Romaine’s face could not be painted. That black-clothed person just snatched her stepdaughter from her sight.
Now, Rozelyn’s already lying on the cemented floor outside the building of the art gallery.
Romaine Eastwood-Zadzisai can no longer count how many times Rozelyn fainted this month—the month of October.
Samhain was fast approaching, and the incidents that happened to their family was fast increasing; perhaps even more.
Without wasting another minute, she grabbed her phone from her clutch bag and phoned the only male in their family—Cyrill Emerson Clarke.
***
She could hear the noise of two people having a tango in the other line. Was Cyrill excavating another narrow cave again?
That adoptive son of hers always wants to discover hidden and untouched caves ever since he was in his teens. It seems that it had been a habit of his up until now.
The phone was just ringing and Cyrill’s voice was nowhere to be heard. After a minute of calling, finally, Romaine’s protégée had answered his phone.
“Come home now!” That was all she said as she spotted the paramedics approaching on the ground she was standing.
She heard that Cyrill quickly put his phone down. Romaine then rushed towards the ambulance; to where Rozelyn was being taken.
***
“What happened in Surrey, Dorrien?” This was the third time Avril Arke asked Dorrien Ronan the same question.
Dorrien didn’t yield an answer; not even a stare or a glare.
“Damn it, Dorrien! Answer your Alpha!”
It was only silence that answered back.
Avril gazed again at Dorrien. Something was off about him. It seems he was under the influence of weed or something.
But, his breath wasn’t reeking of any of Mary’s & Juana’s scent. No. Something else is flooding Dorrien’s scent—his breath as well.
The Irish Alpha inched closer, inspecting and scanning what the hell is that scent.
In a heartbeat, as Dorrien titled his head and his mouth was now facing the ceiling, Avril now had a clearer view—more vivid scent, to be precise.
One thing is now certain for Avril Arke—Dorrien Ronan was under the influence of a jimsonweed, a kind of weed that induces hypnotism.
But why? Why hypnotize someone that had already taken care of the Surrey accident? Unless…unless Dorrien was also hypnotized upon his investigation that time when an unimaginable incident happened in Surrey, England.
***
The sound of the hospital staff and the whining of the patients were definitely unpleasant to Romaine’s two ears.
She looked at Rozelyn who was being escorted to the room where she’ll be admitted. She took one last glance at Rozelyn. As she was carried away, Romaine sensed that unusual scent—the fragrance of a jimsonweed that could be the cause of Rozelyn’s fainting.
She picked up her phone from her clutch bag and dialed Cyrill again.
***
Cyrill was just about to step by the doorstep of their home when his phone rang…again. Their house seems to even frown at the sound of his mobile. If he’s not wrong, it’s Romaine again.
Cyrill picked up his phone and answered it. “Hello?”
His guess was right. It was definitely Romaine on the other line.
“Come to the hospital right now!”
“You said I’ll go home?”
“What? I said you should come to the hospital. Right now, Cy. Right now!”
He looked at his phone to where Romaine hung up.
“Damn, women are indeed confusing sometimes.”
Cyrill closed the door again when Lucia purred. He patted the orange feline’s fluffy head one last time before driving to Shamrock’s hospital.
***
Cyrill was now on his way to the room. He was walking in the silent hallway of the hospital—which was unusual in this hour as this hour is the peak hour of the staff. He knows this as he once had a bed partner who works as a nurse in this hospital.
He’s a few meters away from the room to where Rozelyn was admitted. Cyrill can indeed sense that Rozelyn was not having her feeding properly as she easily fainted nowadays even the fact that they already taught her how to hunt.
In a blink of an eye, an unidentified man grabbed him and pinned him on the wall. The man was covered in black—from head to toe. The man looked at him for five seconds then spoke words that made Cyrill’s hair rise.
“When the sun rises, it is the color of her eyes. When the sun sets, it is now the color of her hair. Beware of the people around you. The most traitorous wolf resides beneath a lamb’s cloak.”
Then the man vanished.
