappropriate staleness.

This game of host and parasite had been happening for as she said: four–approaching five years now. The parasite being a shadow demon and the host being a human.

So it was silly, hm?

"It could be due to other things, you know? It may be something else other than 'demon possession' but the consequences shouldn't be taken lightly. Though, I do think the media may be exaggerating this." He spoke with a light tone. She was an unrelenting skeptic, and wouldn't talk to him if he sounded like a lunatic.

"Mn, all sorts of groups are chalking it up to some conspiracy theory."

"Well in this day and age, mental illness isn't as stigmatized as it was before. All the theories have that in common no matter how wack they sound because all the evidence so far points to it being involved."

Of course that alone would have been a weak story. However there was an unexplainable factor that differentiated "demon" work from regular cases. In the premises of where the victim had died or areas they lingered, traces of thick, purple, almost black ink-like blots of varying sizes had been found of unknown origin and substance.

All that was known was the tar-like substance could easily corrode through skin in the span of a mere 20 minutes. However one was fortunate enough that if in contact with it, they were allowed in the early minutes to wash it off with no consequences.

"Shouldn't we be going now? Come on, I'll take you to the subway station. I don't want to see you get a cold. It's really boring by myself, you know?"

"I'll be fine. lt runs later on rainy days. I don't want to get any more soaked than I am when I walk home. I can take a few shortcuts to the church and pick up an umbrella. It is a church, no?"

Let's see... the Orial Station's schedule: definitely able to take a quick detour.

Melodia looked at her umbrella, then at him whilst clicking her tongue. "Fine, if you insist. See you at work tomorrow then." she begrudgingly relented in a told-you-so tone, expecting him to get in some sort of trouble.

Catheris nodded, lifting up his blazer slightly over his head, "Mn."

He wasn't religious in the slightest, but he'd pray to any deity for such a curse to be gone.

As Catheris began his way, his movements seemingly lagged, staggering as if he were drunk. Due to such, he found himself leaning onto the sides of anything too much. Catheris rested his head on his hand, and bunched up his long hair to press against his cheeks. He tried to warm them up to shock himself into saneness for a moment before resuming. It was like this sometimes whenever it rained.

The woman was about to point out that he could probably get an umbrella from the subway's staff, but that wasn't his priority.

A signature symptom of his condition had arrived.

Catheris' eyesight became blurry and flickered all over the place–his view of the world drained of color. It felt like an illusion–or a dream; his head and body felt lighter, as if his consciousness was threatening to detach itself. Every second that passed was utterly off-putting. Drat, Catheris already felt a headache incoming.

Currently, the weather did not seem to help his case at all. It served to only worsen his condition, as the extremities stressed his already weakened sensitive rain-pelted body. He had to rub his arms against each other for warmth whilst pushing through.

Finally, in the corner of his eye appeared the familiar stained-glass portrait window depicting the Light Twin saintess.

Although she was called a saintess, she was in fact a goddess: Euryphyllis. She was slender, and her skin was as pale as the moon, with cheeks dusted a rosy pink and gold sparks freckling her face. Her hair was long, light blonde wavy curls reflected as the color of the sun in the light. And she wore an ever so innocent soft expression telling she'd be benevolent and kind. However – she was not lenient in the slightest.

She and Ikilryos swore to uphold their judgment between both realms of the dead and the living: enforcing justice. Neither particularly owned one side—rather they worked together. However, this twin has consistently been drawn to represent the living realm.

"...You know what, I'm booking it–"

***

Catheris sat his drenched body down on a pew the furthest away from the altar, clasping his hands together tightly and pressing them up to his chest. With closed eyes, he practiced his breathing exercises: his shaky gasps for air let out white fog. He didn't know how to pinpoint it but it was probably—no, it was possession. It's just that... there were symptoms that should've been noted.

All the incidents mentioned on the news involved a common theme–the exploitation of the victim's trauma or addiction in order to weaken their mental state. Then the "shadow demon" would've lured them to hope, hope as in their death in order to reach a sweet release from the cruel cycle.

Whatever he was haunted by was a damned pervert, stalking him wherever he went.

Catheris could feel a damp warmth exuding from its floating presence looming over his shoulder, sadistically finding joy in his dreading. He could even feel its sharp claw-like nails unnervingly scrape against his cheek, the feeling akin to nails on a chalkboard. You weren't supposed to feel physical contact between you and a demon. A heavy sigh left his taut lips, and the glare directed towards his hands was so obviously resentful. Nonetheless, he kept his expression in check as to not feed into its taunting.

