Dao was trying so hard to be normal it was almost painful to watch. She was the smallest of us, a full head shorter than anyone else in our group, but she carried herself with a fierce determination that made her seem larger. Today, that determination was channeled into a bright yellow sundress and a wide-brimmed straw hat - her armor against the darkness we carried. The irony wasn't lost on me. Here she was, the picture of springtime cheer, while housing the hollowed-out echo of her own sacrificed hope inside.
Niran moved with restless energy beside her, his usual calm expression replaced by a watchful tension. He kept flexing his hands unconsciously, as if missing the weight of the Nakwi gloves tucked away in his backpack. Preecha was his usual observant self, his sharp eyes missing nothing as they scanned the crowd, though his silence felt heavier today, charged with the memory of what had awakened in him.
Her parents watched from the doorway as we left, their worry a palpable thing. Her mother's smile was too tight, her father's wave too slow. They knew something had changed in their daughter, in her strange group of friends. They just didn't know we had a god of death living in our shadow.
"The festival will be good," Dao said, her voice carefully bright. "Normal. We need normal."
Niran and Preecha nodded, eager for any distraction. I just followed. Normal was a country I'd never been a citizen of.
The city's spring festival was a riot of color and sound. Streets were packed with people, stalls selling sugary drinks and sizzling meat filled the air with delicious smoke, and strings of lanterns hung between buildings, waiting for nightfall. For a moment, it almost worked. The sun was warm on my skin, the noise was just noise, and the press of the crowd felt like being hidden.
And then the world twisted.
The cheerful music warped, becoming a dissonant, grating drone. The colorful lanterns morphed into hanging, desiccated things. The smell of food vanished, replaced by the suffocating stench of sulfur and ash. The heat didn't just feel like the sun; it became a physical weight, a blistering, dry oven-blast that stole the breath from my lungs.
The people were gone.
In their place, the street was teeming with things. Gaunt, shifting spirits screamed as they shuffled through the crowds they couldn't see. Jagged, insect-like creatures skittered along the rooftops. I saw figures that were barely humanoid, made of weeping wounds and despair. This was the truth beneath the festival. This was hell, superimposed on our world.
I was walking through a nightmare. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird in a cage. I wanted to scream, to run, but my feet kept moving, carrying me deeper into the grotesque parade. The heat intensified, pressing down on me, a tangible force of pure misery.
A sob caught in my throat. The loneliness I'd carried my whole life, the hollow space Kephriel found so comfortable, suddenly yawned open, vast and absolute. I was completely, utterly alone in a sea of monsters. Tears welled in my eyes, hot and immediate. They tracked down my cheeks, but they didn't fall. The hellish heat snatched them away, sizzling them into nothing before they could even reach my jawline. The hopelessness of it - that I couldn't even cry properly here - was the final blow.
My knees gave out. I crumpled onto the hot, cracked earth that had replaced the asphalt, a silent scream dying in my chest.
"Raf?"
The voice was distant, muffled.
"Raf! What's wrong?"
A hand on my shoulder. The hellscape flickered. For a split second, I saw Dao's terrified face, her yellow dress a blinding spot of real color in the monstrous grey.
And then the vision shattered.
I was back. The music was cheerful, the smell of food was back, the crowd was human. I was kneeling on the pavement in the middle of the bustling festival, people stepping around me with annoyed glances. Dao was crouched in front of me, her small hands on my shoulders, her face pale with fear. Niran and Preecha stood behind her, forming a protective wall against the curious stares.
"Hey, man, you okay?" Preecha asked, his voice low with worry.
I couldn't speak. I just stared past them, my body trembling.
And then I saw it.
Perched on the roof of a cotton candy stall was a small, wretched creature. It was the size of a toddler, with sagging, greyish skin and huge, liquid black eyes that were fixed directly on me. It had a small, puckered mouth that was curved into a faint smile. A faint, shimmering heat-haze of misery emanated from it, touching me and me alone. In its clawed hand, it held a tiny, smoking vial - my evaporated tears.
A bottom-feeder.
It fed on the dregs of emotion. Sadness, self-pity, despair. It didn't need to fight. It just used illusions to make its victims cry, then harvested the tears.
"Don't look," I croaked, finally finding my voice.
"Don't let it know you see it."
But it was too late. It knew. Its big eyes blinked slowly, and it began to crawl down the side of the stall, its intent clear. It had found a good source. It was coming back for more.
"Run," I whispered.
"What?" Dao said.
"RUN!" I shouted, scrambling to my feet.
I didn't wait. I turned and shoved my way through the crowd, my friends following without question. We were a sudden burst of panic in the relaxed festivalgoers.
"Hey, watch it!"
"What's their problem?"
"Kids," someone muttered dismissively.
We didn't stop. We ducked down an alley between two food stalls, our hearts pounding, not stopping until we were hidden in the shadows, the sounds of the festival muffled.
"Was that... what I think it was?" Niran asked, leaning against a wall to catch his breath.
I just nodded, still trying to steady my own.
We were so focused on our own panic, we didn't notice the figure watching us from the crowd. Someone was peeking from behind a stall, eyes fixed on our hiding place. Taking it all in.