Cyrill was still looking at the very place where the man was standing and pinning him. But, the man just completely dissipated like a bubble that popped in mid-air.
***
Hestia Halls was walking down the road towards her abode. She looked at her watch and it read exactly 12:00 at midnight.
The lights from the lamp posts prompt her to think about one of her students. She had been quite curious about Rozelyn Nadeshiko Zadzisai’s recent actions—the Zadzisai family as a whole, to be honest. She had been close with the family since Rozelyn was a highschooler. Yet, she was somehow curious on why the family no longer held soirees and parties. The last time they held it was three years ago.
She tried to phone her student when she remembered that she bought a new phone and the number of her favorite student has not yet been added.
Hestia scanned her surroundings and spotted a bench due to the fact that she was walking in the garden park for the past thirty minutes. Her legs and feet hurt, to be frank.
She traversed to the nearest bench when she noticed a black-colored flower on a brown ceramic pot. It seems someone left it on the bench—or purposely left it.
“Someone must have left it here again. People usually left random things at random places.”
She then proceeds to search through her things for Rozelyn’s phone number when she hears a scratching noise nearby. Hestia’s senses come in sheer. She listened carefully for the origin of the noise. But, it wasn't repeated. Thank heaven for that.
She went back to scanning when she took one look at the flower due to curiosity.
“I’ve never seen a flower as dark and as unique as this,” Hestia’s voice was the only sound in the midst of the silent park. She stared longer at the black flower and noticed that it had silver linings along its edges.
Hestia smelled the plant and ran her fingers to the flower’s petals. “So soft and black…”
When she hoisted her face, she saw a shadow of a man nearby. Or is it a woman?
“Hello?”
The figure didn’t yield an answer.
Ignored, she returned her attention to her searching through her things. Finally after two minutes of searching, she found the paper that contained Rozelyn’s number as well as her guardian’s phone number—of Romaine Eastwood-Zadzisai. The paper still contained her student’s handwriting. She lifted it a bit so that the light of the lamp post would illuminate the paper.
As she lowers her hand, the figure is now standing in front of her.
It was the most horrific entity Hestia had ever seen in her thirty-two years of existence. The figure has no hair—and has no eyes either. The wounded smile of the entity seems to be purposely carved as the scar of it reaches through its ears. The skin was as pale as snow; no hint of blood in his veins.
The entity was just staring at Hestia with his eyeless sight. It then unsheathed its bare claws that were so sharp that perhaps it could tear the concrete pavements of the park.
Hestia, who was sitting, couldn’t find a way to escape. She moved to the side, to where the mysterious flower was located. She scanned the place and, unfortunately, no people were around. Not even a shadow of a roaming guard.
When Hestia returned her attention to the pale eyeless figure, it was no longer in front of her.
Relieved, she stood and was about to grab her bag when she found that the entity was now lurking beneath the bench.
It wrecked the furniture as it tried to stand. Hestia managed to seize her bag and run away as fast as she could. The entity gave her a chase and rampaged along the path.
After five minutes of running, she reached the street. She looked at her phone again, curious as to how many minutes left away to the time her husband would fetch her. It was one in the morning that her husband promised her to take her home. Yet, her phone says it’s thirty minutes past midnight.
The moment she hoisted her gaze from her phone to the supposed street was the last time she’d done it. The entity was now in front of her and broke her bones like a child breaking a mere twig.
***
The sirens of the Shamrock police flooded the park. The chief then spoke in his walkie talkie and said, “Somehow, the park was drenched and splattered with blood due to the mutated and lifeless body of a Shamrock professor known as... as Hestia Halls.” That was what he reported as he held the identification card of the teacher.
“And—”
The chief was about to continue when he noticed a piece of paper by the crime scene.
“Wait a minute…”
As he unravelled the paper, he was utterly astonished. On the paper of the dismembered hand of Hestia Halls, the chief then read the note written on the now bloody paper.
“Rozelyn Nadeshiko Zadzisai, +353 1 437 0969”.