Suddenly, his dreading session was interrupted.

The male voice was a bit husky, "Orpheus, what are you doing here so late? I know I said you could come by whenever, but this is quite..." he paused, voice exasperated and somewhat concerned, "I didn't expect you to take up on my offer so out of the blue, you know? Your friend keeps coming, but you just abruptly stopped."

Such a familiar yet unfamiliar jumble of noises at the same time, "Orpheus" Orial.

The man was a fairly young priest considering what the conditions entailed: strict as to not have an authoritative figure defile the name of the religion. A few years ago when Catheris did visit, the man wasn't even ordained yet, but was still in training. His light brown shoulder-length hair had grown into a long low side ponytail now. But he seemed to still maintain a lean physique under that cassock, and kept that glassy gleam in his sky blue eyes.

However he was still sickly pale with major eyebags wracking his face. He usually always had his eyes closed, only opening them up to express his emotion. A major reason why he'd become a part of the church was due to the fact his illness was treated by them when he was younger. Due to his past condition he wasn't allowed into the outside world much with special days being exceptions, even then he was heavily monitored. Thus, he grew fond of the community which was his only company.

"Ah. Joshua's still dropping by? By the way, I'm not religious." friend? Hah, Catheris laughed bitterly at the thought.

"He's been coming here ever since he was young – yes, that's why I remembered you. Regarding your 'i'm not religious statement' our sweet Euryphillis is tolerant of people belonging to any belief. Now back to my first question, what are you doing here?" he sassed, giving the illusion of twirling a long lock of hair around his finger.

"Well, does this church have an extra umbrella it can spare? I lost mine at the office—it's just around here. " Catheris sarcastically pleaded, over-dramatically batting his eyelashes while pointing to the window in the direction of his workplace.

"Very well then, I'll see what I can do for you."

Catheris raised his head to stare listlessly at the grandiose altar. This church's gothic style was filled with subtle motifs of the religion's beliefs. Breathtaking depictions of Euryphillis being the common people's savior (a world renowned piece of history engraved in the hearts of many) were painted on the curved ceiling. The altar was no different. It was filled with intricately arranged bouquets of various kinds of flowers and sweets, things she was famously known to hold dear, brought by the lovely orphans sheltered here.

In such a holy area his curse suffered no effects. He blindly ran to this church without thinking about the consequences... for nothing.

If a church couldn't do anything, what could? It wasn't good to give up hope so soon. Catheris had a feeling the damned thing would exploit his feeble state of mind once it knew, so he had to put up with it for a bit more. What if it already knew he was stressed from his erratic impulsiveness? Damn it – no, no, no, if he kept thinking about it, it'd get worse.

He could feel its disgusting aura contaminating the area. The air was starting to smell like nauseating metal.

The priest returned with an umbrella, and noticed he was staring at the altar "–Ah, that. Would it hurt to return the favor? Anything with good intent will do. I can sense her holiness greatly misses your presence, the children do too."

'...'

He swallowed, starting to feel a bit guilty.

"I'll consider it. Thank you very much, Mikhail."

"Seriously, they really loved you around. And you've been this close all along. It's nice to be young and healthy, you should get your nose out of work, for a change."

"Aha.. ha.."

***

Catheris leaned onto his front door's frame for support while slipping off his black dress shoes. He placed the umbrella in the empty holder before slipping off his coat and hanging it aside.

It seemed this time that damned demon knew not to press his buttons even further. Sometimes it'd ominously stand there waiting for him, only to fade away into the air like a shitty jumpscare once he came closer for inspection.

He'd moved to a new apartment for work reasons, instead, he'd gotten a new unexpected roommate. The sleek dark wood floor was to die for, and with a reasonable price point and much needed new location for commuting it was a no brainer to decide on such a place.

Alas—as usual, things were out of order: a mess. The trinkets meant to fill up space were strewn about in places where they did not belong. He'd have to reserve a bit of time everyday in order to fix things up. However, at this point he should have given up due to how constant it was.

'A demon out of all things—a stalker would have been better.'

In cases like this ...you could tell this man wasn't completely sane.

It was a paradox. Sometimes he'd think he was insane for wishing it'd be a stalker instead, then it'd circle back to 'wait why do I think demons actually exist??' he asked himself as his mental health's saving grace. Then he'd remember the news was reaffirming his whole possession situation being valid, and then finally, 'the police suspect it's a mental issue in younger people..'

–Thus kicking off the cycle starting all over again, not exactly in that order.

"Hah..."

Forget it. He'd rather take a hot bath.